In his book ‘Enemy Combatant’, Moazzam Begg - the famous ex- guantanamo bay detainee(read abductee) – writes about his plans he’d made to join the British Army keeping in mind the military tradition in his family. His grandfather and greatgrandfathers had served under the mughal army during Aurangzeb’s era and later under the British Indian Army. When Begg’s father learnt about his plans , he told him how he wanted to join the Pakistan Air force in his youth but was dissuaded by his own father who said
‘Wars are not fought with honour and courage anymore. Any coward can drop a bomb from thousands of feet and kill thousands of people – soldiers or civilians. Where’s the bravery in that?’
How true is that.
Such displays of bravery are especially quite rampant in the war zones of Pakistan and Afghanistan nowadays. The world’s best intelligence agency gathers information about some suspects in an xyz area in the war zone and within no time these ‘suspects’ are blown into pieces by unmanned drones. Interestingly, these ‘suspects’ are usually civilians – women , kids – no discrimination when it comes to suspicion please!
When asked about the civilian killings , the bloodshed is justified through statements like ‘there’s a war going on’ or terms like collateral damage.This is what the flagbearers of human rights tell you when you talk to them about human rights -
Executions without trials are okay.
That it is okay to kill anyone , anywhere for being a ‘suspect’.
If the suspect is actually a terrorist – great ! If not, Hey! collateral damage ! No skin off my nose! ( in this case America’s nose)
Their attitude is understandable really. After all it is the Pakistanis and Afghans who are being killed. Not Americans! So it is perfectly alright for them keeping in view their extra-ordinary record of crimes against humanity. What bothers me is the attitude of the ones who are supposed to act as our saviours , the ones I’ve grown up considering my heroes – the Pakistan Army. No more.
saviors The high rank ups are not our saviors , they have destroyed the system with their evil goals. And i can see what they are planning for future. Kudos to govt for giving them 3 years extension on their incompetency, only incompetent can help incompetent.
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Yasser,
Not only the high-ranking officers but some junior officers have also turned into bloodthirsty animals. Heard about the latest video on the execution of some kids by these ‘jawans’? I couldn’t watch the video. It’s been taken off the net. I won’t generalize though.
I got to watch it finally. It’s back on youtube. Don’t know for how long.
See the ‘saviours’
Bloody animals!
Pakistani society has deteriorated in general and our army is composed of people from our flanks. Why do we expect them to be super Pakistanis where as we are all the same? Whereever we are in the world we act in the same manner.
Are you looking for a miracle to happen so that we get a God sent leader? Kindly visit our website and let me know!
Maybe you can better “understand” the current situation if you stop looking at it in terms of “saviours” betraying us.
The whole terrorism issue is our Army’s and its allies’ INTERNAL matter with no one else permitted to interfere.
Its not a war being fought for us, but an internal mess up between the power holding groups.
Not a single arrested “terrorist” till date has been tried in court not because this was their INTERNAL matter. The “war” with these groups is NOT to eliminate terrorism, but to teach them a lesson as to Who is Boss. All major Taliban leaders who have been arrested will receive Afghan leadership roles if they comply, who will then be submissive to the Pak army + USA, as was the case and as it HAD to be. The war has actually been WON by the USA. It was to teach their self-created soldiers of “islam” about what their real place is.
I’ll give you another lead. We men don’t fight each other to eliminate the other. We fight to let everyone know of who is where along the hierarchy. And fights such as this one simply restores the EQUILIBRIUM. Eliminating the Taliban after years of investment would have been the decision had America had a female leader :P
I am also a little curious about who you referred to in “This is what the flagbearers of human rights tell you when you talk to them about human rights”.
And “We the Collaterally Damaged” should only deserve even more thrashing. The Army has had the full support of a whole majority of us, before and after the current war. The same Taliban were deemed heroes of Islam and then got downgraded to mere terrorists maligning Islam, and both the times we the collaterally damaged denied the strong bondage between the Army and them!!!
I probably have a solution. Is there any religion that deems ignorance to be the greatest sin? If yes, we should all convert.
@Xainab/Salman. I agree.
Never thought two minds could think such alike.
Uncle Sam isn’t actually the kind of uncle who would come home on Eid and distribute eidi among the children. He’s more of an Uncle Scrooge likely to invade anyone’s privacy in search of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD.)
Killing “the suspects”…is an excellent article. Your arguements are so true, I have assisted former soldiers to speak out about what they witnessed in Iraq such as the “WikiLeaks” Apache helicopter Collateral Murder video…the attack on children which we worked to have shown again on BBC Newsnight last week http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9136984.stm
Some soldiers are trying to get a Congressional hearing into alleged war crimes committed by US military who were order to carry out 360% rotational fire on civilans.
Regarding drones… it is horrific that people trying to go about their daily lives are being hit by drones… the New York Times reported that “since Obama came to office, the CIA has mounted more Predator drone strikes into Pakistan than during Bush’s 8 years of office”…
Some of us are extremely angry that wars are carried out in our name, like you we have to find a way to make our views known and use our writing to try to inform and educate others…
Carol (Campaigner/researcher in global health/human rights)
Thank you for liking the article Carol.
You’re doing a wonderful job. It takes courage to side with the truth especially when it’s against your own people.