Notes in Anguish

It was known of Gen Colin Powell that when preparing an operation plan [war], the first question he would examine was how he would get out, after he had got in i.e an exit strategy. And so when Vice President Dick Cheney had assimilated most of the Presidential powers and ordered the Joint Chiefs to… →

When regime change was brought about in April 2022, my immediate reaction was to determine whether this was the result of a blunder, or of betrayal. If it was the result of a political blunder i.e a misjudgment that Imran Khan was politically weak enough to be overthrown, and that this overthrow could be sustained,… →

Why are the people of Pakistan so crestfallen–so inconsolable over what has been exposed to them about their army? This is so because their expectations have been shattered. But why should these expectations have been there in the first place? This is because in most societies the soldier has occupied an iconic perch, while insincerity… →

When the generals pulled off operation regime change, they found there were no takers of their narrative. It was based on a series of shifting lies, because each set of these lies was caught the moment it was issued, and a new set was deployed to take its place. Adjustment to these sets of lies… →

On June 20, I read that the Lahore High Court had annulled the lease of 45000 acres of land from the Punjab Government to the Pakistan Army. By so doing the court has removed one of the platforms which would have showcased the very close working relationship between the civil and the military. But all… →

The ISPR handout consequent to the Formation Commanders’ Conference as carried by the press on June 07, 2023 was a barrage of extraordinary anger and a formal declaration of the final assault on PTI. The rage this encapsulated was supposed to have erupted consequent to events of May 9. This conference was called to give… →

A Punjabi saying goes: “there is none more cruel than the poor.” The record of any revolution will prove this. The reason is that the poor have always been at the other end of the stick. They are the victims of perpetual injustice, harshness and degradation at the hands of those more fortunate, or at… →

Gangsterism was introduced in Pakistani politics by Z. A. Bhutto. It has been taken to its acme by the sitting government during the current crackdown and the unprecedented wave of repression it has unleashed. During this wave of brutality, the aim of which is the dismantling of PTI, more than ten thousand of its members… →

Frankly, there is no way to know. The media, except for that part of it which projects the government narrative, was blanked out. There was no dearth of social media stories, but it was impossible to sift facts from fiction. But two bits of video footage, though they were insufficient to tell the whole story,… →

Mr Parvin Sawhney, India’s leading strategic thinker and defense analyst, spoke on ” Force Magazine” channel on May 24rth, on the Army-Imran Khan rift. Before going to this subject he applauded Pakistan Army’s role in ensuring Pakistan’s security over the last 75 years despite paucity of resources. In his view the army-Imran break was distinct… →

Two retired officers of the U.S military, Col Douglas MacGregor and Maj Scott Ritter, have been as consistently right about the Ukraine War as two retired generals, Petraeus and Hodges, both highly celebrated, have been absolutely absurd about it. Irrespective of what is taking place on the battlefield, these two have been predicting a Ukrainian… →

It was when the monkey had just been installed as the king of the jungle for that year, that the lion went to him with an especially knotty problem. The monkey hadn’t a clue what to do about it. So he asked the lion to wait, and ran up and down the tree several times.… →