BIRMINGHAM, UK: This is with reference to Asad Munir’s article “The Taliban have not been defeated” (June 27). There has always been a deliberate propaganda in Pakistan to classify the Taliban militants as freedom fighters. This agenda is promoted by their supporters and sympathisers who are vociferously anti-American.
It is the responsibility of the Pakistan Army to communicate to the nation that the war against the Taliban is an ideological one and it has nothing to do with the American occupation of Afghanistan. The emergence of the Taliban in Pakistan was always inevitable, since the inception of the original Taliban in 1996, of which 67 per cent of its force comprised of Pakistanis. Ahmed Rashid has documented this comprehensively in his book Taliban. He predicted the emergence of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and its war against the Pakistani state. Unfortunately, Mr Rashid is among those who are banned to put his point across at public forums due to pressure from certain powerful quarters. I hope a day will come when his books will be part of our curriculum in order to challenge the false narrative that supports the Taliban.
Anas Abbas
Published in The Express Tribune, June 28th, 2012.
