The Other War in the Af-Pak Frontier |
War is the last refuge of failing states, but in Pakistan it often seems to be the first hobby of men who confuse uniforms with omniscience. When politics decays, legitimacy thins, and yesterday’s “strategic assets” develop the bad manners of independent thought, Rawalpindi reaches for the same old script: bomb a frontier, hold a briefing, and pray that smoke can pass for doctrine. It is a touching faith in language, really. If enough dead civilians are described as “infrastructure,” perhaps history itself will agree to be redacted.
The bombing of a rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, with Afghan officials claiming 400 dead, should have ended at least one moral farce: the idea that mass civilian death becomes tolerable once it is wrapped in the sterile ribbon of national security. Yet the response was as predictable as it was degraded. Some rushed to contest the number, as though arithmetic were the true victim. Others reached for the old catechism of retaliatory excuse-making: they killed ours, therefore ours may kill theirs, preferably with better press management. It is the sort of ethical reasoning one expects from mafia accountants, not states pretending to civilizational seriousness.
None of this means Pakistan lacks genuine security concerns. It plainly does. Militant violence emanating from Afghan territory has exacted a terrible price inside Pakistan, hitting mosques, hospitals, courts, security personnel, and ordinary civilians.
None of this........