Studies in Conflict and Terrorism The Terror Speaks: Inside Pakistan's Terrorism Discourse and National Action Plan

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STUDIES IN CONFLICT & TERRORISM 2018, VOL. 41, NO. 4, 319–337 https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2017.1284448

The Terror Speaks: Inside Pakistan’s Terrorism Discourse and National Action Plan Pamir H. Sahill Jan Masaryk Centre for International Studies, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic

ABSTRACT

ARTICLE HISTORY

This article, employing a poststructuralist Critical Discourse Analysis, reveals cracks, discrepancies, and inconsistencies in Pakistan’s discourse on terrorism and practice. I argue that Pakistan continuously constructs a “monstrous enemy” and magnifies it in a way that conceals alternative representations of reality that could show that the state, by presenting itself as a victim of terrorism, is using phenomena of political violence to serve its political objectives inside and outside the boundaries of the state. The article argues that after a militant attack on a school in northwest Pakistan, critical, liberal, and dissenting narratives mingled with the dominant state discourse in a fashion that strengthen illiberal practices in the country, thus undermining the ideals of democracy.

Received 15 October 2016 Accepted 16 January 2017

In mid-June 2014, Pakistan launched the much-awaited1 offensive against militants in the North Waziristan district of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).2 The military said that the officially called Zarb-e-Azb3 operation was “against foreign and local terrorists hiding in sanctuaries in North Waziristan.”4 Although secular political forces in Pakistan supported Zarb-e-Azb, some right-wing and religious political parties—most importantly, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)—were opposed to it, insisting that negotiations were the only way to bring peace in Pakistan. On 16 December 2014, a group of militants attacked the Army Public School (APS) in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing more than 140 students and school staff. The attack was dubbed as the 9/11 of Pakistan,5 soon after which the government, almost all prominent political parties, and the military approved a 20-point National Action Plan (NAP; for details see Appendix) to fight extremism and terrorism. In a way, it was similar to the post-9/11 period in the United States where both the government and the opposition passed the PATRIOT Act and vowed to fight terror globally. The APS attack was significant as it brought all the political parties together against terrorism. That way, for the first time since 2001, all dissenting and critical voices regarding state policies and terrorism either amalgamated with the dominant discourse or if any were left, they were suppressed by contrasting the “innocence” of the schoolchildren with the “evilness” of the Taliban and threats the group was posing to the very existence of Pakistan. In January 2015, the parliament, the government and the military announced full implementation of the

CONTACT Pamir H. Sahill [email protected] Jan Masaryk Centre for International Studies, University of Economics, W. Churchill Sq. 1938/4, 130 67 Prague, Czech Republic. © 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

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NAP, exemplifying a situation where the anti-Taliban secular and liberal as well as those who were accused to be pro-Taliban in the past6 were standing together against terror. Throughout the year, both the Pakistani government and the military issued statements reiterating that they had succeeded in their fight against terrorism. By the end of 2015, a suicide attack on a government building in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Mardan district killed more than 20 people7 and then on 20 January 2016, a group of militants attacked the Bacha Khan University8 in the northwest town of Charsadda, which was followed by a suicide bombing on a gathering of Christian families celebrating Easter at a park in the eastern Lahore city,9 contradicting and disproving Pakistan’s official claims of triumph in the “War on Terror.”10 Pakistani senate, thinkers, analysts, some politicians, and international media raised questions regarding official claims criticizing both the government and the military for failing to implement NAP,11 arguing if after launching a massive military campaign in FATA and as a result of formulating the NAP, the “terrorists” were “defeated,” how could they still be able to launch attacks that were similar to that of the APS? They noted that the NAP has failed to end terrorist attacks in Pakistan.12 Internationally, U.S. president Barack Obama maintained that NAP was “the right policy” but urged Pakistan to take actions to show “it is serious about delegitimizing, disrupting and dismantling terrorist networks.”13 Such analyses of the “terror problem” in Pakistan are not new and debates have continued for many years pinpointing shortcomings in Islamabad’s strategies aimed at solving the problem. This article, however, does not aspire to extend those debates or discussions in the same way, that is to say, it does not offer any problem-solving approach regarding terrorism in Pakistan. Rather, it questions Pakistan’s discourse and practice vis-a-vis terrorism. Put differently, this article asks three equally important questions: 1. How the APS attack served as a precedent to formulate a unified discourse on terrorism in the form of NAP? 2. How the post-NAP Pakistani discourse on terrorism can be interpreted in an alternative and critical context? and, 3. What are the consequences of such discourse (and practice)? I argue that Pakistan’s antiterror discourse not only offers an amplification of the representations of realities but also serves as a legitimacy-cover for its national and international political objectives. That is to say, by presenting the state as a terrorism victim, showing the “monstrous” face of terrorism playing havoc with the lives of “innocent schoolchildren,” the dominant discourse and practice in Pakistan conceal and veil alternative understandings of the political violence that the state unleashes either through coercive technologies of power or through disciplinary power mechanisms and tools like the NAP. By employing poststructuralist Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this article unpacks the dominant discourse on terrorism and reveals its cracks, inconsistencies, and limitations and offers an alternative approach to how the state, using the logic of (in)security, has shrunk the liberal space and how the policies and laws the state has adopted carry a form of inherent political violence akin to the violence perpetrated by the militant groups—aspects that were not efficiently analyzed before. In this article, first, I provide a sketch of the theoretical and methodological framework and delineate the method of delimiting texts and data collection in a specified timeframe. Second, since discourses are historical, that is to say, they ought to be understood in context, I present a summary of post-NAP discourse (and practice) in Pakistan. Third, in the main

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analytical section, I first unpack terrorism discourse in Pakistan in a broad, alternative context, arguing that after the APS attack the state constructed and magnified its “monstrous enemy.” After that, the article shows how discourse on terrorism in Pakistan carries a paradox within itself as the acts of violence in the country are not victimizing the state as a whole but are discriminatory. Through poststructuralist theoretical analysis aided by data or empirical evidence, one of the core arguments of the article is constructed: how, by presenting the “monstrous” face of terror, an inherent discursive and practical terror of state “speaks.” Finally, I argue, the state is using the terrorism discourse to achieve its political goals by attaching a cause/effect equation to them.

