Kamran Shafi

The writer is a retired army officer and a freelance columnist

pineswah@tx.micro.net.pk

So then, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, one of the vociferous Eminences who are spewing venom and diatribe against the United States, has a grandson who is an American national (may the young lad and his parents live long). Hello, what's this?

Zilli Khan is a young Afghan boy 18 years old, or shall I say a young Pakistani boy, born of Afghan parents who migrated to Pakistan just before his birth and settled in my village of Wah, just down the road from my house. Zilli worked for me as gardener for several years during all of which there was a constant struggle between him and his father, an older gent of about 70 years, about whether Zilli should be sent to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban. The boy, who adamantly refused to oblige every time that Baba (as everyone knows his father) brought the matter up, is most completely illiterate in the conventional sense, but does know the Qur'aan by rote. Whilst Zilli dons his headphones to listen to music cassettes on his Walkman while mowing the lawn or hoeing the vegetables, he refuses to believe to this day that man has walked on the moon. Such then, is your typical Taliban recruit who grows into a commander over time. No military academies, no Command and Staff and War colleges for the Taliban "army", as the Americans are increasingly calling that rag-tag collection of tribesmen. Incidentally it is bordering on the absurd to hear all manner of military expert refer to the bombings as "attacks on the Taliban 1st Corps, and the Taliban Military Academy." Give me a break - "Taliban 1st Corps" my eye. "Taliban Military Academy?" Come now, guys.

So, therefore, what would Zilli Khan know of the satellite-run warfare of today, of the terrible killing power of modern technology? It should have been enlightening for history teachers such as Abdul Sattar our FM, to hear the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan say in a press conference in Islamabad a few days ago, "Our air-defences can't get to the American aircraft." But of course they can't - for the simple reason that the attackers fly above 15,000 feet, way above the height that the Taliban ack ack (and however many Stingers they still have left over from the Afghan War) can get near! The question to ask is why the Taliban didn't know that before taking "Panga", as they say in Punjabi, and as a consequence not only committing suicide themselves, but exposing the civilian population of that already destroyed country to unimaginable harm.

Before we go any further, let me report in detail what I had peripherally written about in my last piece, and which came under fire by at least three readers (one of whom sounded very senior retired Army) for being inaccurate ie, that I was talking off the top of my head. The matter was the intercontinental flights of the B-2 bombers from an airforce base in Missouri, all the way to Afghanistan, and returning back to that same airbase in Missouri after their bombing raids. These Doubting Thomases wanted details. Here they are, gleaned from the Internet by my old college pal Arif Aziz, who my longtime readers will recognise as the tall boy who had an NSU Quickly auto-cycle on which we both used to ride during the long midday break at FC College (Lahore), to Lawrence gardens to eat chaat, me on the carrier - not pillion - making me even shorter than my five feet five and Arif even taller than his six foot plus. Whilst I had heard over NPR about the movement of the warplanes on the day after the air assault on Afghanistan, I called Arif this evening and asked him to re-confirm the fact. He called back three hours later: The B-2 'Spirit' stealth bombers of the 509th Bomber Wing, costing 1.3 billion US dollars each (of which the US has at least 21 presently!), carrying a payload of 40,000 pounds of bombs either nuclear or conventional and flying at nearly 700 nautical MPH with an unfuelled range of 6,000 miles at 60,000 feet ASL, took off from Whiteman Airforce base in Warrensburg, Missouri (60 miles SE of Kansas City, Missouri), and after bombing Afghanistan returned back to base. The secret is mid-air refuelling by flying tankers, my dear Napoleons. Incidentally, Whiteman Airforce Base is named after 2/Lt George A Whiteman who was killed in the Pearl Harbour attack in 1941. I hope this satisfies you. If not, get onto the Net and see for yourselves. So, there.

Here, let us clear a matter or two. There has never been any question in my mind that the present pass that Afghanistan has arrived at is not of the making of the poor and ill-starred people of that country. There is no doubt in my mind that had the United States not caught the first jet plane out of Pakistan just as soon as the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, even shutting down US Aid in Islamabad in a flash; had it kept an interest in Afghanistan's people, and therefore in Pakistan's who too were ravaged by the strife triggered by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; had it pumped into Pakistan and Afghanistan relatively insignificant sums of money than those it will now spend in prosecuting it's "War Against Terrorism", perhaps, mayhap terrorism could have been averted. In other words, if young Afghan children were offered schooling and meals - even in the refugee camps - their parents might well not have sent them to the Madrassahs because they were/are too dirt-poor to even feed, let alone clothe them. Also, I am not for the Americans, or anyone else, bombing an already bombed-to-smithereens country. I only make the point that the Americans are serious about what they perceive as being in their interests. More, much more than that, I say that the rulers of a poor and very sorry country just cannot hope to get away after thumbing their noses at the most powerful country on earth. But what, indeed, would Zilli Khan know about the B-2 'Spirit'? Or about the AC-130U.

Now here's another horror. This aircraft, already in operation over poor old Afghanistan, packs a most horrible punch: 2X20MM Vulcan cannons firing 3,000 rounds per minute; 1X40MM Bofors cannon with a firing rate of 256 rounds per minute; and 1X105MM Howitzer cannon firing one HE/AP round per minute. It is also known as the "flying artillery", and has the capability to operate at night because of its low-level TV and infra-red sensors fed by a Global Positioning System (GPS). But what would Zilli Khan know about any of this?

I should like to end by expressing my amazement and horror at the law enforcing agencies' ham-handedness when they killed rioters in Shikarpur and Jacobabad. The protest, such as it is, is spearheaded by the ultra-right religious fundamentalists. This must be the very first time in the history of our country that Sindhis and Balochis have been killed in (so-called) religious riots? What have these people got to do with militant (and hard) religion? Why, both Muslims and Hindus revere the Sufi-saints of Sindh. Must the government's functionaries be so idiotic as to give another reason to the people of Sindh to come out onto the streets? Which reminds me: Whither the Nazims, put in place by the indomitable General Naqvi? Stand up, General - what a fine mess you have created.

May I also add my voice to what several readers have said over the past few weeks, and say that the FO needs to change it's spokesman immediately. While we were alarmed at the funereal tones employed by Abdul Sattar when addressing the press, Riaz Mohammad Khan really takes the cake. He actually sounds like a funeral director announcing the imminent interment of a dearly loved one.