Why No Nishan-e-Haider in the Whole War on Terror?

[TsAr]

Medals have been awarded in the past based on contrived stories or nepotism- evem today this practice continues.

Others were made into super humans for morale boosting.


Many who really did deserve recognition and medals were ignored due to personal reasons or professional jealousy

I concur with your view point, and its true for other armies as well...

 

[MastanKhan]

Flying a mission with faulty plane over enemy territory is not considered a bravery.

Hi,

That was lunacy---and should not have been allowed regardless of the pilot's stature.

 

[Qutb-ud-din Aybak]

the more medals you distribute , the lesser their value becomes...and yes no soldier is left unawarded..they get titles but small one's ...Understand the term "title" ? Its a name given to someone with special characteristics . Such as Saifullah to Hazrat Khalid Bin Waleed R.A ...no one else was called Saifullah coz its a title based on actions

In kargil war one more officer was recommended for nishane haider but they decided to give it to a 1 SIPAHI AND 1 officer. Could we have awarded all 3 of they deserved? The officer was given sitara e jurat

 

[sparten]

@Oscar, with respect you are suffering the middle-class Pakistani attitude, that our vices are unique to us.
Gallantry awards world over are replete with politics. I have heard many say that Lt Col H Jones's VC award in the Falklands was dubious, the man was undoubtedly brave but had lost control of the Battle, his duty as a CO, and got it cause he was the senior officer KIA. McArthur's Medal of Honour in 1942 was a morale booster, awarded despite him basically fucking up the whole defense of the Philippines and then running away.

I am reminded of something one officer wrote about a fellow Company Commander who had been KIA. He said that the man was brave as a lion and led his men from the front. But, he was not a good commander, he was out of his depth and got men killed needlessly including eventually himself.

Just look at the parade of idiots the Americans have sent to command the wars over the last 16 years, each stupider than the last. Who have mad ethe situation worse.
We had some bad officers, some officers who were over their heads. Like every Army in the world. But we had good generals as well, men who knew and did what needed to be done. For every 7 Baloch debacles in Waziristan, we have had the Air Assualt in Buner and Swat or Operation Zalzala or the reducing of South Waziristan in '09 and the North in 2014.

 

[haviZsultan]

Just curious and for the sake of discussion opening this thread up. We have lost more than 7,000 security personnel during the war on terror post 9/11. Why has there been not a single Nishan-e-Haider awarded during the whole time? What is it? Is the bravery element lacking or have we reserved the medal only for soldiers fighting India?

I agree. Atleast one medal should be awarded to soldiers who fought in the war on terror.

 

[SQ8]

@Oscar, with respect you are suffering the middle-class Pakistani attitude, that our vices are unique to us.
Gallantry awards world over are replete with politics. I have heard many say that Lt Col H Jones's VC award in the Falklands was dubious, the man was undoubtedly brave but had lost control of the Battle, his duty as a CO, and got it cause he was the senior officer KIA. McArthur's Medal of Honour in 1942 was a morale booster, awarded despite him basically fucking up the whole defense of the Philippines and then running away.

I am reminded of something one officer wrote about a fellow Company Commander who had been KIA. He said that the man was brave as a lion and led his men from the front. But, he was not a good commander, he was out of his depth and got men killed needlessly including eventually himself.

Just look at the parade of idiots the Americans have sent to command the wars over the last 16 years, each stupider than the last. Who have mad ethe situation worse.
We had some bad officers, some officers who were over their heads. Like every Army in the world. But we had good generals as well, men who knew and did what needed to be done. For every 7 Baloch debacles in Waziristan, we have had the Air Assualt in Buner and Swat or Operation Zalzala or the reducing of South Waziristan in '09 and the North in 2014.

You presume too much.
If anything, I am suffering from the Pakistani tax payer who actually pays tax and expects returns on it attitude.
What happens in england and the US, or India is irrelevant- a UK military officer is not protecting my country, I am not paying taxes to the exchequer, I am not living in his land- I am not holding the ID card of his country.

However, that UK officer will likely be more answerable to his people even if some of them are on welfare. They will not consider their people ill informed or inferior because they don't don a £150 uniform and rank.
They will not consider a question from a MP or a tube train operator any less relevant or dismissive if it is intelligent and logical just because they have worn the uniform.

More importantly, be it 10 years or 50 years down the line- someone in those countries is at the least highlighted or usually held accountable for telling lies in public service

 

[Rank]

Neshan-e-haider is not for internal war fight bro....

 

[gambit]

Wouldn't here a question will rise who will decide what is illegal and legal ?

There are several sources for this.

The first is that if an act is accepted by popular consensus to be patently offensive, then that acceptance can serves one authority on what is 'legal' or 'illegal'. Mind you that we are using the words 'legal' and 'illegal' in the broadest contexts. It means that if an act is accepted to be 'legal', that mean the actor will not be punished in anyway, not even in voice, but if an act is accepted to be 'illegal', the actor will be condemned in voice AND physically punished if possible.

