Menace of Extremism

To what extent, the high-ups in Pakistan are mindful of the menace of extremism and its destructive capacity to destabilize the state and societal structures and why those at the helm of affairs in Pakistan’s military failed to realize the negative implications of sponsoring Jihadi groups in Afghanistan and elsewhere on their country’s internal and external security dynamics? The menace of extremism, militancy, radicalization and terrorism cannot be eradicated only by rhetoric. If the government is serious in effectively dealing with the growth and proliferation of extremist trends in society, it must pursue an approach based on eliminating the causes which breeds intolerance and extremism. Part of the hardening of extremism in Pakistan is attributed to American military involvement in Afghanistan and continuous drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal areas. So much so that anti-Americanism is synonymous with the rise in extremism. The case of arrest of alleged. CIA personnel Raymond Devis in Lahore on charges of double murder, is just one example to prove how the deepening of American interference in Pakistan’s internal matters is responsible for augmenting extremist sentiments subsequently exploited by hard-line religious political parties and Jihadi groups.