US AFGHANISTAN STRATEGY STANDS BOGGED
By Sajjad Shaukat
After achieving a landmark victory in the Malakand-Swat operations, our armed forces which have dismantled the strongholds of the insurgents in South Waziristan by sacrificing their own lives for the common cause of Pakistan are still crushing the remaining resistance in a region comprising harsher terrain.
But it is most regrettable that since the military operation, “Rah-i-Nijat” (Path to Deliverance) was launched; a deliberate propaganda campaign has been intensified against Pakistan’s armed forces by our internal agents who are in collaboration with the foreign secret agencies and media.
It is notable that prior to the Waziristan operation, some foreign elements which leave no stone unturned in maligning Pak Army had already started a propaganda campaign. In this respect, on October 1, this year, BBC displayed a fake 10-minute video, showing men in Pakistan’s military uniform, beating the suspected militants. Next day, army spokesman, Maj-Gen Athar Abbas, told, “We have ordered an inquiry. Anyone found to have done wrong will face strict disciplinary action.”
Interestingly, BBC itself is not clear about the whereabouts of the film and the person who made it, saying: “It appears to have been made, perhaps in the Swat valley.” In the recent past, BBC whose Chief Eccutive is a typical Zionist had refused to telecast a Palestinian advertisement for raising funds for the Gaza dwellers, suffering at the hands of Israelis.
As regards BBC, on October 27, it exhibited a documentary movie regarding the eighth anniversary of the US-led NATO invasion of Afghanistan. It stated that now this war is being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and “it will soon spread to Pakistan.”
Question arises as to why some Pakistan’s TV channels and journalists did not give appropriate converge to such sorts of news.
However, without verifying the authenticity of the video about our soldiers, some of our TV channels telecast it. In fact, this movie is self-concocted. In the past, a number of such fake videos have been prepared by some journalists of our country in collusion with the external elements who paid them with the sole aim to disgrace Pak Army as well as Pakistan in the comity of nations.
On April 3, 2009, some foreign and local TV channels displayed another tragic video of flogging a 17 years old girl before a crowd in Swat. In that respect, the Commissioner Malakand pision, Syed Muhammad Javed, while swearing on Allah had remarked that “the video was fabricated.” Surprisingly, the girl had no sign of pain and weakness after 35 lashes. She stood up easily and walked away, while people were not speaking in local style. All these signs showed as if it was a managed drama prepared by external enemies of Pakistan.
Nonetheless, in its video news, the BBC exaggerated its report quoting the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and other groups, accusing the army of torture and extrajudicial killings during the Swat operation. As a matter of fact, the video was prepared in the Hollywood or Bollywood.
A continued vile propaganda campaign against our armed forces by the foreign media can be judged from the American newspaper as well, The New York Times which while quoting human rights workers of Pakistan reported on September 14, 2009, “In some cases, people may have been seeking revenge against the ruthless Taliban, in a society that tends to accept tit-for-tat reprisals…many of the victims have been tortured, the systematic nature of the deaths and disappearances in areas that the military firmly controls… a role in the campaign.”
In this respect, when no evidence was found, Times is showing self-contradiction as on the one hand, it is blaming the Swati people for seeking revenge against the Taliban, but it is involving army in the episode of retaliation on the other.
Like Swat, Dir and Buner, Pakistan’s armed forces have rapidly been achieving successes after dismantling the command and control system of the Taliban in South Waziristan. This fact was witnessed when renowned militant commanders were captured, and majority of the Taliban militants were on run. But our tragedy is that some external and internal elements have always acted upon a deliberate propaganda campaign against the security forces.
It is of particular attention that the US and some western countries who had been criticizing Pakistan’s armed forces in the past, alleging secret links with the Taliban militants have now been highly appreciating Pakistan’s forces, donating million of dollars for the IDPs. On the other hand, some American officials have again started a blame game against Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI, while misperceiving that Al Qaeda’s top leaders including Mullah Omer has taken shelter in Balochistan.
In fact, the US has been playing a double game with Pakistan.
So, its strategy cannot be seen in isolation because some Pakistan-based human rights organizations, NGOs and a particular newspaper including its TV Channel along with its journalists have been serving the interest of their external paymasters. Therefore, their targeted mission is to tarnish the image of Pak Army through their baseless propaganda.
