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Pakistan's army chief fights to keep his job

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By JANE PERLEZ


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s army chief, the most powerful man in the country, is fighting to save his position in the face of seething anger from top generals and junior officers since the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden, according to Pakistani officials and people who have met the chief in recent weeks.
Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who has led the army since 2007, faces such intense discontent over what is seen as his cozy relationship with the United States that a colonels’ coup, while unlikely, was not out of the question, said a well-informed Pakistani who has seen the general in recent weeks, as well as an American military official involved with Pakistan for many years.
The Pakistani Army is essentially run by consensus among 11 top commanders, known as the Corps Commanders, and almost all of them, if not all, were demanding that General Kayani get much tougher with the Americans, even edging toward a break, Pakistanis who follow the army closely said.
Washington, with its own hard line against Pakistan, had pushed General Kayani into a defensive crouch, along with his troops, and if the general was pushed out, the United States would face a more uncompromising anti-American army chief, the Pakistani said.
To repair the reputation of the army, and to ensure his own survival, General Kayani made an extraordinary tour of more than a dozen garrisons, mess halls and other institutions in the six weeks since the May 2 raid that killed Bin Laden. His goal was to rally support among his rank-and-file troops, who are almost uniformly anti-American, according to participants and people briefed on the sessions.
During a long session in late May at the National Defense University, the premier academy in Islamabad, the capital, one officer got up after General Kayani’s address and challenged his policy of cooperation with the United States. The officer asked, “If they don’t trust us, how can we trust them?” according to Shaukaut Qadri, a retired army brigadier who was briefed on the session. General Kayani essentially responded, “We can’t,” Mr. Qadri said.
In response to pressure from his troops, Pakistani and American officials said, General Kayani had already become a more obstinate partner, standing ever more firm with each high-level American delegation that has visited since the raid to try and rescue the shattered American-Pakistani relationship.

In a prominent example of the new Pakistani intransigence, The New York Times reported Tuesday that, according to American officials, Pakistan’s spy agency had arrested five Pakistani informants who helped the Central Intelligence Agency before the Bin Laden raid. The officials said one of them is a doctor who has served as a major in the Pakistani Army. In a statement on Wednesday, a Pakistani military spokesman called the story “false” and said no army officer had been detained. Over all, Pakistani and American officials said, the relationship was now more competitive and combative than cooperative.
General Kayani told the director of the C.I.A., Leon E. Panetta, during a visit here last weekend that Pakistan would not accede to his request for independent operations by the agency, Pakistani and American officials said.

A long statement after the regular monthly meeting of the 11 corps commanders last week illuminated the mounting hostility toward the United States, even as it remains the army’s biggest patron, supplying at least $2 billion a year in aid.
The statement, aimed at rebuilding support within the army and among the public, said that American training in Pakistan had only ever been minimal, and had now ended. “It needs to be clarified that the army had never accepted any training assistance from the United States except for training on the newly inducted weapons and some training assistance for the Frontier Corps only,” a reference to paramilitary troops in the northwest tribal areas, the statement said.
The statement said that the C.I.A.-run drone attacks against militants in the tribal areas “were not acceptable under any circumstances.”
Allowing the drones to continue to operate from Pakistan was “politically unsustainable,” said the well-informed Pakistani who met with General Kayani recently. As part of his survival mechanism, General Kayani could well order the Americans to stop the drone program completely, the Pakistani said.
The Pakistanis have already blocked the supply of food and water to the base used for the drones, a senior American official said, adding that they were gradually “strangling the alliance” by making things difficult for the Americans in Pakistan.
The turmoil within the Pakistani Army has engendered the lowest morale since it lost the war in 1971 against East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, army observers say. The anger and disillusionment stems from the fact that the Obama administration decided not to tell Pakistan in advance about the Bin Laden raid — and that Pakistan was then unable to detect or stop it.
That Bin Laden was living comfortably in Pakistan for years has evinced little outrage here among a population that has consistently told pollsters it is more sympathetic to Al Qaeda than to the United States.
Even a well-known pro-American commander, Lt. Gen. Tariq Khan, who spent more than a year at Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had fallen in line with the new ultranationalist sentiment against the Americans, a former army officer said.
The anger at the Americans was now making it more difficult for General Kayani to motivate the army to fight against the Pakistani Taliban in what is increasingly seen as a fight on behalf of the United States, former Pakistani soldiers said.
“The feeling that they are fighting America’s war against their own people has a negative impact on the fighting efficiency,” said Javed Hussain, a former special forces officer in the Pakistani military.

