Terror and confusion by KHURRAM HUSAIN
.... And this story, of
confusion and colliding narratives and asinine interventions to try and hijack
the visceral sentiments unleashed by such a tragedy towards overtly political
purposes, has been continuing for well over a decade now. After every strike,
the same litany of statements pours forth - ‘we will not allow terrorists to
succeed’ and ‘all institutions of the state will give a coordinated response’
etc.
Let’s be clear about a
couple of things first before connecting any dots. The terrorists are not
asking anyone’s permission to proceed. The state should have awakened to its
obligations to secure the population more than a decade ago. And if any
external agencies are using the terrorists to attack Pakistan, they are spoiled
for choice when it comes to militant groups to use for the purpose, given that
the state in Pakistan has been in the business of creating and harbouring
militant groups for many years now.
It is natural for
confusion to prevail in the aftermath of such an attack. But instead of
connecting dots that don’t exist and pointing fingers in every direction, the
first order of business should be to study the site of the attack and find out,
empirically and verifiably, who exactly sent the attackers and who
ordered the
hit. Those who do not have the evidence on this front should refrain from
surmising.
But here’s the biggest
thing: to win this war we have to stop lying to ourselves about why we are in
it in the first place. The Americans were told a big lie by their leadership in
the aftermath of 9/11 when they asked ‘why do they hate us?’ They were told
that the terrorists hate American values and freedom. That wasn’t true. What
the American public were never told was all the things their military and
intelligence agencies had been up to in their name over the decades. And that
lie ate out their mission from day one, initially by making them arrogant, and
later by sapping their morale.
Likewise, the
Pakistani public is unaware of what all has been done by their own state in their
name, and so long as that lie relating to the nexus between the security
establishment and the militant underground is left unacknowledged, they will
continue to flock to ignorant and sham narratives following each attack. The
terrorist threat is distilled reality. It exists independent of our will and
volition, and cannot be wished away nor can it be defeated with delusions and
lies. A decade into this war, and we’re still scratching our heads… read the
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