ps3linux
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Mods would please appreciate if this thread is spared from junk.
Often I come across terms like “Low IQed”, “Parrots – tottay” , “Yes sir Brigade”, “Jaahil – Ignorant”, “Matric Pass” for our Armed forces, picking up motivation from a thread here I thought to analyse these terms in a more objective way instead of the usual “fatwa brigade” mentality we are so fond of.
I want this article to be a rational attempt at analyzing things rather than the garbage of ignorant opinionated views. I am using English as simple as I can so that most of the people can benefit, and not trying to impress anyone with my prowess of English vocabulary, thus I seek apology from more learned people over a certain degree of Colloquialism. This thread will also appear on my blog.
https://historiananalyst.wordpress.com
First the necessary I am not an Armed forces officer serving or retired, I am not attached to any institution linked directly or indirectly to Armed forces of Pakistan, and I am not paid by anyone to write this analysis frankly very few can really afford my cost. I was selected in one of the forces as a potential officer candidate, joined the academy but mid-way left due to my own reasons without any bad feelings for that service or the service had/has any bad feeling or disciplinary charges against me. Every effort was made to dissuade me from leaving the service. I spend a major part of my life education and profession abroad (about two decades and change) and that has given me the perspective to appreciate our forces. My family has strong ties to armed forces but that’s it.
So now distribution of talent in any society marks the growth or development of that particular segment where most of the talent is directed and it is different for different countries.
For decades Pakistani talent has been directed primarily at Armed forces, except that someone inherently doesn’t want to join armed forces due to one reason or the other or for medical reasons very other young man give armed forces a try some ISSB and some the rank, some try a short commission after education. Practically millions of young men go to the recruitment and selection centers of Armed forces, I will be using Army as the prime example, be it the ranks or be it the officers the selection criteria is pretty tough. For officer preliminary test, the physical test, then medical these are three different filters and finally approximately 100,000 candidates enter ISSB (my figures may be bit off but gist remains) out of those only few hundred make it to all three services not even a thousand at any given point in time. Oh did I forget the background check… many a shining people are filtered out due to that very check. ISSB (though I have my reservations about modernizing the criteria) has served the forces well.
Nut shell with the exception of few most of youth talent takes an attempt to join forces, just like any good institution Harvard, Yale, Stanford etc the effort is to make sure that all selected are almost at par with each other in IQ, not out of ordinaries on both sides. So actually pretty much the cream of the nation joins Armed forces. Strangely the lowest bottom of the talent joins either religious fraternity or teaching profession, yes I know PhD and universities etc but the school level where the talent is nurtured we have a major problem, like the religious fraternity.
Now I am picking up bits and pieces from another thread which I wrote.
Now for the low IQ among officers we the class fellows/batch mates have discussed this matter for over a decade, one of us was at a key position in ISSB and we discussed why average intelligence of Officers is dropping and he was pretty opinionated about his statement "officers are a product of our educational system if you see a deterioration in the intelligence this means your education system is deteriorating"
How in God's name education system will improve when we are sending the lowest among our talent pool as the ones who are supposed to nurture our future talent, seems a bit odd.
ISSB is not a joke, it is meant to evaluate who you are, are you capable of motivating and leading the men put under your charge will you be able to take care of them. You cannot beat it some of the finest people are there to evaluate candidates, yes there is a degree of nepotism, influential do influence selection of their kin but if they are not capable enough you will see them retiring soon.
I know my school and college one of the most talented pool of students in one batch that I ever came across. I know 90% of my school fellows and almost all of my college fellows applied for forces as commissioned officers, school batch was about 60 and college was about 80. Only 1 made to PAF GDP (I think about 10 went for ISSB), 4 including me joined PN (I left half way through my training) and about 3 more joined after B.Sc, with the exception of 2 all have retired both serving are flag rank, 10 made it to PA, I think couple more joined later with the exception of 3 all have retired, all 3 as flag rank officers. Hope the readers get the picture. My batch in school and college was one of the extra ordinary one the number of positions in Matric and FSc board from my batch is a testament of that, we were not given 95% like today the marking was very strict that time and yet.
Now herein is another very interesting fact, over the years I have come to realize why some people hate the forces so much and have categorized them as follows:
• Rejected by ISSB twice
• Belonging to families who despite holding Pakistani credentials are not Pakistanis at heart
• Influenced by Media channels like Jew News/Geo news, and Daily G*y/ Daily Dawn
• Good at heart people who think they know the grey areas in forces and yet don’t know the real armed forces.
• Drummed out of Armed Forces due to “conduct unbecoming of officer” or other disciplinary charges
Three of our class fellows who are vehemently opposing Armed forces these day incidentally were rejected by ISSB twice one is also influenced by mullahs, one worked for G*y Media Group/dawn Media Group and the third one well let’s just say many of us class fellows have been supporting him and his family throughout his life. These three gentlemen find everything in Pakistan going wrong due to Armed Forces for obvious reasons. Yeah two of our batch mates were drummed out from PN for reason (5) one of them is a senior banker and the other a businessman. Businessman is Ok with his life but the banker is vehemently against Forces strange ain’t it.