Discipline has become a worry, as has an open rebellion in the middle ranks of officers, particularly as rumors circulate that some enlisted men have questioned whether General Kayani and his partner, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of the chief spy agency, the Directorate for the Inter-Services Intelligence, should remain in their jobs.
A special three-year extension General Kayani won in his position last year did not sit well among the rank and file who perceived it as having been pushed by the United States to keep its man in the top job.

“Keeping discipline in the lower ranks is a challenge,” said Mr. Qadri, the retired army brigadier.
General Kayani’s problems have been magnified by a groundswell of unprecedented criticism from the public, questioning both the army’s competence and the lavish rewards for its top brass, something that also increasingly rankles modestly paid enlisted men.
“Adding to this frustration and public pique is the lifestyle that the top brass of all the services has maintained,” Talat Hussain, a prominent journalist who generally writes favorably about the military, wrote in Monday’s edition of the English-language newspaper Dawn. “This is not a guns versus butter argument, but a contrast between the reality of the life led by the military elite at state expense and the general situation for ordinary citizens.”
Despite the resources the army soaks up — about 23 percent of Pakistan’s annual expenditures — it has appeared impotent since the May 2 raid. The infiltration three weeks later of the nation’s largest naval base by Qaeda commandos that left at least 10 security officers dead added to the sense of disarray.
According to the notes of a participant in the session at the National Defense University, General Kayani acknowledged that Pakistan had mortgaged itself to the United States. The participant declined to be identified because people at the session agreed that they would not divulge what was said.
In making the analogy to Pakistan as a mortgaged house, General Kayani said that if a person gave his house against a loan and was unable to pay back the loan, the mortgage holder would intervene, the participant said. “We are helpless,” General Kayani said, according to the person’s notes. “Can we fight America?”
Pir Zubair Shah contributed reporting.
This article, "General Kayani is said to cling to job in Pakistan," first appeared in The New York Times.
 
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everyone does that, everywhere in the world, or is otherwise ?:cheesy:
 
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In a prominent example of the new Pakistani intransigence, The New York Times reported Tuesday that, according to American officials, Pakistan’s spy agency had arrested five Pakistani informants who helped the Central Intelligence Agency before the Bin Laden raid. The officials said one of them is a doctor who has served as a major in the Pakistani Army.
An Army doctor selected for a spying mission for such an important operation? That's weird if not bizarre! Goes to show the credibility of this article!!

Second. Why is Pakistan not taking back the Shamsi airfield, also called Bandari, a small Air Force's base and air station located in Balochistan, Pakistan, about 320 km southwest of Quetta, from the UAE which has leased it in turn to the US of A? It is from here that the American drones are being launched. Why can't Pakistan throw the Americans out from there as a first step in reducing America's signature in the AFPAK region? Let them fly their drones from deep within Afghanistan which would be a much tougher to operate from due to the turn around time involved.

On the one hand Pakistan cries foul at American drone raids and on the other allows them to operate with impunity from within Pakistan itself! What kind of hypocrisy is this?

And then PM Gilani and the Parliament has passed a resolution to the effect that drone attacks are a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and that it will not be tolerated. If the drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal belt are not "stopped forthwith," the government "will be constrained to consider taking necessary steps, including withdrawal of transit facility allowed to NATO/ISAF forces (in Afghanistan)," the resolution said. The resolution also said the people and state institutions of Pakistan were committed to safeguarding "national interests and strategic assets" and warned that "any action to the contrary will warrant a strong national response."

So what's changed from then? Nothing! What has been the so called 'strong national response'? Drone attacks continue and so do transit facilities allowed to NATO/ISAF forces! Empty rhetoric? It's business as usual. Americans have called Pakistan's bluff and know that they will not stop such transit facilities, drone strikes or not! Because the stakes are to high for this to happen.

The moot point is whether the Pakistan Establishment has the guts to throw the Americans out from Pakistan completely and let them fight their own war on terror in Afghanistan. But with billions of dollars at stake, will this ever come about?
 
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By JANE PERLEZ


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s army chief, the most powerful man in the country, is fighting to save his position in the face of seething anger from top generals and junior officers since the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden, according to Pakistani officials and people who have met the chief in recent weeks.

Hmm... "according to Pakistani Officials"... Any army official who speaks against Army chief this way will have his job out. And anyone from outside the Army can't really know whats going on inside.

Rubbish propaganda article.
 
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An Army doctor selected for a spying mission for such an important operation? That's weird if not bizarre! Goes to show the credibility of this article!!

