There is a grave in Afghanistan that contains the remains of Prithviraj Chauhan, the king who repeatedly defeated and subsequently sent back with honour forgave Mahmud Ghori. Finally, his luck ran out andhe was defeated by the invader and brought to Ghori’s homeland in chains. After Prithviraj was blinded, tortured and repeatedly humiliated by his captor, Prithviraj finally passed away. His samadhi was placed close to that of his captor, Mahmud Ghori, and is used as a place where shoes are kept by visitors before before they move on to Mahmud Ghori’s magnificent tomb. Although the story was broken nearly two decades back (by Vishnu Som), it was quickly forgotten afterwards. Successive US Presidents seem to have travelled along the path of Prithviraj of forgiving not once but many times an implacable foe. Trump and Biden have been united in forgiving the Pakistan army, the very force that has been responsible for the deaths of several thousand US service personnel since 9/11, most in Afghanistan. This is besides an uncounted number of civilians who lost their lives because of terrorist acts perpetrated by those linked to GHQ Rawalpindi, now substantially functioning under the management of the PLA. None of this has made any impact on successive administrations, including that of the tough talking Donald J. Trump. The files at CIA headquarters and in other data bases in Washington that belong to the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon containmultiple instances of how senior officers belonging to GHQ Rawalpindi have connived at death and destruction in Afghanistan. Several of such officers have property in the US, the UK and other members of the Five Eyes partnership such as Australia. Were even a few of them to be sanctioned, were there to be investigations into their friends and relatives, especially in the US, there would be an immediate impact on the terror machine operated by the Pakistan army. Joe Biden has been (in common with several other notables in the US Congress) a supporter of Pakistan for close to four decades, despite the depredations of that country’s all-powerful military .The fact remains ignoredthatPakistan is controlled by the military rather than bypoliticians elected by the people. So much for lectures on democracy. Why the US has continued for so long undergoing the pain of terror attacks and the killing of its citizens at the hands of this rogue force remains unknown, as does any explanation of why such a military has been, in effect, designated as a “major non-NATO ally”.Had some officers belonging to the Pakistan army been sanctioned by the US and the UK in particular, the impact on terror operations would have been substantial. In the UK, given the substantial number of British citizens who have migrated from those parts of Pakistan from where the military gets the bulk of its leadership, even the Conservative Party is reluctant to call Pakistan out for the excesses being committed by its military. In an example of the Stockholm Syndrome that will in course of time be repeatedly discussed by scholars of the subject, both Washington and London have not condemned but actually thanked Pakistan for all that has been done by GHQ Rawalpindi to ensure that the Taliban once again fly their flag over the Presidential Palace in Kabul, something that has been on display since September 11, 2021 but which is scarcely mentioned by Atlanticist media, especially those doing PR for Biden. The efforts of such media outlets to give a positive spin to the US surrender to the Taliban two decades after the Northern Alliance was assisted to rout that bunch of zealots have been in plenty. And yet, revelations in social media about the excesses being committed by the “reformed” Taliban have forced editors to air a few less than flattering reports of the disaster caused by Biden. None of this has had any effect on the US President.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would no doubt have been warned multiple times about the “disaster” that would befell Kashmir were Article 370 to be revoked, as it was as a consequence of his command. Modi would have been warned not to carry out the Balakot strike for fear of provoking a nuclear retaliation. Yet both were carried out and only the few in Kashmir and in the rest of India who support the Churchill-Jinnah Two Nation theory are unhappy. Whether Hindu or Muslim, the overwhelming majority of citizens of India know that the 1947 partition that was however reluctantly accepted even by Mahatma Gandhi was a disaster for the subcontinent, including for the Muslims. Had partition not taken place, India would have been in a far better position societally as well as in terms of security. Even in the 1960s, the Pakistan military was able to hoodwink London and Washington that they were hostile to Communist China, when in fact everylast bullet supplied to them was intended to be used against India. So many have for so long believed in the falsehood of the Pakistan army being an ally rather than the foe of the democracies that it is. The difference is that these days, more and more members of the public have become aware of such a deception, and are calling out their leaders across both sides of the Atlantic. Of course, the response to demands such as the sanctioning of GHQ Rawalpindi officers ( serving and retired ) who are complicit in terror operations is that India has yet to do so despite being the single biggest victim of the Pakistan army’s terror auxiliaries. The fact is that sanctions by India would have a symbolic rather than a substantive effect, while US-UK sanctions would force GHQ Rawalpindi into a rethink of their longstanding policy of running with the hounds while acting as a force multiplier for the hares. Even in the UK, where the Pakistan (army) lobby is politically strong, more and more citizens have begun to learn about the effect that GHQ Rawalpindi has been having on the security situation, and are asking for action in place of the honeyed words towards Pakistan that have been uttered most recently by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who appears to be clueless about the realities behind the continuation of terror threats in his country. It is ironic that the very country created by Whitehall to be a loyal backer of the Empire (sorry, Commonwealth) has instead emerged as a primary threat, energized by its alliance with the PRC. The four leaders who belong to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue will be meeting in Washington after a little more than a week, and they would be doing the world a favour by applying sanctions on select officers of the Pakistan army. In case the numerous GHQ-favouring officials in Washington shiver at such effrontery, at the least, a few retired officers need to be sanctioned. Several of them, and almost certainly their families, must be enjoying their retirement in homes across the US and Australia, and the sanctions applied need to dispossess them of their bank balances and properties in the sanctioning countries. This would include the bank balances and properties of those to whom they have in the past siphoned off the moneys made from the narcotics trade and other lucrative segments of the terror machine. The Quad leaders need to view images of the samadhi in Afghanistan of Prithviraj Chauhan. They can then reflect on the horrible end of this ever-forgiving prince and understand the consequences of allowingmerciless foes of humanity to remain free to wreak terror another day.