There’s a clear and present danger that the Taliban may capture the state of Pakistan, the country’s President Asif Ali Zardari has said in an interview to CBS news that will be broadcast on Sunday night.
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My immediate reaction to this news was: What happened here? What triggered Mr. Zardari to give such a statement at this point of time? What are the possible motives behind this statement?
Even a person like me, who has no experience in national defence, international relations and strategic analysis, easily understands the importance of timings of the statements issued at different occasions.
Till today, we already had Mr. Rehman Malik helping our dear neighbor India to much greater lengths by detailing about the masterminding of Mumbai attacks (Which I am still suspicious about). Then we had a drone attack today killing around 30 people in Pakistan. Now Mr. Zardari comes up with a great idea to tell the world that Pakistan may fall in the hands of Taliban.
I wonder if he realized that he was the head of a nuclear state before giving this statement. Which perhaps makes him, and more importantly the state, quite vulnerable to enemies in these situations. May be his advisors felt that safety of Mr. Zardari was more important then safety of the state. And thus, may be, if they felt that Taliban were after Mr. Zardari, they preferred to persue Mr. Zardari to tell the world that infact Taliban were after Pakistan, not Mr. Zardari? How much worse it can be?
As far as Taliban is concerned, it is a strong group of militants having expertise in guerrilla warfare and they are successful in Afghanistan because Afghanistan is a very tough terrain and also very native to them. I have not heard of any Taliban flying jet planes (except for those which flew on 9-11), moving tank regiments, or mobilizing their artillery. Which lets us know that they don’t even have an organized army or an airforce. They can freely move in Afghanistan because law and order does not prevail there and they surely have their strongholds as well. But is it so easy for Taliban to come and spread in Pakistan? Defeat the army? And topple the regime in Islamabad? Do we not feel any difference in Afghanistan and Pakistan??
We are already in a state of war. With death toll increasing by the passage of each day in FATA and Swat. With drones flying over our Pakistani brothers’ heads during day and night and killing innocent citizens.
And at this juncture of time, Mr. Zardari’s sensitive message is just like an open invitation to extend the drone attacks (or may be manned aircrafts and a few alien boots on the Pakistani soil this time) further into the country.
I am of the view that head of a nuclear state has to give strong signals and messages to the world, letting everybody know that his state nuclear assets are safeguarded by taking fool proof security measures. Not like some street kids telling their elders about how much afraid they are from the boys from next town.
Earlier, we had been bad labeling Mr. Musharaf and Associates for their performance after running the state affairs. But Mr. Zardari and company seems to surpass our imagination of what we can actually expect from them.
Moreover, we know that various US zionist reports had previously labeled Pakistani nuclear facilities unprotected and “likely to be fell in the hands of Taliban”. Least our ex-president Gen. (Retd.) Musharaf did a very good job in telling the world to not to worry about our nuclear assets. So if Mr. Zardari cannot do better then Mr. Musharaf, he simply must not perform worst as a successor too.
We remember what happened to Iraq by the hands of Israel when they lost their atomic reactor. We also remember that Israel is not merely after muslim nations in the middle east, infact they are very eager to get a chance to test their missiles on Pakistani nuclear facilities. We know that world’s only super power has set the new trend for surgical strikes. We also know that India and Israel both are dying to get this opportunity. We have a good idea about US hawks who are planning to change the Pakistani map.
We also have unconfirmed reports about foreign support to movements and uprisings in the country. Those who we think of as friends can possibly be foes.
Then what really was the necassity to give such a statement at this point of time?