The Holy Trinity: Poststructuralism, CDA, and Method Poststructuralist CDA is chosen to look inside Pakistan’s terrorism discourse because the government’s problem-solving strategy envisioned through NAP and its endorsement and support by the international community, particularly the United States, is problematic as it has cause and effect connotations and moves the debate away from what is at the heart of the discourse on terrorism. Poststructuralist CDA: Theoretical and Methodological Frame A major problem with liberal—or broadly speaking, the rationalist—frameworks is that they adopt a reductionist approach while analyzing a phenomenon and do not pay attention to details as these approaches in International Relations (IR) adhere to foundationalist and essentialist traditions. Cox had rightly pointed out that problem-solving theory “takes the world as it finds it, with the prevailing social and power relationships and the institutions into which they are organized … as the given framework for action”14; however, a critical or alternative approach questions the world and phenomena, and tries to understand and explain social and political power relations, the institutions, and their behavior. Poststructuralism follows an anti-essentialist ontology and anti-foundationalist epistemology and in contrast to positivists who assume the existence of social reality, poststructuralism “denies the possible existence of a valid and given ‘truth’ about the world.”15 Rejection of “given truth” about the social and political world, however, does not equate with negation of materiality of the world because in that case it will be an idealist—not a poststructuralist—assumption. To illustrate, Laclau and Mouffe’s famous and widley quoted example suits well here: An earthquake or the falling of a brick is an event that certainly exists, in the sense that it occurs here and now, independently of my will. But whether their specificity as objects is constructed in terms of “natural phenomena” or “expressions of the wrath of God,” depends upon the structuring of a discursive field. What is denied is not that such objects exist externally to thought, but the rather different assertion that they could constitute themselves as objects outside any discursive condition of emergence.16

Anti-essentialist ontology rejects the notion that “things” and the social or political world have true or real essences within. It rather suggests that “the ‘whatness’ of any given entity is socially constructed”17 thus objects, subjects, states, institutions, and entities are given meaning and are also “endowed with a particular identity” through language.18 Furthermore, by

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employing anti-foundationalist epistemology, poststructuralists problematize and question “the possibility of building knowledge on, or around, apparently permanent categories or essences” that leads to the subversion of essence and meaning. That is how and when: Political analysis becomes a question of examining the unevenness, and the relative permanence, of certain ensembles of meaning. According to an anti-foundationalism perspective, there are no foundations to rely upon for an understanding of the world. Thus socio-political phenomena have to be understood by looking at the way in which actors, objects, and politics are constructed within a discourse.19

In poststructuralist analysis of the discursively constructed social and political world, the interplay of power relations becomes vivid thereby opening up new horizons to identify cracks and contradictions within states, political institutions, identities, and discourses.20 That said, instead of reduction or superficiality, poststructuralism aspires to evolve a limitlessly broad, and at the same time a micro-level careful study and understanding of international politics. Since it is discourse through which the political world is constituted, therefore, I find CDA a suitable methodological tool to look into the “problem” of “terrorism” in Pakistan. Although a bulk of literature is available on it as a methodological and even a theoretical framework,21 CDA, informed by poststructuralism, is not a widely used methodological tool in the discipline of IR; therefore, it is important to provide a brief introduction to it, along with arguments for its utilization for this article. Precisely, CDA is a critical way of doing scholarship where “structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control as manifested through language” are analyzed.22 van Dijk has a similar argument, adding that CDA is “discourse analysis with an attitude” that “focuses on social problems, especially on the role of discourse in the production and reproduction of power abuse or domination”23 and it plays “an advocatory role for groups who suffer from social discrimination,”24 which is to say, it is not only emancipatory but in a poststructuralist sense, serves as a methodological toolkit to understand and explain domination of a discourse and its power effects.25 Poststructuralist CDA, as compared to other discourse analysis strategies—like content analysis—is better because the former is a “text-reducing”26 strategy while in the latter long texts are needed and quoted for analysis27—which is not suitable for journal articles, where sometimes word-limit can be a barrier, thus leaving little room for theory-driven analysis. Other methods of discourse analysis, for example, Foucault’s archaeology28 involves archival discourse analysis that is suitable for a study of a period that involves extended timeframes or a huge bulk of literature. The same is the case with genealogy,29 which is necessarily an extension of archaeology involving power relations.30 That said, in order to critically assess Pakistan’s discourse on terrorism, CDA therefore, is an appropriate methodological approach that equips this article to efficiently provide answers for research questions. The prerequisite for conducting such an analysis is what Neumann calls “cultural competence”; however, he argues against naturalizing (i.e., “not to ‘become’ part of the universe studied”) because that is when the researcher becomes “home blind” and does not pay attention to the detail.31 Keeping in view that precondition, it is argued that I have what Neumann terms “competitive advantage” because I have lived and worked in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and understand and speak many of the languages of both countries. In order to conduct a poststructuralist CDA, it is important to incorporate a specific pathway or method to connect “the empirical with the theoretical field.”32

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Method: Timeframe, Text Selection, and Delimitation To begin with CDA, it was necessary to choose a timeframe and delimit texts suiting the scope of this article. Although the Pakistani government started implementing the NAP in January 2015, the timeframe selected here begins from mid-June 2014 because that is what marked the initial shift in Pakistan’s official discourse on terrorism when— after repeated calls by the U.S. administration and the collapse of talks with the domestic Taliban militants—the Pakistani army launched an offensive in the North Waziristan tribal district that was known as the stronghold of Al Qaeda–linked militants, Pakistani Taliban, and the Haqqani Network. The Haqqani Network is blamed for carrying out multiple coordinated attacks inside Afghanistan.33 In addition, the Zarb-e-Azb military operation in Waziristan has a link with NAP because the latter provides legitimacy to the former. Therefore, the timeframe chosen for this article begins mid-June 2014 and continues through June 2016. The criterion for selection of texts for this article is Hansen’s Model 2 of discourse analysis. She explains three34 intertextuality models concerning discourse analysis, among which Model 2—in addition to official or government discourse—includes texts, statements, and narratives of opposition, media, and institutions.35 This means that texts selected according to this model enable this article to show how official, opposition, and liberal political discourses vis-a-vis terrorism in Pakistan unified after the APS attack and as a consequence how the power of the newly shaped, unified, dominant discourse helps Pakistan achieve its political objectives and in what way liberal democratic ideals are undermined. A variety of texts were selected to not only comply with the requirement for Hansen’s Model 2 but also to delineate the complex nature of dominant official discourse in Pakistan, to reveal its cracks and to show paradox in the narratives of some liberal political parties and experts. Nevertheless, in Pakistan the source of official discourse on terrorism is not the federal government alone. Due to its complex historical context,36 it is sometimes difficult to locate the main source of official discourse, especially when it comes to national security and/or foreign policy. Constitutionally, Pakistan is a parliamentary democracy, which means that the executive headed by the prime minister is answerable to the legislature. The bicameral parliament not only makes new laws but amends existing laws and the constitution. It is responsible to oversee government policies and to question the executive whether it is implementing laws or not. Precisely, the constitution of Pakistan makes the parliament supreme organ of the state.37 In this case, for an analysis of the official discourse, one should select and delimit texts from two sources (i.e., the parliament and the executive). However, when it comes to Pakistan, parliamentary supremacy and an elected executive running affairs of the state is true only in theory. In practice, the state of affairs in Pakistan is very complex as it is the military that plays a major role in making (and implementing) national security and foreign policies. Fair—based on textual and contextual analysis of defense journals and literature— provides a detailed account of military’s decision-making role in Pakistan arguing that it is the driving force behind shaping ideas and thoughts of the population.38 In other words, the military in Pakistan is an important institution in shaping and reshaping dominant state discourse. In addition, for drawing plausible conclusions, it is important to understand what the dominant discourse in a society is and how official and dominant discourse circulates widely through society because a discourse is considered dominant, only if it is presented as “truth” to the population by propagating it throughout the society exactly in the same way as blood

