Déjà vu |
I am reviewing my writings from the past eighteen years these days to compile them for a forthcoming book on Pakistan's fight against terror and wars in Afghanistan. It pains me to note we haven't progressed at all from where and how we were when these lines were first written and appeared in the press. Just last week, an Apex Committee meeting was held in Quetta under the chairmanship of the country's prime minister, attended by the ministers of the federal and provincial cabinets. The Field Marshal, too, was present, as was the mandate when these committees were first conceived in 2014. The recommendations and directions echoed what has been repeatedly advocated since. I share excerpts from my writings from the time, in italics, with dates next to each.
One, Osama, Mullah Omar and Haqqani, arrived in Pakistan from Afghanistan – they weren't nestled here from the start. Second, the Pakistani military had a war imposed on it, not of its making – Pakistan owned another country's war despite intense domestic opposition to it. Third, the war spawned its own heinous sublets when splinter groups assembled under the banner of the TTP, threatened Pakistan's state and society, and continue to do so. Fourth, Pakistani troops deployed in FATA equal the cumulative force of 48 nations fighting the same extended adversary in Afghanistan. Five, the operations in Swat, South Waziristan and continuing battles in Aurakzai and Khyber agencies of FATA; frequent forays into Pakistan by the TTP fugitives from their Afghan havens; and a sprinkling of unilateral American assaults, all but form the operational environment engaging the Pakistani military without relent. (12 June 2012)
As the Pakistani army clears North Waziristan, it has set into motion a process where full-spectrum counterinsurgency........