American drone strikes targeted militant camps twice this week targeting the Haqqani Network, suspected for holding American soldier Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl hostage for five years. US national security? Check. Pakistani national security? The-what-now?
The first drone strike reportedly killed Uzbek militants and questions can be asked if this was a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone kind of a strategy? Or does the US think that the first drone attack can provide some legitimacy for the second? For many people who are outraged at the Taliban attack on Karachi and their statements for taking revenge, the drone strikes might come as a welcome solution. But, two wrongs don’t make a right. We are compromised both on security and our national values. Reuters quoted two unnamed Pakistani government officials who described the strikes as a “joint Pakistan-U.S. operation” that has the approval of the Pakistani government. Contrary to this, the Pakistan Foreign Office has condemned the attack saying it infringes on our “sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
But do we even have territorial integrity? Didn’t that go up in smoke at Karachi airport? Between Saudi Arabia funding anti-Shia violence, Iran throwing mortar shells at us, India interfering in Balochistan, US drone strikes and these stateless militants blowing up bombs like they’re popping balloons at a child’s birthday party… what sovereignty? As much as it is argued that drone strikes are clearly wrong, practically and principally, yet recent events prove that the drones are still a grey area when it comes to arguments of national security. Pakistan does not have a sovereign right to provide sanctuary to terrorists and neither does it have sovereign control over North Waziristan and the rest of tribal areas.
Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, a cleric nominated by the Pakistani Taliban to negotiate with the government said on the issue that the, “Drone strikes kill innocent people, and they have started because the negotiations have stopped.” He still believes that negotiations are the only way to end the violence. The 6 month lull in drone strikes was probably for the purpose of the failed peace talks. Meanwhile hundreds of people have been killed, the terrorists have regrouped and new alliances have been made. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and its cooperation with the Taliban is a clear sign of this. The IMU was formed in 1991 to set up an Islamic State in Central Asia, and now it seems that the troublemakers have their geography wrong. The US doesn’t want to wait. They will wipe out threats to their country like bugs on a windscreen. Pakistan should be doing the same.