For example, it is accepted that if there is an offer to parlay and if that offer is accepted, all sides must agree that during talks, no one must commit any act of war and that all members of that conference must not be harmed.

Another example is the medic. It is accepted that the medic is immune from any act of combat as long as he restrained himself to only his medical duties and shows himself to be as such, like openly displaying the red cross symbol somewhere on his person. In fact, the medic is even allowed -- by popular acceptance -- to bear arms as long as he restrained himself to using his weapon only to protect his patients from further injuries once they can no longer engage in combat.

So popular consensus is one way of determining what is 'legal' and 'illegal'.

The second is the governments of involved in warfare, which pretty much means all governments. Each government have its own set of laws and regulations for its military as to what the military can or cannot do. One such example is the Rules Of Engagement (ROE). Granted, ROE are temporary and conditional to the immediate war zone, but at least it is indicative that a government is willing to keep itself above complete lawlessness.

The third is the formalization of what has been popular accepted such as the Geneva Convention. Armies can refer to this document to govern selves and monitor each other.

does Soldiers in US or generally ( if you as soldiers has trained with Allies ) know about Geneva conventions ?

Generally, yes. But there are limits.

As an Air Force guy, it is highly unlikely that I would be in a situation where I would meet prisoners of war (POW) or potential POWs. Whereas with an Army friend of mine, he was trained on what to do with POWs.

- Search. Make sure no one is armed and have methods of communication. Common sense enough.

- Silence. Make sure everyone is quiet. Even if they voluntarily surrendered, that does not mean they are removed from their own codes of conduct to try to escape or worse -- do you harm.

- Separation. Officers from enlisted. NCOs from lower ranks. Men from women. Soldiers from non-soldiers. For the last item -- soldiers from non -- it means you remove non-combatants from combatants. A guerrilla fighter is a civilian and a combatant, so you remove him/her from everyone else. A guerrilla fighter, sometimes called 'freedom fighter', is particularly problematic. He does not have all the protections of a non-combatant, but as a combatant, he is obligated to obey accepted rules of war and combat. This often results in confusion to ordinary soldiers on how to deal with such a person.

- Speed. Get everyone to the rear as fast as you can. Back in Desert Storm, there were Allied units that could not do this so they disarmed all the Iraqi soldiers who surrendered and point them to the rear and hope no one does anything bad.

- Safeguard. Treat the enemy wounded as if you are treating your own.

I received none of this info. Probably a sailor have better odds than an air force guy to meet this situation. So I received the most general training of the Geneva Convention and some specific training that are applicable to what an air force does, such as no bombing of non-military structures like schoolhouses, places of worships, and hospitals, unless these structures have been co-opted in the war effort by the other side.

another point here can be based on topic, does Geneva convention rules applied on Terrorists ? they are not solider's , plus wouldn't it be hard for any soldier to spare life of a Terrorist even after he surrender his weapon but killing half his fellow unit , what will be the point where the emotion of a soldier will take over his Moral Duty as a Soldier ( doesn't matter which flag he stand and fight for ) ?

The Geneva Convention applies to ALL combatants. Here is where -- even in casual discussions -- you should try to use 'combatant' in place of 'civilian'.

A soldier is someone who is a SWORN member of a military, which automatically make him a 'combatant', even if all he does is bring coffee to the general. When a person who is not a sworn member of a military takes up arms, he is classified under the GC as a 'combatant' and is obligated to certain rules of war.

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/appl...6739003e63bb/6fef854a3517b75ac125641e004a9e68
See Article 4A(2).

Such a person is legally BOTH a civilian and a combatant.

If a person who takes up arms but DOES NOT obey Article 4A(2), that does not give any legal permission for any soldier to simply kill him on capture, whether he surrendered or was overpowered. The label 'terrorist' is political in scope and perhaps hyperbolic in language, but as far as the GC is concerned, the moment he is disarmed and under restraints, there are no legal permissions to simply kill him. Any violation make the soldier liable to charge of war crime.

I can relate what you say from the D-Day invasion of Europe by the US forces , landing on the beach (forgot the name) under heavy German Machine gun firing i really doubt any soldier would have thought to see the other day but do know that by the end of the day, their fellow soldiers will be on the other side .

We can go back further to the Doolittle Raiders. Every man knew it was a one-way mission. They were to drop bombs on JPN and knew the bombs they had would produce next to nothing military results. Then they would have to fly to China, bail out, and hope to survive. Short term gain was nothing while long term gain was dubious at best. No one was ignorant of that and all flew.

 

[EyelessInGaza]

Some historical perspective- As with most things, the rationale and perspective behind gallantry awards changes over time. Nations and military systems evolve their approach approach to rewarding valour.

In the early days of the award in the 19th century, the US was very liberal in handing out the Medal of Honor. In the UK, IIRC, you automatically were disqualified from winning the Victoria Cross if you died in action, which seems rather foolish in hindsight.

And as late as 1914 the US gave 56 (that's right 56) Medals of Honor to American armed personnel for an action that lasted two days in all! Read about it here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Medal_of_Honor_recipients_(Veracruz)