An Insight Into Pakistan Army and Musharraf

stuka: no problem sir. although i must say i pale before urstruly who no doubt can truly say "pidram sultan bood" (aba ji badshah hotay thay). :-)

#128 shankar: i am impressed by your faith in bania abilities. I understand you can levitate as well while meditating (or at least hop around like newly hatched chicken trying to learn how to fly, as i have seen some maharishis trying to do on video).

Re: # 128

Then you should know he cried (oksabokshi, for those who understand ghatispeak) after the war was over.
After that he cried last month.

Btw,
Did Musharraf participate in combat in 71? I havent read his book.

#118,

You could use sarin ...like I said..dont underestimate bania ability to twist world opinion..you will be an outcast..

On the diplomatic playing field, Pakistan holds more aces than India. Potentially, all your "brother muslim countries" are your aces. India doesnt have such sugar daddies.

Nevertheless, whenever there is an elevated Indo-Pak conflict, India has prevailed. Kargil was won in the UN. Even your all-weather friend China told you to back off. Not one muslim country has pressured India about Kashmir.

A superpower maybe able to get away with a stunt like that...not Pakistan.

Re: # 125

Not this time shankar we are losing the cricket series in India currently. I lost the passion for the game when I moved to US many years ago.

My point is to present history in the right light without historical inaccuracies due to religious or patriotic fervor essentially a dispassionate discourse.

Feeling better or worse is not the end game.

pak wolf,

you usually kick our butts in cricket and hockey...
there...feel better?

Urstruly..thanks for a great post on your family tree. This is a serious request..can you write a more detailed article on your own family's role in Punjabi history? It would be a great read. Thanks.

Good to see Fuzair and Shankar back on Chowk....

"Unfortunately most of the most intelligent ones leave the army as captains and/or get superceded as majors/lt. cols since they are often misfits in some way (misfits as far as the culture of the army is concerned) or simply cannot stand the mind numbingly dull routine that is day to day life in the army.
"

So Romair is part of "most intelligent ones"....I can quite believe that but it puts paid to a lot of the disagreements you have had with Romair in the past then :)

Re: # 117

Dang Mohar I thought you needed the chill pill. Oh well I will accept your verbal defeat and move on with my life : )

Dont smoke the hate bong soooo much it fu$ks up your tiny brain into concocting false histories.

Mateen Saab,

Just curious, which PMA were you from?

TAhmed: Sorry, no offence intended. I was just kidding around with Urstruly.

Urstruly: Arrey yaar, the threat existed in the mids of the Indians from 1962 onwards. Just because Pakistan did not stiff the eastern sector to capacity does not mean the potential does not exist. If anything, India was actually surprised by Pakistan's lack of iniating hostilities in the eastern sector in 1965.

Anyways, we are tilting at windmills. The nuclear capacity of India and Pakistan means there is a status quo. India is no longer a threat to the integrity of Pakistan like it was in 1971. Conversely, Pakistan is no longer holding the option of making India vacate territory in Kashmir by force. This is a reality that Pakistani politicians / generals realize when they are in power but forget when they are out of power.

Re: Ijaz Gul #62,

IF Romair is being truthful, he was in Signals. I recall the MPA beating incident he recounted earlier and the junior officers who beat up the MPA were from MCS. IIRC, the MPA deserved double what he got but I quite see his point: you can't let junior officers behave that way.

I've known a lot of army officers and, certainly, there have been many complete duds in that group but there have also been quite a few extremely inteligent and capable officers. Unfortunately most of the most intelligent ones leave the army as captains and/or get superceded as majors/lt. cols since they are often misfits in some way (misfits as far as the culture of the army is concerned) or simply cannot stand the mind numbingly dull routine that is day to day life in the army.

In contrast to Romair, I would say that there have been excellent officers in the fighting arms who have been sent to Staff College in the US, UK, Germany, etc. Not exactly MIT but not exactly Chichawatni Degree College either. Many of them do not go past Brigadier, but then very few officers do (~5-6% IIRC) in the first place. Individual officers sent to do foreign courses regularly top them/place in the top few. Individually we have some very talented people in the Army.

I had a long discussion a while back with a civilian in the US (ex infantry; now an academic and a consultant to CentCom) who said that most of the US officers he had met had a certain amount of professional respect for the PakArmy officers they had come in contact with (joint stuff on safeguarding Pakistani nukes and establishing C&C for them).

My late father, who's opinion and intelligence I respected greatly, said that the Army breeds a cult of mediocrity. Normal Army officers refer to the goof selection syndrome: the stupidest officers/chamchas/biradari key get promoted disproportionately because they are not a threat to the rulers. Someone like JK is of course an exception to this but as Chief he did not attempt to change anything. Musharraf, 8 years as Chief, did not carry out substantive reform in the Army.

Thus, even if you do have a few good people, the are drowned out by the vast majority of duds and the overall worship of absolute mediocrity.

Regards.

Re: # 116

I do not think that any of the weapons mentioned is threat to the population downstream because of the dilution property of water. For example, Sarin or agent orange dissipate in atmosphere and have a limited or no effect on atmosphere. I think Pakistani rivers are more dangerously contaminated further downstream by us.

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""All Pakistani fouj had to do was to throw a biological device or even a dirty bomb over siachin to achive its objective. This brings us back to the incompetence of Pakistani fouj again.""

Romair is wrong. I dont think civilian Pak engineers are too bright either:))

A dirty bomb, a bacterium or toxic chemicals will leach into the Siachen glacier & eventually land up in the water supply & food supply & kill millions--mostly Pakistani civilians.

Dont underestimate banya ability to influence world attention. Pakistan will be an outcast in the UN for causing an environmental catastrophy.

Sheesh thank God the mullah is not a COAS.