Too many to count; the most recent was when I preferred PAK army over politicians and considered it the most democratic/democratising institution in Pakistan. This made Oscar furious, below is the surgical strike he carried out on me:
HERE IS OSCAR'S POST:
Lets tear you down right there..
Army as a last resort?
Ayub Khan was slated for retirement by the Quaid in the corners....he manipulated his way into power.. sidelined fatima Jinnah..
and then through his false development index made rich 22 families..
Went to war over an ill planned offensive as the aggressor then falsified history to blame India and create a hero out of himself.
Then let his racist attitude towards the Bengalis put the country on the brink of splitting.. he stepped down so that the blame would not fall on him..
The Army is an autocratic institution... otherwise saner officers would have told Musharaf what a complete idiot he was being about Kargil.
Strongmen.. and deep states are the reason for these feudals..
Waving the beghairat or ghairat brigade flags wont change the annals of history.
FYI.. its usually the elite that end up forming the coterie with dictators and profiting..
The actual 9-5 workers.. the Awam.. is just thrown the scraps after it.
Perhaps if you read more POV's instead of a few books it would make a diff.
There is love for the troops.. and our officers.. those people are US.
But there is NO love for those that climb those ladders using sycophancy and nepotism..
and bring ruin to this country as rulers.
I wanted to answer the post but then the thread was closed, so here I take the opportunity to give my point of view.
HERE IS THE ANSWER:
You tore me into so many pieces that it was difficult to determine which one to collect and which one to let go. Still I had to gather some to answer.
Let's consider both points of view:
Let's say that what you have said about Ayub Khan is all correct, he was a power hungry megalomaniac who exploited his way on rise to power and made only 22 families rich. This is one view, it can be correct.
Alternatively, the facts that are part of history also indicate that the civil government was weak and nobody was staying in power for the appointed tenure. By whichever way army took the power, it brought stability to the country and that stability translated into growth of economy; the 5 year economic plan was implemented for the first time and it
surpassed it's major goals. That was the first major era of industrialisation and was
modelled after Western Capitalism, in Capitalism, first the rich get richer and then the poor slowly start to rise to become the middle class.
Such processes always take decades; we need to remember the
early history of industrailisation/urbanisation in England. Interestingly enough, the implementation of
universal education was deemed necessary because the factory owners wanted their staff to be better operators of machines. World famoues
'National Health Service' (NHS) of UK (A warfare-welfare state) was established because the health of draftees in conscript army during the past two great wars was not considerably good enough to bear the brunt of war.
Concerning Fatima Jinnah and racism, I do not know and there can be POVs and the POVs can be biased, may be, may not be.
Another fact from the history is that the
corrupt son of Ayub Khan, Gohar Ayub Khan did not find army good enough to make money so he went into politics; he found it easier to keep a grip on power by going throught the route of dynastic politics perhaps. It was not possible in the army though; just an opinion.
Regarding the 1965 war, let's first talk about the
1962 China-India skirmish when China asked Pakistan that it was the best moment to free Kashmir; Ayub Khan refused at that time; did he cower out? or was he advised by his 'Friends' not to go forward? Then, what happened in 1965, the strategy for 'Operation Gibralter' was on the table sine 1950s;
Ayub Khan reportedly was relctant to give a go.
On a whole,
Pakistan successfully defeated an Army many times it's size to achieve it's goals. If a defatist mentality is adamant to call it a defeat then it is their choice. After all, this is a forum where everybody is allowed to post their opinions as long as they are not offensive in nature.
I know a person who is a retired Airforce Warrant Officer and has served during 1971 war. He tells that during that war
many of the PAF bombers were called back directly from HQ to abandon their missions. He also told me that Air Chief Marshall Hakimullah was so disgusted that he had a quarrel with his seniors. Clearly, somebody was ready to lose the war; they must have thought the situation to be hopeless. We can speculate more! POVs.
Keeping a small number of Armed Forces in East Pakistan also must have contributed.
Agartala Conspiracy is also a part of documented history.
Successful RAW infiltration and psy-ops posing themselves as Pak Army personnel and vairous Bahinis is also documented.
The genocide propaganda that dis-heartened the Pak Army so much was a successful strategy and it was used by all the world powers to force Pakistan to let go of East Pakistan.
Oudher tum, idher hum (Z.A. Bhutto) and the tussle for power.
Clearly, neither there was a
single factor nor one person to blame. Ayub Khan still can be singularly blamed by an opinion stating the domino effect of his actions. Just a POV.
Regarding army as an autocratic instituion, I will just refer to my original post, it still holds it's value, after all there is
no dynastic ascendance to higher commands and there is no specific clan/family/ethnicity that can be used as a ladder to progress. Just check the social background of all past Army Chiefs; that will also give an answer to the people who blame army to ba a 'Punjabi Army'.
I was in US during the Kargil crisis, I remeber the squealing of Indian/US politicians on Indian losses and
biggest squealer of them all was Bill Clinton, it was like somebody had stepped on his tail. I remember the boasting of Pakistani politicians: Aap ko kiya pata keh hum ne unko kitni kut charhi hai (Mushahid Hussain). Pakistan only had to back down because of that coward Nawaz Sharif. On that matter, I will believe more on what General Hameed Gul says, plus my personal observations.
We can not use
a single decision by Pervaiz Musharraf, if it was only his decision, to condemn the whole army as an autocratic institution. Also, Pervaiz Musharraf states otherwise and says that the proposal was presented to Nawaz Sharif and discussed in detail. If he could not understand the ramifications then did he really deserved to be the Prime Minister?
I live in
UK, and it has a feeling of
deep state here too, the head of state is a monarch, there is a 'House of Lords' of which most of the members are appointed elite. They can make and introduce laws and have substantial role in opinion building and running of the government. There is a foreign policy which has to go on regardless of what 'members of parliament' think. The overwhelming majority of British democrat parliamentarians were against going to 'Iraq Offensive' in 2003, at that time Conservatives members came to the help of 'Democratic' government.
'Democracy, in the case of UK, is the best facade'. It is still better than the (re)vengeful democracy of ours though.
Lets not use the words ghairat and beghairat brigade: lets say
sovereignity and subservience,
even if sovereignity is a dream to the People of Pakistan it is a good one to follow. The example comes directly from Quran and early Muslim history in Makkah where they were instructed to lay low and ignore the harassment of Quresh tribe,
just say 'Peace'. As Muslims gained strength, they were called to actively defend and engage in
'Qitaal' against the aggressors.
I admit that it is the elite who co-mingle with the dictators/army rulers, but who's perfect? we are only looking at
relatively better or relatively worse.
I know that army uses it's influence to get financial gains, there is corruption. But is there also nepotism and sycopancy to get promotion? I do not belong to army, so would like to hear from you of some examples.
The books, I am reading now a days, are:
1. Alphabet versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain
2. Balti Britain by Ziauddin Sardar
3. A child against all odds by Robert Winston
We are here to converse, learn, share and dissipate; essentially
to calibrate our compasses. Our World Views can differ, but so can be our experiences that shaped our thoughts.
I can troll along, some might say, but let's say that this is
my 'Democratic' right to have and express an opinion on this forum. If you ban me for doing that then what will be the difference between you and those dictators you so loathe? Of course, you can tear me apart - once again - but there want be much left to the pleasure of your carnivorous instincts.
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MOREOVER (and in Punjabi - if you have heard the joke)
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