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[Junaid Raza]

Partners in Crime
by Junaid Raza

With all the focus on Muslim extremists involved in terrorist activities emanating from Pakistan, world forgets that the terrorism is a direct result of several factors which involve the entire world not just Pakistan.

USA has been the sole reason why Mujahedeen were formed, trained and later abandoned. Pakistan being the only relatively “prosperous” and “functional” country around the barren, beaten and broken Afghanistan, after the US – Soviet war, became a target of the leftover Mujahedeen / trained mercenaries armed with weapons but empty pockets. While some of these Mujahedeen decided to sell weapons / ammo and equipment (US provided), many decided to use this hardware for other more sinister purposes.

Sale of drugs, proliferation weapons, preaching of fundamentalism and extremism are all products of the USA’s adventure in Afghanistan. After 9/11 USA made several more stupid mistakes, which helped strengthen the extremist / terror networks and their malicious cause(s).

Today, thanks to USA, Muslims are the only religious community who are automatically linked to terror networks or labelled as terrorists.

If there was not discrimination against the Muslims, world would be a much more peaceful place. If USA would recognise that Israel backed Jewish terrorists are as bad as the Muslim terrorists and that the Indian government should be forced to ban RSS and BJP and several other Hindu extremist outfits that are openly killing Sikhs, Christians and Muslims with full support of Indian army, Intelligence agencies (RAW) and government, then anti-America and anti-West sentiments would not be that strong.

I totally agree that all militant / terror organizations within Pakistan must be shut down, all people directly or indirectly associated with such outfits must be brought to justice. BUT... same should be done to all India based Hindu terror outfits... and if there are (there are definitely!) any non-Hindu terror outfits within India, they should also be brought to justice. West should pressurize India in the same manner as they pressurize Pakistan (and other Muslim countries).

USA should be asked who gave it the right to attack sovereign states. How is USA not a terrorist state when it has killed thousands of innocent women, children and men in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan? How can USA be forgiven for attacking Iraq on false intelligence reports?

Today, Pakistan accepts that it has a problem and it is willing to solve this problem. It needs support and encouragement. It also needs to be pressurized to some extent. But the world must also accept that terrorism is not Muslim or Islamic issue only... India must stop supporting Hindu terror / extremist groups (inside and outside India) as well. India can no longer cover its fragile and disintegrating nation by turning world’s focus and attention on Pakistan. India has been exposed as much as Pakistan and must be pressurized by the international community to fix its internal problems for the stability in the South Asian and Middle Eastern Regions.

[raven.gale]

I agree that USA has not handled the situation in the Middle East and South East Asia properly.

But we must also not forget that these regions have been unstable ever since the times of the British Colonial rule and how the British left these regions in a total unplanned and unstable state.

Relations between India and Pakistan would have been a lot better had the Kashmir region not been left disputed and divided. Similarly British should have created proper Pakistan and Afghanistan borders based on ethnicity / tribal division so as to minimize chances of conflict and illegal border crossings.

USA on the other hand should have planned a better exit strategy from Afghanistan after US - Soviet war. On the other hand... USA could have stayed and helped Afghanistan with its development.

But what has been done is done! I agree that today less troops and more development workers should be deployed in the troubled areas. Pakistan should get support from developed nations but at the same time Pakistan has responsibility to put its own house in order and by this I mean its political and military leadership should cleanup all the mess from within.

Pakistan needs to bring to front people with credibility and international repute (I'm sure there must be some in Pakistan) so that the world can realize that this time Pakistan means business. Old, tried and failed names and faces hardly show a resolve or sincerity.
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Raven Gale