The time to fight has come

It’s time that army stopped being boxed in by ethics to fight an enemy that has no value for any war ethics either.

I think the time to talk about the justification of this war is over, especially after the attack on Karachi airport. When is war justified — if not now? Cross-border raids from Afghanistan and suicide attacks on military officers and targets in the heartland of the country speak of continuity of this war by the Taliban against us. Little doubt that it is Indian financial support through Afghanistan to Maulana Fazllulah and his likes that helps them to recruit the Central Asian and local mercenaries to fight against the security forces and sustain the continuity of this war as well. But what is our plan?

Are we as a state still riding on the hopes of ‘conciliatory policymaking’ to get us through in this war? Hasn’t the ‘strategy of appeasement’ been tried enough? Such mindsets have only nourished and promoted political smugness and military complacency. For how long will we continue to feed the ‘Taliban monster’ with concessions? Would the result of the efforts of the tribal leaders from Waziristan that met the governor and the Corps Commander in Peshawar recently be any different? Which magic wand will they use to set everything right in 15 days that could not be put right in 15 years?

The ‘retaliatory strikes’ are the glaring omission from the fresh military landscape that General Raheel painted on the war on terror canvas on assumption of his command. Why has the military not responded so far to the suicide attack carried out on the senior officers in Rawalpindi when all terrorist acts so far against the military and civilian targets have been militarily responded to since the arrival of General Raheel Sharif as COAS? The tone for such military responses was set on December 18, 2013 when five jawans from the military lost their lives in a suicide attack. Speaking on the occasion, General Raheel said, the “military will not tolerate terror attacks and an effective response will be given to the terrorists”. Since then, a military response to terrorist activities had become a norm. Every time the terrorists would strike a target, a military response would be generated. Terrorist groups were given a clear message that “the cost attached with their terrorist activity far exceeds their gains”. The General had picked up his doctrinal agenda of proceeding with the retaliatory strikes no matter what the status of political negotiations with the Taliban’s. But what now?

The only pause in the General’s publically stated military doctrine of ‘deterrence by punishment’ has been the so far current mute response by the army on the suicide attack that has taken the lives of its two senior military officers. This ‘tactical pause’ in the ‘we will hit harder if you hit us hard’ policy may be an operational necessity. Or it may as well be the proverbial calm before the eventual storm. Whatever it maybe — our generals would do well to finally, together with the political leadership, decide to initiate the much-awaited military operation. The June 10 high-level security meeting is, perhaps, the first step in this regard.

Let there be no doubt that our enemy is reciprocating on the western front to ensure our military deployment in Fata becomes as permanent a feature as theirs is in occupied Kashmir. It’s a battle of quid pro quo and a smart move of redirecting and rebalancing our military capabilities to the other front that were actually meant to match theirs on the eastern front.

It’s time that the Pakistani military stopped being boxed in by constraints and ethics to fight an enemy that has no value for any war ethics either. The ‘collateral damage’ and ‘only permissible conduct’ by military units on the battlefield are the chains that hold back the progress of military operations and in most cases become the difference between the ultimate success or failure.

What end do we pursue? The overriding motive of all wars is to ‘secure peace’. But for that an army has to wage a war and not fight scattered battles of survival and choice. If for terrorists, the end justifies the means, then we must as well choose the means to justify the end that we seek. The unchallenged ‘religious hallucinations’ that guide the Taliban to commit murders have continued to embolden them. They have no concept of the good life or the conditions that can make them possible.

General Raheel Sharif was not renowned for any military achievements on the western front in the borderland with Afghanistan. In fact, he performed no military service in the area since 9/11 ushered the army to fight the irregular war on that front. To say that he was not in sync with the ‘core team of ‘decision-makers’ and planners and executors of the military operations on the western front, until he took over as COAS, would not be wrong.

So now that the General has mounted himself on the horseback and saddled himself in to lead the army, will he also choose to continue to stagger along without a clear mandate of what to do with all the assembled foreign and local militants on the western front? After all, for over a decade, his two previous bosses (General Musharraf and General Kayani) only gifted us this stalemated war. ‘Reaction’ and not ‘pre-emption’ remained their most favourite tool to counter terrorism and the terrorists.

General Raheel Sharif must know that this lame-duck political and military approach to the existential threat that we face cannot be allowed to continue. Political ‘consensus and collectivism’ will remain an orphan in a country where not the national but petty party interest guides the leadership of the political parties. If our children and grandchildren are to have a Pakistan in which they can hold a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, then we must deliver them a Pakistan that is livable and free of terror and fear.

Fourteen years was a long time for two military leaders (General Musharraf and General Kayani) to give even a semblance of some hope of the ‘militarily prevailing’ over our enemies in the war on terror that we fight. Would we still be wondering what shape should our response take when General Raheel Sharif would leave the office? If negotiations have disappeared from the negotiating table, then what is stopping the general and his army from making its move on the battlefront?

Published in The Express Tribune, June 12^th, 2014.

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