On the night of 9/11, General Musharraf tried to escape from America’s anger, and thus its attack, but five years have passed, and America is still angry, and it has attacked—this time not on civilians, but on the Pakistani Army. This attack is a symbolic reprimand—symbolic of attacks yet to come, and a reprimand to “slaves” of their un-slave-like behaviour. But America has not stopped at that: it has clearly stated that it has various areas of Balochistan under target, and that the next attack will be after their entering Balochistan. As a response to this, we did nothing but host a “protest” diplomatic breakfast for the American and British ambassadors.

After that, even more dangerous news started to reach us: America deciding to lessen its aid to Pakistan. America bringing up Dr Abdul Qadeer’s case again. America making laws concerning nuclear weapons, which would especially target Pakistan—and at any stage ask us to “hand over” Dr Abdul Qadeer. Then came that threatening statement from US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Nicholas Burns.

And after that began “realizations” in Pakistan—those who could see nothing for five years, now began seeing everything. They could now see the attack on Iran, believe in the attack on Pakistan, they could even see a clash of civilizations! Hamid Mir is an eminent writer here; in a recent column he threatens America that Northern and Southern Waziristan will become Iraq for it…wonderful…but what will happen in our mainland? Will we keep playing games? But what if, in the next stage, America invents Taliban and Al-Qaida in Karachi and Lahore? But that is a digression.

The truth is that our beloved country is once again in danger, so much so that even children are aware of the threats that were already there. But the most regretful thing is that we wasted five years in this game.

When Friday Special was calling attention to General Musharraf’s insufficient, defective policies against our own country, pseudo-intellectuals would say that this is extremism and lack of knowledge, understanding and analysis. And now they are all saying what we had been saying for five years. Is it then, Friday Special’s fault that all this is happening? We can now understand how sight can become a “crime” in society, and how people can celebrate sightlessness. But when will they learn to confess such great crimes? Celebration of our disabilities has indeed destroyed us as a country and as a nation. We should thank Allah for the role that Friday Special has played in this time.

If we look at it, what is it that we could not have done in five years? We had time to warn the nation of the real dangers. But we stubbornly insisted on giving them addictive essays, speeches, columns, and advice. We could have prepared the nation for a challenge, but we kept on cutting their hands and feet. We could have persuaded the nation to unite to fight present situations, but we insisted on dispersing them. We could have brought the nation to unite around the true leaders, but we kept work on our artificial “poultry farms”. And now we face a huge challenge. The country’s independence and security is at stake. General Pervez would avoid religious feelings, but now only that feeling can save us. Indeed, Muslims never saved Islam; Islam