THIS is with reference to your editorial ‘Not the full picture’ (April 23) concerning the Lal Masjid commission report which absolves the army and places the whole blame on Pervez Musharraf, Shaukat Aziz and the cabinet at that time.

The implementation of the Lal Masjid commission report will determine whether we are to be ruled by a democratic dispensation or the so-called flawed Sharia of the Taliban.

For Pakistan this (the implementation of the commission report) is going to be a crucial decision whether we sink forever or survive the death blows of an enemy that wants to take Pakistan into the stone age and obscurantism. Isn’t this exactly what America also wants to do with us because we are the only Muslim nuclear-armed state?

If the Taliban are blaming Pakistan for joining with the infidels, then aren’t the Taliban also working on the same format with the US against the only Muslim nuclear state unless Pakistan disarms itself nuclear-wise?

Your editorial is spot on when you say, “But before the state files murder charges -- as recommended by the one-judge commission -- we must ask whether these recommendations are in consonance with some aspects of the affair that need greater critical appraisal.

In other words, the sensitive nature of such an investigation should have entailed far broader terms of reference for the commission than merely affixing blame and focusing on compensation issues.

I had warned when the Lal Masjid commission was set up (Jan 1) of the dangers which you have so effectively mentioned regarding the three crucial aspects of the Lal Masjid operation, namely, that it was an institutional decision and not solely that of Gen Musharraf will put the spanner in the works of the one-judge commission report.

Then you say, “True, there was justification for the operation,” is a point that should put an end to the rantings of the politicians who are trying to gain mileage out of an issue that has been distorted beyond recognition to the advantage of the Taliban.

The writ of the state was challenged, as you rightly pointed out, with moral courts and heavy weaponry stashed in the mosque and yet the commission report is amazingly silent on these issues: issues that challenge the very existence of Pakistan.

I ask every Pakistani to look within himself and ask, ‘Is this what our beloved Quaid wanted for a secular Pakistan?’

With inept people ruling, we are systematically destroying the very ethos of this beloved country of ours.

WG-CDR (r) SARDAR JAN SADDOZAI Peshawar Cantt