Taliban, Pashtoons and Pakistan

Khalid Saab,

Fairly good assessment of the situation, but sadly no one who matters is listening.

The puishtoons with their tribal ways can no longer survive, simply because it is no longer a tribal simple and even self sustaining, and green way of life. The al quida has changed all that, and they have an agenda to operate out of the so called idylic tribal platform.

The same was told about the invasion of afghanistan, but teh B52s moved the valient afghan fighters inside the borders of pakistan.

You are correct, if the tribals cannot live in the mountains, they will come to the city, and they are circling Islamabad.

There is only one simple option for pakistan, the north korean model and teh west and the nato will leave pakistan alone to sort out the mess on the terms of teh pakistanis.

As long as the bomb is there, others will meddle, and if required will take the bombs away.

All your interpretation and review of a pakistani-islamic solution is irrelevant as long as the bomb is there.

So take care in your forth coming article, do not leave the bomb alone.

Pakistan has no choice but to detribalise these guys. Given safe haven to foreign terrorists is not an internal matter of the pushtoons - but an interference in the Foreign Affairs of the antion. If they gave refuge to say a Poonjabi Jihadi, then its an internal matter.

Unless they are detribalised Pakistan is going to have a repeat of this or else the Sindhis and the Punjabis have to accept Pushtoon hegemony over them (as before - you alluded to it in tyour article)- and viola you have Greater Afghanistan!

The choice is pretty stark at this juncture!

Bhatti sahib,

Nice write-up, Pak is indeed caught between a rock and a hard place.

Seems like:

Pushtoons wont give up jihad or tribalism.
USA wudn't allow Pushtoons to do a jihad or allow Pak to turn a blind eye to Pushtoons jihadi activity.
If Pak refuses to comply USA does some serious arm-twisting for which the generals have no appetite.
But if it whips up military activity against Pushtoons, large chunks of the army will resist . And Pak opens itself upto retaliation by both armed militancy in NWFP/FATA and by terrorist attacks in the settled regions.

Pakistan has to detribalise Pushtoons for its as well as its Pushto speaking citizens long-term well-being but in doing so it opens itself to tuff retaliation.

Tuff choice. Maybe it wasn't that bad that NWFP did not accede to India.

Dash,

(or else the Sindhis and the Punjabis have to accept Pushtoon hegemony over them)

In which case young Sindi and Punjoo boys may as well start carrying KY Jelly/Vaseline with them.

Regards

majumdar bhayya, forget KY jelly that shoul dbe the last thing they have to worry about.

Pushtoon hegemony (as it was many many moons ago(as Bhatti says in his article)) would mean, the Poonjanbis and Mujahirs would staring at the very thing they were running from "hegemony". In case it would be true hegemony and not a perceived thing.

Maybe a great Afghanistan is not a bad idea (from a Pakistan POV) since ifthe inteligent Punjabis, Muhajirs, Sindhis etc learn to control the Pushtoons, they will have a very nice greater pakistan with its strategic depth. Then whither India? Could this be the thinking of the elite within establishment - create chaos, get greater afghanistan, and then turn tables around!

Dash sahib,

(Maybe a great Afghanistan is not a bad idea (from a Pakistan POV) since IF the inteligent Punjabis, Muhajirs, Sindhis etc learn to control the Pushtoons, they will have a very nice greater pakistan with its strategic depth. )

IF is a very dangerous word, sahib, I hope you will appreciate that.

(Then whither India? )

I doubt if the Pushtoons wud be satisfied with piffling India as the intended prize. If India was enuff for them the Tali-Paki alliance in 1995-2001 wud have already concentrated on that and forgotten all about everything else. No sir, they wud be looking for something for substantial, which can only be the West. And the West wont play possum.

Regards

yes IF is a dangerous word. However, i would like you to note the following

(a) ISI has links with the pushtoons
(b) ISI created LeJ which split and is suposed to have no connections with the creator now. However, it is said that the ISI still controls these guys. The factions of the LeJ are allied with the pushtoons jihadis but controlled by the ISI.

So that IF used by me was just a contrieved thing - since the ISI is still controlling the insurgency (at some leve) or is learning to control the whole movement through the factions it controls. This is already happening, bhayya.

This greater Afghanistan turning into greater pakistan can happen in a jiffy without much effort. And that might be what the elite of the pakistan's establishment want - surreptitious yes, so what if it kills a few thousand pakistanis along the way - it will called collateral damage!

