Nato withdrawal
THAT the Kabul ceremony marking the official closure of Nato`s mission in Afghanistan should have been held in secret speaks volumes for the end-result of America’s 13-year war in that country. The war cost nearly a trillion dollars and human lives whose number is yet to be assessed. Launching Operation Enduring Freedom on Oct 7, 2001, in the wake of 9/11, former president George Bush Jr. said the aim was to stamp out Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. He believed he would succeed because America was `supported by the collective will of the world`. Thirteen years later, the bloodshed and destruction dominate far more than Washington’s military successes. The Taliban have not been beaten, America’s diplomatic somersault adding to their leadership’s morale. Having for years denounced the Taliban using the choicest adjectives, the US entered into `secret` talks with them in Doha without being clear about its goals. Then, as the end of the drawdown neared, the Pentagon announced it would not target Mullah Omar, the man whose head had a prize, and other Taliban so long as they didn’t pose `a direct threat` to the US. Now President Ashraf Ghani and his advisers should join heads to wonder whether an attack on Afghan security forces and civilian targets falls within the category of `a direct threat` to the 12,000 troops the Pentagon has left behind.
Speaking at the ceremony held in a gymnasium, Isaf commander Gen John Campbell declared, `We have lifted the Afghan people out of the darkness of despair and given them hope for the future`. The reality is the Afghan people were probably never in greater despair than they are now, and the hope the general talked about appears nowhere on the horizon. Instead, a bigger and more frightening question mark hangs over the country`s future. Is the `system` America has left behind capable of survival, stamping out militancy and launching Afghanistan`s post-war reconstruction? Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, on whom the Americans relied for 13 years in a vain attempt to give democracy and stability to Afghanistan, was seen as corrupt and inefficient. He lacked the qualities expected of a wartime leader who could bring his country`s disparate ethnic groups together, effect a grand reconciliation and heal the wounds of war to pave the way for a peaceful post-America Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is just one milestone in America`s foreign misadventures. Despite commanding enormous economic, military and technological power, US actions created chaos in Libya and Iraq, throwing both into anarchy the fundamentalist forces were quick to exploit. The Taliban also gained from the trust deficit between Pakistan and America. The least Washington can do now is to strike some understanding with Afghanistan`s neighbours, especially Islamabad, to ensure peace and a semblance of political order in a country that has been a war theatre for more than three decades.
Resurrecting Nacta
THE revival of the National Counter-Terrorism Authority, lying dormant under the PML-N government, as it did during much of the last PPP government`s tenure, is a seemingly welcome move. For long, the country has needed a counterterrorism think tank, as it were, as well as a body that could play a coordinating role among the myriad intelligence agencies and sub-agencies that exist at the national and provincial levels. However, in the so-called reinvigoration of Nacta may lie the authority`s quick irrelevance. For one, the issue of keeping Nacta subordinate to the interior ministry the interior minister via the Nacta executive committee has not been revisited in the flurry of legislative and administrative debates that have taken place since the Peshawar carnage. What that effectively means is that Nacta will take its place alongside, rather than higher in, the administrative chain that comprises the very agencies whose performance it is supposed to help improve. Moreover, it seems quite unlikely that as the head of the executive committee, the interior minister will allow the Nacta coordinator to have a powerful or assertive role. History suggests that interior ministers by and large prefer yes-men to senior officials with an independent streak.
There is though an even bigger problem apparent: the National Action Plan and the two-tiered committee system that the prime minister has introduced has almost completely replicated the job of Nacta. From recommendations on how to fight sectarianism and hate speech to creating committees that will coordinate how to improve the law and order situation in Karachi and tackle the militant infrastructure in parts of Punjab, the NAP system that has been created will be doing virtually everything that Nacta is meant to do.
Will Nacta own those decisions or try and reverse some of them? Will the interior minister use the Nacta umbrella to try and revive his own master plan, the National Internal Security Policy that had largely been forgotten? Most importantly, will Nacta be able to develop any institutional role to ensure that military-run intelligence agencies cooperate with it and allow Nacta to play a bridging role between the military and civilian-run intelligence arms of the state? Perhaps the government has a plan that will make the various parts of the counterterrorism machinery come together as a cohesive whole. But if that plan does exist or is in the process of itself coming together, the nation is none the wiser.
Karachi fire
IT is a mercy that no loss of life was reported in the huge fire that engulfed Karachi`s Timber Market area late Saturday night, for the damage sustained is immense. While the cause of the conflagration is as yet uncertain the Sindh government has constituted an inquiry committee by the time the flames were brought under control 12 hours later, some 400 shops, flats and godowns, including three multi-storey buildings, had been destroyed and the lives hundreds of people shattered. Women watched home and hearth go up in smoke, and traders and manufacturers stared into a financial abyss. Could the uncontrolled spread of the fire have been halted sooner? Had the fire department responded promptly and fully equipped, perhaps yes. There are complaints that initially it faced issues regarding manpower, poorly maintained equipment and water shortage, and reinforcements from organisations such as the Pakistan Navy and the KPT had to be called in. Meanwhile, firefighters say that they faced challenges of access given the narrowness of the streets and alleys, and because of the manner in which structures in this densely congested area are huddled one on top of the other.
Will any lessons be learnt? The fire department obviously needs to up its performance. Then, calling for city governments to ensure that adequate fire safety measures are available in all buildings, and to enforce the rules regarding haphazard construction and encroachments would be natural. But such demands appear utopian in the context of Pakistan, where what little is planned is regulated even less. What is required is not just a concerted push at the administrative level, but also the understanding and collaboration of the people themselves, who need to see regulation as something that is in their own interest. In hindsight, it is possible to speculate on the many measures that could have saved more infrastructures at the Timber Market. But all of them begin with people submitting themselves to the rules the state imposes, and structures of governance showing the mettle to handle crises.