Kamran Shafi

The writer is a retired army officer and a freelance columnist

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk

The "Daisy Cutter": not a gardening tool, this is a 15,000-pound bomb as large as a Volkswagen Beetle. It is dropped from a C-130 being too heavy for any other aircraft, floats down on a parachute, and explodes several feet above ground with a devastating roar, it's payload of High Explosive slurry (fuel, air and explosives) incinerating everything within 600 yards square. Its sound can be heard for three miles, the earth shakes as if it had been hit by an earthquake of a magnitude of 4.7 on the Richter Scale - Source: my good pal Arif Aziz who knows his military history backwards.

I used the anecdote I am about to narrate here, some years ago in another context, in another newspaper, to illustrate the fact that we Pakistanis look at the world only by our own lights, no matter how dim; that we have scant regard for the situation on the ground, and that it is our rather high opinion of ourselves which fuels our proclivity of shooting off at the mouth. That context was the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965, when a Pathan gentleman (this is a true story, mark please) recounted to his friends what somebody in our FO said to him when asked why Pakistan had initiated Operation Gibraltar. "We thought (pronounced, in the Pathan way, with a soft first T: "taat") the Indians would not attaick the international barder", said the 'core-professional' to the gentleman. Upon which, our friend rhetorically said to his listeners: "Alaka, why you taat?"

May I now ask the various pundits, Napoleons, Guderians, Rommels, hawks and hawkesses, and history teachers such as the redoubtable Abdul Sattar, our FM; who have been holding forth in the press lately on how the US will hold back; on how the war will pan out with the Taliban being "tenacious"; on how Amreeka Bahadur will get mired in Afghanistan a'la the Brits in the late nineteenth century and the Soviets in the late twentieth; on how our General might well have to eat his words. "Alaka, why you taat?" Why wouldn't the Taliban dissolve within days? Indeed, why are they so flabbergasted at the collapse of the much-vaunted Taliban in just 34 days? What are the Taliban anyway? What else are they if not a rag-tag band of tribal rogues and bandits, sold to the manipulators by their tribal chieftains and religious teachers for a consideration? Why should their chiefs not sell themselves now to those flaunting sacks full of greenbacks, taking along those of their men (poor chaps) who have so far been spared annihilation?

Why doesn't anyone listen? Why are we so completely blind to what is going on around us? Why do we pretend we are sitting on high horses when all we have are ill-fed donkeys? "Musharraf agreed too readily to support the Americans", says one; "He should have extracted a high price for our collaboration", says another. Did poor Musharraf have a choice? Come on, sirjees and madamjees, have a heart. Answer this one question: even if the stark choice given our General (confirmed by Secretary of State Colin Powell in a New York Times interview five days ago, so much for "national honour"!): "Either you are with us or you are against us", probably accompanied by hints about the exact map coordinates of where our bums were hidden; accompanied by reports that India was also beckoning America, with alluring looks, to use its territory to mount the operation were all bluff and of no consequence; even if the Americans were quite alone in teaching us a lesson and had proceeded to, what the hell could we have done? Let our bums alone, what if B-1s and B-2s had taken out just three bridges on the River Ravi? And did it again and again, targeting the pontoon bridges we would have thrown across the river, every third day? Think about it, for God's sake. Musharraf deserves praise and respect for what he has done, not be ridiculed. Remember, dear sirs and ladies, that he has put his own neck on the line for the country. We should support him, rather than trying to be too clever by half.

As to the great Northern Alliance taking over most of Afghanistan, and the "Zarbati (Rapid) Brigade": Zarbati my elbow, rapid my knee! Just twelve days ago the "Zarbatis" were issued with uniforms several sizes too big - Lord did they look comical. Just eight days ago, "General" Fahim was stumbling and tripping over his own shoes whilst inspecting his "troops", his huge belly protruding, his puffed face set in painful grimace, in the company of "President" Rabbani. And now his "troops" are in control of 80 percent of Afghanistan? It was the 'Daisy-Cutters', stupid. It was the pulverising effect of American ordnance that did it, and which put the fear of God in the hapless Taliban so very completely that when they fled Kabul they did not even take their weapons with them. They collapsed just like bullies would, and should: in a heap of their own making.

And another thing: I do not need to be told what a big bad wolf Amreeka Bahadur is. I do not need to be educated about Vietnam and Cambodia and Chile and Cuba and Nicaragua and Bolivia and Grenada and Africa and, yes, Afghanistan. I do not need to be coached about Patrice Lumumba's assassination, for I was one of the tens of thousands of young college students who demonstrated in Lahore at the time, the incomparable Omar Malik our Student Union president leading, and when Amir Mohammad Khan Kalabagh (the idol of some of those who today lampoon Musharraf)'s police shot dead, if memory serves, eight boys. I do not need to be told, respected Sirs and Madame's, for I know. All I say is that we face the present situation, instead of tucking our heads. All I beg you to understand is that the world's greatest power has been challenged in its "homeland", by one of the sorriest, poorest, weakest, hungriest countries in the Universe and beyond. And that America will continue to exact horrible revenge until it has eliminated those Quixote's who threaten to destroy it.

And another: Look at the foolishness of the cowards who lead the so-called Jehadis. On the one hand His Holiness Emir-ul-Momineen Mullah Omar publicly screeches that his men are "Running hither and thither like headless chickens" - the most graphic proof of which was the frenzied evacuation of Kabul - on the other he says he will destroy America yet! With what, O' Emir? Your trusty cutlass? "Headless chickens" he says. Well, was he within a thousand miles of even one of the "Daisy-Cutters"? Of course he wasn't, of course only the poor misguided sods who make up the rank and file of the Taliban (it is always the poor guy down there who gets it in the neck, eh?) had their heads roasted off their bodies. And those that were captured had their severed genitals stuffed up their noses a'la former Afghan President Najibullah (remember, Holinesses?) before being shot, all on live TV and in (quite disgusting) colour. What planet do our great pundits grace?

This is what will happen over the next week: The so-called "leadership" of the surviving Taliban will try and escape into Pakistan and take shelter with their brethren in the tribal areas - those that they helped while they ruled the roost in Afghanistan in all manner of thuggery and in complete disregard to our Interior Minister, General Moinuddin Haider's pathetic pleas - smuggling, giving shelter to Pakistani criminals, et al. They will then go back to their old ways of banditry and blackmail both inside Afghanistan and in our country. Whilst this too will be a poor effort for they have no godfathers who will keep them supplied with weapons and money a'la the Americans during the Soviet occupation, it is imperative that the government effectively stop this insalubrious lot from crossing into Pakistan through the political administrations of the tribal areas. For they know all; for the web of corruption woven by those who administer the tribals is as effective as that woven by the police in the settled areas - just as a thanedar of the Punjab police knows every unsavoury character in his 'ilaqa' ie, fief, so that he can shake him down every now and again, so does the Levy Subedar know every rogue (and his grand-mother) so that he can shake him down too.

More than anything else, it is now a matter of the utmost urgency that tribal areas, both federally administered and provincially administered are done away with immediately. No more PATAs and FATAs and FCRs and what have you. This is 2001 for God's sake, and time the writ of the State (are you listening, General?) is applied in all of Pakistan.