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flows and circulates via arteries and veins in the entire body.39 In other words, “truth is centered on the form of scientific discourse and the institutions which produce it” and it is “subject to constant economic and political incitement,” which means that there is always demand for truth, exactly in the same way as economic production. The “truth” produced through the discourse of various state institutions, circulates throughout the social body via educational system(s) and media. Furthermore, the state-sanctioned truth is always produced and transmitted under control.40 That said, for grasping a whole picture of discourse on terrorism in Pakistan, it was necessary to choose an array of texts as primary and secondary sources to first understand the complex dominancy of discourse on terrorism and then to delineate its consequences. In doing so, a thorough reading and examination of more than 400 texts, within the timeframe between June 2014 and June 2016, was conducted. The texts comprise of, first, all the press statements and press briefings of the Pakistani military’s Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR)41; second, the transcripts of six consecutive National Assembly (NA)42 post-APS attack debate sessions that included legislations and the twenty-first constitutional amendment43; third, press releases, policy statements, and transcripts of the speeches issued by the Prime Minister’s Office44 (PMO); fourth, official press releases and statements of various opposition political parties—all serving as primary sources; and finally, media reports, television (TV), and radio debates and opinion articles by Pakistani and international journalists, experts, and politicians were selected as secondary sources, thus fulfilling Hansen’s criterion for Model 2 of discourse analysis. I physically read, selected, and delimited the texts from the aforementioned sources. Since in Pakistan Internet penetration is low, and most people watch TV, listen to radio, and read Urdu newspapers, therefore to address research problem(s), all texts selected from the primary sources were reviewed, delimited, and crosschecked to ascertain if they were given proper coverage in the news transmission of three major TV channels (i.e., Geo News, Dunya News, and Express News),45 two main international radio stations (Radio Mashaal and Deewa Radio),46 and three Urdu newspapers (Daily Jang, Daily Mashriq, and Daily Express).47 For this purpose, texts concerning with NAP or terrorism were taken from, for example, PMO, ISPR, or NA websites and then media sources were checked to determine if those texts appeared there or otherwise. I did this in three ways and steps. First, I selected two prime-time news hours (6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. local time) from the Geo News and Dunya News TV channels and observed if a selected text was included in the bulletin as short news, long news, a news report, or if main points from the selected text were presented as news tickers48 or not. The same text was then checked in Express News TV’s news hour to observe the extent of coverage. Second, I looked for texts in the e-paper editions of cited Urdu newspapers. Finally, since most of the political violence in Pakistan took place in the Pashtun-dominated northwest part of the and the military operations were confined to FATA, it was therefore important to establish whether the texts analyzed in this article were broadcast through the two international radio stations for Pashtun areas. Any text— whether from the government, military, or opposition—that did not fulfill the illustrated mechanism or criterion was omitted. Furthermore, for the view of opposition leaders and analysts, some of the TV and radio debates and newspaper articles were used, which were directly related to the scope of this article. Some of the English media sources were only used, first, to assess and analyze the views and narratives of liberal and opposition politicians and analysts; second, to save time in translating all Urdu or Pashto material; and finally, because most of the

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texts available on official Web portals are in English and are directly cited and quoted in the English newspapers’ stories. Having said that, the websites cited in this article as primary sources like PMO, ISPR, transcripts of NA sessions, and political parties’ statements as well as secondary sources like international media sources, experts’ opinion articles and TV and radio debates serve as repositories of information and for replicability purposes. During the final phase of validating findings and making the analysis credible and academically strong, I used two online data sets on political violence in Pakistan and South Asia, as secondary sources.

“The Terror Speaks”49: Post-NAP Discourse, Dichotomy, and Consequences The APS attack changed the stance of various religious and nonreligious political parties regarding terrorism in Pakistan. The parties include Jamaat e Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-eIslam (JUI-F), and PTI. All of them previously sought reconciliation with the TTP50 and were reluctant to condemn its acts but after a school attack, they agreed to take firm measures against it. Other prominent political parties like Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), Awami National Party (ANP), and Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP), who had for years remained critical of the state policies regarding extremism and militancy, joined hands with the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N)-led federal government by showing their full support to combat terrorism.51 In analyzing texts, I found out that despite attacks similar to that of the APS, the government, military, and opposition political parties as well as a majority of the Pakistani security experts still believe that NAP is a comprehensive strategy to deal with the problem of terrorism. In this regard, the Pakistani government, the political forces in the opposition, and many of the journalists and experts argue that in order to succeed in its fight against extremism and terrorism, Islamabad has to fully implement NAP.52 Pakistani Members of the Parliament (MPs) representing various political parties also think that the military should be allowed to “use all necessary means” to root out terrorism in “all its forms and manifestations,” which is why NA approved and adopted the Pakistan Army Act (2015) and the 21st Constitutional Amendment with consensus.53 Moreover, during the post-APS attack NA debate sessions, a majority of the politicians acknowledged that since the 1980s, Pakistan had supported various Afghan militant groups in their fight against the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the same policy continues to this day. The government and an overwhelming majority of Pakistani MPs believe that peace in Pakistan is only possible when Afghanistan is stable, which is in the “best interest” of Pakistan.54 In 2015, the Pakistani prime minister, president, army chief, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and two Pashtun nationalist political parties—ANP and PMAP—kept reiterating this statement. While both ANP and PMAP still accuse Islamabad of meddling in Afghanistan’s affairs by supporting the “good Taliban,55 they also stress that if Afghanistan is unstable, Pakistan too cannot get rid of militancy. They argue that political violence and instability in Pakistan are a consequence of Islamabad’s Afghan policy. The government, opposition, and experts in Pakistan as well as media reports suggest that that the Taliban and other militant groups funded, trained, and supported by the Pakistani governments, military, and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, have turned into a “Frankenstein’s Monster” that is now after its master.56 After adopting NAP and acknowledging the mistakes of the past, both the federal government and the military restated that they were not distinguishing between “good and bad Taliban”

