Ahmed Rashid in ‘Fight for Waziristan’s survival’ (October 24) has said that while Pakistan’s armed forces are unwilling to admit that there is some degree of penetration by extremist sympathisers within their ranks, the civilian Pakistanis now believe so.
It is not a secret that the Pakistani establishment and the ISI nurtured and patronised Taliban and other terrorist outfits to manipulate Pakistan’s ends in Afghanistan and Kashmir and this has now turned against Pakistan.
The selective offensive launched by the Pakistani Army against the Taliban in south Waziristan is not going to solve Pakistan’s larger problem of combating the growing terrorism in the country and saving the country from slipping into the hands of extremists. This will have serious consequences not only for Pakistan but also for the rest of the world because Pakistan is a nuclear state and the extremists would want to get hold of country’s nuclear arsenal and facilities.
If Pakistan wants to survive as a civilised nation, it has to shun its policy of using terror as state policy, purge its military establishment of terrorists and wage an all-out war to eliminate not only the Taliban but each and every terrorist outfit operating on Pakistani soil.
M C Joshi, Lucknow
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