So the growth of Forces Institutions apart from their ability to Arm twist may also be due to the fact that most of the talented gentlemen of the country end up here and they are damn loyal to their institution as compared to many of the rest gentlemen.
So far I have only able to address the IQ part, hopefully.
Now the next 2 parts. i.e; “Parrots – tottay”, “Yes sir Brigade”
We have to understand what the purpose of forces is and what they are required to do.
Purpose is simple defense/offense and weeding out all shrubs posing a danger to the country they are sworn to protect. Another point that is used that somehow in the forces no one questions an order, I only smile at that. I am sure the professionals of Armed Forces across the globe would do too.
In the states and even Pak forces it is a well-established fact that forces are not run by the officers but the JCOs. Weaker the officer stronger the JCO or any other combination, senior JCO is always involved in company level decisions, good officers listen to their JCO. The reason Yes sir culture is necessary is not due to British DNA, but the necessity that if the ranks develop the habit of questioning their officer this could lead to serious problem in engagements. Any input if required from JCO is most of the time at the planning stage after that its execution. Those who know Pak forces culture they know all too well that all field officer are very independent when it comes to tactical decision necessitated by circumstances when compared to our eastern people. People have no idea what happens in the meetings of formation commanders or Corps commanders.
If we develop the culture of second guessing orders of officer we are looking at disaster beyond repair, what would happen if a subordinate questions the order of a senior to take out an enemy sniper who is in a position to take out their entire company, or what would happened when the subordinate refuses to fire at enemy at a critical time?
Pakistan Army is different from US Army, which is a no questions asked army they have to do marketing campaigns in order to attract people, criminals, drug traffickers, rapist, sociopaths psychopaths are a norm in their forces. We, we have no shortage of volunteers. Pakistan forces spend a considerable amount of money just to ensure the background checking of all potential soldier. Of course there are bound to be errors but the system is pretty robust and all errors are corrected through drumming out and early retirements, may be a court martial as well.
No Armed force in the world could afford subordinates second guessing orders, orders are to be carried out without question. Besides is our civil life any different? I have seen supervisors screw the career of subordinates who questions them, it just a hypocrisy that well our subordinates must be yes men in civil life but uniformed people must be second guessing their officers.
Now for the other part “Jaahil – Ignorant”, “Matric Pass”, from what I think the “Matric Pass” officers of JCC/JCB are almost gone if not then in the next 10 years there will no more be any officer who joined through JCC or JCB it is now F.Sc/F.A. Moreover, a fuaji doesn’t require a degree to fire a gun what he requires is training, muscle memory, physical conditioning, evaluation of circumstance, account of resources, leading the people to achieve target within the available resources.
Let me quote my two friends both flag rank officers in PA. “A**** convinced me to join PA because we didn’t want to study more, so we applied and joined P.A little did we know that throughout our career most of time we will only be studying, now when I look back I don’t regret but had I known that its study that I will be doing through my professional life I may not have joined P.A”
Indoctrination in Pakistani Armed forces is beyond belief, in the most dangerous of tasks most of the time it is voluntary and never has there been a mission where there was a shortage of volunteers. Even if it means going out in a radiation zone or protecting an area where Pakistan is going to Test it nukes with less than 50% survival chances, it is easy to say buy voluntarily putting your life on line to protect the country the ideals is altogether a different thing.
No one asks a doctor how many degrees he has, all he must have is a good diagnosis ability, good manners and good prescription so by that virtue I think we have very good and capable armed forces, despite the lack of resources and internal traitors.
I have my questions about few practices in the forces like elevation to flag rank, forces know each and every thing about their officers so how come people like Zia, beg, musharraf and kiani and many other made it to flag rank that is something which requires serious rework. US forces utilize the services of subject matter experts extensively from the civilian side and they are given utmost respect, however here the officers consider themselves all-knowing and thus fail to learn from civilian subject matter experts and are never trained to extend respect to anyone other than a senior or uniformed person, there is another but this is not the forum so in my opinion these things need rework along some fresh perspectives.
Otherwise we have a pretty robust and talented pool in our forces both at officers and JCOs level.
Once we make a house and a window is found to be out of place we don’t tear down the whole house, we change the area which requires improvement, I know Armed forces have grey areas but we cannot go out and change the entire setup. History is full of incidents where a set order was disturbed and the results were anything but good.
Humanity is all about evolution our forces too are evolving some of the lessons our forces have learned in the last few decades which resulted in hard lessons and future course of action are there will never be a 71, we will never be caught with our pants down, civilian rulers no matter how good will never be allowed to cause another Indus water or Kargil, Shareef Family will never again be allowed to oust any COAS even if it means to have Musharraf as COAS and Pakistan forces will never ever again take part in any one else’s war.
I have done this piece in about two hours so errors and omission are regretted, I now have to drive to the farm house for weekend.
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