HAIDER
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- May 21, 2006
- Messages
- 33,771
- Reaction score
- 14
- Country
- Location
(The most interesting line are about Kargil conflict, how West see the PA retreat from Kargil, which proves retreat was not from any unexpected big offensive move from India)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Pervez Musharraf ended a tumultuous army career Wednesday that saw him go to the brink of war with India and seize power in a dramatic coup, then find a lifeline in the calamity of Sept. 11, 2001, to turn Pakistan from a pariah state into a vital Muslim ally of the West.
Musharraf's image has taken a beating at home and abroad since he declared a state of emergency on Nov. 3. Pakistan's revitalized opposition could yet wreck his plan to stay on as a civilian president.
Islamic militants entrenched along the Afghan border, where Osama bin Laden may still be hiding, have defied his U.S.-urged efforts to dislodge them.
But Musharraf, 64, who stepped down as chief of army staff on Thursday, threw Pakistan behind a superpower enraged by al-Qaida's audacious 2001 attacks and used Western patronage to revitalize both its economy and army, an institution which sees itself as the glue holding the troubled nation together.
"What Gen. Musharraf did after 9/11 was an act of extreme daring," the liberal Daily Times newspaper said in an editorial Wednesday.
Less flexible generals would have struggled to abandon Pakistan's long promotion of Islamic militants as an auxiliary force against regional rivals, it said.
Musharraf owed his rise to the top of one of the world's largest armies to the former prime minister now gunning hardest for his removal from power.
Nawaz Sharif promoted him over a more senior general to the top military job in October 1998.
But the two men became bitter enemies the following year over the ill-fated Kargil maneuver, in which Pakistani troops joined forces with militant irregulars in a surprise attack aimed at seizing ground from their Indian adversaries in the frozen mountains of Kashmir.
Under pressure from then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, Sharif ordered a humiliating retreat, easing international fears that the conflict could escalate into a nuclear conflict.
When Sharif tried to fire Musharraf just a year after appointing him, the army took revenge.
Sharif was arrested and jailed for his frantic efforts to prevent a plane bringing Musharraf back from a foreign trip from landing at Karachi airport. A year later, he was released into exile in Saudi Arabia, from where he returned last week.
Musharraf, who was born in Delhi in 1943, four years before the independence and partition of India, joined the Pakistan Military Academy in 1961.
He was commissioned to an artillery regiment three years later and saw action in the 1965 war against India and again in 1971 as commander of a company of elite Special Service Group commandos. His training included a spell at Britain's Royal College of Defense Studies.
Despite disciplinary problems as a young officer, he rose through the ranks to become a major general in 1991 in charge of an infantry division and held a variety of staff positions before becoming army chief of staff.
The 1999 coup pushed Pakistan deeper into the political isolation stemming from the Kargil debacle and its first test detonations of atomic bombs in 1998.
Then came Sept. 11 and intense U.S. pressure from Washington for Pakistan to turn against its former Taliban clients, who had seized Afghanistan and made it into a safe haven for al-Qaida.
America was sure to react "like a wounded bear," Musharraf wrote in his 2006 memoir. "If the perpetrator turned out to be al-Qaida, that wounded bear would come charging straight towards us."
Musharraf braved the wrath of his country's religious fundamentalists and swung firmly behind Washington, granting overflight rights and the use of Pakistani air bases to support the attack on Afghanistan.
In the following years, and with help from the CIA, Pakistan captured hundreds of al-Qaida suspects, including key leaders such as Abu Zubayda and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the attack that felled New York's World Trade Center.
With Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar still on the loose, some observers have doubted Pakistan's commitment to the cause of battling extremists.
Musharraf, piqued, threatened earlier this year to quit the coalition altogether.
But the militant groups' enmity toward him had been brutally demonstrated in December 2003, when the general narrowly escaped two massive bomb attacks in 11 days, both a short distance from the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, where he stepped down on Tuesday.
Under Musharraf, Pakistan army troops entered the semiautonomous tribal belt along the Afghan border for the first time.
The region, never subdued under British colonial rule, had become a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism during the U.S.-backed mujahedeen war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
After a series of bloody operations begun in 2004, the army pulled back under a series of peace agreements with tribal leaders and militants.
U.S. officials complained that the deals, instead of allowing moderate tribal leaders to reassert their authority, only let extremists consolidate their hold, and the pact in the critical North Waziristan region broke down this past summer.
This year, fighting has spread to the Swat valley, a formerly quiet and scenic valley that drew rising numbers of tourists, just a two-hour drive from the capital.
Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a prominent Pakistani political and military analyst, said Musharraf leaves the military in good shape, thanks to billions of dollars in American military aid and the army's burgeoning role in the Pakistan economy.
"He devoted whatever was possible to make the army a professional and well-equipped force and the American weapons supply played an important role," Rizvi said.
But he said the army's involvement in politics had inflicted the worst damage to its public image since a bloody military intervention in East Pakistan in 1971 failed to prevent it from breaking away to form Bangladesh.
A senior commander told reporters earlier this month that the army would try harder to avoid inflicting civilian casualties inside its own borders.
In his last speech in uniform on Tuesday, Musharraf said the army was now "stretched to the limit."