Second. Why is Pakistan not taking back the Shamsi airfield, also called Bandari, a small Air Force's base and air station located in Balochistan, Pakistan, about 320 km southwest of Quetta, from the UAE which has leased it in turn to the US of A? It is from here that the American drones are being launched. Why can't Pakistan throw the Americans out from there as a first step in reducing America's signature in the AFPAK region? Let them fly their drones from deep within Afghanistan which would be a much tougher to operate from due to the turn around time involved.

On the one hand Pakistan cries foul at American drone raids and on the other allows them to operate with impunity from within Pakistan itself! What kind of hypocrisy is this?

And then PM Gilani and the Parliament has passed a resolution to the effect that drone attacks are a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and that it will not be tolerated. If the drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal belt are not "stopped forthwith," the government "will be constrained to consider taking necessary steps, including withdrawal of transit facility allowed to NATO/ISAF forces (in Afghanistan)," the resolution said. The resolution also said the people and state institutions of Pakistan were committed to safeguarding "national interests and strategic assets" and warned that "any action to the contrary will warrant a strong national response."

So what's changed from then? Nothing! What has been the so called 'strong national response'? Drone attacks continue and so do transit facilities allowed to NATO/ISAF forces! Empty rhetoric? It's business as usual. Americans have called Pakistan's bluff and know that they will not stop such transit facilities, drone strikes or not! Because the stakes are to high for this to happen.

The moot point is whether the Pakistan Establishment has the guts to throw the Americans out from Pakistan completely and let them fight their own war on terror in Afghanistan. But with billions of dollars at stake, will this ever come about?

Actually Pakistan has stopped food and water supplies to the base operating the drones. Credibility of this article may be questioned. But the fact is that it appeared in the New York Times. Does not bode well for the image of the Pakistan Military.
 
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After raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's military chief Kayani fights to keep his job
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Ashfaq Kayani

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's army chief, the most powerful man in the country, is fighting to save his position in the face of seething anger from top generals and junior officers since the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, according to Pakistani officials and people who have met the chief in recent weeks.

Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who has led the army since 2007, faces such intense discontent over what is seen as his cozy relationship with the United States that a colonels' coup, while unlikely, was not out of the question, said a well-informed Pakistani who has seen the general in recent weeks, as well as a U.S. military official involved with Pakistan for many years.

The Pakistani army is essentially run by consensus among 11 top commanders, known as the Corps Commanders, and almost all of them, if not all, were demanding that Kayani get much tougher with the Americans, even edging toward a break, Pakistanis who follow the army closely said.

Washington, with its own hard line against Pakistan, had pushed Kayani into a defensive crouch, along with his troops, and if the general was pushed out, the United States would face a more uncompromising anti-American army chief, the Pakistani said.

To repair the reputation of the army, and to ensure his own survival, Kayani made an extraordinary tour of more than a dozen garrisons, mess halls and other institutions in the six weeks since the May 2 raid that killed bin Laden to rally support among his rank-and-file troops, who were almost uniformly anti-American, according to participants and people briefed on the sessions.

During a long session in late May at the National Defense University, the premier academy in Islamabad, the capital, one officer got up after Kayani's address and challenged his policy of cooperation with the United States. The officer asked, "If they don't trust us, how can we trust them?" according to Shaukaut Qadri, a retired army brigadier who was briefed on the session. Kayani essentially responded, "We can't," Qadri said.

In response to pressure from his troops, Pakistani and U.S. officials said, Kayani had already become a more obstinate partner, standing ever more firm with each high-level U.S. delegation that has visited since the raid to try and rescue the shattered U.S.-Pakistani relationship.

In a prominent example of the new Pakistani intransigence, The New York Times reported Tuesday that, according to U.S. officials, Pakistan's spy agency had arrested five Pakistani informants who helped the Central Intelligence Agency before the bin Laden raid. The officials said one of them is a doctor who has served as a major in the Pakistani army. In a statement Wednesday, a Pakistani military spokesman called the story "false" and said no army officer was detained. Overall, Pakistani and U.S. officials said, the relationship was now more competitive and combative than cooperative.

Kayani told the director of the CIA, Leon Panetta , during a visit here last weekend that Pakistan would not accede to his request for independent operations by the agency, Pakistani and U.S. officials said.
A long statement after the regular monthly meeting of the 11 Corps Commanders last week illuminated the mounting hostility toward the United States, even as it remains the army's biggest patron, supplying at least $2 billion a year in aid.

The statement, aimed at rebuilding the eroded support within the army and among the public, said that U.S. training in Pakistan had only ever been minimal, and had now ended.

"It needs to be clarified that the army had never accepted any training assistance from the United States except for training on the newly inducted weapons and some training assistance for the Frontier Corps only," a reference to paramilitary troops in the northwest tribal areas, the statement said.

