As a devastated Iraqi told a Pakistani friend, the difference between Iraq and Pakistan was that Pakistan still had an army!
Imagine what it would be like without our army! What would really be the difference between Iraq and us?
I think that the army should stop playing shy, cast away its diffidence, and do all it can to save this country from the rulers it has helped install.
And given its power, it can do a hell of a lot, without having to take over.
It must partner with the supreme court to throw out the devils and give a level playing field for fresh elections.
If need be, the army should move an “in camera” reference with the Supreme Court, and lay out all the intelligence it has on the gouging out of our assets by our rulers, their nexus with the terrorists, and the protection and succour this government has been providing them in south Punjab, and the Govt-India nexus. And surely it must have a lot more.
As long as the army does not come back to rule the country, and for once moves in its favour in tandem with the SC, the people are likely to welcome the move.
It would be a sad situation for any country that its dependence for continued existence be so great on its army, as Pakistan’s is on its military. It is even sadder that intermittently this army has moved in ostensibly to put matters right, but has never done so. And we now know that this was never its intent to do so. Its sole purpose has been to move in, take power, and to keep it. By repeatedly doing so, it has weakened both itself and the country. And after each such foray into governance, it has lost a slice of the respect that people had for it. There will come a time when it becomes one foray too many, and it will come to be despised by the people of the country.
So it is about time that the army gave something back to the country, which it easily can, if it sets its mind to it. And how it can do this is to attend to national security issues with complete dedication. This has always been its remit, but it has never been attended by the dedication it requires. If this dedication was there the army could not have failed to see the effect the wholesale theft of national assets would have on the country, its governance, and the system of justice. And had the army concentrated just on this one-point agenda of attending to national security issues, things could never have slid to their present sorry pass where we have become a nation of thieves and blackguards. Where we go from here should be easy to foresee.
It is our state of decrepitude which forces us to look again and again to our army to bail us out. And it is a sad comment on the insensitivity of the army that it cannot see the monster which is fast destroying our very foundations.