Musharraf should remember the Taliban committed to enforcing their narrow interpretation of religion in Pakistan too.
LAHORE: This is with reference to General Pervez Musharraf’s article published in your newspaper on December 15, titled “What should be done in Afghanistan”.
General Pervez Musharraf was absolute ruler of Pakistan for nine years. Before 9/11, he was a staunch defender of the policy of “strategic depth” and of supporting the Taliban government in Afghanistan. To this effect, in his article he said that the fact that the world did not recognise the Taliban government in the mid-1990s was a blunder. The question that comes to my mind is that why didn’t other Muslim countries recognise the Taliban regime? The answer to that is because the Taliban had a terrible human rights record and weren’t letting women out of their homes.
Furthermore, the general would do well to remember that the Taliban were also committed to enforcing the same narrow interpretation of religion in Pakistan as well. To say that we allied with the Taliban because of religious sentiments is not tenable either because how else does one explain our friendship with the Chinese government?
Engr ST Hussain
Published in The Express Tribune, December 19th, 2010.
