I was filming with a Jamaat-e-Islami activist when his neighbor Rehmat Ulla stopped by, curious to meet the American. He told me about why he and his family left South Waziristan, where Pakistan Army planes and American drones alike showered bombs on his area. He gave a bittersweet smile.
"Everyone has run away," Ulla told me. "Everyone is attacking there - the Army, the Taliban, the Americans. Many women and children are being killed."
He said that the larger impact in his area is from Pakistan army planes, whose bombs are more destructive, and less precise than the drones. He said that no one in his family supports the Taliban, but that far more innocent people are killed by the Pakistani Army than by the Taliban or the American attacks. I said that one never reads about these attacks in the media, and Ulla smiled his bitter smile again. "They control what stories come out," he said.
Ulla fought in Pakistan's Frontier Corps for 16 years, and would gladly go back, but currently is trying to find work in Dubai so he can support his family. He's lost his car and his business because of the war.
"Everyone in my family just wants peace," he said. "They don't care anymore who brings it, as long as there is peace. Only God knows when that will happen."
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