And it would not be the west that they want - but to control what the west wants - oil and gas from CARs and be the biggest, baddest member of the OIC !

FATA or Pakistan?

That could become the choice!

I have been reading this word "Detribalize" in most of the comments but how would you do that? I cannot see that happening. It's almost impossible.

Secondly, War isn't the solution of this problem. Go through their history and you'll get the answer.

Thankyou.

Just read it. More later

the pashtuns of tribal areas are not what Mr Jinnah the founder of Pakistan called "hopeless Punjabis" .You Punjabis were 90 % of Punjab and the Sikhs were using your Badshahi Mosque of Lahore as a Horse Stable and ypu Punjabis had invented the shuttle cock burqa so that your fair sex are not abducted by the Sikhs at will.And the knight in shining armour General Sir Hugh Gough of Bengal Army of English East India Company saved u Punjabi Muslims from being deflowered by the Sikhs.

You Punjabi Muslims cannot be compared with the indomitable tribals.

You Punjabi Muslim troops fored even at the Holy Kabaa.

Azeem Hussain son of Sir Fazl i Hussian himself a Punjabi thus quoted Jinnah " THE PUNJAB IS A HOPELESS PLACE , I WILL NEVER VISIT IT AGAIN" . You Punjabi Lotus Eaters.

The tribals have been living in that area and following their primitive traditions for centrues... The world just passes them by, there was hardly any problem

But then you pakis started using and abusing them for your own "strategic" wet dreams... you pumped money and weapons and used them as cannon fodder... now these primitves have tasted blood and they ain't going back...

you can't really de-tribalize them...

WHY WAZIRISTAN CANNOT BE CONQUERED

A.H AMIN

FEBRUARY 20034

Those who know the Pathans and their history will know exactly what is happening in Waziristan today and which Lashkar is doing what and for what reason. The tribal Pathans have traditionally been supreme fighters who defied the Mughal occupiers, the Sikh occupiers, the British occupiers and now the latest occupiers, i.e. the US coalition chasing the Pathans and Muslims of various castes and creeds motivated by sheer ideology.

While the tribesmen know the art of resistance they also know the art of extortion from occupiers who try to buy them. Thus while the tribal Pathans killed many thousand occupiers in the British era they also managed to extort many subsidy payments from the British. Thus the same tribesmen who worked as contract laborers making roads for the British during day time, enjoyed sniping and shooting many British officers after sunset or during daytime when not on duty.

Thus when a lashkar of tribesmen appears to be on the payroll of political agents fed by US CIA dollars, all is not what it seems. In this case the tribals are performing an overt function of collaboration and a covert function of increasing their financial muscle which may be subsequently channelised into gun running, drugs or Jihad.

The tribesmen were not loyal subjects of the British. They spent their lives in sniping and ambushing the British and their mercenary Indian troops. Their life script was not to get a BA degree and become a minor civil servant or an ICS officer more loyal than the King. Nor did they get barristers degree and conduct profitable law practices in the courts of the British occupiers.

These men defied the British, killing over 10,000 British or Indian troops from 1849 to 1947, bleeding the British Empire white, forcing the British to maintain a division plus force in the Trans Indus tribal tract. These tribesmen gave sanctuary to Mughal Prince Ferozshah and to the followers of Syed Ahmad Shaheed of Rai Barelly at Malka and Ambela. These tribesmen greeted the British Indian army with fire while many today are famous as great Muslim leaders accepted knighthood and were ridiculed for doing so by Maulana Zafar Ali Khan of "Zamindar" fame.

The tribesmen acceded to Pakistan out of their free will. They were not conquered by the Pakistan Army. As a matter of fact no army including the Mughal, Sikh or British ever succeeded in conquering them. The tribal areas were occupied, overrun but never conquered. Their mosques were never used as stables and powder magazines as many in the tract East of Indus including the Badshahi Mosque of Lahore.

The tribesmen were not saved by the army of the English East India Company unlike the Muslims of Delhi or UP or the Muslims of Punjab and settled Pathan areas were from Hindu Marathas and Sikhs in 1803 and 1849. The tribesmen's mosques were not restored after humble petitioning to the English East India Company as was the case with Badshahi Mosque of Lahore in 1856.

