A six-month timeline is all we have Islamabad diary Ayaz Amir Friday, November 08, 2013 By mid-2014 what many Pakistanis have been crying themselves hoarse about will have happened: most of the Americans in Afghanistan will have gone and we will be alone with our terrorist problem. If a residual American presence remains there may be some drones flying around. But we can be reasonably certain that the intensity of the present drone war will subside. Taliban leaders in North Waziristan will heave a sigh of relief...The TTP has tasted power and no one gives up power voluntarily. We have to understand the social transformation that has been wrought: small-time mullahs, village maulvis, have come to wield power and authority, the lower orders of tribal society riding to the top, guns in their hands and fighters at their command, and revelling in the freedom of the mountains, and the previous tribal hierarchy gone, the old order of Maliks eliminated at the point of the bullet. People with nothing before, now having all this…would they want to give it up? It’s like – just try imagining this – your neighbourhood maulvi suddenly becoming a leader of society, dictating orders and laying down the law. Take this as a test: if anyone thinks that matters can be settled with the TTP, he should first try his hand at discussing something, anything, with his local preacher. If he succeeds then only let him visualise talking to the Taliban. This is not to run these people down but only to point out that we are dealing with a different set of people and a different worldview. Most of the Taliban figures, whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan, are either unlettered or products of madressah education. We have a whole population of madressah students in Pakistan, but the difference is that those who have joined the Taliban have a gun in their hands and are mostly battle-hardened. Primitivism is one thing but add a Kalashnikov or a rocket launcher to it and it becomes a deadly combination. thenews.pk/Todays-News-9-212996-A-six-month-timeline-is-all-we-have
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 05:03:08 +0000
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