The Real Issue Facing Pakistan

zeemax and urstruly,

....... let me be the first one to congratulate you on the success of your guillotines ....... who is the next target of your seething hatred ?

so you pakis finally killed Bhutto...

zee, one more victory on your side- huh?

Just saw the news ! I feel sorry for Pakistan :(

WSJ:
A party aide and a military official say Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has died following a suicide bombing. Updated article coming soon.

masadi: writes "One of my places of employment in Pakistan about which he is alluding is a private university, that receives some funds from US Aid. My salary has nothing to do with that funding,"

Anyone with even a passing bit of common sense, not to mention even a passing understanding of finance 101, would consider the above to be an absurd statement. This is yet another example of the hypocrisy of masadi - draws salary from an institution funded by US Aid, claims his salary has nothing to do with that funding!!

This is yet another shocking example of...drum roll...trumpets...banjo...high kicking gals of moulin rouge...Masadi - the Wage Slave Peon of the West in real life, the Single Tune ("US Elite rules the world") Piano of Mian Channu on chowk.

we need to talk sometime.
ijaz_gul@yahoo.com

ijaz_gul#: "To conclude, yes I defend the army officers most of whom are consientous, professional and as patriotic as any other Pakistani. I do not defend the the cotorie that proliferates in the four factors I mentioned..."

...the overwhelming number of military men who die in any conflict are enlisted......the only force in which this is not true is the air force.......where nearly all the dead are officers........however, nearly every single officer who dies is at the rank of major or lower....so an overwhelming number of deaths in conflict are enlisted and officers in their 20s and early 30s......

.......the number of lt. cols/wg. cdrs/cdres who have died in conflict is minimal......the number of brigadier level individuals who have died can be counted on one's fingertips......and above this is almost non-existent.......

hardly any of the generals of today have seen any kind of combat......even musharraf had to dig long and hard to display himself as a, "war veteran" in his book.....

.....however, the living standards of pakistan military are totally inversely proportional to the above.....those who do the fighting (enslisted, leiutenants, majors etc.) have dismil living standards and working environments (since i was one, i have some authority on this subject)......while the living standards of brigadiers and above (including retired ones) are totally out of proportion with civilians with equivalent amount of qualifications...

there is no way a lt. gen. could become the chairman of board of a bank as a civilian, but he can as a general......there is no way a retired brigadier could make a mini-fortune in real estate, but he can through his military contacts.......there is no way a maj gen. could become the head of the largest real estate company in pakistan as a civilian, but he can as a general...............none could become governors.......yet two out of the four provinces have retired generals as governors......

.....until you understand these differences in the internals of the military, you will not be able to, correctly, analyze the military.......you need to divide your analysis into a minimum of four categories: enlisted, junior officers, middle officers, senior officers (brig and above).....and anlyze each separately...

its the first two groups that fight in the kargils.......i am big fan of theirs, also.......however, it is the last group that has totally screwed the military and pakistan......i don't use the word, "screwed" lightly here.....they are totally incompetent, to run their own institution, much less pakistan.....they are greedy, self-righteous.......they have turned legalized corruption into an art.......

it is infact, their stupid decisions and planning that led to kargil.......not a single one of them was put on trial for their incompetence, while thousands from the first two groups died, totolly unnecessary.......

......the head of the fourth group, in any other country and in any other phase in history - from ancient greeks to today - would have resigned in shame......instead he took over the country.......

....there is a transition that occurs in the military around the rank of brigadier.......when i meet captains in pakistan, they all talk about tanks and planes and guns (which is what they should be talking about).......nearly every brig and above i meet, regardless of the topic, eventually ends up discussing plots and land.......

up til now, the whole institution was relativley immune from the incompetence and (legalized) greed of the top group......however, now it is totally affected......due to which, the pakistani military is now a degenerated institution, and slowly, even the first group will start surrendering and refusing to fight etc.......i certainly would not want to fight, against my own countryment, to satisfy americans, so that musharraf can stay in power.....(which, at its core, is what is happening in waziristan).....

Read HP for HJ.

pavocavalry,

I think HJ meant that presence of ground troops is not essential, and border can be controlled via electronic surveillance. Is that possible?

Helmand is the centre of taliban resistance and just imagine the border of helmand with pakistan has no paki regular or NATO troops.NATO or USA is not even 100 km from that border .

ur baseless comments are a total invention of ur limited mind....the major afghan mujs like ahmad shah m,asood and ismail khan had no pashtuns from pakistan.

