In The Line Of Fire

this struggle on the internal and external fronts for almost two years, quite successfully taking the country out of trouble and onto a path toward growth.

Then came 9/11 and its aftermath. The whole world changed. The world powers focused new attention on five areas of special concern: counterterrorism, nuclear proliferation, democracy, human rights, and narcotics. Pakistan sits at the center of each, and the external pressures are diametrically opposed to domestic sentiment. It is not that the majority of our public supports terror, or drugs, much less nuclear proliferation. Small factions support the first two, and even fewer people have been greedy enough to pursue the third. But a majority of Pakistanis do oppose our cooperation with the West in the war on terror.

They opposed punishments aimed at Dr. A. Q. Khan. I believe my positions on all these issues are in our interest, and morally strong. But there are times when the behavior of our western allies undercuts our alliances.

This is particularly true of western counterterrorism policies. The West rejects militant struggles for freedom too broadly. The United States and Europe too often equate all militancy with terrorism; in particular, they equate the struggle for freedom in Indian-held Kashmir with terrorism. Pakistan has always rejected this broad-brush treatment. We demand that terrorism be seen "in all its forms and manifestations." This is a serious statement, because when states kill innocent civilians in an effort to crush struggles for freedom, we call it "state terrorism." I feel that the killing of innocent civilians, whether by a state or by any group, is terrorism. A state causing atrocities and killing civilians in violation of resolutions passed by the UN Security Council is certainly carrying out state terrorism. I differentiate between killing civilians as collateral damage in an attack on a military target on the one hand and targeting civilians intentionally on the other.

Pakistan's position becomes more difficult to sustain, however, when the mujahideen fighting for freedom in Indian-held Kashmir are guilty of involvement in terrorist activities in other parts of India and around the world. It is not just that one man's terrorist can be another man's freedom fighter; sometimes a man can be a legitimate freedom fighter in one context and a terrorist when he does something else. My efforts