It is quite ironic that those very intellectuals and political seers/analysts who have burnt great deal of midnight oil constructing powerful arguments to denounce General Zia ul Haque’s Afghan War, are today virtually clamouring for the Pak Army to punish the perpetrators of terror by raining death and destruction on our northern regions. The phrase ‘Islamic Jehad’ was specially coined to make a mockery of General Zia ul Haque’s exploits in the North. The arguments against his ‘Jehad-mongering’ went as far as to accuse him of importing Kalashnikov culture into Pakistan. No one in the Zia-bashing camp takes the pain of visnalizing the Soviet Union firmly entrenched in Kabul, and sending its dictation to Islamabad from there.
If the much-condemned and rightly condemnable Kalashnikov culture is attributed to Zia’s Afghan Jehad, why don’t we take into account the fact that pre- 9/11 Pakistan was a cradle of peace and harmony compared to the inferno-like environment it is engulfed in today.
Nothing is common in General Zia and General Musharraf, except their ceremonial title.
But what they did should be regarded as mutually opposite. Zia fought the Soviet invaders. Musharraf chose to fight his own people, and successfully transform them into radicalised mercenaries, ready to kill on the paymasters’ asking…….
24-09-2013
- Latest
- Trending
