Threats on all sides

Letter December 28, 2010
Such testing by the Pakistan armed forces is welcome because it makes our country safer.

RAWALPINDI: This is with reference to your report of December 28 titled “Ground-based defence: Navy tests surface-to-air missiles”. Such testing by the Pakistan armed forces is welcome because it makes our country safer.

While one cannot disagree with the fact that we need to spend more on our social sector development, it also cannot be denied that we, as a country, face threats from all sides. On one side there is India and on the western borders we have fighting in Afghanistan. We have many enemies which are visible and many that are invisible.

Yes we have poverty and our people live in much hardship but we need to consider the fact that if we weren’t able to physically secure our nation, none of this would matter in the first place. So, to all of those who say that we should divert all our resources from building our weapons arsenals to building schools, roads, hospitals, clinics and colleges, I say why not try and do both.

If we utilise our scarce resources properly we can achieve that objective.

Ch Ali Murtaza

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29th, 2010.