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and that they were facilitating Kabul’s reconciliation process with the Afghan Taliban; statements that enriched Pakistani discourse on terrorism. To show that it was serious in taking measures against militant groups, throughout 2015, Pakistan army continued issuing press releases claiming killing of “terrorists” and sentencing militants to death after “trials” in the military courts. In December 2015, the army claimed to have killed 3,400 militants in the ongoing offensive57 in North Waziristan and Khyber districts of FATA. The military boasted to have achieved “phenomenal successes” in breaking the “backbone of the terrorists.”58 Despite being the first-ever unanimously approved broad antiterror strategy, I argue that the discourse on terrorism in Pakistan is flawed, perplexed, and inundated with discrepancies. The post-APS discourse on terrorism is dominant in a way that not only veils dissenting voices but also undermines aspirations for liberal democratic apparatus of the state. Like all previous antiterror policies, the NAP has also not proved to be effective yet in bringing about desired results. In fact, after every attack, critics show their discontent with the measures taken by the state and in response the state vows to deal with the terrorists with full determination and boasts of successes until another attack happens and this continues. Critics and the politicians of the left-wing and nationalist political parties fail to question the state’s behavior and its dominant discourse vis-a-vis terrorism. The power of dominant discourse and has also concealed the consequences and many political objectives that the state wants to achieve under the guise of tackling terrorism. To elucidate this point, it is important to look into Pakistan’s discourse and practice regarding terrorism through an alternative, contextual, and conceptual prism of analysis. Foucault argues that discourses are historical and create knowledge that is intertwined with power. In other words, discourses are historical and they transmit power.59 Power and knowledge are entwined and connected to a degree that “there is no point in dreaming of a time when knowledge will cease to depend on power”60 and vice versa. The power/ knowledge nexus operates in a way that determines “dominant categories of ‘truth’ and normality through an exclusion of other voices and perspectives. The contemporary discourse on terrorism functions in a similar way … prohibiting any dissenting voices from emerging”61 and even if voices emerge, they mostly deviate from the core theme of understanding extremist and terrorist phenomena and/or adhere to an attitude that boasts of itself as being normative, humanitarianly problem solving, trying to show the “evil” of terrorism that leaves people in a dire predicament and so on. Such voices or analyses take terrorism as it is, they accept terrorism as an “evil” reality that “implies in advance its own moral condemnation”62 without questioning or critically examining it and seeing the cracks, limitations, and the phenomena that are concealed through the dominant discourse. In the same way, the APS attack led the Pakistani state and society to raise a united voice against terrorism and diminish all micro, opposing, or dissenting narratives that questioned the state and its inability to defeat terrorism for more than a decade despite repeated claims to the contrary. The state, benefiting from this antiterror sentiment, approved and adopted NAP, pledging to implement it—which, however, is a form of violence itself that is, as Newman argues, similar to the violence exhibited through acts of terrorism and that is “difficult to separate” from the violence “codified in laws, institutions and the sovereign power of the state.” He argues, “if terrorism is to be defined by a form of violence designed to inspire fear, then one can of course speak equally about state terrorism as one can about non-state terrorism.”63 Thus, NAP represents legalization of the coercive power that the state uses against its enemies. To further illustrate, Newman

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employs Lefort’s analysis of post-Revolution France,64 which is suitable in the case of Pakistan as well to assign broad meaning to its discourse and practice under NAP. Lefort says, in the early 1790s, Robespierre and Saint Just—two prominent figures of the Public Safety Committee—addressed the Convention in an effort to justify their use of state terrorism to save the Republic that was being constituted on the principles of “total destruction” of anyone and everything that stood against it. Saint-Just and the committee he represented, instilled fear in people—thus becoming terrorists and calling themselves terrorists. He claimed that they are moderates and better than previous regimes and that the kings were crueler than them. Thus, in order to make the Republic stand firm on its foundations and eliminate its opponents, the use of terror was justified and it was “merely a counter-terror which is temporary and, ultimately, quite moderate”; however, despite that the Convention was skeptical of it and needed to be convinced. That is why when Saint-Just delivered his speech, his discourse on terrorism served terror as it “must be shown” and it also implied that such terror was “well founded.” Such debate on terror in the Convention, Lefort argues, created “a new political space, and [gave] substance to what was no more than an attribute of arbitrary power” and this is the time when “terror speaks,” it is “sanctioned,” and is “set free” after which it becomes “impossible to assign it a master.”65 The “legally” unleashed terror, Newman argues, finds and constructs “enemies of the Republic and more insidious plots against the Revolution … to put off the traumatic realization of the ambiguity of its own foundations.”66 In the same fashion, after the APS attack, Pakistan discursively constructed an “evil enemy” and dehumanized it. The NA debates show what APS attack represented was a “wicked,” “inhuman,” “monstrous,” and “evil” act that took lives of “innocent schoolchildren.” TTP, which took responsibility for the attack, was presented as an “enemy” that grew large as a result of the state policies in the past and was now threatening the base, the very foundation of the state.67 Pakistan had previously also presented TTP as an anti-state militant organization, but at the same time differentiated it from groups launching attacks in Afghanistan. In its new antiterror discourse however, Islamabad termed the enemies of Afghanistan as the enemies of Pakistan (i.e., there is no distinction between “good and bad” militants), which is significant because, it not only spatio-temporally magnifies the “enemy” but also is indicative of two important discursive constructions. First, it shows that the state is acknowledging the narrative of “Frankenstein’s Monster,” which is exploiting Afghanistan’s instability by having bases there to launch attacks in Pakistan thus making it a victim of terrorism. Second, it reinforces the causality that Afghan peace is a prerequisite for stability in Pakistan. In fact, both arguments are constructed in a way that they hide some very important phenomena. For example, if it is accepted that the militant groups have taken the form of a “Monster” that is now targeting its own “Master,” then it is equally important to look into how the Master is being targeted and what is the Monster’s course of action vis-a-vis Pakistan and Afghanistan. The study of discourse on terrorism in Pakistan reveals a completely different representation of the realities than what the political and military elite offer. Since 2001, an overwhelming majority of the attacks have taken place in FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. If I only take suicide bombings into account, more than 460 attacks have taken place in Pakistan since 2001. Among them, 344 attacks were launched in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, FATA, and in Baluchistan.68 The majority of the attacks in Sindh were carried out in Pashtun-dominated areas of Karachi and in the areas of Baluchistan where ethnic Pashtuns or Shia Hazaras

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live.69 Data shows, even if militants have targeted areas in Punjab province, most of the victims were Pashtuns, religious minorities, and people belonging to the lower-middle class.70 If I look at the statistics from another angle, that is, if the number of victims in all attacks in Pakistan is seen, it shows that more than 20,000 civilians have been killed from 2003 to 2016, majority of them Pashtuns or religious minorities. In the same period, more than 6,000 security personnel—predominantly police and Pashtun paramilitary soldiers—were killed in attacks and clashes.71 On the other hand, in more than a decade, militants have— without any exception—attacked the Afghan government and security officials, the international troops, and civilians in the entire country.72 The data reveal that the discursively constructed Pakistani Monster is not targeting its Master (i.e., the state, largely represented by the military, the government, or the ISI); but it does act indiscriminately in Afghanistan. It means that on the level of discourse the Monster/Master is a dichotomous binary but in practice, it is not as the Monster knows who to target and how to do that. It is a fact that the Monster has previously attacked the military General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, the Naval Base in Karachi and has massacred schoolchildren in Peshawar, but such attacks, I argue, also help the state achieve political objectives other than defeating terrorism. First, such attacks serve as a means to reconstruct enemies of the state to provide foundations and meaning whenever the terror discourse blurs. Second, when an enemy is constructed, the state masks its failures and inner contradictions by violently exercising its power, portraying that it is taking revenge and that it is serious in eliminating terrorism. Such power, in Foucauldian terms, can be either coercive (e.g., military offensives) or disciplinary like formulating new laws or policies. Third, the state employs narratives of fear, insecurity, and threatened sovereignty and justifies its own violence and atrocities of the past, present, and future through new legal frameworks—that is what Pakistan did in the form of NAP after the APS attack. Fourth, by depicting itself as a victim of terrorism and by presenting big numbers of lost lives and property, the state attracts international sympathy and finances and at the same time by locating the source of threat beyond its borders; strengthen narratives like the instability of Afghanistan have drastic consequences for Pakistan. Finally, the state discourse becomes powerful enough, so that it not only gains support of the society but also veils some very important phenomena. For example, since state discourse legitimizes the use of coercive power against the “enemy,” society in general ignores the mass displacement of people in areas where the military carries out strikes and launches offensives. This way, after endowing the government and the military with power and authority, people fail to see that increasing security practice is in fact shrinking the space for individual freedom— something they continuously struggle for. Even liberal scholars and politicians who adhere to discourses on human rights, justice, law, and humanitarianism cannot see the dire predicament of the people in war-torn areas. Instead, as mentioned before, they argue that the military should keep acting forcefully until it eliminates terrorism. The dilemma of liberal, secular, and some nationalist politicians and analysts in Pakistan is their paradoxical discourse. For example, they have been arguing for more than a decade that as a result of faulty policies of interference in Afghanistan, terrorists are playing havoc with the lives of Pakistanis. Despite that, they still expect the same state organs will implement NAP and fight against militants in FATA. Liberals and nationalists demand freedom, democracy, rule of law, justice, and human rights envisaged in the constitution of Pakistan, but act against those ideals. Post-APS NA debates and 20-point NAP are good examples to show how leftist, liberal, and nationalist political parties unanimously agreed on establishing military courts, thus

