Corrupt Over The Murderous

“I will take the ‘corrupt’ over the ‘murderous’ every day, all year.”

That’s the line that pushed a certain segment of our educated (in the basic formal sense) populace to orgasm Sunday morning. Saroop Ijaz giving words to their frustration built up, especially during the last month or so, but generally, over years. Oh how they have waited for this, and how indeed have I.

First though, Imran Khan. The man is a liar, also condescending, ignorant and sinister. It’s hypocritical, deceitful and stuff of him to even pretend to honour our martyred soldiers. It’s silly that he would know better than Saroop just because he has been to the tribal areas. Saroop knows all. Hail.

The counterweight is of course the ANP. ANP good, know tribal land better, Imran bad, idiot.

Thus the future government will, in Saroop’s view, yearn for a “reconciliatory embrace with the terrorists over dead bodies”. This will be different from when ANP-PPP thrashed out a peace agreement with the same foes, or as they pledge to do again in the future, because they went, and will in the future go, ‘around’ the dead bodies.

Going ‘over’ dead bodies is what’s really bad. Everyone knows that, stupid.

Now let’s come back to the real issue here.

The murderous, vs. the corrupt. The animalistic vs. the humane. The people who believe
in dialogue, just as you do, vs. the people who take out a gun, shoot someone repeatedly, cut them into pieces and dump them in a gunny bag.

Which ones are the murderous again?

Yes, the guys who aren’t being killed, and/or a perceived to be quiet, are murderers. The guys actually, physically, killing people aren’t.

It’s confusing, yes. Little bit. But there is a reason why such marvellous logic has graced a newspaper near you.

Let me explain with the help of two pictures.





See. One of these guys is a terrorist responsible for the killing of a former Governor. The other pumped 27 bullets into the back of Salman Taseer.

That though isn’t how the ‘Saroopish’ folks see it. They are seeing one very charismatic leader of a liberal-secular last hope for sanity party and a guy who pumped 27 bullets into the back of Salman Taseer.

Notice how “terrorist responsible for the killing of a former governor” translates into “very charismatic leader of a liberal-secular last hope for sanity party”.

Now you cannot be blamed for wondering if these guys have horse-shit injected directly into their brain, because, well, they do. The consequence of injecting horse-shit directly into your brain is a mental disorder called Secularitis.

Secularitis is a serious condition not to be taken lightly and it has fascinating effects on one’s vision, among other things. Like, for example, the basic understanding of phenomenon such as terrorism.

A quick Google search could tell you that terrorism is defined as “The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.”



That though isn’t how a patient of secularitis sees it.



For them, it shows "The use of violence and intimidation by bearded man. (Except Zulfiqar Mirza.)"

Although this explains why patients such as Saroop cannot define what the MQM-PPP-ANP do as terrorism, it still does not explain how they don’t even perceive it as murder.

That is a most interesting matter and one that has confused doctors for a long time. The most credible theory was that Secularitis patients see the people killed by their beloved parties as dogs. This theory though has been rejected on the basis that, since many patients are dog lovers and pretty concerned about animal rights in general, they would have reacted at the killing of around 9000 dogs.

Thus it is still unclear how Secularitis patients view people murdered by ANP-PPP-MQM. All that we do know is that they are not viewed as humans. Or dogs.

Even our limited knowledge of the disease though explains many phenomenons that would otherwise seem absurd.

For example, that the sudden talk of “funerals in other Pakistan” has burst out after around 55 deaths in a month while it didn’t happen after 100 deaths in 4 days can only be explained with reference to Secularitis.

Similarly, the belief that we are anti-militancy with Zulfi Mirza’s wife as the Speaker of National assembly can again only be attributed to Secularitis. The same goes for condemnation of terrorism with a career target killer as governor.

The examples, as you can imagine, are many and implications are wide. The most peculiar among them though has to be:

“I will take the ‘corrupt’ over the ‘murderous’ every day, all year.”

When the slimy fuck will actually take the murderous corrupt every day, all year.

Lying To Ourselves

Bashir Bilour’s martyrdom, understandably, resulted in an outpour of sympathy and support. Unlike his brother, I have only heard good things about Bashir Bilour who was brave and steadfast in his stand against terrorism.

The attack on Bilour has reignited the debate on terrorism and its remedies, but with strong emotional overtones. That is a dangerous road to take.

Fahd Hussain and Feisal Naqvi are two people you can read and be assured that, mostly, they will talk sense. Emotion though often trumps reason, and this has been an emotional week. Yet what they betrayed in their moment of anger, of hopelessness, of pretty much sheer emotion, is that they, like many of our “intellectuals”, live in a bubble which doesn’t have much to do with reality.

I know this might not be the best time to burst this bubble, with grief and emotion still in the air, but I believe it is necessary if we are to overcome the menace of terrorism. I believe we owe Bashir Bilour some honesty.

