A Playground of Iraq

I take my children to the park everyday. The air is fresh, with the soft light of the winters playing on the little children’s happy cheeks as they swing, slide and see-saw. The dust is kicking up a haze as the bigger children play football. And the women are eagerly having a chat on the benches after a day’s work.

It comes to my mind the documentary of Michael Moore he made on Iraq. It begins filming a similar scene in Iraq, before it was invaded in 2003, with the following somewhat words running in the commentary, “This is the country that was posing a danger to the world…”

The blast of war follows. Missiles are demolishing buildings, turning homes into ruins and making people homeless and screaming “Allah’o Akbar, Allah’o Akbar…what are they doing to us?”

Now lately, an international magazine has also had a shift of mind. It stated that the most dangerous country in the world is not Iraq, but Pakistan…

What does it mean? Has the war become bored of Afghanistan and then Iraq? Is the war-of-terror coming home now? Well, why shouldn’t it? It was the prediction of one fore-sighted analyst when Afghanistan was invaded back in 2001 in the first place. But it was also the prediction of our Prophet SAW by the following Hadith,

Narrated Thawban,
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “The people will soon summon one another to attack you as people invite one another to share food”. Someone asked: “Will that be because of our small numbers at that time?” He replied: “No, you will be numerous at that time, but you will be scum and rubbish like that carried down by a torrent, and Allah will take fear of you from the breasts of your enemy and last enervation into your hearts”. Someone asked: “What is Wahn (Enervation), Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him)?” He replied, “Love of the world and dislike of death”.
[Sunan Abu Dawood, No. 2015]

It is this fear of losing our worldly comforts that we are used to and avoiding death that we do not have the courage to stop the drone attacks that are simply and brutally killing our citizens in our very land not to mention the violation of our sovereignty.

The Chief-of-Air-Staff said so a few months back in an speech on TV,

“We have the power to shoot down the drones that are crossing our borders. However, is the nation ready to bear the consequences if we do so?”

Allah SWT knows better what the consequences would be. Perhaps, our courage will be rewarded by Allah SWT and we will remain safe as Iran stands safe today despite its refusal to foreign dictation, or we may be invaded like Iraq in reaction.

The answer to the Chief-of-Air-Staff is, ‘No sir, we are not ready if the consequence is the second option…’

However, we will have no choice, whether ready or not, when the drones reach our safe homes in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. For then, it will not be a trial inflicted by foreign invaders but Allah SWT’s punishment at the hands of foreign invaders for us being selfish and saving our skin while our nationals were droned and we said ‘What can we do? We are helpless…’, while in truth, we were not so helpless.

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