The statement said that the CIA-run drone attacks against militants in the tribal areas "were not acceptable under any circumstances."

Allowing the drones to continue to operate from Pakistan was "politically unsustainable," said the well-informed Pakistani who met with Kayani recently. As part of his survival mechanism, Kayani could well order the Americans to stop the drone program completely, the Pakistani said.

The Pakistanis have already blocked the supply of food and water to the base used for the drones, a senior U.S. official said, adding that they were gradually "strangling the alliance" by making things difficult for the Americans in Pakistan.

The turmoil within the Pakistani army has engendered the lowest morale since it lost the war in 1971 against East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, army observers say. The anger and disillusionment stems from the Obama administration deciding not to tell Pakistan in advance about the bin Laden raid - and that Pakistan was then unable to detect or stop it.

That bin Laden was living comfortably in Pakistan for years has evinced little outrage here among a population that has consistently told pollsters it is more sympathetic to al-Qaida than to the United States.

Even a well-known pro-U.S. commander, Lt. Gen. Tariq Khan, who spent more than a year at Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, had fallen in line with the new ultranationalist sentiment against the Americans, a former army officer said.

The anger at the Americans was now making it more difficult for Kayani to motivate the army to fight against the Pakistani Taliban in what is increasingly seen as a fight on behalf of the United States, former Pakistani soldiers said.

"The feeling that they are fighting America's war against their own people has a negative impact on the fighting efficiency," said Javed Hussain, a former special forces officer in the Pakistani military.

Discipline has become a worry, as has an open rebellion in the middle ranks of officers, particularly as rumors circulate that some enlisted men had questioned whether Kayani and his partner, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha , the head of the chief spy agency, the Directorate for the Inter-Services Intelligence, should remain in their jobs.

A special three-year extension Kayani won in his position last year did not sit well among the rank and file who perceived it as having been pushed by the United States to keep its man in the top job.
"Keeping discipline in the lower ranks is a challenge," said Qadri, the retired army brigadier.

Kayani's problems have been magnified by a groundswell of unprecedented criticism from the public, questioning both the army's competence and the lavish rewards for its top brass, something that also increasingly rankles modestly paid enlisted men.

"Adding to this frustration and public pique is the lifestyle that the top brass of all the services has maintained," wrote Talat Hussain, a prominent journalist who generally writes favorably about the military, in Monday's edition of the English-language newspaper Dawn. "This is not a guns vs. butter argument, but a contrast between the reality of the life led by the military elite at state expense and the general situation for ordinary citizens."

Despite the resources the army soaks up - about 23 percent of Pakistan's annual expenditures - the institution has appeared impotent since the May 2 raid. The infiltration three weeks later of the nation's largest naval base by al-Qaida commandos left at least 10 security officers dead, added to the sense of disarray.

According to the notes of a participant in the session at the National Defense University, Kayani acknowledged that Pakistan had mortgaged itself to the United States. The participant declined to be identified because people at the session agreed that they would not divulge what was said.

In making the analogy to Pakistan as a mortgaged house, Kayani said that if a person gave his house against a loan and was unable to pay back the loan, the mortgage holder would intervene, the participant said.

"We are helpless," Kayani said, according to the person's notes. "Can we fight America?"
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/after-raid-that-killed-osama-bin-laden-pakistans-military-chief-kayani-fights-to-keep-his-job/articleshow/8873572.cms
 
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In making the analogy to Pakistan as a mortgaged house, Kayani said that if a person gave his house against a loan and was unable to pay back the loan, the mortgage holder would intervene, the participant said.
"We are helpless," Kayani said, according to the person's notes. "Can we fight America

Pathetic - given this "quality" of leadership, is it any wonder that the rank and file suffer from low morale? -- The leader of this "run away to fight another day" army is already conceding, after sopping up all those resources, we get "can we fight the American?" Just who the Fcuk can you guys fight? You can't fight the islamist, you can't fight the American, you can't fight the Indian - -why are you people needed?
 
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Pathetic - given this "quality" of leadership, is it any wonder that the rank and file suffer from low morale? -- The leader of this "run away to fight another day" army is already conceding, after sopping up all those resources, we get "can we fight the American?" Just who the Fcuk can you guys fight? You can't fight the islamist, you can't fight the American, you can't fight the Indian - -why are you people needed?

At least for some in the top..
its business challenges.
 
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Strangest thing is that, at not one place in the whole scenario is there a mention of the mandate of the elected government. Seems more like the 11 warlords are running things by their "concensus !"

