The political situation of Pakistan has recently started showing signs of complications. Be it the local scenario or the international happenings, we have seen many spikes in our country's strategic graph. Coming under speculations that somehow the lost Malaysian Airliner is in Pakistan was a little too much to digest though...I mean seriously, why does every half-baked story about terrorism have to circle around Pakistan these days? We get implicated for every act of extremism, fundamentalism and of course terrorism. Maybe it's because we hold the distinctive position of being everybody's favorite scapegoat...Because nobody seems to remember that our army is actually fighting all of the before mentioned curses and our civilians are targets rather than active members of terrorist groups. We have to clean out the gangs of Karachi, we have to tackle the terrorist attacks on different cities, we have to recover kidnapped people and we have to avert the security threat posed by Taliban. Do we have time to even think about wreaking havoc in another country when we ourselves are in such hot soup?
But there's a different side to our country's profile...We have a reputation for embracing the troubles of other countries just for a few dollars more. Bahrain has asked us to lend our army for crushing innocent Arabs, who are just crying out for democracy and the rewards will be hefty sums of money. The United Nations has commended our army for being very well-trained and hence our soldiers can easily be used as "mercenaries" anywhere around the globe. As long as the money keeps pouring in, the leadership has no issues with our country's tarnished image or lost lives. Rumor has it that Pakistan has almost agreed to send its army to assist Bahrain in thwarting the attempt of its people to rise against the Kingship. Has our establishment overlooked the fact that the people involved here are Muslims and killing them, is in no way justified by the promised monetary aid. I roughly quote a journalist, who said, " Is the financial situation of Pakistan so bad that we are ready to dip our bread in the blood of innocent Muslims now?" He was being kind about the intentions of our leaders but I don't think that national fiscal boosts have crossed their minds.
History stands witness to the fact that Pakistan's establishment can be bought very easily and can be lured into any honey trap, if the fringe benefits attached to the deal are sizable amounts of dollars. It is this greed to fill up their Swiss Bank accounts that makes our leaders overlook the far-reaching repercussions of their selfish decisions. None of them even pauses to think about how damaging such excursions are for national security and national pride. The pain and anguish experienced by Pakistanis, when they show their Green Passport anywhere around the world, is a result of these foreign policy mistakes. The leaders come, gather lots of dough for themselves, buy apartments and mansions abroad and then go off and cool their heels out there somewhere...What do they care if an average Pakistani has to bear the insult of being branded as a terrorist? Why should they lose sleep if some poor children die in Thar due to famine? Why be bothered if a rape victim burns herself to death for lack of justice? Why look back and feel sorry for all the people struggling with inflation, when they have everything they need? This hunger for personal gains and gathering as much money as possible, without any shame or guilt, has made me think that really our leaders have sold their souls to the Devil for a few dollars more.
