The Gentleman Must Go

I am reminded of something an American mentor of mine told me once. He was new in Pakistan , and one of his friends was giving him a crash course in Pakistan Studies, he said, ``There are only two institutions in this country, the family and the army``.

I look forward to the heated discussion that is sure to follow your article.

Feroz:

Excellent piece on the prewailing winds. Though I agree with most of your fine analysis I do disagree on some points.

He resigned to show his successors the right path that needs to be followed?

When he spoke at the Naval College he represented the consensus of the Corps commanders?

In the first interview he granted to News a few days back one can read between the lines:

1: The views were his alone (read- he did not represent the Corps Commander consensus.)

2: He was gratified that Amir-ul-ChorDaku EVEN walked him to the car at the end of the meeting. (If there was any consensus he would

have slapped Abbaji`s short fat s.o.b)

3: He hinted at obtaining a sinecure abroad.

Strange words from this officer & gentleman.

Unadulterated rubbish!

You defend an army which has ruled Pakistan thru the back door for nearly all of its existence? How dare you? It is high time they are cut down to size. Every time they came to power they got us into a war. Always wanting new toys to play with. This time around a popularly elected government with a mandate is trying to bring all these imperial jesters in line - I dont see anything wrong with that.

re tehsin:

a mandate from what? the negligible percentage of eligible voters who voted? from the illiterate men and women ferried in from rural stys in exchange for a sack of flour? wake up and smell the cow dung, nawaz shariff rode to power on the crest of a wave of apathy NOT confidence.
as for pulling the little boys into line *snort *. he can`t use his pinky to pick his nose without abbaji`s approval, and who gave abbaji the approval of the people?
he`s clipped the presidents wings
he`s clipped the judiciarys wings
he`s clipped the armys wings
who`s left?
secure all appendages to your side with duct tape asap.

`it is high time they are cut down to size` ... and who is going to cut the `democratically elected government with a mandate` to size? the miserable populace that had the misfortune to elect them?

how long do you expect the army and the people to hold their tongue and keep the peace in the face of blatant exploitation such as the people of Pakistant have been subjected to ? or will you be around to cheer the `popular uprising` that at this rate will soon occur, for whatever else it does, cruel or just, it will at the very least be `popular` ...

We have very few good men and Nawaz is not one of them.

I don`t know why the author is defending the actions of General Jehangir Karamat suggesting that the military is capable of assisting in policies related to economic, foreign and domestic through the National Security Council.

Why did General Karamat did not speak out against the nuclear tests before the action. If he had I would have supported that decision as nuclear tests clearly fall with the armed forces domain.

But when he should have spoken he did not and where he should hold his peace he speaks out. The man is clearly not capable of understanding the scope of his office and I am happy to see him resign.

Comparing Sharif to Hitler is in poor taste, and I would not even dignify that with a response.

I think after having lived under the army government for so long we treat as afront when the army role is correctly defined as being restricted to military operations. Any subsequent role should only be based on the fact that 40% of our governments resources are gobbled up by them and it would be useful to channelize these resources back into fields like infrastructure development (Karakorum Highway - even though it had a military purpose), education and health (given that military is more educated and has more health workers per capita then Pakistan`s population).

`truly miserable.`

i like that ... apparently there is room for more misery before we are fully convinced that we are indeed misearble.

who`s we though? who in Pakistan truly suffers in the final analysis ? and are they not the same as the voters come election time? ever wondered why they do it then ?

... had the political process really worked, had Jinnah been truly successful in communicating his concept of `Pakistan` to the people who eventually picked up the rallying cry, not in the name of autonomy but in the name of religion, the map of South Asia might not have looked quite the way it does today.

Be that as it may, Pakistan needs LEADERS, in the true sense of the word: the mere fact that we still quibble over people`s affiliations and use those to determine when and where they speak, what they say, prevents us from looking further, from acutally listening to what they have to say - to see them as individuals, objectively analyze their arguements and decide what does or does not make sense.

Pakistan`s populace, in joy or in sorrow, may be ready for democracy. Its leaders on the other hand revel in the freedom to exploit.