The Pakistani army is essentially run by consensus among 11 top commanders, known as the Corps Commanders, and almost all of them, if not all, were demanding that Kayani get much tougher with the Americans, even edging toward a break, Pakistanis who follow the army closely said.

"Adding to this frustration and public pique is the lifestyle that the top brass of all the services has maintained," wrote Talat Hussain, a prominent journalist who generally writes favorably about the military, in Monday's edition of the English-language newspaper Dawn. "This is not a guns vs. butter argument, but a contrast between the reality of the life led by the military elite at state expense and the general situation for ordinary citizens."

Despite the resources the army soaks up - about 23 percent of Pakistan's annual expenditures - the institution has appeared impotent since the May 2 raid. The infiltration three weeks later of the nation's largest naval base by al-Qaida commandos left at least 10 security officers dead, added to the sense of disarray.

According to the notes of a participant in the session at the National Defense University, Kayani acknowledged that Pakistan had mortgaged itself to the United States. The participant declined to be identified because people at the session agreed that they would not divulge what was said.

In making the analogy to Pakistan as a mortgaged house, Kayani said that if a person gave his house against a loan and was unable to pay back the loan, the mortgage holder would intervene, the participant said.

"We are helpless," Kayani said, according to the person's notes. "Can we fight America?"

We have a member, username = Xeric. Hope that he reads this and may be he will change his mind about the "dumb people deserve dumb army" thing that he was claiming on another thread. Gen. Kiyani is an army officer. He knows nothing about the current political and existential challenge faced by the country. What he needs to do is to listen to the government and put his forces where they are needed and not listen to the 11 warlords sort of structure that is elaborated earlier in this article.
 
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'Pressure' on Pakistan army head over US ties - Al Jazeera

Pakistan's army chief is reportedly fighting to keep his job after the killing of al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden by US forces last month.

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is facing criticism from his colleagues for his close relationship with the US.

The discontent with Kayani has reached such a level that a colonels' coup is not out of the question, the New York Times quoted Pakistani and US sources as saying on Thursday.

The report said Kayani had toured of more than a dozen garrisons, mess halls and other institutions to gather support in the six weeks since the May 2 in which US special forces killed Bin Laden in Abbottabad near Islamabad.

However, Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Islamabad, said military sources told him Kayani is very deeply respected by his army.

"Certainly he's under a lot of pressure but to suggest that he'll be replaced or that there will be some kind of internal coup, I think that's too early to say," he said.

"But it's fair to suggest that things are very difficult for the Pakistani military and times are certainly very tough for Kayani as well."

The US did not inform Islamabad before carrying out the raid on bin Laden's compound, leaving Pakistan's military and intelligence frustrated and humiliated after the operation invited allegations of incompetence and complicity.

'Important relationship'

Meanwhile, US legislators have been similarly displeased, complaining that Pakistani co-operation remains unreliable despite a huge aid package from Washington that has totalled more than $20bn since 2001.

The politicians have denounced Pakistan's arrest of several Pakistani informants who provided intelligence to the CIA about bin Laden's compound, saying authorities should instead go after the support network which allowed bin Laden to hide in.

At a White House briefing on Wednesday, spokesman Jay Carney said the US relationship with Pakistan was "extremely important".

"Most governments lie to each other. That's the way business gets done"

Robert Gates, US defence secretary

Carney said it was in the national security interest of the US to maintain the relationship, albeit strained.

"Pakistan has worked with us to go after terrorism and terrorists. More terrorists have been killed on Pakistani soil than in any other country," Carney said.

Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was questioned by one senator on how the US can trust and support governments like Pakistan and Afghanistan .

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, of Vermont, demanded to know how long the US would "support governments that lie to us".

"When do we say enough is enough?" he asked.

"Based on 27 years in CIA and four and a half years in this job, most governments lie to each other. That's the way business gets done," Gates said.

"Do they also arrest the people that help us, when they say they're allies?" Leahy continued.

"Sometimes,"Gates replied, adding that "sometimes they send people to spy on us, and they're our close allies. That's the real world that we deal with."

Al Jazeera's Tiab said there is a "real sense of anger" in Pakistan directed towards the US since the killing of bin Laden, with people saying the unilateral raid broke Pakistan's sovereignty.

"Another reason is the drone strikes in the north of the country which have resulted in so many deaths of civilians. These strikes have continued unabated since May 2," he said.

"There's also a general sense of anger over the Taliban attacks, which have increased so much since the killing of bin Laden."

Tiaz said the Taliban were punishing the Pakistani people for the country's military relationship with the US.

'Pressure' on Pakistan army head over US ties - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English

---------- Post added at 04:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:43 PM ----------

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/world/asia/16pakistan.html
 
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