Musharraf turned Pakistan from international pariah to key Western ally - International Herald Tribune
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Pervez Musharraf ended a tumultuous army career Wednesday that saw him go to the brink of war with India and seize power in a dramatic coup, then find a lifeline in the calamity of Sept. 11, 2001, to turn Pakistan from a pariah state into a vital Muslim ally of the West.
Musharraf's image has taken a beating at home and abroad since he declared a state of emergency on Nov. 3. Pakistan's revitalized opposition could yet wreck his plan to stay on as a civilian president.
Islamic militants entrenched along the Afghan border, where Osama bin Laden may still be hiding, have defied his U.S.-urged efforts to dislodge them.
But Musharraf, 64, who stepped down as chief of army staff on Thursday, threw Pakistan behind a superpower enraged by al-Qaida's audacious 2001 attacks and used Western patronage to revitalize both its economy and army, an institution which sees itself as the glue holding the troubled nation together.
"What Gen. Musharraf did after 9/11 was an act of extreme daring," the liberal Daily Times newspaper said in an editorial Wednesday.
Less flexible generals would have struggled to abandon Pakistan's long promotion of Islamic militants as an auxiliary force against regional rivals, it said.
Musharraf owed his rise to the top of one of the world's largest armies to the former prime minister now gunning hardest for his removal from power.
Nawaz Sharif promoted him over a more senior general to the top military job in October 1998.
But the two men became bitter enemies the following year over the ill-fated Kargil maneuver, in which Pakistani troops joined forces with militant irregulars in a surprise attack aimed at seizing ground from their Indian adversaries in the frozen mountains of Kashmir.
Under pressure from then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, Sharif ordered a humiliating retreat, easing international fears that the conflict could escalate into a nuclear conflict.
When Sharif tried to fire Musharraf just a year after appointing him, the army took revenge.
Sharif was arrested and jailed for his frantic efforts to prevent a plane bringing Musharraf back from a foreign trip from landing at Karachi airport. A year later, he was released into exile in Saudi Arabia, from where he returned last week.
Musharraf, who was born in Delhi in 1943, four years before the independence and partition of India, joined the Pakistan Military Academy in 1961.
He was commissioned to an artillery regiment three years later and saw action in the 1965 war against India and again in 1971 as commander of a company of elite Special Service Group commandos. His training included a spell at Britain's Royal College of Defense Studies.
Despite disciplinary problems as a young officer, he rose through the ranks to become a major general in 1991 in charge of an infantry division and held a variety of staff positions before becoming army chief of staff.
The 1999 coup pushed Pakistan deeper into the political isolation stemming from the Kargil debacle and its first test detonations of atomic bombs in 1998.
Then came Sept. 11 and intense U.S. pressure from Washington for Pakistan to turn against its former Taliban clients, who had seized Afghanistan and made it into a safe haven for al-Qaida.
America was sure to react "like a wounded bear," Musharraf wrote in his 2006 memoir. "If the perpetrator turned out to be al-Qaida, that wounded bear would come charging straight towards us."
Musharraf braved the wrath of his country's religious fundamentalists and swung firmly behind Washington, granting overflight rights and the use of Pakistani air bases to support the attack on Afghanistan.
In the following years, and with help from the CIA, Pakistan captured hundreds of al-Qaida suspects, including key leaders such as Abu Zubayda and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the attack that felled New York's World Trade Center.
With Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar still on the loose, some observers have doubted Pakistan's commitment to the cause of battling extremists.
Musharraf, piqued, threatened earlier this year to quit the coalition altogether.
But the militant groups' enmity toward him had been brutally demonstrated in December 2003, when the general narrowly escaped two massive bomb attacks in 11 days, both a short distance from the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, where he stepped down on Tuesday.
Under Musharraf, Pakistan army troops entered the semiautonomous tribal belt along the Afghan border for the first time.
The region, never subdued under British colonial rule, had become a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism during the U.S.-backed mujahedeen war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
After a series of bloody operations begun in 2004, the army pulled back under a series of peace agreements with tribal leaders and militants.
U.S. officials complained that the deals, instead of allowing moderate tribal leaders to reassert their authority, only let extremists consolidate their hold, and the pact in the critical North Waziristan region broke down this past summer.
This year, fighting has spread to the Swat valley, a formerly quiet and scenic valley that drew rising numbers of tourists, just a two-hour drive from the capital.
Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a prominent Pakistani political and military analyst, said Musharraf leaves the military in good shape, thanks to billions of dollars in American military aid and the army's burgeoning role in the Pakistan economy.
"He devoted whatever was possible to make the army a professional and well-equipped force and the American weapons supply played an important role," Rizvi said.
But he said the army's involvement in politics had inflicted the worst damage to its public image since a bloody military intervention in East Pakistan in 1971 failed to prevent it from breaking away to form Bangladesh.
A senior commander told reporters earlier this month that the army would try harder to avoid inflicting civilian casualties inside its own borders.
In his last speech in uniform on Tuesday, Musharraf said the army was now "stretched to the limit."
Musharraf turned Pakistan from international pariah to key Western ally - International Herald Tribune
