KARACHI, Oct 20: The US attacks on Afghanistan were termed unjustified and Pakistan’s instant support to Washington’s coalition against battered Afghanistan was questioned at a seminar held here on Saturday.

The seminar on “Challenge of terrorism: Pakistan’s response and choice” was organized by the Department of International Relations, University of Karachi, under its programme on Peace and Conflict studies.

“There is no legal basis of the US stance for its attack on Afghanistan”, said Dr. Kaiser Bengali, acting managing director of Social Policy Development Centre, who was the guest speaker.

He dealt at length with whether the war in Afghanistan is jehad and why the Pakistan government supported US initiative, besides dealing with the internal dimension of terrorism in Pakistan owing to war in Afghanistan and lack of democratic dispensation.

Dr. Kaiser Bengali dealt with the lack of consensus on the definition of terrorism and rejected the US stance on it. But he said that it did not mean that he justified the Sept 11 carnage in New York and Washington.

He said that the Americans were deliberately maintaining ambiguity on the definition of terrorism because if they did so, they themselves would be in trouble due to their own role in covert terrorist operations in various countries. He cited many examples in this regard.

“Those who are being termed terrorists by the US, they were armed, trained and pampered by the CIA in the past. Their clash of interest has threatened the world peace,” he said.

He was of the view that military strikes against Afghanistan, in which many innocent people are being killed, have put the issue of terrorism in the back-burner.

“The whole war in Afghanistan is a myth,” he said, adding “there is no military command and control system in Afghanistan because they have no such facilities and there is nothing left to bomb there. The whole war is for public relationing campaign on the part of the US”.

He believed that the US involvement in Afghanistan was to further its national interest, to control oil and gas reserves of the Central Asia, and had nothing to do with hatred against Islam.

The war in that country is not a religious war, he emphasised.

If that had been the case, the US would not have supported the Bosnian and Kosovo Muslims. It was not for the love of Muslims but for their own national interest, he said.

He said that the religious leaders who were now against the US, they were Washington’s allies during the Afghan war. So there is a myth on our part also, he said.

Dr Bengali was critical of the contention that Pakistan had no choice but to support the US and raised the question as to why is it that Pakistan always finds itself in a position where it has no options? Why is it that Pakistan, a nuclear power, could be treated like a banana republic?

He said nobody can oppose the US because of its military and economic might and emphasised that there could have been negotiations before taking outright decision to support the US.

He was of the view that elite of Pakistan were corrupt and were exploiting people for long. They were eager to support the US because they saw their own interests protected.

He was of the view that another reason for Pakistan’s support was its weakness due to its support to religious organizations fighting in Kashmir.

He believed that if there was democratic dispensation in the country, the situation could have been tactfully handled as democratic government would have been in a better position to take the decision in the larger interest of the country.

He said that since 1977 there has been no role of the common man in the formulation of national policies, especially foreign policy.

He said unlike Pakistan, Iran was not subjected to the same pressures and threats because the government there enjoyed support of the people and there was a democratic dispensation in that country.

He was of the view that democracy plays a critical role in countering terrorism and said that had there been democratic dispensation in Saudi Arabia, Osama could have formed his own party instead of resorting to present course.

He was of the view that Pakistan should not have promoted and sustained such a socially and politically anachronistic force like the Taliban, which is contrary to even our own social and political values.

He was critical of government’s failure to eliminate the terrorist gangs operating from Afghanistan and from Pakistan itself.

He said that it was the imperative of internal and regional security as well the very norms of civilized national and international behaviour.

He was also critical of the government’s failure to cultivate all sections of Afghanistan’s political spectrum.

The interest of peace in Afghanistan required that Pakistan should have acted as the honest broker and attempted to form a broad-based government in Afghanistan.

Earlier, Dr. Moonis Ahmar, Associate Professor and Programme Director, suggested the UN peacekeeping role in Afghanistan to seek a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

He also stressed the need for consensus among the warring parties in Afghanistan for its reconstruction and development with the help of the international community and the neighbours of Afghanistan.