The attacks like the one on Karma are a reminder to the armed forces, the public and their elected representatives that this war is very much our own and we will not win it if we don’t fight it. Can we now decide who our real enemy is? Unfortunately, the strategy adopted by our armed forces in the war on terror has been too open-ended. In the last 10 years, the army could set no realistic goals and elaborate time limits for meeting the targets which could translate into a comprehensive victory or defeat. All that the army could have claimed was that it had managed to ‘disrupt’ the Taliban which, in military terms, means degrading their capacity to launch organised attacks. But the current attack on the Kamra Base proved even that wrong.
If we have to succeed in the war against terror the army has to review its military strategy. It must include in its mission statement the appropriate and correct effect: dismantle and destroy the Taliban as a force. The government must also support and provide the political will and legitimacy to the armed forces to redirect its strategy to combat militancy. An army operation in North Waziristan may not guarantee victory in the war on terror but the inability and unwillingness of the army to do this is surely a guarantee of its failure. Destroying terrorists’ safe heavens in NWA is essential if the army is to make any headway in the war on terror.
Muhammad Ali Ehsan
Karachi
*****
A terrorist attack on yet another military facility, just a few weeks after the CIA-ISI chiefs meeting in the US and a few days after COAS General Kayani’s speech on the Independence Day, didn’t come as a surprise to me. The military and civil leadership are looking for reasons to start another operation in the tribal areas.
Eman Afroze Butt
Lahore
*****
A series of attacks on high-value security targets such as the GHQs, the Mehran Base and now the Kamra Base exposes serious security lapses. Pakistan faces threats from terrorists and cannot afford such loopholes created by years of negligence and a false sense of security. The emergence of residential and commercial constructions on the periphery of sensitive military installations has proved disastrous for the latter’s security. Those who gave permission to allow marriage halls to be built within the sensitive zone of the Mehran Base have to share responsibility for the security breach which resulted in the loss of four aircraft, radars, hangars and the lives of many officers.
The very purpose of creation of cantonments is nullified when instead of housing our soldiers and providing compounds for training and storage of ammunition etc, such areas fall prey to real-estate hunger of the forces’ top brass. The fact that sterile zones, which are essential for safety of these vital national security instalments, were allowed to be violated only proves that commercial gains of a few individuals have compromised the security of the country.
Malik Tariq Ali
Lahore
*****
It is unfortunate that these supposedly ‘high-security’ establishments are not too difficult to penetrate. Such incidents have occurred in the past and I am afraid will be repeated in the future too.
It seems the security planners and managers ‘go home to sleep while the nation remains awake’ and the cannon fodder – the sepoy, the airman and the sailor – bears the brunt of such attacks.
Amir Haider
Peshawar