APROPOS the article ‘Two operations’ (July 31). The country has come out of a policy paralysis and strategic inaction but is surely ill-served by its putative intellectual elite.

The author was subliminally projecting sympathy for the enemies of the state. One failed to understand the main thrust of his arguments which appeared a lament for terrorists and criminals. The tendentious conflation of a criticism on the Islamabad anti-encroachment operation with denunciation of state excesses against Baloch nationalists and Karachi criminals leads a reader to nothing but confusion.

Pray what is the motive of the learned writer --- to promote moral ambivalence or strategic inaction by an already enervated state?

What is the purpose of reminding every now and then about the state and establishment’s past mistakes and ambivalence now that a clear course is being charted by a steady hand at the helm? And finally, why is the writer unhappy now that the political and military leaderships have finally got their act together to act intrepidly in the national interest?

Brig (r) Raashid Wali Janjua

Rawalpindi

(2)

APROPOS the article ‘Two operations’. The author needs to be reminded that the objective of the operation against the katchi abadi in Islamabad and the one in Balochistan is to stop terrorists and weed out terrorism from Pakistan at all costs.

It is a known fact that the terrorists have safe havens in katchi abadis in various cities from where they have been operating with impunity.

Highlighting the issue as an example of the state’s oppression against citizens is unfair.

Awais Zahid Abbasi

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2015

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