A man wounded in America's most recent drone attack on Pakistan, in
Orakzai Agency: While about
18 suspected
terrorists were killed in that
attack, over 20 innocents were murdered by terrorists the same day.
U.S. Drones are
an Evil, but Terrorists are Worse (The Frontier Post, Pakistan)
"Our nation
is in the throes of a vicious, multifaceted battle against terrorism. More
appallingly, the government does not appear particularly moved to act against
the menace, which poses the most bald-faced existential threat to the country. Indeed,
by every measure, terrorism is running riot across the land. And yet our rulers
live in a dream world, behaving as if peace has broken out. ... There is no
debate: Terrorist outfits have established their lairs and ensconced their
sleeper cells deep in the nation's urban centers."
We still don't know if all 18
people killed in Thursday's drone attack on Orakzai
were militants, or whether innocent noncombatants were included. What we do
know is that the 20 other people killed by terrorists that day were all
innocent. Eleven, including two children, lost their precious lives in a
remote-controlled bomb blast in a market in Sibi, Balochistan. Twenty-six others were wounded. Eight others were
murdered in twin blasts at an Orakzai Agency market that
injured another 22. And on a construction site in Nowshera,
one laborer died when an innocuous looking package exploded on touch.
This is just a random tabulation of the terrorist toll exacted
on innocent civilians in a single day. More careful scrutiny would certainly
bring out the horror this inflicts on our citizens. Furthermore, this
tabulation excludes the mayhem being wrought in Karachi, where even on a normal
day, the toll runs into no less than a half dozen lives. Indeed, by every measure,
terrorism is running riot across the land. And yet our rulers live in a dream world,
behaving as if peace has broken out, and whatever problem there is can be swished
away with a lot of brave talk.
They cannot, they squawk, be browbeaten by terrorists. So as
these vile terrorist characters inflict death and injury with abandon on
unsuspecting citizens, our rulers from their fortified havens vow that they won't
bow down before them. Neither do they appear fully alive to the daunting
reality: our nation is in the
throes of a vicious, multifaceted battle against terrorism. More appallingly, they
do not appear particularly moved to act against this menace, which poses the
most bald-faced existential threat to the country. They give absolutely
no sense of being aware that if containment is arduous, elimination will be all
the more difficult. In fact, it will infinitely multiply if not countered with a
hard-nosed strategy and powerful action.
Verily, they act as if they have terrorism contained, But
the truth is that they aren't even half done containing the terrorist menace,
and its elimination remains far very off. But the most stupefying element here
has been the behavior of provincial administrators. They have a critical role
in containing and eliminating terrorism. Yet they behave as if they were
divorced from this fight, which they seem to think is fought exclusively by federal
authorities, especially the army and intelligence services. In the furtherance
of this pretence, they are helped greatly by the commentators, security
analysts, civil society and the chattering classes, which perpetually take
these agencies to the mat for the terrorist surge.
There is no debate: we are in the tight and painful grip
of urban terrorism. Terrorist outfits have established their lairs and ensconced
their sleeper cells deep in the nation's urban centers. On top of foreign funding
and cash raised by robbery and kidnap for ransom, not to mention urban gunrunning,
the terrorists have melded with the urban underworld. These outlawed extremist
outfits operate openly in urban centers - some under new banners, propagating their
message of hate and their evil trade in bloodletting without official hindrance.
People try and help a man injured by a bomb that went off in Sibi,
Pakistan. Eleven people were
killed and 26 wounded, Oct. 12.
Since provincial administrations exercise the most influence
in their domains on the state security apparatus, it is they who must come down
hardest on the vicious paraphernalia of urban terrorism and finish it off. But
visibly, they aren't doing so. They haven't deployed their Criminal
Investigation Departments to detect liars and terrorist sleeper cells and watch
out for banned groups - even though CIDs are supposed to be well positioned to
do so, thanks to their presence all the way down to the local union and the tehsil level [local village level]. During the colonial
era, local CIDs made up the backbone of Britain's security network, and it was the
Punjab CID that unearthed the aborted attempt on the part of Hindu fanatics to
assassinate Quaid-e-Azam during the celebratory
Independence Day rally in Karachi.
Posted by Worldmeets.US
[Editor's Note: Quaid-e-Azam (meaning "great leader") was Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the
founder of modern Pakistan. There seems to be no record of the above
assassination attempt. But an attempt on Jinnah's life did take place in his home
in Bombay India in 1943. The man who intended to kill him was a member of the Khaksars,
a social movement established in 1941 to free India of British rule and
establish a Hindu-Muslim government].
At least now, provincial administrators will have no choice
but to join the effort to curb and vigorously crush terrorism. The monstrosity
is lethally on the upswing, so tomorrow will be too late.
We still don't know if all 18
people killed in Thursday's drone attack on 
