I would like to ask the general why he is complaining about a war lobby.
KARACHI: This is with reference to Lt-General (retd) Asad Durrani’s article of January 10 titled “The long war”. I would like to ask the general why he is complaining about a war lobby given that he was an important and senior figure in the one institution that has played a key role in furthering many of the wars Pakistan has fought. In that sense, I find the writer’s article quite ironic because he seems to have forgotten the fact that the military’s proxies have fought in India and in Afghanistan and had this not been the case, Pakistan would not have been in the mess it is in now.
It’s all very well to write about a long war for the West, but what about the very long war that is being fought in Pakistan and looks set to continue for many years to come? The writer says that western powers that built military bases showed foresight but how shortsighted were we when we allowed bases of militarism to be built on our own soil?
Iftikhar Zaidi
Published in The Express Tribune, January 12th, 2011.
