this narrative demands some scrutiny which never comes and people who hate army and Islam use it for their benefit.
the "use of Islam" for the sake of this inappropriate term... was inevitable. people of Pakistan and Afghans share the same faith and then there is the question of Pashton population. reference to Islam was like an elephant in the room which couldn't be avoided in building a narrative and support of Afghan Mujahideen.
the question of helping Afghans was self preservation as well to stop the Soviet Armor Columns from moving into Pakistan via Khaiber pass. having comon faith was just a convenience.
fast forward to 9/11.. Pakistani state didnt betray or abandon their fellow Muslims. instead we made tireless efforts to get some sense into Taliban leadership. Pakistan ISI chief Gen Ahsan and Saudi Prince Turki Al Faisel made personal visit to Afghanistan and met Mullah Omar requesting him to Hand over Osama who was not just wanted by Americans but also for his organisation's involvement in terrorism against Saudi Kingdom. both Pakistan and Saudis were disappointed by the idiotic and clueless Taliban leadership that had no clue what was coming.
Please janab dont consider me anti army , i support our armed forces, its just that sometimes things need to be looked at from neutral point of view so that past errors could be traced out.
I do agree i feel we needed to support our muslim pushtoon popultaion and a common islamic faith and their pushtoon ethnicity were two factors that would have ncouraged us to step in, but in this specific scenario our own existence was at stake.
The issue here started that there were certain brands of islam and ideologies that forget about american policy makers supporting it or not even Pakistani military and politicial leaderships military leaderships would not have found accpetable under normal circumstances, but in this particular case of cold war, to fight for our existance , a broad all encomapasisng narrative was weaved which would contain both twisted as well legit islamic ideologies. Later as u know how things went out of control in last few decades with indian opportunists and israeli and american intel agencies taking full advantage of it.
As of obl , in his case the guy had already started his fight against Saudi royal house due to them inviting american bases in saudia against iraq. I never understood if obls grouse was with saudi royals being close to americans then why he agreed to fight afghanwar which too was funded and supported by americans.
Lastly , speaking of taliban leadership not handing him over to usa, well their logic was that usa should provide a concrete evidence of obls involvement in 911 attack, if evidence is authentic they will hand him to them but its said that americans never came up with any such proof which led to Taliban leaders staying staunch on their stance.
Also maybe i am wrong but i just find it very weird how usa could have attacked just on the basis that we are not allowing them access to our routes to bomb afghanitsan just to take out obl? And how for the sake of one obl, usa made entire taliban leadership their enemy?
Also some people say iran stood its ground against usa etc etc well, if usa had to attack iran it would have done many decades back it was not that impossible for them but they needed a shia majority state to be constantly pitted against sunni muslim world. As long as these two ideologies keep clashing in the battlefield who gets to draw more benefit out of it? Ofcourse western powers,
Ps. These are my personal views and could be flawed so please excuse me for the errors in writing and analysis