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undermining existing justice apparatus. They agreed on avenging the death of schoolchildren by continuing military and intelligence operations in Pashtun-dominated areas of Pakistan without questioning the behavior and success stories of the security apparatus and the nature of state violence itself. In order to establish the writ of the state in areas where it was suspended, they gave authority and released funds to the military, thus legally enabling them to violate human rights and provide immunity for such acts of the past.73 In a broad context, the parliament delegated its authority to the military and government in a way that challenged the notion of liberal democracy as a whole. Similarly, liberals and nationalists in Pakistan argue that Islamabad continuously destabilized Afghanistan, but at the same time they reject their own narrative by implying the causality that Afghan peace is foremost and key to peace in Pakistan. In fact, after more than a year of restructuring discourse and adopting NAP with the promise of not distinguishing among terrorist groups, Pakistan continues to use nonstate groups both within its geographical borders and in Afghan and Indian territories to achieve its political goals and to give meaning to its own “terror.” An example is the 2 January 2016 attack on Pathankot Airbase in Indian Punjab, which New Delhi, after initial investigations, said was carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)74 and asked Pakistan to bring its leader Maulana Masood Azhar to justice. Islamabad, however, maintained that it did not find any evidence against Azhar. Similarly, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), headed by Hafiz Saeed, “openly operates in Pakistan” despite it being blacklisted by the United States as a “foreign terrorist organization.”75 India accuses Saeed—who also founded Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)—of masterminding the Mumbai attacks of 2008 and Pakistan rejects the claim. However, Saeed praises the militants who launch attacks in India and called for “more Pathankot-style attacks.”76 Despite being wanted by the United States, Saeed is free to move and hold anti-India rallies in Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Inside Pakistan as well, civil society and some experts have accused Pakistan’s security establishment for supporting the “good” militant groups and using them against Afghanistan and India and targeting only those whom it demonizes as enemies of the state.77

Conclusion This article critically analyzed Pakistan’s discourse on terrorism and the one year of NAP revealing its limitations and paradoxes. The article, employing a poststructuralist theoretical framework, showed how Pakistan reconstructed its post-APS discourse. In the wake of the APS attack, the state succeeded to not only magnify the “enemy” but to also win the sympathy and support of the international community by presenting itself as a victim of terrorism. Pakistan uses the discourse of terrorism to legitimize the exercise of coercive power to suppress any dissenting voices as well as to find a base for the ambiguous foundations of the republic exactly the same way post-Revolution France did in the 1790s. It is argued that the TTP’s behavior is not similar to Frankenstein’s Monster because it is choosing its targets in Pakistan selectively and does not fight the Master (i.e., the state). Also, the argument that the state is not making distinctions between good and bad militants does not possess substance as the state is supportive of the other “Monsters,” which are indiscriminately launching their attacks in Afghanistan and India. In addition, there is no cause–effect equation in place as regards the Pakistani formulation that Afghan peace is key to Pakistan’s stability as it is using nonstate groups to destabilize Afghanistan despite publicly rejecting that it is not, to keep the “monstrous evil” alive because it is politically and financially benefiting from it at the international level.

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The article showed that as a result of dominant discourse, those political and social forces that were critical of the role of the state in the past, seem to ignore that the tightening security apparatus within the country is limiting the freedom and undermining the ideals of democracy. Also, liberal and nationalist political discourses in Pakistan are self-contradictory because liberals and nationalists are supporting state terrorism by seeing NAP as a problemsolving, comprehensive strategy without questioning its increasingly illiberalizing inherent power and without problematizing the notion of Pakistani terrorism itself. The article concludes that Pakistan has continued the use of nonstate militant groups to achieve political goals both nationally and internationally. First, such groups will selectively target Pakistan, thus suppressing any dissenting voices and at the same time giving the state an opportunity to depict itself as a victim of terrorism. Second, since direct aggression is not a normal behavior in the contemporary partially globalized world, therefore, the use of nonstate groups is a better—no matter how Machiavellian—tool for states to achieve political objectives internationally. Finally, the security establishment of Pakistan that constructs and reconstructs the political discourse and makes it dominant through media and a large number of intelligentsia, governs the power/knowledge nexus, which ultimately benefits it to hold a larger share of power and authority. It is, thus, by large, the military—not elected civilian governments or political parties—which is the most popular and trusted state institution. Only a handful of intellectuals or political parties are critical of the security establishment, but the dominant discourse is so compelling and influential that those who criticize the military or the intelligence agencies for their support of the militant groups are also condemned as anti-state. As a result, the security establishment retains full control over foreign and security policies and endows the civilian governments with their share. This kind of relationship must remain symbiotic, because whenever the government tries to take control of the affairs, the military either steps in and takes the reins of power in its hands through a coup d’etat or weakens the government to a level that it complies with all rules of the game. Nevertheless, for the security establishment to remain in control, it must keep giving substance to its foundations. That is why it sets the scene by implying that India, the United States, certain forces in Afghanistan, and within the country, are conspiring against the state through terrorist attacks.

Notes 1. Both the United States and Afghanistan were pressuring Islamabad for years to take action against various militant groups (e.g., Al Qaeda, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan [IMU], and Haqqani Network), who are blamed for many deadly attacks in Afghanistan. 2. FATA are, constitutionally, territories of Pakistan. FATA is governed by the president who may delegate his authority and/or direct the governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to perform certain duties and/or to govern FATA districts through administrators called political agents and assistant political agents. Constitutionally, FATA are composed of seven districts (called agencies) plus six regions (called Frontier Regions [FRs]). An FR means a district that is located between or connects a settled district or area of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and FATA. The seven agencies/districts of FATA are Bajaur, Khyber, Kurram, Mohmand, North Waziristan, Orakzai, and South Waziristan. The six FRs are named after districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa adjoining a Tribal agency. They are FR Bannu (connecting Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with North Waziristan), FR Dera Ismail Khan, FR Kohat, FR Lakki Marwat, FR Peshawar, and FR Tank. Two articles in Pakistan’s constitution (article 246 and 247) are concerned with administration and governing of FATA. Two points in those articles are significant. One, the laws passed by Pakistani parliament, cannot be extended to FATA unless the president orders so. Two, the Supreme Court or any High Court in Pakistan have no

