A rejoinder to Jasbir Rakhra

Asif Haroon Raja

It has become a routine for Indian writers within and outside India to build a false image of India and to pour scorn on Pakistan. As a state policy, India has always endeavored to create wedge between Pak-US, Pak-China, Pak-Afghanistan, Pak-Iran, Pak-South Asian, Central Asian and Gulf States relations to isolate Pakistan. Jasbir Rakhra (an Indian) working in Institute of Peace and conflict studies (IPCS) has written a befuddling article in the IPCS magazine dated 21 December steamed up in falsehood and half-truths. Salient contours of his write up are as under:

1-There is a nexus between Taliban-Al-Qaeda-Punjabis.

2-Pakistan has become a battleground and is threatened from all directions.

3-Attack on GHQ was most serious since it is symbol of glory and honor.

4-Nuclear installations are as vulnerable as GHQ to terrorist attacks and that possibility of attack on nuclear installations has now become distinct.

5-Three attacks on nuclear related facilities at Sargodha, Kamra and Wah have already taken place.

6-Attack on nuclear installation will not be launched to seize a weapon but to achieve a symbolic victory by attacking at nation’s pride, which would lead to national destabilization.

7-Pakistan’s nukes have become more vulnerable after its alliance with USA.

8-Main threat to nukes is not so much from terrorists as from persons with extremist bent of mind employed within installations.

9-Former or serving members of security establishments have been involved in acts of terror. (To substantiate his point he gives the example of Aqeel alias Dr Usman, an ex AMC nursing officer who led the raid on GHQ).

Reading between the lines, his major thrust point is on the old theme that Pakistani nukes have become vulnerable to terrorist attacks. He builds his case on the basis of GHQ attack and three attacks already having taken place on nuclear related targets. He is either ill-informed or is pretending to be naïve since suicide attacks in Sargodha and Kamra were on two air force buses including one children school bus which were plying on the main road. Suicide attack in Wah was on the gate of ordnance factory. He somehow missed out another attack on KRL bus in Pindi which an American writer had also described as an attack on Kahuta nuclear facility.

Going by his logic that an attack on nuclear installation would lead to Pakistan’s destabilization, India should have fragmented several times seeing the large number of incidents (total 51) in various Indian nuclear facilities.

Like all Indian leaders, Jasbir appears to have got vexed about the Congressional Report expressing satisfaction over Pakistan’s nuclear command & control security arrangement. Their anxiety is justifiable when seen in the backdrop of years of efforts put in to brainwash US leadership trying to impress upon them that Pak nukes have become highly unsafe and that there was likelihood of their falling in wrong hands. Indians have been trying hard to put fear into the hearts of US leaders that until and unless Pak nukes were destroyed or whisked away world security would be in jeopardy. Major plank on which their argument rested was on the extremist threat. This was magnified when Swat Taliban took up positions in Buner and Lower Dir in April 2009. Hue and cry was made that extremists were on the verge of taking over Islamabad as well as nuclear stocks. Jewish controlled American think tanks and journalists lent support to these themes.

Their psychological warfare got blunted when Pak Army turned the tables on the militants in Swat and Malakand Division in quick time and made them run for life. The Indians had convinced the Americans that the battle positions of militants in Swat were so formidable that it would take many years for the Army to overcome them. Likewise, they assessed that the persons displaced from troubled regions numbering over two millions would not be able to return for another two years or so and that economically impoverished Pakistan would not be able to sustain the burden. They could never imagine in their wildest dreams that Swat would be over powered by security forces in less than two months paving way for displaced persons to return.

Their high hopes on Hakimullah led Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in South Waziristan (SW) also dashed when the army executed another brilliant three directional maneuver and uprooted the whole network within one month. Praises by American officials displeased the Indians. Dispirited Jasbir consoles himself and his countrymen and also props up hopes of US leadership by prophesizing that defeat of TTP in SW is highly doubtful. He makes a wild guess that there will be massive retaliation by extremist forces. He doesn’t disclose his source of information or assumptions on which he arrived at this conclusion.

Sinister plans of our adversaries to reduce Army’s combat ability as well as its counter terrorism capability getting blown to pieces, they next focused their attention towards major cities with the help of suicide bombers, saboteurs and CIA-RAW supported Blackwater elements. GHQ was purposely targeted to bruise prestige of the Army and to lower down its raised image in the eyes of public. Purpose of targeting senior army officers and ISI set ups was to make the people lose faith in the Army as their protector.

With their wicked designs receiving a setback, Indian writers like Jasbir have changed tack and have shifted the threat to nukes from extremists to working members within nuclear facilities. He casts aspersion on the integrity of Strategic Plans Division (SPD) by asserting that it enrolls majority from Punjab province on the plea that Punjabis have relatively fewer links with extremist groups. After subtly provoking ethnic tensions he then tries to feed doubts by saying that five out of ten terrorists who attacked GHQ hailed from Punjab. What he slyly implies is that Punjabis are equally prone to fundamentalism as any other ethnic group. He links Punjabis with Al-Qaeda and Taliban in an effort to prepare grounds to press Pakistan to launch another military operation and provide excuse to CIA to employ drones in Muredke and South Punjab.

He next strikes at the ISI and MI responsible for the clearance of persons getting selected for security organizations. He doubts them by asserting that there is no reliable system to carryout check on ISI/MI officials. He then insinuates that that there are elements within these sensitive organizations affiliated with Taliban. Rather than Pakistan getting worried, Jasbir for reasons best known to him is losing his appetite and goodnight sleep fretting over self-imagined unreliable persons working inside Pakistani installations.

The chief reason behind writing this silly piece is India’s frustration and annoyance at Washington’s apparent change of heart and its efforts to remove misgivings of Pakistan. It has suddenly changed its stance on vulnerability of our nuclear assets. All top military and civil leaders including US Congress have expressed their complete satisfaction over the steps taken by Pakistan to strengthen its safety and security systems to make nuclear arsenal safe. The US Congress has also approved the selection procedure of persons for security outfits and finds no flaw in it.

Indo-Israeli axis doesn’t want Pak nuclear arsenal to become safe and secure. Its endeavor is to make it unsafe and insecure so that nuclear eggs could either be destroyed through a surgical operation, or whisked way in a single swipe or a joint US-Pakistan control system is put in place.

Indians want the US to review their stance on these two aspects and have given them added angles to ponder over. In other words, Indian spin masters would devise new ways to once again foment suspicions and build trust deficit between USA and Pakistan and make Washington formally declare Pak nuclear program unsafe. Indian lobbyists together with Jews are also working on anti-Pakistan and pro-Indian US officials within Obama Administration which are in majority to pressurize policy makers to speed up process of denuclearization of Pakistan.

Paranoid Hindu Brahmans have a huge role in militarizing South Asia because of their hawkish and uncompromising attitude and failing to resolve Kashmir dispute. They have kept the region perpetually turbulent because of their meddlesome role and expansionist designs. As long as 2.5% megalomaniac Brahmans governed by superiority complex rule India, their lackeys like Jasbir Rakhra would keep fabricating stories to conceal the crimes and injustices of Indian leaders and would continue finding faults in others. From the write up of Jasbir what is certain is that in near future, RAW backed terror attack would be mounted on any of Pakistan’s nuclear installation to prove Indian standpoint that our nukes are unsafe. A plan had been hatched last year as well for which late Baitullah’s men had been hired and given extensive training in Afghanistan but it fizzled out due to premature leakage of the plan.

The writer is a retired Brig and a defence and security analyst.Email:aifharoon7751@yahoo.com