Ever since the May raid in Abbotabad to abduct and kill Osama bin Laden, a veritable flood of anti-army sentiment has come to engulf Pakistan, with the media leading the way. Compared to the public reaction to the fall of Dhaka in Dec 71, when most of our elite duly celebrated their New Years, the sheer scale and spontaneity of the May 2011 rage seems incomprehensible. But this “spontaneity” is refusing to die down, and that is what is now raising doubts about its purity and pedigree.
In my opinion the eruption of genuine rage among people had its roots in the following two causes:
- Gathering frustration, insecurity, and despair was building up among the people for some time past, and thus there was a huge fear about the insecurities of the coming tomorrow, ruling the subconscious in every mind. This was the cumulative effect of the terrible governance, huge injustices, and blanket corruption at all levels of government and of every department, and the sheer inability of people to pay their bills. But all the ills that brought this situation about, had become so pervasive that they became amorphous and taken for granted, so that they had lost their sharpness, and thus their ability to concentrate the minds and rage of the people upon them.
In contradistinction to this, the raid in Abbotabad was a singular event which stood out on its own, as the most degrading symbol of all that is wrong with Pakistan. Instinctively therefore it became the focal point of all the pent-up frustrations and rage of our citizens. And because this incident had to do with national security, the stick had to be taken to the army.
- The second reason for the anti-army outburst is the constantly rising anti-Americanism, of which there seems to be no sign of abating. Each new drone strike further whips up this sentiment. The Blackwater stories don’t help, and neither do ever new stories of the killing of Afghan women and kids. And Raymond Davis did the rest. With all this as the background, now factor in the effect of the war on Libya, and it should not be too difficult to understand why anti-Americanism is continually on the rise. So, when you consider that our army is seen as the main prop of the U.S policy in this region, the basis of the anti-army sentiment in Pakistan can more easily be comprehended. It is another matter though, that it is the army that has resisted tremendous U.S pressure to further escalate the so-called war on terror, while it is the government that has totally sold out. But this is not in the public eye.
One can see therefore why the stock of the army has fallen among the people. But what is not quite so easy to see is why, many of those who immodestly number themselves among our ” intellectuals”, have striven to make certain that the public remains averse to the army, and that the hysteria created among them remains at a state of high tension.
Why should this be the case when the performance of the army has been way better than that of all other national institutions over the last 3-4 years? After all, both the esteem in which the army was held, and its own morale, were at rock-bottom when Musharraf left. Yet within a year Kayani and his generals did a remarkable repair job to lift the morale of our fighting men; train them anew for the task facing them; and beat out the insurgents from large parts of the Frontier. The army could only give us a tactical victory, which it did. It was for the government to convert this into a strategic one, by bringing in good governance on the heels of victory in the field. But this the government failed to do because of its incompetence and focus on corruption.
It was again the army that headed off the PML-N long march, had the C.J reinstated, and thus avoided a bloodbath which would almost certainly have resulted in another military takeover. And to the extent that there is any coherence and direction in strategy, and Pakistan’s foreign policy insofar as the countries directly affecting our national interest in the so-called war on terror is concerned, it has been given by Kayani and the army. So where exactly does the fault of the army lie in the last 3-4 years, and is this fault so egregious that the army deserves to be maligned in the manner in which it is being humiliated today?
So, the army missed Osama and failed to detect the U.S raid? This can happen to any army or organization anywhere in the world. In the U.S the FBI, the CIA and all 16 of their intelligence agencies and airport security missed the 911 hijackers, who had lived and trained in the U.S for over two years. But did every news anchor and his aunt start baying for the blood of these agencies? And mind you, this is the most extravagantly funded intelligence network in the world! Compare with this the badly over-extended and the relatively under- funded Pakistani intelligence agencies and army. If you compare their performance, dollar for dollar, with that of the U.S effort both in Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of terrorists killed or apprehended, even the skeptics may concede that our people have not done too badly. And if one also considers the toll of civilians killed per terrorist, perhaps we have done much better. Thus, this blanket pummeling of the army is absolutely unjustified. But more to the point, this exercise lacks even an iota of patriotism under whose slogans and banner it is masquerading. There is no innocence in this exercise, which has as its aim, the fracturing and destruction of the Pakistan army. Both our external enemies and our internal ones, some of them in the government, want this. That our foreign adversaries should be doing this should neither surprise us, nor would one need too much proof that they would exploit every chink in our armour, just as surely as we would to them. The tragic irony, however, is that the machinations of our own politicians and their bought intellectuals cease to surprise us when they bless nefarious anti-state efforts. People whose sole commitment is to the fattening of their bank balances, are, and always have been programmed to sell off anything to retain the power which allows them the opportunity of unrestrained theft, and the immunity from accountability such power bestows on them. History is replete with quislings, and especially the history of the sub-continent which is built around local sell-outs extending invitations to invading enemies. To those who may doubt this, let me assure them that it is only after raids on the state exchequer, can someone buy chateaus abroad. If this had happened in the U.S there would have been a knock at the door from the IRS with a simple message i.e. either justify your property against your tax returns, or be prepared to go to jail. But it is open season in Pakistan where, instead of the IRS, we had the NRO, legalizing corruption by the high and mighty! Thus, the proposition that many of those making irresponsible and outrageous comments about the army were mercenaries being paid to do the job, may not be too far off the mark.