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jurisdiction over FATA; it means that orders, verdicts or rulings by the higher courts or district courts cannot be extended to FATA and the people of FATA also cannot appeal to the High Courts or Supreme Courts in case of any dispute or issue with agency administration. There is a regulation, however, called Frontier Crimes Regulation, which was imposed on FATA by the British Rulers of India in 1901 that is still in force, albeit with some amendments. See: National Assembly of Pakistan, The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (6th ed.) (Islamabad: National Assembly of Pakistan, 2012), pp. 143–147. In Arabic, zarb means to strike and azb means cutting or sharp. Zarb e Azb thus means a sharp and cutting strike. Also, Azb was the name of one of the swords that Islam’s Prophet Muhammad owned. Ismail Khan, “All-Out Military Operation Launched in North Waziristan,” Dawn 16 June, 2014. Available at http://www.dawn.com/news/1112949 (accessed 29 April 2016). Dawn, “School massacre Pakistan’s 9/11: Sartaj,” Dawn 20 December 2014. Available at http:// www.dawn.com/news/1152041 (accessed 29 February 2016). Ever since 2001, when the government decided to be part of the U.S.-led War on Terror, a polemical debate has existed in Pakistan. The nationalists, secular and liberal politicians, writers, analysts, and intellectuals accused religious political parties and forces to be pro-Taliban. The religious politicians and analysts, who had remained close to the military establishment, in turn labelled their opponents as pro-United States, slaves, and against the ideological foundations of Pakistan. It was only after the APS attack that religious political parties condemned terrorism and distanced themselves from the Taliban discourse and worldview. Dawn, “26 Killed in Suicide Attack Near Nadra Office in Mardan,” Dawn 29 December, 2015. Available at http://www.dawn.com/news/1229406 (accessed 21 January 2016). At the time of attack, a poetry recital, revolving around the theme of “peace,” was about to begin to commemorate the twenty-eighth death anniversary of Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan, widely known as Bacha Khan—a prominent Pashtun figure who, along with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), led a nonviolent political struggle against British colonialist rulers of the Indian subcontinent in the twentieth century. See: Jon Boone, and Jason Burke, “Pakistan Attacks: At Least 30 Dead in Terror Raid at Bacha Khan University,” The Guardian 20 January 2016. Available at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/20/bacha-khan-university-explo sions-heard-as-gunmen-attack-pakistan (accessed 21 January 2016). BBC News, “Pakistan Explosion Leaves Many Dead at Lahore Park,” BBC News 27 March 2016. Available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35908512 (accessed 16 June 2016). Even after those attacks, the military spokesman General Asim Bajwa claimed that the “terrorists were defeated,” which is why they were after “soft targets” like educational institutions, which are a “sign of progressive Pakistan.” See: Talk Shows Central, “DG ISPR Major General Asim Bajwa Press Briefing j Bacha Khan University Attack,” YouTube. 20 January 2016. Available at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?vDjhz3KRwR4QE (accessed 22 January 2016). The press conference was in Urdu language that I translated into English. Afrasiab Khattak, “Return of the Terror,” The Nation 23 January 2016. Available at http://nation. com.pk/columns/23-Jan-2016/return-of-the-terror. Also see, Gul Bukhari, “Which Part, Dear Establishment?” The Nation 24 January 2016. Available at http://nation.com.pk/columns/24-Jan2016/which-part-dear-establishment. Also, Mohammed Hanif, “Pakistan’s Unnecessary Martyrs,” The New York Times 22 January 2016. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/ opinion/pakistans-unnecessary-martyrs.html?_rD0. See, Declan Walsh, Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, and Ismail Khan, “Taliban Attack at Bacha Khan University in Pakistan Renews Fears,” The New York Times 20 January 2016. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/world/asia/bachakhan-university-attack-charsadda.html?_rD0. And Hasan Askari Rizvi, “Pakistan’s Tryst with Counter-Terrorism,” The Express Tribune 24 January 2016. All, accessed 15 May 2016. The Senate of Pakistan questioned the NAP’s implementation, saying, “if the government had followed the anti-terror plan in letter and spirit” the Bacha Khan University attack could have been prevented. For details, see: Mateen Haider, “Senate Questions NAP Implementation after Varsity Attack,” Dawn 20 January 2016. Available at http://www.dawn.com/news/1234226/senate-ques tions-nap-implementation-after-varsity-attack (accessed 30 May 2016).

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12. Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), “Bacha Khan University Attack Failure of NAP: Farooq Sattar,” Muttahida Quami Movement 21 January 2016. Available at http://www.mqm.org/englishnews/ 35004/bacha-khan-university-attack-failure-of-nap-farooq-sattar. Also, Kiran Nazish, “Pakistan University Attack: Before the Recital, After the Bullets,” The Diplomat 26 January 2016. Available at http://thediplomat.com/2016/01/pakistan-university-attack-before-the-recital-after-the-bullets/. Both accessed 3 June 2016. Some analysts argued that the NAP is the right strategy; however, it has “lost its teeth” because the government “neglected” its execution. Please see: Sana Ali, “Charsadda and the Neglected National Action Plan,” South Asian Voices 3 February 2016. Available at http://southasian voices.org/charsadda-and-the-neglected-national-action-plan/ (accessed 5 June 2016). Some others claimed that the “counterterrorism” policy in Pakistan has remained faulty and paradoxical for years. See: Farah Jan, “School Attacks Expose Widening Cracks in Pakistani Counterterrorism,” IPI Global Observatory 3 February 2016. Available at https://theglobalobservatory.org/2016/02/pakistan-counter terrorism-bacha-khan-taliban/ (accessed 7 June 2016). 13. Lalit K Jha, “Pakistan ‘Can and Must’ Dismantle All Terror Networks: Obama,” Press Trust of India. 24 January 2016. Available at http://www.ptinews.com/news/7013841_Pakistan-can-andmust-dismantle-all-terror-networks-Obama.html (accessed 24 January 2016). 14. Robert W. Cox, “Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory,” Millenniu—Journal of International Studies 10(2) (1981), pp. 126–155. 15. Judith Renner, “The Local Roots of the Global Politics of Reconciliation: The Articulation of ‘Reconciliation’ as an Empty Universal in the South African Transition to Democracy,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 42(2) (2014), pp. 263–285. 16. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (2nd ed.) (London: Verso, 2001), p. 108. 17. Bobby Sayyid and Lilian Zac, “Political Analysis in a World without Foundations,” in Elinor Scarbrough and Eric Tanenbaum, eds., Research Strategies in the Social Sciences: A Guide to New Approaches (New York: Oxford University Press, [1998], 2007), pp. 249–267. 18. Lene Hansen, Security as Practice: Discourse analysis and the Bosnian War (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), p. 16. 19. Sayyid and Zac, “Political Analysis in a World without Foundations,” p. 250. 20. Saul Newman, Power and Politics in Poststructuralist Thought: New Theories of the Political (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), pp. 6–7. 21. Please see: Isabela Fairclough and Norman Fairclough, Political Discourse Analysis (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012); Norman Fairclough, “Critical Discourse Analysis as a Method in Social Scientific Research,” in Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, eds., Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (London: SAGE, 2001), pp. 121–138 and Norman Fairclough, Discourse and Social Change (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992). 22. Ruth Wodak, “What CDA is About—A Summary of Its History, Important Concepts and Its Developments,” in Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, eds., Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (London: SAGE, 2001), pp. 1–13. 23. Teun A. van Dijk, “Multidisciplinary CDA: A Plea for Diversity,” in Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, eds., Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (London: SAGE, 2001), p. 96 (emphasis added); pp. 95–120. 24. Michael Meyer, “Between Theory, Method, and Politics: Positioning of the Approaches to CDA,” in Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, eds., Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (London: SAGE, 2001), p. 15. 25. Lesley Treleaven, “A Knowledge-Sharing Approach to Organizational Change: A Critical Discourse Analysis,” in Haridimos Tsoukas and Nikolaos Mylonopoulos, eds., Organizations as Knowledge Systems: Knowledge, Learning and Dynamic, Capabilities (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 154–180; also see: Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan (London: Penguin, 1991) and Norman Fairclough, Discourse and Social Change (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992). 26. Meyer, “Between Theory, Method, and Politics,” p. 16. 27. For a good example of a poststructuralist content analysis, please refer to: Anastassia Tsoukala, “Defining the Terrorist Threat in the Post-September 11 Era,” in Didier Bigo and Anastassia

