Can't live with them, can't live without them

[kink]

- Can we allow a supreme commander of the armed forces with the credibility like Zardari to appoint ISI’s civilian DG?

- With ‘patriots’ of a similar credibility filling the Cabinet and pawns of doubtful character leading our national ministries, can our national secrets remain safe as we move further towards allowing them access to ISI’s operational briefs?

- Can we guarantee that the civilian DG would be free from internal and external influences? As regards to the internal influence/pressure, the Memogate episode should serve as an eye opener to all of us. Let’s be grateful to Gen Pasha or else with Intelligence Bureau fully stacked with nincompoops and ISI with a civilian boss, no one (including the army) had any chance to contest the government’s ‘holier-than-thou’ onslaught).

- Lastly, can a civilian DG hold his grounds and make the right decision during critical junctures when simultaneously confronted from all the four sides – military, ruling parties, opposition and outsiders?

With issues such as Zardari’s commitment to no first use of nuclear weapons and the government’s feverish stance on the Memogate scandal, there seems a fortiori requirement for a constant check over our rulers – not necessarily by the military. In developed countries this task would have be executed by the People (assisted by the state institutions).

While Xeric has asked some pertinent questions and I agree with some of them, I have my own concern with this article.

His whole article is based on the core assumption that the Pak army / ISI is free from external (American) influence and they are doing ALL they can to defend Pakistan against ANY external aggression (This is their primary job).

I can summarize this assumption in a sentence as: Pakistanis trust Pakistan army with national security against external threats.

While the whole Pakistani nation agreed to this core assumption for a long time, this is no longer true since the Musharraf era.

The cracks appeared when the army chief Musharraf was unsuccessful to sell the "war on terror" to the whole nation. The army lost its reputation and "holy cow" image in the eyes of the people, and I mention some of reasons below. Here I am not debating whether these reasons are correct or incorrect but only that they caused distrust towards the army.

* secret, unwritten agreements between Americans and Musharraf

* giving air bases and providing logistic support to Americans

* getting millions as received payment from America for capturing terrorist

* Drone strikes inside Pakistani territory

* Wikileaks revelation that Kiyani wanted more drone strikes

* American boots on ground

* CIA network in Pakistan

* Raymond Davis affair

* OBL raid

Pakistan army will not be able to redeem itself, no matter how much internal security work it does, until it is seen to taking concrete steps that drone attacks do not take place and no American action takes place on Pakistani soil. I am writing this because of my understanding of Pakistani "awaam" psyche.

 

[Xeric]

Why must Kayani make the choice for us when we are not making it ourselves?

Exactly.

We ourselves remain tolerant to the mazalims of our rulers, but want someone else (Army) to take on the task of raising the voice of Haqq. Convenient, eh?

My criticism of him is on his profession, as a military leader he has failed at defending Pakistan from attacks from terrorists and attacks from the US.

The strategy of dealing with terrorism and preventing a powerful country like the US from fingering us whenever she likes require a collective effort at the National level. Whereas the military, Police, intelligence agencies and majority of the Pakistanis are doing their share, the politicians and our rulers (who should, at the first place, be the ones to lead the effort) are lacking the effort.

i am sure you'll agree that had a bada$$ like Musharraf (not favoring him at all) had been our PM or President, the yanks would have thought a 100 times before doing a May 2, let alone Nov 26 to us.

Unfortunately, the military's stand over such issues is weakened when the US decides to forbid us from buying their weaponry, and the civilians' (politicians') stance (if they ever had one) goes for a six when either the US decides to stop the flow of $$$ to Pakistan or conversely, pour some $$$ to tthe bank accounts of one or more of our leaders.

 

[third eye]

By process of elimination we're slowly getting there... Despite there being so many calls for a coup, a coup by the COAS seems very unlikely. In the 90s this would have happened already. So things are changing.

Pakistanis are griping about democracy but the overwhelming majority has no appetite for a coup.

Well , as seen by the rest of the world a coup has not happened thus far is more to do with the US not wanting to deal with a General any more and less to do with the desire of those in Pindi.