Why does it not make sense to listen to the voices of reason -- can we not hear them independently of the shadows from whence the emanate ?

regards

clarification of misstated comment `autonomy vs religion`... Muslim representation in Governance of the Indian Union versus Religious Independence` is what i meant.

regards

God has never changed a man`s destiny till he tries to change it himself.

If the miserable populace that had the misfortune to elect them then they will have do to better in the future. And please don`t tell me that we do not have any choice. Elections is in 3 years if the populace is truely miserable then they have enough time to get the political wheel rolling. The time when Aligarh students went accross the country to convince people to vote for Muslim League can still be done.

In any case the army has no role whatsoever. The population should learn from lessons of 1947 freedom. It was the political process not the war of independence that got them an independent country. Now a similar process can get them a government by the people for the people without the feudals and the aristrocrats.

Re: Tehsin

One question; where in the article did I defend the army ? You are right to blame the army for its past follies, but that still does not minimize the fact that the in-house decision making of the army is not democratic. The military, in its internal operations, openly encourages its officers to debate and there is more openess in the military, vis a vis conflicting opinions, than in any other institution in Pakistan.

As to your ``how dare I`` applaud the army; let me ask you this simple question: would you prefer to have a democracy or a country in the future ? The way Nawaz Sharif is going, we will have none. The unity of the country is a more pressing problem at the present than clinging to a false of hope of democracy in Pakistan. As DL has pointed out, we do not have democracy in Pakistan. What we have is the recipe for anarchy, revolution and more needless deaths. I will applaud the Devil if he makes sense and give him due credit. If Pakistan is to survive, we have to suffer the truth being told and stop pretending that wishful thinking will make the awful reality go away.

Re: Amin Saleh

My reference and comparsion of Nawaz Sharif to Hitler was apt.

Hitler came to power in a popular election. Once in power, his party which controlled the Reichstag, the German Parliament, passed a law which legally made the Nazi Party the only political party in Germany. That effectivily silenced opposition to his policies. Nawaz Sharif passed a law which makes it a crime to critise his actions and oppose him by the Parliament; like Hitler undermined the judicary, Nawaz is doing the same through the Shariat Bill. That Bill will be used, not to make Pakistan a Islamic society, but to silence his opposition by labeling them as anti Islamic. Hitler once in power, forced the armed forces to take a personal oath of loyality to him, and not to the state. Nawaz wants to do the same, because the army is the only insitution in the country that can resist his autocracy.

Folks, as the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas said; do not go quitely into the gentle night, but rage, rage aginst the dying of the light.....

Re:the- Unforgiven.
To prevent future lack of credibility, I suppose I must begin with a declaration. To the best of my knowledge, the general`s family tree is entirely seperate from mine.

I am the first one to blame the army for many of the country`s ills, esp. the Afghanistan weapons deals.

Please correct me if my memory fails, but did the general say something `against` the government when he suggested a national security council?
To lump his one statement with all the sins that any generals in army ever comitted is a sweeping generalization.

In our haste to berate the whole army, lets not forget that if Pakistan were to be attacked today, we will all be sitting comfortably at our PC`s and looking up chowk while many young men will put their life on the line. So I suggest lets stay with persons and their individual actions, not the institutions. It will be terribly painful for the son or daughter of someone who died because of the whims of Pakistan and India`s policies for it to be any other way.

And by the way, Pakistan being an illiberal democracy, it should not be compared with U.S, the generals in the U.S work with a very different form of government.

Aliya

quote

while many young men will put their life on the line

unquote

You say this as if they are doing us a favor. Army is paid money day after day when they do nothing but sit in their barricks. And during the war they are paid war allowance. So they are the ones that choose this profession and are not doing this out of the goodness of their heart.

Finally, if their is a war don`t think that people that are not part of the military will not suffer also. When the planes are indiscrimately bombing Karachi, Lahore, etc. who do you think will die and they will die not having the good fortune of having their relatives being looked after by Fauji Foundation or the Army Welfare Trust or the Government. So lets not weep for those that already have financial security.

Let the army first contribute to the welfare of the people in exchange for the 40% it is consuming from the governments budget.