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Tsoukala, eds., Terror, Insecurity and Liberty: Illiberal Practices of Liberal Regimes after 9/11 (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2008), pp. 49–99. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (Oxon, UK: Routledge, [1972] 2002). For details, see: Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish and Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Vol. 1 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978). Ondrej Ditrych. Tracing the Discourses of Terrorism: Identity, Genealogy and State. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Fairclough, Discourse and Social Change. Iver B. Neumann, “Discourse Analysis,” in Audie Klotz and Deepa Prakash, eds., Qualitative Methods in International Relations: A Pluralist Guide (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 63–65. Meyer, “Between Theory, Method, and Politics,” p. 14. BBC News, “Haqqanis: Growth of a Militant Network,” BBC News 14 September 2011. Available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-14912957 (accessed 19 November 2015). Model 1 deals with the analysis of the official discourse while Model 3, that is subdivided into 3A and 3B, covers what Hansen calls “marginal discourses.” Hansen, Security as Practice, pp. 53–57. In Pakistan, the civil/military imbalance in decision making and controlling affairs is evident since its emergence as a state in 1947. On three different occasions—1958, 1977, and 1999—the army ousted elected governments and has ruled the country for more than three decades in sum. During other times, the army has stayed in power indirectly by taking control of the security and foreign policy. National Assembly of Pakistan, The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, pp. 41–51. C. Christine Fair, Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); for the Pakistani military’s role in FATA and its support for local and foreign militant groups see Farhat Taj, Taliban and Anti-Taliban (Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011). Foucault suggests that once discourses are established, they disperse in society in the same way like blood circulates in the body in a cycle, which means the discourse in the society, like blood in the body, is continuously, enriched, fed, reinforced, reshaped, and reconstructed according to arising needs. See Carol Grbich, New Approaches in Social Research (London: SAGE Publications, 2004), p. 40. Alketa Peci, Marcelo Vieira, and Stewart Clegg, “Power, Discursive Practices and the Construction of the ‘Real,’” Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management 7(3) (2009), pp. 377–386. ISPR, “Press Releases: Archive,” Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). From June 2014 to January 2016. Available at https://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?oDt-pr_archive&monD12&yrD2014&styrD 2014 (accessed 21 January 2016). The lower house of the Pakistani bicameral parliament. National Assembly of Pakistan, “National Assembly of Pakistan: Assembly Debates,” Assembly Debates-1 (Islamabad: National Assembly of Pakistan, 2015a), pp. 1–57; National Assembly of Pakistan, “National Assembly of Pakistan: Assembly Debates,” Assembly Debates-2 (Islamabad: National Assembly of Pakistan, 2015b), pp. 1–72; National Assembly of Pakistan, “National Assembly of Pakistan: Assembly Debates,” Assembly Debates-3 (Islamabad: National Assembly of Pakistan, 2015c), pp. 1–6; National Assembly of Pakistan, “National Assembly of Pakistan: Assembly Debates,” Assembly Debates-4 (Islamabad: National Assembly of Pakistan, 2015d), pp. 1–82; National Assembly of Pakistan, “National Assembly of Pakistan: Assembly Debates,” Assembly Debates-5 (Islamabad: National Assembly of Pakistan, 2015e), pp. 1–38 and National Assembly of Pakistan, “Twenty-first Amendment Act, 2015,” Assembly Debates-6 (Islamabad: National Assembly of Pakistan, 2015f), pp. 1–2. The transcripts of the NA debates were in Urdu, which I translated, except two bills that were in English. Prime Minister’s Office, “Prime Minister’s Speeches,” Prime Minister’s Office, Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. From December 2014 to December 2015. Available at http://www. pmo.gov.pk/pm_speeches.php (accessed 11 January 2016). Geo News is the most popular TV channel in the country. See: Geo News (available at https://live. geo.tv/); Dunya News (available at http://dunyanews.tv/newsite/live_stream/new1_live_tv.php);

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and Express News (available at http://live.express.pk/). The recorded version of news and analysis programs was accessed from Zem TV (available at: http://www.zemtv.com/) and Awaz TV (available at http://www.awaztoday.pk/), all accessed 1 December 2016. The language of all TV channels and portals is Urdu. Both Radio Mashaal and VOA Deewa are U.S. Congress–funded, Pashto-language services targeting FATA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pashtun-dominated areas of Balochistan, and across the Durand Line. Radio Mashaal is a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFERL) and Deewa Radio is Voice of America (VOA) entities. Due to poor infrastructure, shortage (and in some cases lack of) electricity and Internet, the first source of information for people living in FATA and other Pashtun-dominated areas is Radio. See: Radio Mashaal (available at http://www.mashaalradio. com/) and Deewa Radio (available at http://www.voadeewaradio.com/), both accessed 1 December 2016. News broadcasts and articles are all in the Pashto language. Daily Jang has the highest publishing rate in Pakistan, simultaneously published from various large cities (available at https://jang.com.pk/); Daily Mashriq is published from Peshawar, northwest Pakistan and is widely read in Pashtun-dominated urban areas (available at http://mashriq. epaper.pk/); also see Daily Express (available at http://express.com.pk/epaper/) all accessed 1 December 2016. All newspapers are published in Urdu. In TV and radio short news is presented by an anchor with or without still pictures and has a maximum time of 40 seconds. It appears in a single column of the newspaper. A long news story often includes sound-bites or sound on tape (SOT) in TV or radio and takes a space of more than one column in the newspaper. A news report includes more than one sound-bite/SOT, often includes a comment or analysis, and is two to three minutes long and often appears as one of the top/lead stories in newspapers. News tickers, however, are short-text news or main points of important or fresh news, running on the bottom or top of the TV screen. This phrase is taken from Claude Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory. Translated by David Macey (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), p. 69. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan means the Taliban Movement of Pakistan. It is abbreviated as TTP. Prime Minister’s Office, “APC Unanimously Resolves Speedy Implementation of 20-Point National Action Plan,” Prime Minister’s Office, Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan 2 January 2015. Available at http://www.pmo.gov.pk/news_details.php?news_idD300 (accessed 18 November 2015). Awami National Party, “ANP PRNs-2015: Dec-2015,” Awami National Party (ANP) 16 December 2015. Available at http://awaminationalparty.org/main/?page_idD10259 (accessed 29 December 2015). The press releases were in Urdu. Also see, Hasan Askari Rizvi, “Pakistan’s Tryst with Counter-Terrorism,” The Express Tribune 24 January 2016. Available at http://tribune.com.pk/ story/1033423/pakistans-tryst-with-counter-terrorism/ (accessed 24 January 2016) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, “Imran Khan Expressed Shock at the Silence of Nawaz Sharif over the HateFilled Speech of Altaf Hussain,” Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) 1 May 2015. Available at http:// www.insaf.pk/news/national-news/item/1789846-imran-khan-expressed-shock-at-the-silence-ofnawaz-sharif-over-the-hate-filled-speech-of-altaf-hussain (accessed 21 November 2015). National Assembly of Pakistan, “National Assembly of Pakistan: Assembly Debates,” Assembly Debates-3, pp. 1–6; Also see, National Assembly of Pakistan, “Twenty-first Amendment Act, 2015,” Assembly Debates-6, pp. 1–2. The Express Tribune, “Hand in Hand: Regional Peace is a must for Pakistan, Afghanistan, Says Asfandyar,” The Express Tribune 8 November 2015. Available at http://tribune.com.pk/story/ 987060/hand-in-hand-regional-peace-is-a-must-for-pakistan-afghanistan-says-asfandyar/. Also see: The News, “Achakzai Links Peace to Stability in Afghanistan, Amicable Ties with India,” The News 19 January 2016. Available at http://www.thenews.com.pk/print/92165-Achakzai-linkspeace-to-stability-in-Afghanistan-amicable-ties-with-India and Dawn, “Pakistan Ready to Help Afghanistan in Its Quest for Peace, Says Nawaz,” Dawn 23 November 2015. Available at http:// www.dawn.com/news/1221726. All accessed 21 January 2016. The “good Taliban” means militant groups that are targeting Afghanistan and not threatening Pakistan while the “bad Taliban” are those who launch attacks in Pakistan. For example, Quetta Shura or Haqqani Network are good Taliban because they are fighting against the Afghan

