Fighting Terror, Meting Out Justice in Pakistan

"We announce that there will be no differentiation between 'good' and 'bad' Taliban and have resolved to continue the war against terrorism till the last terrorist is eliminated. The fight against terrorism is our fight and to counter it, a holistic roadmap is needed".
"We have all unanimously decided that a committee comprising of all parliamentary parties under Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar will prepare a plan of action which will be submitted to national leadership within seven days,"
"Today's conference has decided to draft an action against terrorists and act upon it immediately."
"This heinous incident is an example of the barbarism whose example cannot be found in the history."
"Operation Zarb-e-Azb is continuing successfully but what we have decided today encompasses how to tackle terrorism from the whole country."
"We have proposed terror cases should be expedited."
"If terrorists are not punished, then who will be punished?" 
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif

Sirajul Haq, head of the Islamic political party Jamat-e-Islami, leads the funeral prayers of two school boys who were killed by Taliban militants at a school run by the Army, in Peshawar, Pakistan (EPA)

Ah, the audacity of sanctimonious hypocrisy; it should leave us speechless with disbelief. But we are becoming accustomed to it. Hearts bleed with compassion -- as how could they not -- for the tragedy of so many young lives taken, along with the adults who made it their life's work to give them a headstart in life by educating them. The anger against those who lack that very same compassion to the extent they carried out the bloody carnage is also universal.
 
As to a response to Mr. Sharif's questions: why, terrorists of any stripe, of course. Including, needless to say, those whom the government of Pakistan held so close to its bosom in years gone by whom the Pakistan military and intelligence service directed toward Afghanistan, championing the Taliban's return to govern Afghanistan while assuring NATO and the United States that Pakistan could be relied upon in the 'war against terrorism', even while the United States rewarded Pakistan by annual billions for their military upkeep.

Pakistan knows, even through its pain, how to manipulate. Perhaps it was Pakistan that developed the concept of Chutzpah, though Jews think it belongs to their cultural awareness of bald and bold entitlements through corruption of realities. Prime Minister Sharif, lifting a ban on the death penalty for terrorist crimes after discussing the legal system's "inadequacies in punishing terrorists", has reached out now to Afghanistan to coordinate a response against terrorism.

Pakistani army chief Raheel Sharif met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani along with Afghan and American military officials to 'share intelligence' about the deadly attack that led to a Taliban massacre of over 140 people, mostly young students at the Peshawar Military School. Afghanistan was asked to take action against head of the Pakistani Taliban, Mullah Fazlullah, who Pakistan claims is hiding out in Afghanistan's border region.

Proof in the form of intercepts and recordings were handed to Afghan authorities of Fazlullah's involvement from Afghan soil. Perfidy, they name is Pakistan. This is the country, after all, which chose to shield the Afghanistan Taliban within Pakistan's border region, while tasking it repeatedly with attacks against Afghanistan. This is the country that gave haven to al-Qaeda and its redoubtable leader, while assuring all that Pakistan was a reliable champion of democracy and anti-terrorism.

This is also the country that dispatched, through its military's involvement with Islamist jihadist proxy groups, paramilitary forces into the contested Kashmir region time and again, and which also is responsible for the bloody atrocity that took place in Mumbai, one of many, but the latest in November 2008 where ten hand-picked and meticulously trained Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives attacked the city, killing 172 people and injuring hundreds throughout a four-day siege.

If Prime Minister Sharif is looking for examples of heinous barbarity that have no peers in history he need look no further than the ongoing attacks by his country's surrogate Islamist militias, terrorists by any other definition, against Indian interests. As to his unchallengeable rhetoric about punishing terrorists ("If terrorists are not punished, then who will be punished?"), look no further than the case of Zaki-ur-Rehman Kahvi.

This is the man credited with orchestrating that very same atrocity, the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, a senior commander with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a well-recognized Pakistani terrorist group with contacts infiltrated within the Pakistani military and intelligence agency. He has been awaiting trial since 2009, but a Pakistani court, a day after the deadly Taliban attack on the school in Peshawar, granted him bail.



Of course a bloody, devastating atrocity committed by Pakistani terrorists aided and abetted by Pakistani military is not quite the atrocity, despite the carnage, that an attack against a Pakistani target represents. Pakistani blood is simply more dear than Afghan or Indian blood, and that is merely a fact of life in Pakistan, a 'democracy' with a difference, and oh yes, a nuclear arsenal in a country that never seems to hesitate to wreak neighbourhood carnage.