third eye
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Valid points raised, posting excerpts only..
Exactly two weeks ago, I arrived in Beirut late in the evening after a long and tiring flight from Lahore via Dubai. Let me hasten to add that the service aboard Emirates was second to none, it was just the seven-hour flight and the five-hour long lay over at Dubai which was stressful, and yes, galling.
...........
Meanwhile, back at the ranch one more general has blown the whistle on his former colleagues and comrades regarding the fiasco that was Kargil. This time it is Lt Gen Shahid Aziz once DG (Analysis) ISI when the Kargil balloon went up; later CGS and then chairman NAB. Once again the whistle has been blown too late, and many years after the fiasco played itself out and showed us up to the whole world as the dysfunctional people we are.
We already knew much of what Aziz tells us, first from our free-wheeling and juvenile Commando himself when he bad-mouthed a gentlemanly chief of our air force publicly and people began to cast about for the reason of the Commandos pique. It turned out then, fully eight years ago, that only four or five people knew about Kargil, not even the Corps Commanders, leave alone the other Service Chiefs.
As an aside, reader, this shows how decision-making is done in the most powerful, most efficient institution in the country, what. (I mean if this is the state of the most efficient institution in the country we are really done for, no?) And then the Commando has the gall to say India over-reacted to what he engineered in Kargil! Would India not over-react, dash it all? Wouldnt we, if we were attacked? Stand up, Humayun Gohar.
But back to Shahid Aziz. Why did he wait 13 years before saying what he knew? Why did he not object when he was in the ISI and first came to know through Indian intercepts that something was afoot up in Kargil, something that he realised at that time would come to no good? Why wait until the damage was done and the opprobrium of the world was our lot?
It is too tempting not to think that Aziz waited until he had exhausted all his postings and the perks and goodies that come a Lt Gens way as he progresses up the ladder of seniority. For example, QMG plots in generals colonies in cantonments across the country? As another, mayhap an ambassadorial appointment? And God alone knows what else . Only he can tell us why he waited so long.
Really, weve been through so much at the hands of our Rommels and Guderians that it is about time they laid off and let this countrys elected representatives guide its destiny. The elections are upon us; and we have an excellent man as our Chief Election Commissioner. Let him do his duty as best as he knows, and let every political party have a fair shot in the polls.
Well get there one day; yes, we will.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st, 2013.
Exactly two weeks ago, I arrived in Beirut late in the evening after a long and tiring flight from Lahore via Dubai. Let me hasten to add that the service aboard Emirates was second to none, it was just the seven-hour flight and the five-hour long lay over at Dubai which was stressful, and yes, galling.
...........
Meanwhile, back at the ranch one more general has blown the whistle on his former colleagues and comrades regarding the fiasco that was Kargil. This time it is Lt Gen Shahid Aziz once DG (Analysis) ISI when the Kargil balloon went up; later CGS and then chairman NAB. Once again the whistle has been blown too late, and many years after the fiasco played itself out and showed us up to the whole world as the dysfunctional people we are.
We already knew much of what Aziz tells us, first from our free-wheeling and juvenile Commando himself when he bad-mouthed a gentlemanly chief of our air force publicly and people began to cast about for the reason of the Commandos pique. It turned out then, fully eight years ago, that only four or five people knew about Kargil, not even the Corps Commanders, leave alone the other Service Chiefs.
As an aside, reader, this shows how decision-making is done in the most powerful, most efficient institution in the country, what. (I mean if this is the state of the most efficient institution in the country we are really done for, no?) And then the Commando has the gall to say India over-reacted to what he engineered in Kargil! Would India not over-react, dash it all? Wouldnt we, if we were attacked? Stand up, Humayun Gohar.
But back to Shahid Aziz. Why did he wait 13 years before saying what he knew? Why did he not object when he was in the ISI and first came to know through Indian intercepts that something was afoot up in Kargil, something that he realised at that time would come to no good? Why wait until the damage was done and the opprobrium of the world was our lot?
It is too tempting not to think that Aziz waited until he had exhausted all his postings and the perks and goodies that come a Lt Gens way as he progresses up the ladder of seniority. For example, QMG plots in generals colonies in cantonments across the country? As another, mayhap an ambassadorial appointment? And God alone knows what else . Only he can tell us why he waited so long.
Really, weve been through so much at the hands of our Rommels and Guderians that it is about time they laid off and let this countrys elected representatives guide its destiny. The elections are upon us; and we have an excellent man as our Chief Election Commissioner. Let him do his duty as best as he knows, and let every political party have a fair shot in the polls.
Well get there one day; yes, we will.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st, 2013.
