“Officially, the Army condemns drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal areas, which became no-go areas shortly after 9/11 after a massive cross-border influx of Mullah Omar’s Taliban. But ordinary Pakistanis have long suspected the sincerity of these routine condemnations. Drone bases are located at many places inside Pakistan, like Shamsi Air Base in Baluchistan. UAV’s are slow-moving targets, easily destroyed by supersonic fighter aircraft, or perhaps by ground-to-air missiles if supplied secretly to the Taliban. Their unhindered operation smelled of collusion and complicity. WikiLeaked documents, recently obtained by Dawn newspaper, confirmed this.
“Religion deeply divides the Pakistan military. Perhaps it might be more accurate to think of it as two militaries”¦”
“Islam created Pakistan, but it now divides Pakistan. Fuelled by ideological passions, diverse social and religious Muslim formations have developed in different parts of the country. They often have divergent goals, and are often pathologically violent. Some target the American empire, and are hence attractive for Al-Qaeda–type groups. Others have less ambitious goals. Several focus on ‘liberating’ Kashmir. Still others, such as Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, would like to eliminate the Pakistani Shias. The Khatm-e-Nabuhat declares that it will physically exterminate the Qadianis, a sect that it considers heretical. Pakistan’s Christian, Hindu, and other religious minorities cower in fear. The rich among them have mostly fled the country.
“Religion deeply divides the Pakistan military. Perhaps it might be more accurate to think of it as two militaries. The first is headed by Gen. Kayani. It seeks to maintain the status quo and the Army’s pre-eminence in making national decisions. The second is Allah’s army. This awaits a leader even as it launches attacks on Pakistani military installations, bases, top-level officers, soldiers, public places, mosques, and police stations. Soldiers have been encouraged to turn their guns on to their colleagues, troops have been tricked into ambushes, and high-level officers have been assassinated. Allah’s army hopes to launch its final blitzkrieg once the state of Pakistan has been sufficiently weakened by such attacks.
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“What separates Army-One and ISI-One from Army-Two and ISI-Two? This may not be immediately evident. Both were reared on the Two-Nation Theory, the belief of Mr. Mohammed Ali Jinnah that Hindus and Muslims could never live together in peace. Both are thoroughly steeped in anti-Indianism since their early days in army cadet colleges at Petaro and Hasan Abdal. They also share a deep-rooted contempt for Pakistani civilians. This attitude has resulted in roughly half of Pakistan’s history being that of direct military rule.
Todays religious terrorism is trivialized as a passing threat notwithstanding the fact that it has claimed more Pakistani lives than lost in all wars with India. Instead, anger is reserved for those who state the obvious truth that Pakistan is in a state of civil war.
“Still, they are not the same. The One’ers are ‘soft Islamists’ who are satisfied with a fuzzy belief that Islam provides solutions to everything, that occasional prayers and ritual fasting in Ramzan is sufficient, and that Sufis and Shias are bonafide Muslims rather than mushriks or apostates. They are not particularly interested in defending the Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, or the GCC. But should a lucrative overseas posting come the way of an individual soldier or officer, well, that may be another matter. While having a dislike of U.S. policies, they are not militantly anti-U.S.
“Army-Two and ISI-Two, on the other hand, are soldier ideologues who have traveled further down the road of Islamism. Large numbers of them regularly travel to Raiwind, the headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat, a supposedly non-political religious organization which has a global proselytizing mission and whose preachers are allowed open access into the army. The Two’ers are stricter in matters of religious rituals; they insist that officers and their wives be segregated at army functions. They keep an eye out for officers who secretly drink alcohol, and how often they pray. Their political philosophy is that Islam and the state should be inseparable. Inspired by Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi, who preached that 7th-century Arab Islam provides a complete blueprint for society and politics, they see capturing state power as a means toward creating the ideal society along the lines of the medieval Medina state. Many Two’ers are beardless, hence hard to detect. They are fundamentally anti-science, but computer-savvy. For them, modern technology is a tool of battle.
“Like the proverbial ostrich, the One’ers fiercely defend the myth of army unity. They dismiss mutineers as isolated individuals. Mumtaz Qadri, the renegade bodyguard who murdered Punjab Governor Salman Taseer out of religious passion, is an inconvenient aberration to be dismissed from consideration. Today’s religious terrorism is trivialized as a passing threat notwithstanding the fact that it has claimed more Pakistani lives than lost in all wars with India. Instead, anger is reserved for those who state the obvious truth that Pakistan is in a state of civil war.
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