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I write this with a lump in my throat, a pain in my chest,  and sorrow in my heart.

• I write this for the Vampires, the blood thirsty bigoted among us who created this mess:-There was another way
• I write this on behalf of those who cannot write, who cannot speak and who are too busy saving their loved ones to pen a line.
• I write this for those of us who say this is not our war.
• I write this to those that got convinced that blood letting was the only way.
• This writing shouldn’t come out nice and pristine, I am too incoherent, livid and too sad to write coherently.

My heart bleeds for the crying children on the road from Swat and FATA.  My eyes are full of tears for the panicked women scurrying to the safety of some far off relative. My body aches with the pain for the Pakhtun man who doesn’t know what has hit him–between the insanity of the mad mullah to the ruthlessness of the bomb that destroyed all his life’s work. The proud hard working Swati has a work ethic second to none on the planet. Today he is being tested. His beliefs are being tested. His life is on a roller coaster, and the future is uncertain.

How will be take care of the more than a million? Do we have a plan?

I yearn for the Swat when we used to go there with my family to enjoy the beauty of the “Switzerland of Pakistan“. My earliest memories of Swat are fishing on the river, boating on the lakes and hiking on the mountains, simply breathing the air and taking it all in. We made fun of the Swiss and their Alps, telling them those are just hillock compared to the mountains of the HinduKush.

Who is writing the “Anne Franks diary”?

The trail of tears that extend for about 70 kilometers is heart rendering. The women and children riding atop the roofs of cars, crammed up in the trunks of automobiles and herded together like beasts of burden in the back of colorfully painted trucks tells only part of the story. The abandoned belongings along the roads, dolls, shoes, a mirror, some pictures, an old radio, a TV set, wedding clothes tell the rest of the story.

Who is documenting “The 25th hour”?

Imagine a few minutes or a few hours to gather the most precious belongings. Imagine putting them on your head or carrying them in your hand or in a suitcase. After a few miles of walking on the road, the doll, or jewelry becomes too heavy to carry and they drop it on the side of the road. The most precious belonging thrown on the roadside, and no one picks it up. A million people traversing the distance, all facing the same dilemma.

Who are we waging this war for? We had no Swat problem before 2007. We had no FATA problem before 2004. We had no Afghan problem before 2001. All this is a result of the perpetual mimetic war of Washington. Nothing has changed on the Potomac. The policies of Bush are being continued. There is no GWOT–this is a crusadeto destroy Muslim lands. Colonial powers used their own pawns to wage war on their own people. The “marshal races” were those who fought with the British. The others took the brunt. No one has been able to defeat the Pakhtuns, and no one will.

Mehroom e tamasha ko phir deeda e beena deh

Daikha ha jo kuch main neh–auron ko bhee dekha deh   Alama Iqbal

I feel like shaking each and everyone who wanted this war and telling him and her “are you insane”? This is not a good war. This is on a justifiable war. No war is justifiable if waged on another Pakistani. We could have worked with them. We could have talked to them. They were talking. How can you wage a war, when they were talking. OK! I agree some of them are insane. Maybe all of them were insane, but as long as they were Pakistanis, we should not wage war on them.

What is the fault of the people of Swat or FATA? What did they do wrong? All they wanted to do was live, take care of the tourists and take care of their families. They don’t know about the World Trade Centers, and the Great Game to contain China. They don’t know anything about oil or pipelines or emerging superpowers. All they want is three meals a day and peace for their children.

911 happened on September 11th, 2001. The people of Swat and FATA face 911 every day. The noise of the drone, the screaming jet in the sky brings fear in the hearts of the women. They clutch their children and run to the ephemeral safety of a mud thatched home. The drone bombs anyway. They call it “collateral damage”. NO! It not collateral damage. This is flesh and blood. These are human beings we are talking about. Those killed by the drones are buried, those who survive the drones ran to Swat to be chased by the jets.

A Faustian pact with a super power for a few Dollars forced the hand of the army. Paradise for the NGOs sitting in Islamabad watering their trimmed lawns, hell for the people of Swat.

More that a million Pakistanis have been displaced. A sanitized label of IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) and $13 million for them doesn’t hide the truth. The legendary Pakistani hospitality is at play of the 500,000 displaced only 93,000 are in camps. What a people? We salute the Pakistani people for taking care of their own. Which country of the world can boast instant absorption of half a million people. The Palestinians after sixty years still live in refugee camps all over the world.