In this context, while maligning our armed forces regarding South Waziristan, a renowned political expert on the affairs of Frontier Province and Afghanistan wrote on November 13, “The Pakistani armed forces have not fared much differently from the Western armies. In fact, some of their tactics are identical; including the greater use of airpower and artillery guns…this is due to shortage of forces on the ground and to avoid casualties of the troops.Rather than extending the government’s writ, military operations have disturbed the dynamics of the tribal society and diluted effectiveness of the civil administration.
The armed forces are performing a thankless job. Neither the US nor the ruling and opposition Pakistani politicians are happy with their performance in the battlefield. The common people are in a state of confusion, unable to believe that a professional army cannot defeat the militants.” Before this, on August 18, he had accused our armed forces forextrajudicial killings in different parts of Swat, Buner and Dir. In the recent past, Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Asma Jehangir also expressed similar thoughts.
Surprisingly, since April this year when Malakand military operations were launched, this deliberate propaganda scheme has entailed a number of other false aspects such as exploiting the emotional state of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS) and showing exaggerated tales of the innocent people. As a matter of fact, all the self-created stories of the propagandists have proved untrue in wake of previous victory of the Malakand operations.
In this context, some political leaders of our own country namely, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the ex-chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the leader of Pakistan’s Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Imran Khan, Chairman of Tehreek-i-Insaf who had been manipulating the Malakand-Swat operations in order to increase their vote bank became silent as they had nothing new to express against the security forces—but can still create some hostile justification for the sake of hostility as they are doing by opposing the operation,Rah-i-Nijat.
Regrettably, these antagonists have not paying actual attention to the Taliban atrocities such as sectarian killings, suicide bombers, beheadings, forced marriages, self-planned system of floggings, abductions for money etc. The insurgents have been distorting the image of Islam in the name of Shariah. It was due to their brutal treatment that more than 3 million people had left their homes and preferred to live in the camps. While most of the IDPs have returned to their native towns, they do not want that the terror-system of the Taliban militants should come again.
As regards foreign agents in Pakistan, one can ask Imran Khan, Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Maulana Fazlur Rehman including HRCP’s Chairperson Ms. Asma Jehangir as to why multiple crimes, committed inside the United States are not being pointed out by them with detail. From time to time, a number of students have been shot in various American universities, while recently, a US Major Hasan killed 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, but we did not read any statement of these leaders in that connection. And why there is no detailed statement against American forces, CIA and FBI which have so far killed a number of innocent Muslims including Pakistanis at various detention centres under the pretext of war against terrorism. There is also no statement about Hindu terrorism regarding intermittent massacre of Muslims and Christians in India.
At present, we have been facing multi-faced crises, created by foreign secret agencies like CIA, RAW and Mossad which are determined to disintegrate Pakistan which is the only nuclear state in the Islamic world. So, any writer, author, commentator and member of a NGO can get good coverage in the western media along with monitory benefits, provided, he distorts the image of Pakistan and its army. Without any doubt, there are direct or indirect links between our internal and external propagandists as part of a campaign against our armed forces.
Sajjad Shaukat is a regular writer for Opinion Maker. He writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations.
After graduating from college, I joined Pakistan Army and was commissioned in a Tank Regiment. I am a veteran of the Indo-Pakistan war. After leaving the Army, I joined IT as a profession. I was hired by Kuwait Air Force And Air Defence as an Adviser to computerize its entire operation. Here I was the Chief Coordinator of the Project, Kuwait Automated Support System (KASS). It was a state-of-the-art leading-edge technology where we established over 500 online terminals network with dedicated voice and data communications. It had Satellite linkups to connect with other systems and track the inventory movement for KAF & AD. On this project, I was coordinating with the US Navy, IBM World, AT&T, and Martin Marietta for the development, deployment, and operation of the KASS. Writing has always been a passion for me, been writing for 25 years for various newspapers and periodicals. Now for the last four years, I have formed my virtual Think Tank, Opinion Maker. Here we have some renowned writers from Pakistan and abroad who contribute regularly that’s helping the world opinion in some way. I am a keen golfer may not be a good one but play on a daily basis. I am also fond of using the camera to picture nature and people.
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