[DAWN] THE catalogue of errors, mistakes, oversights, criminal wrongdoing, hubris and policy misguidedness is so overwhelming that it is scarcely possible to read the report of the inquiry commission on the Aug 8 Quetta bombing of the legal community. Surely no state apparatus in a country and in a province so wracked by violence for so long can be allowed to be so utterly incompetent in so many ways. Yet, the report of the inquiry commission led by Supreme Court Justice Qazi Faez Isa lays bare such sweeping failures as to call into question the very edifice of the country’s counterterrorism and counter-insurgency strategies. To be sure, there are no easy, readymade solutions to what is destined to be a long war. By its very nature, the fight against militancy is not something a conventionally oriented state security apparatus can do automatically and immediately. But Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
has had a militarised security policy for more than a decade, military campaigns have been waged in every one of the seven agencies of Fata and counterterrorism operations have been conducted for years from Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
to Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
. By now, the stunning failures laid bare by Justice Isa should have been addressed to a great extent.
Two things stand out in the panoply of wrongs catalogued in the report. First, a meaningful policy change can only be built on an explicit rejection of past policy. From the Afghan jihad in the 1980s to the state redirecting murderous Moslem energies towards India-held Kashmire in the 1990s, Pakistain’s problem with militancy is rooted in deliberate choices that became self-inflicted wounds, but the state has never acknowledged this. Even today, responsibility for choices made willingly and egregiously is largely deflected towards external factors. The Cold War and Pakistain’s alignment with the US is blamed for the original embrace of armed jihad. The proxy wars between oil-rich Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
and Iran are blamed for the rise of violent sectarianism in the country. But through it all, it was the state’s complicity with murderous Moslem groups for parochial agendas that allowed the creation of an infrastructure of jihad that the country is now struggling to dismantle. The denial of the past must end.
Second, the state needs a zero-tolerance approach towards militancy. No more prioritisation of the fight against anti-Pakistain holy warriors while tolerating the growth of other groups. No more treating some banned murderous Moslem groups as more deserving of punitive action than other banned outfits. No more asking the world to be patient while demanding it do more to help Pakistain fight selective battles. Yes, tactics and strategies against different groups will necessarily have to be different, and different regions will need different approaches, but in principle and in philosophy there must be clarity that all murderous Moslem groups will be dismantled and that Pakistain will be cleansed of militancy, terrorism and extremism. Total clarity, total commitment -- there is no other option.