The threat of Taliban and why the next few weeks are critical

There are a lot of nut cases in the world.  Taliban and fundamentalist Sunnis of the Wahabi/Salafi strain of Islam are firmly in that category.  The others are those, who feel appalled  when you point at such people and ask the world to wake up (example is this guy who keeps posting nonsense in the comments here without the guts to reveal his name and identity!).  The ease with which Taliban entered and then became the rulers of Swat and Buner was astonishing and amazing – UNTIL Hillary Clinton pulled Pakistan up in her hearing and the US Government PUSHED Pakistan to do something against it.   Watch this video to see the kind of executions being held in Pakistan as of now.  I also have a video – which I could hardly watch where a live man is beheaded in front of the camera, with blood dripping on the shouts of “Allahu-Akbar” and certainly cannot publish.. it is so disgusting!

In many countries, the country has an Army, but in Pakistan, the Army has a country. ~ Ahmed Rashid

What has surprised me is not that these TTP – the Pakistani Taliban has gained so much ground in Pakistan.. but how QUICKLY it has done that!  A year from now it was just a rag-tag bunch of goons.  To fight the Pakistan Army, to move in and take over one city, then another… AND set up an administrative machinery, which knows its agenda – afterall the Taliban guys were quick to go and shut the Dargah of Peer Baba up and turn off the followers in the very first week of its entry in Swat – is what I find ASTONISHING.  Try and ask an Army General, as to how easy it is to build a battalion with the rules and regulations in place and organize a fighting machine to engage a regular Army.  That, this group has been able to do that within a year is astonishing!

This fact alone should make one think.  It would seem that some regular Army folks have been giving them serious advise.  I personally would not rule out the possibility of some fundamentalist and some Pashtuns within Pakistan’s Regular Army or retired officers doing this.  After all, as has been documented on Drishtikone itself, and has recently corroborated even in Ahmed Rashid’s well researched book “Descent into Chaos” – on how Pakistani officers (upto the rank of Brigadiers) were helping and fighting along with Taliban (and getting them ready) in the run up to the US invasion in Afghanistan after 9-11.  I would doubt that such a partnership would have broken off in a hurry.

But why would these officers do it to their own country?  Well, if you are an Army officer who has been brought up on Zia-esque Army training with Islamic mindset then it would be a major goal to see the country move in that direction.  To see the likes of Sharif and Zardari and Benazir “compromise” on the “national interest” as many in that circle truly believe (watch any video of Zaid Hamid or Hamid Gul), then you would want to take it over.. but not taken over by the likes of Musharraf, who could “play around” with the US.. but someone who “stands up” to that country.

Religious Utopia is a big motivator.  And if an entire generation of Army was built on that, then the missions that it is being forced to undertake at present by Zardari, may end up revolting at some point.  THAT, is the critical point which General Petraeus has referred to in that news item.