Fahd and Feisal, the former more than the latter, lamented our inaction regarding the Taliban threat. One asked “what would it take for us to wake up?” and the other branded us cowards, over and over again, urging the Pakistani state to “take off its bangles and pick up the gun.”

This is the basic bubble, the belief that we haven’t fought back. Put simply, it is a myth of Mayan proportions.

By my reckoning, there are 4 distinct conflicts going on inside the country. The Balochistan crisis, the sectarian targeting of Shias (more massacre then conflict, I know), the political war in Karachi and the Taliban or TTP’s war with Pakistan.

Precious human lives, Pakistani lives, are lost in all of these, with none more equal than the other, right?

What has been our reaction to the first three conflicts?

Balochistan has been left on its own, with the FC tasked with both manning the borders and policing its vast interior, which largely means fighting off the Baloch nationalist/separatist elements. Meanwhile many have accused government figures of running the kidnapping for ransom rackets, apart from smuggling and other minor offences.

Shias have been pretty much mocked. No relief whatsoever and the press’ flirtations with them seem to have run the course now that their ISI funded champion of democracy, Nawaz Sharif, has formed an electoral alliance with ASWJ.

Karachi? MQM-ANP-PPP have been rewarded for the slaughter with five years in government and various plaudits by the intellectual community as harbingers of a secular and progressive Pakistan.

Let’s now review the “inaction” and “surrender” against the Taliban.

The military has been in the tribal areas since 2002. At present there are more Pakistani Army troops, roughly 140,000, in the “bad lands” than the total foreign troops occupying all of Afghanistan. Numerous operations have been conducted by the military in almost all of the tribal agencies and some adjoining areas, the most notable in Swat and South Waziristan, the former hub of TTP.

Not exactly turning the other cheek, is it?

They HAVE our attention. This is the ONLY battle we have chosen to fight, and we have been fighting, using the Army and the Pakistan Air Force, for years now. It is time to accept that, mostly because it’s the truth. It’s fact. People have died fighting, people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of IDPs are testament to it.

The second bubble is the numbers bubble. Feisal Naqvi quoted the 10,000 figure as the number of people killed by TTP in a previous article. Emotion however got the better of him this time and he resorted to a higher number, 20K civilians and 3K LEAs. Fahd Hussain went with the standard issue 40K number.

This is again false narration which lingers because we avoid specifics, and although it might appear to be a moot point, it is not.

The number of people killed by suicide bombings is 5 to 6 thousand. The official number of people, civilians and LEAs, killed by terrorists, including those in suicide bombings, was close to 10K at the start of 2011 and independent sources now put it anywhere from 15K-20K.

What we hear all the time though is the 40 thousand killed. Want to know why?

The combined death toll, killed by the army and by the terrorists, is where the 40 K comes from and depending on your source ranges from a low of 35K to a high of 44K by SATP.

I have failed to find the government’s tally on it, but by all independent accounts that I have come across, the military has killed more people, and possibly more civilians (12K from just 2008-2010 by one independent account), than the terrorists.

This is why anyone who actually knows this will never say “TTP killed 40K”. They will always say “Terrorism has killed 40K” Or “We have lost 40K to terrorism”.

That 40K has thousands and thousands of what are the "forgotten dead" of Pakistan. Numbering easily more than victims of suicide attacks in the last 10 years, these are the cursed civilians killed by their own military, lumped with the terrorists and disowned by the Pakistani press.

Why? Why has our “vibrant” media let the vile military off the hook when they have killed thousands and thousands of innocent civilians in collateral damage?

Because collateral damage occurs in military operations, silly!!

Because military operations is what every pure breed human rights campaigner and progressive intellectual wants. Because if military operations are the cause of deaths of thousands of civilians, then what the hell am I supposed to sell?

The 40K thus remains intact and opaque, quietly drowning the forgotten dead in it even as the number is used to build a narrative in support for what killed them in the first place; military operations.

The last bubble is the bubble of ideology.

For some as yet undiscovered reason, a lot of people believe that they are on the left. They relate with leftist figures abroad and make fun of FOX News.

In an amusing twist, Mr. Naqvi pointed to the Newtown massacre and how the NRA punctured any chances of gun law reforms in the US. The irony is somehow lost on him but what he’s saying, using Patton’s golden words, is pretty much what the NRA have said, i.e.

“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun; is a good guy with a gun”.

Here’s the thing.

We HAVE been fighting this enemy, and we have been fighting it, militarily, for longer than any other enemy in the last two decades. We HAVE KILLED thousands and thousands of terrorists, but even more of our own, innocent, people. And we don’t talk about them because that tells us the real ugly truth; we are becoming what we fight.

Understand this; when we kill thousands in collateral and don’t even care, don’t even acknowledge, and when we talk about drawing blood and about digging up corpses, the
Taliban have already won!

We are all in this together. We all need the madness to stop. We all mean well and we might be angry and grieved at this hour, but lying to ourselves won’t solve anything.