It suits the US to have a Civilian President to deal with and handle him and the Army independently. Having a General at the helm would make things difficult.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Well , as seen by the rest of the world a coup has not happened thus far is more to do with the US not wanting to deal with a General any more and less to do with the desire of those in Pindi.

It suits the US to have a Civilian President to deal with and handle him and the Army independently. Having a General at the helm would make things difficult.

Having a General at the helm would in fact make things easier for the US, since a 'General' would have little international legitimacy, and the the US would have significantly more means of applying pressure, directly and indirectly.

A 'General' would also be easier to coerce into submission, since 'populist policies' would not be something a General would be too worried about, given the fact that the General would not be worrying about elections and the views of the electorate.

 

[third eye]

Having a General at the helm would in fact make things easier for the US, since a 'General' would have little international legitimacy, and the the US would have significantly more means of applying pressure, directly and indirectly.

A 'General' would also be easier to coerce into submission, since 'populist policies' would not be something a General would be too worried about, given the fact that the General would not be worrying about elections and the views of the electorate.

Not really

The catch is to seperate the ISI & GOP and deal with each individually.

A General would control both.

 

[Mav3rick]

So they have their spread in 2 cities. Like that if you add everyone's small parts it comes up to 35% which is a big part. Moreover I'm not making a charge sheet JUST against MQM, that's the one example where MQM did it with impunity and I am aware of thats why I quoted to disagree with the author's assertion that the military insured that the elections would be free and fair and that no one can say that the military interfered with politics.

Rigged voters list is more like 50% of the total votes cast. Karachi/Hyderabad is like 10-15% of the total population of Pakistan so while MQM was playing her part in rigging, it could not have been more then 5-10% of the total rigging that occurred in the country and we are all aware who rigged the most votes, perhaps you should have given that as an example. Usually, examples are set by the predominant and not the insignificant acts.

The testimony I quoted is from a woman born in Karachi and is now in her 40s. Pretty Karachiite for me.

Well I am 32 myself and I have never, in my entire life, witnessed any rigging. What do you say to that?

As you said one must not speak from memory:

Drone attacks in Pakistan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's about 18 attacks till August 18, 2008 (Musharraf's last day in office).

When we speak of Musharraf we speak of the Military Ruler and not the president, president has no powers in Pakistan. During Musharraf's (or military's rule) there were like 6-7 attacks, I do stand corrected but by no means close to 20. By the way this list is strange, on one hand it states that there has been no drone strikes since Nov 2011 yet it has a drone stike listed on the 10th of January which does not ring any bells.

With whose authority? If there was a lack of capability in which US military forces needed to be engaged in Pakistan (repeatedly) - don't you think the Parliament should have approved such a move instead of deciding them on camp david?

Was there even a parliament when camp david meeting took place? However, I agree that all decisions should have been ratified by parliament but is that not beyond the scope of this discussion?

 

[Mav3rick]

Kayani should solve problems of his own shortcomings related to his profession not of Zardari's profession. "I can't defend against drone attacks because the people won't let me coup", isn't an excuse.

If the government has stopped him from defending he should come out and say it. Instead we know that the parliament, gave orders to shoot down drones. He still took attacks. Why?

Ah...my naive friend, the parliament did pass a resolution to shoot down drones but it was never officially handed over to the ministry of defence for implementation. Let me give you an example, I am a civil servant and when the Government announces Ramadhan timings for me I must wait for the related ministry to officially pass on the order of the parliament or competent authority before I can start following it.

The orders are passed through proper channels or 'Competent Authorities' as they are called before they can be implemented. The order to shoot down drones was never forwarded so the resolution is a hollow resolution and an excuse for the opposition to tease that the Government has failed to implement the resolution.

Kiyani is trying to be a perfect civil servant and through proper channels he has told us numerous times that they have the ability to shoot down drones but require permission from the Government.

 

[Mav3rick]

Ok, so you remember something.....is that proof? For your information, there were 3-5 drone strikes during Musharraf's tenure and they were all pre-approved by the Govt. against recognized targets. Musharraf had an iron grip on drone strikes and targets, it wasn't a license to kill as was granted by the civilian Govt. after Musharraf.

