Operation
Silence Backfires
By Gul Jammas Hussain
19 July, 2007
Counntercurrents.org
The
suicide blasts, triggered right with the start of Operation Silence
against the Red Mosque administration on Wednesday killed 17 soldiers
and wounded 13 in an ambush in Miran Shah.
On Tuesday the bombers struck
at Islamabad leaving 16 dead while injuring more than 40 people. On
Sunday, in a devastating series of suicide attacks in different cities
of northwest Pakistan at least 52 people died and more than 100 were
injured. Clearly, Operation Silence has backfired, since the extremists
have not been silenced.
The majority of the dead
were lower-ranking soldiers and police constables or young police candidates
who came to try their luck at recruitment centers, hailing from the
low-income rural areas where families usually have only one breadwinner.
So, besides killing the soldiers
the bombers also tolled the death knell of many families' finances.
In these areas of Pakistan , the meager salary of $99 per month is considered
more than sufficient to feed a family of four to six members. For this,
people strive hard to get a family member a job in the security forces.
If some lucky chap succeeds in getting such employment, it is regarded
as a windfall that can boost family finances. That's why young men from
the poorest families throng police and army recruitment centers whenever
they get a chance.
At just such a recruitment
center in Dera Ismail Khan, a backwater of Pakistan, 30 policemen and
hopefuls were killed and more than 56 received shrapnel wounds or lost
limbs instead of getting jobs. There were 200 candidates at the center
at the time of the deadly attack. After the explosion, body parts were
scattered all over the place.
Since the Pakistani government
stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad using excessive military force against
the poorly armed militants holed up in the Lal Masjid, the toll in multiple
suicide bombings has jumped to over one hundred and forty.
Furthermore, in an ominous
development, the relatives of those killed in the bloody confrontation
between Red Mosque militants and security forces have called for a jihad
against the government.
According to independent sources, over 400 people were killed -- although
the government still insists on 103 dead -- in the bloody confrontation
that ended the Red Mosque standoff, many of them women and preteen children
from the poorest rural areas who came to the mosque to learn how to
read and write because their parents could not afford regular schooling
for them. A huge number of relatives are still searching for loved ones
who disappeared during Operation Silence.
During the proxy war between
the United States and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the early 1980s,
the U.S. used Pakistan to supply its allies, and the CIA invested billions
of dollars in religious seminaries in Pakistan to train faith-oriented
fighters to wage war against the 'godless' empire.
The 'evil empire' was defeated
through the help of a CIA-funded 'holy war', but this process also irrevocably
altered the complexion of Pakistani society, radicalizing a once moderate
nation. It created a culture of militancy, Kalashnikovs, drug trafficking,
and smuggling. In addition, the flush of money made the mullahs and
generals millionaires overnight.
According to noted defense
analyst Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa's recent book Military Inc: Inside Pakistan's
Military Economy, most Pakistani Army generals have a net worth of between
2.5 and 6.6 million dollars.
Paradoxically, rich clergymen
send their children to study abroad at the world's most prestigious
academic institutions but deliver sermons encouraging the underprivileged
to enroll in seminaries that do not have computers and do not provide
the type of education required in the Information Age.
As a matter of fact, many
of these seminaries' preachers indoctrinate young male and female students,
telling them that they are the custodians of Islam who must implement
their own version of sharia upon the people by force.
For example, on Sunday BBC
telecast film clips of a 14-year-old Pakistani boy who had traveled
to Afghanistan from a religious seminary in the northwest of Pakistan
to assassinate the governor of Khost Province. The youth, who was shown
standing next to Afghan President Hamid Karzai after being pardoned,
had been caught wearing a suicide vest on a motorbike in Khost. The
boy's father said that he had sent his son to the seminary to learn
how to read and write and was appalled that his son's radical teachers
trained him to be a suicide bomber.
Unfortunately, in the surge
of violence instigated by both sides, the sons and daughters of the
poorest of the poor have had to pay with their lives.
Pakistan's long-deprived
multitudes are bearing the brunt of the so-called war on terrorism.
But on Sunday, George W. Bush's national security advisor, Stephen Hadley,
told Pervez Musharraf to crush the militants and offered logistical
and moral support.
Yet, at this point in time,
when most countries are withdrawing support for the excesses of the
war on terror, Pakistan should also start distancing itself from the
failed policies of the United States.
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