Terming the ongoing military operation Swat as tantamount to cutting own jugular vein, Secretary General Jama’at-e-Islami (JI) Liaquat Baloch urged the govt to stop the offensive in light of the Parliament’s unanimous resolution and resolve the issues of the area through dialogue.
Speaking at a media workshop held at Mansoora on Saturday, he said the military action and disorder in Pakistan only suits the enemy, adding that the US having failed in Afghanistan was now targeting the country. America wanted to divide Afghanistan on ethnic, regional and racial basis whereas in Pakistan, efforts were made to create the Shia-Sunni divide which had however been frustrated by the religious forces, he added, further claiming that the people from Karachi to Khyber were against the military operation. He said the JI was staging a big ‘Go America Go’ rally at Islamabad today (Sunday) and asked the people from all walks of life to join the rally in order to express their feelings against the anti-Islam policies of the US. Nation.

Those who excoriated General Musharraf for taking action on the Red Mosque, are now clapping for war on Swat. 93 died in the Red Mosque. One million have been displaced in Swat in this senseless campaign agreed upon on the lawn of the White House by Mr. 10% and his imbecilic Ambassador who has spent a lifetime working against Pakistan.

One million hurt and hurting. How many more? How long with this long war go on. How many millions will it affect? How much more Pakistani blood will be spilt? 2 million Pakistani and Afghan kids died destroying the USSR. No memorials for them in Washington or Islamabad. Only deprecating comments from the pseudo liberals like Asma Gilani, Ikram Sehgal, Pervez Hoodhboy, Ayaz Mir, Hasan Nisar and Imtiaz Alam. All of them millionaires, all of them on the payroll of foreign powers and all of them perpetually blaming the state for all acts.

Today they are silent. Today they want blood. Today they are thirsty, thirsty for blood. Are you happy now?

90% of Pakistanis have been bewitched by the Rupert Murdock Media and its acolytes into waging a war on fellow Pakistanis. Bruce Reidel in his book articulated the facts–the wanted to convince the Pakistanis into fighting the US war, first in Swat and FATAand then in Afghanistan. Wel they have convinced those riding their Mercedes 600s! That’s for sure.

How did they convince the malleable minds? An incessant campaign of videos and news reports created the false flag. Pictures of a few stray turbaned fellows in Buner was the last straw.  ”70 miles from Islamabad” screamed the New York Times; “Taliban on way to capture Islamabad” yelled The Washington Post; “Barbarians at the gates” hollered CNN; “Islamabad’s fall is eminent” shouted the Hindustan Times.

What utter nonsense and garbage! And they call themselves news organizations. This inane stupidity was being discussed on the talk shows. The analysts have no clue about Pakistan. They think this is Iraq. A rag tag band of motorcyle riding turbaned misfits could not take over a building, let alone a country. The army was reluctant to fire on them, because it did not want to be accused of firing on its own citizens. The Army did not want a million refugees.

One of the few voices publicly opposing the campaign is the former cricketer Imran Khan, who leads a small party and has aligned himself with rightwing forces in recent years.

Allegations of Talibanistan in Frontier province were “nonsense”, he told the Guardian.

“This whole thing is very sinister,” he said, accusing the government of ”setting up this idea that Islamabad was being threatened and the Taliban were coming with their way of life and cutting of throats”. The UK Guardian. Declan Walsh in Islamabad and Sana ul Haq in Mingora guardian.co.uk, Sunday 10 May 2009 23.03 BST

But the propaganda barrage was incessant. The APWA begums always busy planning their trips “to foreign lands” woke up to the fact that someone somewhere had spanked a woman. No one cared that the video did not match the topograhy and the clothes did not match the weather. No one cared that Cahnd Bibi denied that she was spanked. The NOG begums surely were oblivious to the daily rape and torture that is carried on in the sodomy centers called prisons. No tears for the poor prisoners in the Pakistani jails, 60% of them absolutely innocent. No tears for the private prisons of the landlords of Sindhand Punjab where “First night” is a ritual withwhich to-be-brides are all too familiar with.

The propaganda barrage was never ending. The Pakistani way of life was in jeopardy. How could we live without the pron videos and pelvis gyrations of Indian dancers? The barbarians had to be eliminated.

Wait! There was worse news. The worst came when the landlords discovered the horrendous truth. The turbaned ones in Swat had taken the lands away from the landlords and distributed it to the landless peasants who had been toiling the land for generations. This was the last straw.

The harbingers of the status quo, those who owned land anywhere could live without Indian music, and they could even forswear pornography, but the land–the land–the land–the land, the land could not be given to the peasants. How dare the “kameenas” take over the land? How dare they challenge the landowners. A lesson had to be taught.

Who the hel did they think they were? The barbarians had to be made an example of.