Thanks for the pm's and the link to Mushy's interview in which he agrees that they did indeed allow the US to fly drones but only for surveillance missions. Besides, how can you compare 6-10 random attacks in 4 years to hundreds of attacks each year after Musharraf?

 

[Riaz Mohammed]

Drone attacks have already resumed. Who won now.... ?!

 

[Aamir Hussain]

Both are loosers. US is not getting anything out of the drones in the longer run as for each tactical commander they target and kill, three others crop up. For PA, resentment and the same problem.

If we really want to take the bull by the horns than we need to do this dirty job ourselves with boots on the ground.

 

[SQ8]

i am sure you'll agree that had a bada$$ like Musharraf (not favoring him at all) had been our PM or President, the yanks would have thought a 100 times before doing a May 2, let alone Nov 26 to us.

Problem is, when it comes to holding on to their Chair.. No one remains a BadBum.. rather they all become ready to offer their behinds and give fellatio as long as they are allowed to stay in power.

 

[Donatello]

Exactly.

We ourselves remain tolerant to the mazalims of our rulers, but want someone else (Army) to take on the task of raising the voice of Haqq. Convenient, eh?

The strategy of dealing with terrorism and preventing a powerful country like the US from fingering us whenever she likes require a collective effort at the National level. Whereas the military, Police, intelligence agencies and majority of the Pakistanis are doing their share, the politicians and our rulers (who should, at the first place, be the ones to lead the effort) are lacking the effort.

i am sure you'll agree that had a bada$$ like Musharraf (not favoring him at all) had been our PM or President, the yanks would have thought a 100 times before doing a May 2, let alone Nov 26 to us.

Unfortunately, the military's stand over such issues is weakened when the US decides to forbid us from buying their weaponry, and the civilians' (politicians') stance (if they ever had one) goes for a six when either the US decides to stop the flow of $$$ to Pakistan or conversely, pour some $$$ to tthe bank accounts of one or more of our leaders.

Not really and you couldn't be far from truth.

Musharraf sold Pakistan to the Yankees for some old F-16s (Yeah, Blk 52s are old now, considering our nemesis is fielding more modern fighters) and he couldn't make the Yanks even agree that they better deliver weapons to Pakistan long term.

Then he makes Nawaz and Benazir return? Who wanted that? Yanks. Not Pakistanis.
So again, a blunder by your BadA$$.

Then, he himself leaves the office and goes to live in London, Dubai, USA and what not. If he was a true patriot, he would clearly define and enforce on the red lines to the Yanks about what Pakistan will support and what not. He would have lived and died in Pakistan.

I guess the wealth he amasses pretty much speaks for it self.

So Mushy sold Pakistan......at the lowest rate. If you gotta sell something, sell it higher. Like they say, something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

For Mushy it was a meager 20 Billion dollars. For Yanks the cost was Peanuts. For us, the ordinary citizens, the cost was well over 40,000 lives and tons of families more whose future was destroyed.

 

[Aamir Hussain]

In all of this equation does the people who took those 40,000 lives figure??? If so than on the plus or the negative side of the equation?

 

[Donatello]

In all of this equation does the people who took those 40,000 lives figure??? If so than on the plus or the negative side of the equation?

Aamir,

See, thats a difficult equation to solve. Depending on which way you look at it. I mean, it wasn't like 9/11 happened and in the next few days bombs started going all over Pakistan, when Pakistan had been relatively very calm even when we had full mujahideen force in the making for jihad back in the 80s. The word Pakistan started being used in the same sentences with the words like Terror, Terrorist, Terrorism.

Funny thing is, they never used the word Terrorized.

I mean, As much blood as Yanks have on their hands, hardly any modern nation has it. But okay, say 1 year gone after 2001, another year gone after 2001. Thats 2 years. That should have been enough time for any jingoistic Army man to make some wise decision. Freaking 10 years go by and nothing happened.

 

[I M Sikander]

Unfortunately, since 1950s instead of working for people welfare, we have changed our country in to a security state.

We eat breath and excrete nothing but militrization. And even after humiliating defeats in all wars and failed afghan policy, our establishment and men in uniform are in no moad to mend their ways.