But whereas the machinations of the external enemy can be taken for granted, those of the internal ones can seldom be proved. Yet there are times that a seemingly unconnected occurrence may tell a good part of a story. The advertisement that I have attached to this mail, did exactly this for me. This came out in most major papers on 29 May. Ostensibly this is a Bahria Town advertisement to solicit the attention of job seekers, which is not unusual. But what is not just merely unusual but unique in this case, is that this one is soliciting applications for employment from, among others, retired justices of the supreme court, and recently retired Lt Gens of the army. Of all that has been written against the army, this “innocent” advertisement is the most stinging rebuke against it, and the most humiliating slap on its face, delivered at a time when it was on its knees, reeling from the blows of our news anchors and bought intellectuals. It is a statement that quite blatantly declares that its initiator [Malik Riaz Hussian] now owns enough stock in the two premier institutions of the land, to do with them as he pleases: humiliate them; threaten them; blackmail them. Unfortunately, though, I must confess that some of our generals have striven mightily to put a thug [Zardari], and the chief land grabber of the country [Malik Riaz Hussain] in this position of primacy over themselves and the institution which nourished them and has given them all that they have. And these generals are well known and should be known by all. And if Kayani wants to get back his army, it is here that he must make his start. He has to expose them, try them, and convict them, or forever remain a victim of blackmail.
I am not aware of justices of the higher judiciary seeking employment with private corporations in any county, but generals are routinely employed by such corporations everywhere. But in NO COUNTRY are such employment opportunities ever ADVERTISED. It is by word of mouth that they do this, as Bahria Town has been doing in the past. That it now had to resort to an open advertisement when it had no need to do so, exposes the real design behind this exercise i.e. the humiliation of both the judiciary and the army.
But Bahria Town is a serious commercial outfit not given to gratuitous and profitless adventurism. Thus, one may be quite certain that someone put them up to this. But who? Make a list of this company’s many “partners”, and then see which of these had the most to gain by the weakening of the army, and you will be able to determine who was behind this. It is that simple.
All those who read this will be aware of the many follies and the willful blunders committed by the army over the past decades. But blanket condemnation of one institution, for all the ills afflicting Pakistan is both wrong and inimical to the national interest on two counts:
- Such criticism can only be inherently out of balance and therefore, unobjective. It gives a free pass to all the other institutions and stands as an alibi for their depredations. And in today’s Pakistan, this is a very important distinction to make. The insurgency and its threat is a much smaller problem than the looming implosion of the country, being brought about by massive government corruption. However much the generals keep their eyes peeled, scanning the borders to ensure that there is no repeat of “Abbotabad”, the way the country is going, it is the ground underfoot that will likely give way, while the borders remain firm. And this is ground no general can hold. The present exclusive assault on the army is therefore not just helping the enemy to subvert its effectiveness, but more crucially, it is helping to take our focus off the malignant cancer that threatens the very life of Pakistan i.e the unsustainable level of theft visited upon it by our leaders. This is bringing our Yougoslav/Russia moment ever closer, when these countries ceased to exist, while their armies were intact and standing smartly to attention on their drill squares!
- Whether one likes it or not, the army is our institution of last resort. Criticize it by all means, but criticize various aspects of it. But let this fall short of destructive criticism. And try to remember what old Corleone did in “Godfather”, when he was offered to take the lead role in introducing hard drugs into the U.S. He refused because this was an “un-American” thing to do. And he was from the mafia! We could perhaps do with a bit of pro-Pakistan “mafia” sentiment at this stage, no matter how miffed some of us may be with our army.
June 26, 2011.
A Short Note on the Acce