I can see why you would be skeptical and call it an exception rather than the norm. Allow me to highlight army criticism in three different eras with each era having different relations with the political leadership.
The first is musharraf era where the Army as you stated was completely political. In musharrafs era, the concept of a free media and free judiciary gained a lot of ground which started a strong anti musharraf and anti army campaign. When war in FATA began in 2004, the army was criticized and the people's sympathy was with the terrorists and as time passed by, the lal masjid happened. You are right it was against hardliners but at that time, the people saw the army as the aggressor and a monster attacking innocent Islamic people. No operation did more harm to the army's repute than lal masjid and the army was chastised and the leadership of the army criticized. This was just one of the events.
Then comes the non political era of general kiyani. Kiyani was also criticized due to the massive increase of suicide attacks, destruction caused by TTP and various failures at intelligence levels. When mehran base happened, the media analysts and news anchors were spewing criticism of the armed forces and some very harsh things were being said. This is just one of the examples.
Then comes general raheel with slight political era. When Hamid mir was shot, the media GEO went into a hate campaign of unprecedented levels against the army that the people themselves were shocked. They stopped, not bcz of threats, but bcz of the public outrage at that. In his era, few things have gone wrong so can't criticize.
As I stated I can understand your skepticism. 9 years of press freedom as compared to 61 years of not is an imbalance but I can assure you that army now can be criticized and will be criticized if something happens. A few points on corruption within army have also been highlighted especially when the good general tool action against some very high ranking officers against corruption. There were 11 of them if I remember correctly.
However I will also tell you that right now any chasm that existed between the army and the people during Kate days of musharraf is gone. The people adore the armed forces.
We have drifted far off topic. As I stated, its upto you to believe.
I can understand that.
On another forum, every negative rating I have ever given is due to me using the touch pad in speed when I am on my mobile, I often end up clicking the button unknowingly.
Alls well that ends well.