They had tried the same antics in in the 70s with the scoundrel called Bangash and his Mazdoor Kisan Party. We showed them then, who the boss was, and we will show this motley crew of criminals, Indian agents, and CIA operatives who the boss is now.

Two the largest land owners of the Punjab and Sindh came out on national television and declared war on the poor and the destitute surrounded by the criminals.

There was another way.

That way has been described on these pages for weeks and months.

1) Make peace with the barbarians.

2) Engage the “barbarians”.

3) Give them time.

4) Get them involved in commerce and currency.

5) Make them stakeholders in transportation and industry.

6) Set up state mechanisms which could monitor them.

7) Target the criminals on a one on one basis.

8) Set up hospitals and factories.

9) Eliminate back breaking poverty and generational penury.

10) Halt the malnutrition and  hunger.

11) Give them time, they will come along. It has taken a decade to make the mess, it can’t be solved in a day–and never with bombs.

But it was not to be. The Bubblegum culture and 24 hour news coverage wanted instant results lest the status quo of the feudal lords be under attack.

There, the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain, Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, offered this wise advice once given by a British General who was a veteran of wars in the frontier area: “When you invade Pashtun areas, have a good exit strategy with you, because sooner or later you are going to need it.” Having also served as the head of two civil agencies in the tribal areas and completed a doctoral thesis there, Ahmed has a kind of expertise and intimacy with the issues that Holbrooke certainly doesn’t.

Ahmed said the tribes in the area have a sense of history, pride and dignity and live on both sides of the border — “if something happens on this side of the border, it impacts on that side” — and they are connected by kinship, politics and religion. “A successful strategy to deal with them [is] not — I repeat, not — to take them head on… sending troops, throwing grenades and missiles, or sending in airplanes and tanks….. The best strategy for them [is] to work through tribal organizations, tribal networks, tribal leadership…. [It requires] both strength and skill — strength alone will not do. And we see the consequences of just a military strategy….”

Ahmed spoke plainly of the drone strikes: “My advice is this… please, please don’t…. The drone strikes… are very counterproductive.” He said the former top advisor to General Petraeus — David Kilcullen ”>David Kilcullen – has it right. Hussain noted that there have been 61 drone attacks “in the last few years”, and only 10 have hit the intended target. The result? 798 civilians killed and “less than about 50 insurgents.”

“That is a large number of innocent people getting killed by drone attacks,” he said. “That creates an incredible amount of incitement and rage in the Pakistani community.” With reporting from Capitol Hill by Nation Reporter/Researcher Greg Kaufmann

The only politicians who has any sense on Swat is Imran Khan. He is saying the right stuff about Swat, but his righteous indignation is lost in his insane rhetoric against Karachi. One the one hand Imran Khan acts as a super patriot and statesman, on the other hand he acts like a juvenile bigoted street-fighter entangled with a brawl with a city leader. One doesn’t know when to listen to him and when to tune out the noise emanating from his one man party. So everyone tunes out everything.

There was another way.

We are told there were no other options. There are always other options. For instance why could the ANP or federal government not have used paramilitary forces to arrest the leaders of the “militants”, charge them and try them in the anti-terror courts? Or, actually physically isolate these militants even if the army had to be involved in this action? At least it would not have resulted in the full-scale military action. But then that did not suit US interests since the Americans know the only way to get to Pakistan’s nukes is to destroy the institution of the military.

The issue has been further compounded by the government not developing a national consensus through an APC before commencing the action – but doing it under US diktat just as President Zardari signed the dangerous US designed MoU on transit trade simply to save his seat – or so he seems to have perceived. As for PM Gilani’s words, “finish them off” – they could have come from a military dictator. You do not “finish off” your own people, even criminals. There are terror courts and laws and due process – that is what distinguishes a state from non-state actors. The writ of the government actually is already over if the army is sent in and that is what has happened once again in our dark political history. Already the external vultures like the US are eyeing our nuclear assets as every province is being deliberately destabilised from within and a disinterested ruling elite either willy nilly or by design gives in to the negative US blueprint for Pakistan. Shiren Mazari. The News. The writer is a defence analyst. Email: callstr@hotmail.com

The PPPP used to be ideological party. Those of us who are admirers of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto supported his party. Today it is a shell of it former self. The PMLN was created by Zia Ul Haq, so it has no ideological bearing, simply a lust for dictatorial power. The MQMshamelessly used this opportunity to settle old scores with their nemesis the ANP. The ANP tried to do the right thing, but only for a brief period. It finally sold out to the land owning Khananas.

This leaves us with the Jamat e Islami,the flag holders of Al Shams and Al Badar are today saying the right thing. Stop this carnage, stop this war.

There is another way!