Re: # 173 the fact is that u are a very stupid man...not having seen the ground and talking absolute bullshit , lowly prick that you are , and that too a small one.I have physically seen a large part of afghan border having been involved in construction.i was manager of a company constructing clinics for USAID in the most dangerous parts of helmand province Nad i Ali,Khanishin,Garmser,Deshu,Bertaka.I did survey for the major NATO camp,Camp Bastion housing a british brigade from Lashkargah to Camp Bastion,I worked on Salerno Base in khost.

The onground situation is as following :---

1-There is no paki army all along helmand provinces entire border with pakistan some 200 miles,may be 300 km.There is no brit or american or nato force in this area.US troops are in penny packets not manning the border at all.The only paki army presence is in waziristan a mere 200 km frontier stretch.

2-US and NATO force levels are so low that they cannot and are not designed to seal any border.The entire border between Waziristan and Chaman some 700 km stretch has hardly any paki army.

i must add that u have a shallow knowledge of history and more unfirtunately are a very shallow man u lowly prick !

HP,
Also your assertion on mass desertions cannot be substantiated. You you have some figures and references?

HP #136
HP,
Praetorian Model
Though I agree with your definition of praetorian, you still do not answer my question. What is that coterie? I have many relatives and friends in the armed forces and none of them is bound by greed fed to them by the generals. If you do not substantiate this assertion, I will take it as a conspiracy theory from you. I opine that this model in Pakistan is driven by the following factors varying under different environments that perpetuate and invite military intervention: -
1) Security Perspectives. Previously it was Kashmir. Now it is on the themes such as Blood Borders etc. Read my essay on Insight
2) Failure of political institutions like the misdeeds of NS and BB and readiness of fly by night reformers to hobnob.
3) Military Prestige that has outgrown the ceremonial order of precedence and why army takes offence to sacking of its chief etc.
Now if you reason out and dilate these factors, you may reach a logical conclusion about my question.

Benefits
This is a sweeping generalisation. No one can die just vying for benefits. It needs motivation and sense of purpose to die willingly, as much as it needs an individual to blow himself up. Ridiculing loss of over 1000 men as quest for benefits makes no sense. You will find the answer in my remarks of ‘operating in grey created by intelligence agencies and running into an ambush’.

You appear to have a very lopsided view of Army Life. No army is a benefit driven commission mafia. It’s the same men in arms who volunteered willingly for Kargil and died unsung and disowned, (a referred by Agha Amin Hamayun in one of his posts). I am sure Agha was indeed one of the many who lost motivation despite being brilliant, because they did not internalise the format.

Army History
You remarked that,
“In your zest to find some redemption for the army officers you are ignoring the Pak army’s history. The conscripts have on more than one occasion, fired on people to protect the Army interests’.
Recall 1977 and the two Brigadiers who refused to fire in Lahore. They were disgraced and then thrown out of the Army. Niaz is one of them. By the way, there is a complete manual called ‘in Aid of Civil Power’ . Soldiers just don’t go and kill anybody. The orders for fire are given by the civil administrators or his representatives in the presence of a magisterate, after requistioning the service of the army. The orders also specify the volume of fire and the point of aim which is usually the legs. Yes there is a blanket when they fire in self defence in face of fire.

To conclude, yes I defend the army officers most of whom are consientous, professional and as patriotic as any other Pakistani. I do not defend the the cotorie that proliferates in the four factors I mentioned.

It is the cotorie and its linkages that you as an analyst need to identify?

#144 Posted by CreateAlpha,

China is well on its way to join the leagues of the big boys..and good for them. this is not done in a vacuum. Their trade policies and monetary policies will have to tempered with American wishes. It is not and should not be an us vs. them..if that is so..China will lose.

That's an excellent comment, but true only in a perfect global market. A 'perfect market' is defined by fair competition, full transparency, equal access for all participants, easy access to reliable information, a price discovery mechanism, a reliable multi-currency settlement system, and control of monopolies and cornering.

How many of the above hold true in present day markets? US alone determines which of the above should apply, if at all, and to what extent.

If it wasn't an us vs.them, and globalisation anything other than a fraudulent scheme, USA would have allowed the Chinese to buy up Unocal.

Re: # 181

I can't speak for Pavo but associating me with napak fouj is pure dishonesty. There is no one on this board who despises this criminal piece of shiit organization more than me. I think this criminal organization must be humiliated, deafeated, and disbanned forever - especially after the massacre of school children in Islamabad and destruction of mosques there is no mercy and no forgiveness.

Wow Urstruly,

So far I have not seen any evidence that what he wrote turned out to be true. But I can understand the camaraderie between an army officer and an Islamist. Both, after all, share the same bread!