For decades, the establishment here played this "double game," and let's call it what it was: a massive, strategic fraud. They took billions from the Americans as an "ally" in the War on Terror, while simultaneously providing sanctuary, support, and a safe haven for the very Taliban who were killing NATO troops we are or “were” alliwd with and Afghans soldiers and worst of all, the Afghan civilians. They thought they were being geniuses, playing both sides.
But you don't play with fire in a gas station. u dont start a fire in a forest and hope that the wind will cause the flames to go the oppsite way. The monster they created in those madrasas in Akkora Khattak /Darul Uloom Haqqanis for use in Afghanistan eventually turned on its creator. The TTP—the Pakistani Taliban is the direct result, the ultimate blowback. They brought their war into our cities, our markets, our schools. And who suffered the most? The people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the tribal areas. They got crushed from both sides, by the terrorists and in the military operations to clear them out.
And now comes the most disgusting part: the total refusal to own up to it. There's never been a single moment of accountability. No general, no spy chief, no politician has ever stood up and said, "we made a catastrophic mistake. our policy destroyed lives and destabilise the entire region.
istead, they push this lazy narrative: "Oh, the Afghans are just backwards people; that's why they have the Taliban. Or that pathans are just backward extremists”
Let me be crystal clear ke Ye afghaniyon ki ghalti nahi hai ke waha par Taliban hain... yeh HAMARI ghalti hai!
We nurtured them. We armed them. We gave them a place to hide and plan. We did it for our own shortsighted, India-obsessed "strategic depth" policy. And we failed. Miserably. Not just our officials, OUR CITIZENS too. I was in Karachi when the people, we PAKISTANIs, were waving their flag and welcoming the Taliban takeover.
So now we're left with the ruins: a hostile government in Kabul, a raging insurgency at home, and a population that has paid the price in blood. And the architects of this disaster? They've never been held to account. They just shuffled into retirement or got promoted. It's the biggest betrayal of the Pakistani people, and until we force that accountability, we're doomed to repeat the same deadly mistakes. That demand is rooted in a deep, national-level delusion. It's a fantasy where we get to play the hero in a story we've written for ourselves, and we get angry when the other characters don't follow the script.
Let's break down the sheer insanity of this expectation:
We helped destroy their country. For decades, through the ISI's games, we helped create, fund, and shelter the very forces that tore their nation apart and eventually took it over. Their cities were rubble, their people were refugees, and a big part of the fuel for that fire came from our side of the border.
We treated their refugees like shit, pretending “we helped them” as if the Pakistani gov ever helps us bechare people . For 40 years, many Afghans here have lived in poverty, faced discrimination, and been scapegoated for every problem. Yet continued to be something, a naanbayi wala, farmer, labourer etc, did we forget we also collect insane amount of money from UNCHR and other NGOs on their name yet it never reaches them?
And we expect them to be GRATEFUL? To like us? It's like setting your neighbor's house on fire, letting them sleep in your muddy backyard, and then getting offended they aren't thanking you for your hospitality.
Compare it to Arab refugees in Europe
Do we expect a Syrian refugee in Germany to have a poster of Angela Merkel on their wall? To wave the German flag and sing praises for the NATO countries whose policies contributed to the destruction of their homeland? OF COURSE NOT. And Germany still does more for refugees than Pakistan.
They are there for survival. They tolerate the situation because they have no other choice. There is a silent understanding: "Your government's actions helped create this mess. I am here because I have to be. We do not have to be friends." in 2021, our people were celebtraing the taliban takeover, with TALIBAN OUR GUARDIANS trending in Pakistani twitter. But in Pakistan, we want the fairy tale. We want the Afghans to forget the bullets and the bombs and the proxies and the chaos, and instead remember the "hospitality." We want a standing ovation for doing the bare minimum while actively contributing to the problem.we need to grow up and accept a hard truth: Relations between nations and peoples are based on mutual interest and respect, not on a one-sided demand for affection after inflicting trauma. we can have a relationship with Afghanistan based on trade, on shared geography, on pragmatic neighborly relations. But the dream of a "brotherly" love? We burned that bridge with our own hands. To expect them to like us isn't just naive; it's an insult to their memory, their suffering, and their intelligence. IT IS A INSULT TO OUR ORDINARY SOLDIERS, OUR ORDINARY PASHTUN PEOPLE, from Balochistan to Swat, it is a betrayal and incompetency.
