Adil Najam
This photograph from the Swat region needs little commentary, but deserves much thought.
The caption from Associated Press (photograph by Sherin Zada), reads in part:
A youngster sits beside his belongings as he waits for his parents to cross a river as they flee from a troubled area in Imam Dheri near Mingora, the main town of Pakistan’s Swat Valley, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2009.
One wonders what is going through the child’s head. With the Taliban after his body and soul, with civilian casualties in the military operation in Swat mounting, with American drone attacks in the tribal belt further away, and with a polity in chaos in the rest of the country, it is not as if he has too many options to fall back on. He seems to be looking pensively (possibly across the river); but to what?
@Ahmed
“The great game is being played in Swat, NWFP and Afghanistan for centuries now.
The term
The great game is being played in Swat, NWFP and Afghanistan for centuries now.
The term
Please choose a side. Please think clearly. Please choose tactics which are honest, legal and moral. And a strategy that is all that too. Holistic and not lacking in foresight. That’ll give you maximum strength. Against the Taliban, other terrorists, the Northern Alliance, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan or whatever fears you may have about the CIA, Mossad or RAW or ants fitted with spy gadgets and goats bleating Navajo up and down the valleys of Swat. An unequivocally moral, legally and ethically unquestionable strategy and policy is what will give us the best chance of victory now and continue to protect us against all demons, real and imaginary, long after the US has lost interest in Afghanistan (which she will, yet again). Come on, Pak Army, we are right behind you.
Floating a tender for FM transmitter spotting equipment, available in any trade catalogue, only a few days ago, is a good start. Now let us all go – citizens, politicians and journalists – and surround Swat and make a stand in solidarity with the people, Afzal Khan Lala, and the Pak army, in a show of defiance to the terrorists.
@ Nostalgic…
What is truly disgusting is your contempt for the very Jawans and officers..who….like them or not….are at the moment…the ONLY thing between you living under the suffocating embrace of the beards….
that Sir…is a fact so for once I find myself agreeing with Aamir Ali that Yes…it is very people of Pakistan who need to pick a side in this War…
The Army has picked a side and it is the side of Pakistan and is paying for this price with the blood and grit of the Jawan…the same Jawan who…as we speak is facing what is without doubt…the most ferocious infantry combat on the planet…
I believe that it is folks such as you…who I know do not support the Taliban…but due to political reasons have such contempt for the army it it makes them blind to the blood that is being spilt to protect you and your family….
I am not supporting the past actions of mily govt’s…but I find it strange that some people just criticize the army as a form of intellectual cool…..
and yes…as a man who has Lost an ex course mate or two…..brave good men who fell so that you could get a shave or send your daughter to school….I do find your ‘confusion’ disturbing and frankly disgusting….
The very army that is fighting and dying in YOUR name ….deserves yoru support…and the country that cannot value this..probably deserves no freedom…
Is it not the time to ponder as
Martin Niem