The tribesmen were not willing mercenaries of the British and many Mehsuds, Wazirs and Afridis defected to the German lines in WW-I and returned to Tirah and Waziristan to wage Jihad against the British. The tribesmen cannot be compared with mercenary Muslim troops who opened fire on the Holy Ka'aba on British orders or who gunned down freedom fighters like an FF unit did at Jallianwalla Bagh in 1919.

The tribesmen acceded to Pakistan on the solemn assurance by Mr Jinnah that their customs and their Pathan way of life would not be interfered with. The tribesmen waged Pakistan's first successful Jihad in Kashmir in 1947-48. The tribesmen were used as cannon fodder during the Afghan War of 1979-89 when many generals became rich overnight and won cheap glory without exposing themselves to within 300 miles of hostile fire. The tribals braved salvoes of Soviet Katushkas and shrapnel of Hind Gun ships while sons of ex military tailors became billionaires.

The tribals were more Pan Islamist than Jamaluddin Afghani, more martial than any so called martial race of Indo Pak. More resolute than any general from Cape Komorin to Khunjerab Pass. The tribals are raised as snipers, not as sycophants, their life script is not to please 15 different seniors and get a good ACR, practicing sycophancy with civilian prime ministers and launching coups without a shot being fired against unarmed civilian heads of state.

What is happening in the tribal areas is not in Pakistan's national interests. The venom which has been forced into the tribal Pathan's soul is counterproductive for Pakistan in the long run.

The tribal areas has seen many occupiers. They are classic practitioners of Liddell Harts strategy of indirect approach. Their guerrilla tactics are far more subtle than that of Mao, Ho Chi Minh or Che Guevara. They apply Mao without knowing what he had written. They apply Sandino's Nicaraguan tactics which brought US Marines to grief without ever having heard of him. They are warriors par excellence.

For each militant handed over the tribals gain goodwill from greedy political agents who they deceive and thus succeed in sheltering 50 militants. There is a method in the apparent outward collaboration of the tribals. They cannot be overawed by a telephone call or bought by a million dollar retainer.

No cadet school or college can tame the tribals for whom music is the whistling bullet and its ricochet in the rocky gorges of Waziristan. The tribals don't need a federal government to make money. Their very location is an asset.

Beware of despising the tribals. They brought both Muslim and non Muslim Emperors to grief whether it was Jahangir, Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb, Ranjit Singh or the British king.

These are not the men who would sell their mother for a thousand dollars as some US senator said about some Pakistani leaders. These leaders may be found in Dera Ghazi Khan or somewhere East of the tribal areas. The tribals are sons of their fathers and there is no confusion about their paternity.

A man who does not know the tribal Pathan way of life is not competent to judge the subtleties of their character. It appears that the same mistake is being made today in the highest echelons of Pakistan's present military usurpers.

Re: # 6 ISI is full of punjabis , check ur facts

Waziristan



Normally the article below by Major AH Amin (Pakistan Army, Retired) would be in ANALYSIS. But because of the importance of the topic, we're printing it here. For those unfamiliar with Major Amin: he writes for a Pakistani audience and readers may find some of his references a bit oblique. We've explained best we can. He is very sharp spoken, without dissimulation or politeness. His acerbic characterization of Pakistani intelligence is, alas, all too common among the world's intelligence agencies. As for his attack on Pakistan Army tactics, the same can be said of many armies we need not name.



Waziristan is the testing ground, the acid test of Pakistan Army's worth in the so- called war against terrorism.

What is the Pakistani intelligence ? An intelligence operative stated that they don't have the guts to go out of a fort of FC in Waziristan. They meekly step out of a Qila (fort) and stop some truck drivers and ask what's going on. From what they scramble all the guys from Military Intelligence, the ISI , the Corps Intelligence and the FC Intelligence sit down and make a generally similar report. The guy who compares all reports in GHQ jumps with joy when he sees all these reports and states that all reports can be cross checked and are correct. There is the Sab Accha mentality since Mughal times. Sab Accha means All Correct. So in the final summing it is gleefully concluded that the writ of the Pakistani Government is established in all parts of tribal areas! Glory be to Allah.

I recently met some mid-ranking and major-general level army officers and discussed Waziristan with them. We concluded:

Waziristan is a case of clash of interests among ambitious officers trying to get a good chit (report) and serious regimental officers who see soldiering as a way of life. The fast-track guys want to bash up some villages with artillery fire and do some dog catching for Americans and improve their career index called OEI.

