By Tehniyat Avais 27 February 2019
“Every war is easy to start, but it is extremely difficult to finish it”
Since the inception of Pakistan there have been tensions between India and Pakistan. Both have fought three major wars but the unresolved issue of Kashmir remains the bone of contention. Recently, Post-Pulwama attack, Pakistan and India are at the brink of a war. Both the South Asian nuclear states are eye ball to eye ball right now. However, keeping in view the historical events whether WW-I, WW-II, US venture in Afghanistan or Vietnam War all wars were miscalculated and only escalated and prolonged. Wars are always based on the miscalculations. War doesn’t benefit any state.
The engagements between the two South Asian rivals started in response to the Pulwama attack on February 14, attack allegedly carried out by Jiash-e-Mohammad and resulted in the killing of 42 Indian paramilitary forces. Later on 26th February, 2019 the Indian air crafts intruded the Muzaffarabad sector violating the LOC and faced a timely and effective response from the Pakistan Air Force. This behavior of India is a clear provocation act of war. Thus, the Indian aircrafts released their payloads in the area of Balakot in KP province yet resulted in no casualties or damage. While the Indian leadership has claimed that they destroyed the JEM camp and killed 350 terrorists claiming their ‘surgical strike stage 2’.
Pakistan’s stance like ever before is clear and calculated and has offered all International and local journalists to visit the site area and see it by their selves that except few trees nothing was damaged. On Monday, DG ISPR had said, “Pakistan Armed Forces are fully prepared for a befitting response to any Indian aggression or misadventure”.
Pakistani political and military leadership has always repeatedly emphasized on peace and not war. Post-Pulwama incident followed by the Indian military threats created tensions between the two nuclear rivals. The Prime Minister of Pakistan repeatedly said that to initiate a war is easy but it is difficult to control it. Pakistan doesn’t want war in the region, it will only destabilize the region.
India needs to come out of the war hysteria and the war should not be used as an instrument by Indian Government to win the elections. There has always been a pattern when the Indian election approach the tensions between the two nuclear neighbors escalate.
In response to the Indian intrusion in Pakistan and the unprovoked firing on the LOC later Pakistan resorted for self-defense and shot down two Indian air jets and arrested three pilots alive in its territory. Pakistani media has also released the statements and video message of the arrested pilot as an evidence.
The spokesperson of armed forces of Pakistan, Gen Asif Ghafoor in his press briefing presented a calculated and clear stance of Pakistan that we want peace not war and we still offer India to have talks but still if they don’t want peace and resort to use violence then the Armed Forces are completely ready and prepared to retaliate.
In this era of social media, war like situation gives rise to so many self-proclaimed keyboard warriors and analysts and the media has a very responsible position of covering the events. Pakistan’s media has been quite responsible in its coverage and portrayed peace journalism on other hand Indian media is lacking the facts and advocating war. Indian media had previously denied the Pakistani claims yet they themselves have no evidence of the 350 terrorists killed by them or the F-16 jet shot down by Indian forces while the DG ISPR confirmed that no F-16s were used in this whole operation.
This is the high time for the International community to wake up and act responsibly. The world is staying neutral and observing the situation in the South Asia from the backstage right now. Since few warmongers realize that “One doesn’t make money from a healthy or a dead person but one make money from a sick person” similar is the case in war situation. Those advocating war for their own economic interests need to realize that this is no more a bilateral issue considering the nuclear capabilities of the two rivals, every region of the world would be affected by the aftermaths of war in the form of nuclear winter. United Nations, US, Russia and China are the key players in the whole scenario and need to have a firm stance over the issue for maintaining peace and stability in the region as well as all around the globe.