TALIBAN BARBARIANS.....The final solution

The final solution
Malik Haroon Rashid
ARTICLE FRONTIER POST
It took many years for the government and its majority people to realise what the Americans and the rest of the world had been telling us for so long: that Taliban are agents of destruction, obscurantism and barbarism and that their adventures in the name of Islam will take Pakistan to brink of disaster. Now glorification of the Taliban as holy fighters of Islam among the common people has come to its near end and Taliban stand totally unmasked. Mainstream political parties have reached almost a consensus over the Taliban question. Religious parties and Islamic scholars have distanced themselves from Taliban version of Islam. Punjab and its leadership after having tasted Taliban terrorism has come to its senses and unlike past is showing some sense in their public statements. But there are some differing voices; there are still pockets across the country where Taliban are still considered as the flag-bearers of Islam. Some political and religious leaders, certain educated, influential people, few former civil and military personnel retain a soft corner for the Taliban, provide them moral, monetary support and speak on their behalf on public platform. Overall situation in the country is quite grim, tribal areas are infested with armed, dedicated Taliban. Even in the sprawling urban jungle of Pakistan Taliban and al-Qaeda have their safe heaven, hidden from the eyes of Pakistan security services. But still the general awakening as to true nature of Taliban is an encouraging sign. Let us now at this moment of time destroy the Taliban, for if we don’t, they will destroy us with whatever we have achieved in the last 62 years. If past is any guide then we should learn there can be no negations with the Taliban, we cannot meet them half ways. There exist no moderate Taliban. We have tested all available options. We saw the futility of engaging them in dialogue. We lay prostrate and pandered to their all extravagant demands in the hope that the Taliban will lay down their weapons and areas under their control will see peace. We saw people in Malakand division and Swat firing guns in the air and distributing sweats at the signing of peace deal between the government and Taliban, only to see later their women’s head shaven and their girls flogged publicly. We hoped the Taliban will lay down their weapons but they only hid their lethal weapons from public sight and gave us a sham peace. Then by stealth and deceit, like Milton’s Satan, they moved to neighbouring regions of Buner and lower Dir, began to seduce region’s young one, held its majority people at gunpoint and started enforcing their harsh version of Islam. It is the roughness, and crudity of Taliban mind, which is the real problem. This roughness might have gone unnoticed in the uncivilized, barbaric part of human history, but in the 21st century it only evolves loathing and revulsion. And more tragically Taliban commits their acts of barbarism in the name of Islam, which gives Islam a very bad name in the rest of the world. It is not Islam but a dangerous, lethal ideology, which is the driving passion of Taliban. Only and only after the skull embodying this dangerous ideology is blown up, our country will see lasting peace. There is no other choice. This is the final solution Now the peace deal stands scrapped to all intent and purposes. The Taliban have come out into the open in Malakand Division again, destroying all of government infrastructure, looting and plundering banks, beheading people, using them as human shields. In addition to fighting, the only other skill Taliban know is the skill to destroy. Destroying everything made by state of Pakistan gives Taliban a sadistic pleasure; after all present set up in Pakistan is based on Kufr as their spiritual mentor Maulana Sufi Mohammad stated in a speech. It is ironic that a puny figure like Maulana Sufi whom nobody would ever like to engage in serious discussion gained such a countrywide media attention and assumed such a large stature. This is only because his backers have big guns, and wiled power surpassing that of the state. A question was asked in a TV programme as to why Pashtuns, who believe in revenging upon people who do them wrong, don’t take up arms against the Taliban? It is after all the Taliban who have killed people’s dear one’s, looted their property, have them publicly insulted and had them driven out of their homes. The answer is the Taliban exercise unmatched power and use tactics unwarranted by traditional Pashtun code. If locals decide to hold Jirga to fight them, then Taliban send their suicide bombers, hundreds of tribal elders have been killed thus. After this locals submit and put up no resistance. So traditional Pashtun warlike spirit and their tradition of exacting revenge upon the enemy has basically failed to meet the threat of Taliban. So in this dire and critical condition only Pakistan army has the potential and power to crush and defeat Taliban and rescue Pashtuns, their land and Pakistan. To safely bring the country out of these crises we must own facts and should have a firm grip over the reality. Hold over reality and facts are the exclusive reserve of those who stare reality in the face and are not swayed by cheap emotions. Leaders like Imran khan, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Maulana Fazlur Rahman and some other religious and political figures cannott have a true assessment of the terrible condition in the country. Their opposition to military option and their advocacy of dialogue with the militants is an empty rhetoric totally divorced from the ground realities We shouldn’t care what these dissenting voices say, for their aim is personal at the cost of the country and its vital interests, although they very much claim otherwise. They serve their own vested interests, not truth. If needed during this serious crises and emergency normal political, judicial and civil rights of Taliban, other militants and their sympathizers may be held in suspension. Even a democratic country like US forcibly relocated and interned nearly 110.000 Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans to “war relocations camps”. If there are people who differ with us in this effort of rooting out this militancy, and their difference only hamper war effort, then they should be silenced by force. Their cheap emotionalism will mislead general public and benefit the extremists. Pakistan needs to be cleansed up of extremists, not only in Swat but the whole tribal belt and the rest of the country. After Swat operation is successfully over, an invasion on Waziristan should follow, in those formidable mountains are hiding the assassins of Benazir Bhutto and the masterminds of various other suicide and terrorist missions against the state and security forces of Pakistan. This looks the most difficult part of the whole effort, but without it the problem of terrorism wouldn’t be resolved. Next in line should be a massive crackdown backed by all intelligence and security forces against the militants and their supporters in rest of the country. Those who survive the military action should be rounded up. We don’t have a Guantanamo Bay, so we should lease a rocky, deserted island in the Pacific oceans where these militants and their supporters should be relocated to serve their sentence. The Taliban, and other militant outfits come from us. They are our blood, and with them we are bound by the bonds of race, language, and religion. But they forsook the very ideals for which this country was founded and instead embraced a blood-soaked, dangerous ideology, which only sowed seeds of chaos and instability in the country. And most importantly they callously imposed their strange version of Islam on helpless people, not realising that attempt to impose their kind of Sharia and their confrontation with Pakistan military will only spell disaster for common people. Taliban’s crime against the state of Pakistan and its people are now unforgivable. We have let them live much long, in misplaced hope they will reform themselves. Now they will have to go down in bloody purge in this Final Solution. Only then Pakistan will rise up again.