The first major disaster was Lt.-Gen. Safdar, a Punjabi and a careerist. He wanted a fast-track approach for the problem, .His policy was bomb everyone, kill everyone and get the feathers in the cap for being a conqueror. This was counter-productive. The armed forces lost all credibility in this area. Safdar was finally packed off to the post of director logistics in the army Headquarters a post seen as waiting area for dumped generals.

Lieutenant General Hamid Khan, a Pashtun armored corps officer from 11 Cavalry was not effective. During his tenure the army was neither here nor there. He was serving for most of the time when the Waziristan accord had been signed.

The present corps commander Masud Aslam was a Kargil Warrior! (Major Amin is not being complimentary.) He again tried to introduce the Safdar policy with disastrous results.

One Major General level divisional commander stood out. Strangely it was a Shia officer, Major General Mir Haider. Although a Punjabi he understood the Pasthun psyche and did well. His modus operandi was psy war. Healing the tribal eg . Gifting copies of Holy Quran.

Another Major General Sahi was a failure. Again he was using the Safdar approach. Kill , batter , destroy and bomb. Sahi had close links with the Quisling PML (President Musharraf's political party: the writer believes Pakistan has sold out to the Americans) as his brother was a politician from that party. In words of a direct participant officer, he was also a total failure. He was finally packed off as commandant of infantry school. Another resting place of dumped generals. In his dining out he said that he had established writ of Pakistani Government in Waziristan and was corrected there and then by a serving army officer that this was a white lie. He was challenged that he could not drive with his GOC's flag from Miran Shah to Bannu even with an escort! He was infamous in the Frontier Corps Officers for trying to prod them to attack this village or that because he wanted to get a good chit from his bosses.

A serving army officer in that area compared Pakistan Army and the FC in Waziristan to a mouse running from point A to point B while he said that the tribals were the lazy cat watching this despicable mouse.

We further concluded:

The great danger is not Pakistan but the fall-out after its demise.

The great danger to the West is not the hopeless Pakistani state but non-state actors

The more Pakistani Don Quixotes are proved to be spineless clowns in Waziristan, the more dangerous the situation becomes.

Warfare has become cheap. It is easy to rock the boat and non-state actors are good at this.

The front is unclear. The distinction between friend and foe unclear.

My assessment is that if the Americans decide to knock out Pakistan , in strategic terms , there will be no resistance in Punjab and Sindh ,only the Pashtuns will be their adversaries and the settled area Pashtuns will be as hopeless as the Punjabis and Sindhis.

Pakistan's military and political establishment is simply hopeless. This theme is discussed in my article "5 minutes over Islamabad" (the article details how the US forced Pakistan to join it's side in the GWOT.) The Pakistani military junta has already lost all credibility with the Pakistani population and cannot control the situation.

Even the Americans will not achieve much if they enter Waziristan. The terrain is bad and Americans will be a good cause for Jihad. The solution is withdrawal from Waziristan and regime change in Pakistan. The Americans should let the hopeless Paki politicians do the dirty job of all this.

As an officer who served in Pakistan Army I would sum up the situation as following:

The Pakistani High Command a Punjabi-Mohajir (Mohajirs are Pakistans who migrated from India to the new country of Pakistan in/after 1947) team lacks the grey matter or resolve to deal with the tribals.

The troops they are commanding have lost faith in the cause they are fighting for. This is the worst thing for an army.

All said and done the tribals can be dealt politically. Any Pakistani officer who is posted as commander 11 Corps is a job seeker. He is trying to be a Napoleon and a Punjabi cannot be a Napoleon with a tribal!

The present Governor of NWFP Owais Ghani has already miserably failed in Baluchistan. He is regarded as a non-Pashtun as he is the hated Hindko Punjabi (we dont know what Hindko means; Hind generally refers to India) speaking from Peshawar city just like General Kakar, whose first cousin he is.

The whole situation requires a change in command in Pakistan from top to bottom.

...pakistan should let fata be a in independent country.......what exactly does pakistan get from fata.....other than trouble.......

fata gets everything from pakistan......electricity, funds, seats in the assembly, smuggled cars etc.....this is why fata never breaks away from pakistan, even though it keeps demanding its autonomy......

......so let fata be independent.....after that, fata and usa can fight each other to their hearts desire....fata can assist the taliban, and usa can bomb fata.....and pakistan doesn't have to assist or oppose either.....

let FATA be independent and let punjab be a part of india.thats a good idea.100 marks.