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 is the merry dance the Generals have led the people to. If the movement necessitated by this dance could be seen as gaiety, it could be said that the people were very happy indeed.
In dispensing this joy to the people, the Generals and the institution they head, is reaping increasing discredit. For the first time in over seventy years, the army is continuing to lose the support of the people, and the generals are befuddled and irritated.
Then along came May 9. This was either a spontaneous eruption of public rage, or an event planned by the Generals to justify a crackdown to physically break Imran Khan’s public support.
In either case May 9, however it was triggered, was a bailout opportunity for the high command. But they were duly incensed because of repeated failures of narratives pushed by them, which the people chose to spurn. And so they asked Gen Ahmed Sharif, the DG ISPR to give coherent expression to their anger, on which their future actions were to be justified.
The general took the stage on 26 June and addressed a press conference. The gist of his opening statement was that the events which unfolded on May 9 were the result of detailed planning and a conspiracy to defame the armed forces of Pakistan, and to create a rift between them and the people; that this entire effort was founded on a web of lies; that the people were brainwashed into giving credence to a false narrative being propagated by forces inimical to the interests of Pakistan; and that among the armed forces, the families of the martyrs, and the veterans, there was extreme resentment and anger over what had transpired on May 9.
In order to lend conviction to his play of emotions, he then fell back to recounting all the many sacrifices given by the members of the armed forces, who were being martyred daily to ensure the security of the state.
[It would be so much more dignified if sacrifices of the martyrs were not routinely trotted out to justify actions by the high command which are completely unjustifiable. The people are aware of the sacrifices of the men who fell defending them. They revere them. But they are more concerned with the actions of the living who have sold them out].
At minute 29:17 of the video of this press conference, Iftikhar Shirazi of Dawn asked a series of questions. Among these the one most agitating the minds of most Pakistanis was: “….sensitive installations have special provisions for their security. But we saw that on 9 May the people were free to attack GHQ and get into the Corps Commander’s House. So why were the layers of security absent?……”
At minute 31 the D.G attempted to answer this question. This answer lacked the precision which the question demanded. The gist of what he stated was that May 9 was not a spontaneous eruption. It had months of planning behind it. months of brainwashing of the people to instill in them hatred for the army and for its leadership. “The plan was to incite people to attack installations so that the army would be provoked into retaliating….they had even included women at some places to acts as shields. When this incident took place, the army caused this nefarious conspiracy to fail. Had the army reacted the way they would have desired it to, their conspiracy would have succeeded.”
Without saying it in as many words, here the DG seems to be admitting that the “layers of security” being absent, which the Dawn correspondent had referred to, was a part of the plan of the army i.e to remove such elements of security which could be provoked into retaliating against the people! In short, denuding some installations of their security details was a part of the army plan to eliminate chances of retaliation against the mobs, because such retaliation would have gone some way to ensure success for the “conspirators!”
So, whatever else the army may have to say about the matter, it CANNOT deny at least a peripheral part it played in the designing the May 9 events. It may well have denuded certain installations of their security in order not to allow such security personnel to retaliate against enraged mobs. But equally, the other side may be right in claiming that the sites denuded of security were an invitation to them to attack, and towards this end they were incited by agents provocateurs sent in by the army.
Both these scenarios are equally plausible, and either may have been abetted by the other.
At minute 21:03 the DG went off on a rhetorical flourish by asking a series of questions. He obviously expected the logic inherent in these questions to change the minds of those who were firmly committed to the belief that May 9 was yet another false flag show of incompetence by the army. These questions by Gen Sharif [not in the order that they were put] were: 1] did the army brainwash the people against itself? 2] did the army destroy its own installations with its own hands? 3] was it the army which provided anti Pak materials to anti Pak elements abroad? 4] and as mayhem was being enacted was it the army who was egging the mobs on to do even more damage? 5] could the army with its own hands desecrate the graves of its own “shaheeds”? 6] within hours of the arrest [of I.K] how could the army have attacked over 200 sites [all of them military] spread all over the country from Karachi to Peshawar more or less within minutes of each other?
I will not attempt to answer all these questions. But I would like to pose a counter-question with regard to question 6, and answer question 5.
Q 6. Who else knew the date and time of Imran Khan’s arrest, and the humiliation that would accompany his arrest except the army? Was there any institution OTHER THAN THE ARMY which has the manpower, the discipline, the reach, the resources, and the ability to coordinate attacks on more than 200 sites all over the country in the same span of time? And had these attacks been the handiwork of a political party, is it possible that they would have spared the houses of their political opponents whom they despise even more than the army?
Q5. Yes, the army can indeed bring itself to desecrate the graves of its own shaheeds. An institution which has no qualms breaking its oath and treacherously selling off its own country could scarcely be expected to have the compunction to refrain from desecrating graves of their fallen as long as this suited them. Period.
The generals are in a tight spot indeed. I commiserate with them. But it is they themselves who opted to build their narrative on a foundation of lies. This they were forced to do when the enterprise they instigated and backed was itself criminal. This had nothing to do with democracy and parliamentary numbers. It had all to do with theft, power, and assured immunity from the consequences of pursuit of both. From then on as each lie falls, they put another in its place. And they are doing a rotten job of it. With the fall of each of their narratives, they get angry and want someone to blame. And they end up blaming those who won’t go along with their lies.
So, on this blessed day of Eid, when goats all over would be ruing the passing of Lord Buddha, I would advise the generals to allow the day of the lie to pass. Let them begin by speaking the truth to themselves, then to each other, and then to us–the people who are on this day of Eid, more depressed than the goats.