The Israelis have adopted “The Generals’ Plan” to deal with the Palestinians in North Gaza. Under this plan, all food water and medicinal aid entering this area has been blocked from Oct 1 onwards. This is to help starve and thus to drive out the Palestinians. Those who refuse to leave are to be killed by air attacks and artillery bombardment, which are a daily feature of life in Gaza.
In Pakistan too, a Generals’ Plan has been implemented. In our case, our greatest general recently decided to reward himself for his greatness by elbowing and whacking his way into eternity. In short, what this means for us is the happy prospect of his boot resting on our necks for as long as the US or the Almighty may desire. The lesser generals around him attest to the greatness of their chief. By raising his stock, they thereby raise their own and feel partly immunized against helping him break the supreme law of the land along with all the lesser ones.
In the two and a half years that they have been at the unchallenged helm of the country, their achievements have been many. But, apart from what they have done to the rule of law, few can match what they have achieved in the realm of foreign policy.
From Oct 22 to 24, countries constituting more than half the world waited in Kazan, applications in hand, to be admitted to BRICS. And Pakistan, which was always informally taken as being integral to the organization, found itself on the other side.
And then, because the entire security set-up has been completely absorbed in abducting various political actors [and their wives and children] so that they could be browbeaten into suitably amending the constitution in order to give our army chief his endless tenure, Chinese engineers were left as unguarded soft targets for the terrorists to bump off. And when their ambassador made a complaint in this regard, it was left to Mr Ishaq Dar to give him a shut-up call. This brings down the curtain on CPEC, a possible road out of Pakistan’s dire economic mess. This leaves Chinese investment of billions in the project, which Pakistan will have to pay back while the interest on it continues to mount. Meanwhile, emphasis has shifted from Gawadar to Chabahar port which the Indians have constructed in Iran, a few miles to the west.
No other group but a clutch of unlettered generals, shorn of every particle of patriotism, could have achieved this feat!
Indeed, Pakistan, along with Albania, was one of China’s two oldest allies. Our relationship was considered unbreakable, till these johnnies moved in and broke it, as indeed they are wrecking everything they can lay their hands on.
It was on Sep 2, and 3, 2023, that Gen Asim Munir addressed prominent businessmen in Lahore and Karachi to spread the glad tidings of his coming of age, and to inform them of the gifts he came bearing for Pakistan. He promised foreign investment of billions of dollars, uncovered his grand agricultural plan to get Pakistan out of its economic morass, promised how he would bring an end to smuggling, and swore to terminate the reign of corruption.
It is only now that it has become clear that these addresses were performances in comedy. Since the generals have stepped in, all that has thrived is insurgencies, lawlessness, theft of public funds, abductions and torture, hunger, and hopelessness
Not a month goes by when the corruption scandal of the month past is not superseded by one for the current month.
Among all these, the attempted auction of PIA was a masterpiece in due diligence and outstanding staff work. One waits with bated breath for the scandal which will come to put this one in the shade. But this month it was the turn of Baluch insurgents to grab the headlines when, on Nov 9, a horrendous massacre of fauji NCOs took place at Quetta Railway Station.
The performance of our high command has not been an envious one. In the first major war in which they led the army, on Sep 1 and 2, 1965, it seemed Pakistan would be victorious. Even on Sep 3 and 4, this possibility still existed. But then, by Sep 8, because of certain decisions taken by them, we were left holding on to dear life and barely escaped defeat. And then in 1971, they led us into a disastrous war which ended in defeat, surrender, and the breakup of Pakistan. Neither of these wars was subjected to a post-operational analysis to scrutinize our performance, as is the norm with any professionally respectable army. Instead, elaborate cover-ups were resorted to. And these were so effectively done that by 2022 the newest breed of our high command, duly whitewashed of the sins of its predecessors, felt itself strong enough to take over the country once again. And what a grand mess they have made of it.
Among other factors, the strength of any state is determined by the extent to which its people feel vested in the state. The better the governance, the more deeply vested in the state will its people be. It is to the credit of the high command that they overthrew a leader who enjoyed significant support among all sections of the people in every part of the country and supplanted him as prime minister by one who [along with both his sons] was due to be indicted for money laundering of Rs 16 billion in a case which was considered open and shut. This would have been disastrous for any state, but for one which was an artificial construct in terms of history, it can only prove to be catastrophic. The rising tide of insurgencies, the progressive destruction of the rule of law, and the random theft of the resources of the state can only take the country to an inglorious demise. That those pushing and kicking it there, for the second time around, should have been the ones who were paid to protect it, is the cruellest irony of all.
Just as is the case with Gaza, this state will survive only if The Generals’ Plan is made to fail and every person furthering it is recognized as an enemy of the state, slated for just deserts should the camel ever shift his posture.
Email: saeedakhtarmalik85@gmail.com
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