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84.

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Saleem, “Why Pakistani Army’s Anti-Terror Campaign Falls Short,” Deutsche Welle (DW) 28 January 2016. Available at http://www.dw.com/en/why-pakistani-armys-anti-terror-campaign-falls-short/a19009968. Please refer to Aqil Shah’s views in this article. All accessed 30 April 2016. Mateen Haider, “Gen Raheel Visits Kabul, Seeks Handover of Mullah Fazlullah,” Dawn 17 December 2014. Available at http://www.dawn.com/news/1151412 (accessed 20 November 2015). Natalya Zamarayeva, “Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations: Geopolitical Dimensions,” NEO: New Eastern Outlook 28 May 2015. Available at http://m.journal-neo.org/2015/05/28/pakistan-afghani stan-relations-geopolitical-dimensions/ (accessed 20 November 2015). Prime Minister’s Office, “Prime Minister’s Address to the Nation,” Text of Prime Minister’s Address to the Nation (Islamabad: Prime Minister’s Office, Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 25 December 2014). Available at http://www.pmo.gov.pk/pm_speeches.php (accessed 19 November 2015). The address was in Urdu that I translated. Dawn, “MPC Ends with National Consensus on NAP,” Dawn 3 January 2015. Available at http:// www.dawn.com/news/1154662 (accessed 19 November 2015). Prime Minister’s Office, Prime Minister’s Address to the Nation. See also: Abdul Manan, “Fight against Terrorism: Defining Moment,” The Express Tribune 25 December 2014. Available at http://tribune.com.pk/story/811947/fight-against-terrorism-defining-moment/ (accessed 19 November 2015). National Assembly of Pakistan, “National Assembly of Pakistan: Assembly Debates,” Assembly Debates-1 (Islamabad: National Assembly of Pakistan, 2015), pp. 1–57; Also: 2015b. 1–72; 2015c. 1–6; 2015d. Ibid. 2015f, 1–2.

Funding I gratefully acknowledge financial support by the Internal Grant Agency of the University of Economics Prague, research project no. F2/9/2016, titled: Crises in MENA and Southwest Asia: Democratisation, Militancy and Security.

Appendix: NAP: The United Voice of Pakistan The attack on the APS in the north-western city of Peshawar prompted the Pakistani Army Chief General Raheel Sharif to visit Kabul and seek the cooperation of the Afghan government to “handover” the TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah78 who, Islamabad believes, is “hiding” in the north-eastern Nuristan and Kunar provinces of Afghanistan. During his visit, Gen. Sharif assured Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that the “enemy of Afghanistan is the enemy of Pakistan”79 and that both countries should join hands in fighting terrorism. At home, the Pakistani government called an All Parties’ Conference on 24 December that year, after which Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif addressed the nation pledging to “eradicate extremism and terrorism from Pakistan” through NAP.80 On 2 January, a Multi-Party Conference in Islamabad, chaired by the PM, “concluded with consensus” on the 20-point NAP,81 summarized below: 1. The moratorium on death sentences was lifted saying that the “execution of convicted terrorists will continue.” 2. “Special Trial Courts under the supervision of the Pakistani military,” in other words, Military Courts, were announced to be established for “two years” to put militants and criminals on trial. 3. “No armed militias will be allowed” to operate in the country. 4. Strengthening the National Counter-Terrorism Authority. 5. Government will “take actions” against publications promoting “hate speech, extremism, intolerance and sectarianism.” 6. Eradicating channels “financing terrorism or terrorist groups.”

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Banned groups will not be allowed to “re-emerge under different identity.” A “Special Anti-Terrorism Force” will be established. Prevention of extremism and protecting minorities from persecution. Registration and regulation of madrassas (i.e., religious seminaries or schools). Ban on “glorification of terrorists or terrorist organizations” in media. Reforms will be brought in the administrative structure of FATA and the return of Internally Displaced Persons will be prioritized. 13. Dismantling communication networks of terrorist organizations. 14. Steps will be taken to prevent abuse of Internet and social media for terrorism. 15. There will be “no space for extremism in Punjab” province. 16. Military operation in southern Karachi city will continue. 17. Authorizing and empowering the provincial government of Baluchistan for reconciliation with the separatist groups. 18. Decisive measures will be taken against elements fomenting sectarianism. 19. A comprehensive policy will be formulated regarding the Afghan refugees based in Pakistan. 20. The criminal justice system will be reformed. In order to implement the NAP, the government and the parliament will propose and approve new legislations and amendments in the constitution.82 The study of transcripts of NA sessions debating NAP and its execution show unanimity of views suggesting that when the state is threatened, every counter action becomes legitimate. A majority of the MPs representing both the government and the opposition gave examples of the United States and the United Kingdom suggesting that if those countries adopted harsh antiterrorism laws or approved military tribunals after terror attacks, Pakistan should do the same even if such actions seem to threaten human rights.83 Endorsing the NAP, the parliament approved a constitutional amendment giving the military sweeping powers to establish military courts84 and the government released funds to the army to promptly respond to security threats and to speed up already continuing offensives in the FATA. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.