Re; Amin Saleh
Interesting reply about being ‘paid’ to do nothing , when referring to the people who died trying to protect us, trying to follow orders.
Got me thinking about parallels in my civilian life.
If, during my work in the urban war zone emergency room where I was paid to work, I were shot down because the hospital’s chief executive decided to make changes in security arrangements( even though he has never worked in an emergency room himself). Here would be the arguments he can present to my family,IF he were to follow your logic.

1. No one asked her to come here, she knew that staff is at risk in emergency rooms.
2. She was paid, she wasn’t doing us a favor.
3. The emergency room takes up 20% of our budget, even when the doctors just sit there and there are no patients.

Or, if he decided not to follow your model, he’d say, Oh my God! I should have formed a committee that included the emergency room director before I implemented decisions that risked the staff’s safety. Just because she was paid, she wasn’t disposable.

Re: the_unforgiven

Unforgiven, to satisfy your parnonia, I am not a relative, nor am I in any way, form, or manner related to the ex-COAS and nor do I know him either directly or indirectly. I never met the man.

You were probably in a stage of emotional duress when you misread my article. For your information, I never agreed with Zia`s Afghanistan policies. Whatever has happened in the past, none of it good for Pakistan, can not be undone, no matter how much finger pointing we may like to do. We, as Pakistanis, have to stop blaming each other for the mistakes of the past and realize, instead, that we have a problem. The present problem will not be solved by identifiying the past present gulity parties. Instead of casting blame on each other, we have to accept the truth that Pakistan, as a nation, is internationally isolated, economically bankrupt and morally religiously corrupt. We, instead, of devoting our enegries in blaming each other must use that energy to find a solution to our common problems. How we got to this sad state of affairs is a moot point. We will not solve the present problem by finding people to consign the blame for the mistakes of the past. What we, as a nation, have to decide is whether we want to exist as a sovereign state, or should we allow our domestic xenophobia to eventually ruin us all.

If we, as Pakistanis, want to destroy Pakistan, then all we have to do is nothing, because it will happen sooner or later. We can all live in a state of false reality and pretend it is all a nightmare which will be over soon. We can chose to believe in the lies being told, because we do not want wish to hear the harsh truth being told.

The truth of the matter is that Pakistan, presently, is not a democracy. It is ruled by a person who is slowly, but surely, undermining the institutions in the country; the parliament, which is a parliament in name only and can not even dissent against the ruling party. We have a judicary that is not independent and is being weakened to a point of being a non-entity. We have a presidency that is just a hollow facade.
We have the makings of a dictatorship in the guise of a religion which quell all dissent against the government as being unislamic. The Shariat Bill will not make Pakistan an islamic democracy, but it will make Pakistan intolerant of opinions that do not agree with the majority viewpoint.

Therefore, we have to ask ourselves the question; if Pakistan is trully becoming a democratic country, as you and other claims, then where are the checks and balances on the government`s power and where is the voice of dissent in the country?

You are absolutely correct in saying that the army should not be involved in politcs and that the ex-COAS overstepped his constitutional bounds when he critised the policies of the government. I do not want the armed forces to declare another round of martial law either. The armed forces, though this will offend your democratic insecurities, are the only working insitution left in the country that can do something about the present situation of expediently driven politics that are haunting the country towards destruction.

The binary choice confronting Pakistan today is whether we want to chose between the devil (armed forces) or the demon (the present government) in Islamabad. I do not like the choices either, but I still have to choose one. How long must we sit silently by while Pakistan is being destroyed in the name of democracy? How many times must we kill the messenger simply, because for the message he is carrying? Our foremost concern, as Pakistanis, should be for the preservation of the country as a whole and not for a form of government. Democracy, will sooner or later, eventually triumph in Pakistan, but if we allow Pakistan to be destroyed, we shall never again have a country we can call our own. It is easy to reconsitute a democratic government, but it is not so easy to reconsitute a nation-state, after it has been destroyed, in its orginality.

Hence, the choice is yours to make: Do you want a democracy or a country you can call your own. As to the 34 percent who voted for Nawaz Sharif, they may certainly consitute a majority, but it is not a popular majority. Nawaz Sharif, indeed, won the election in a consitutional manner, but his actions since then can not, in any manner, be called consitutional.

I am extermely sorry if it offends you, but Pakistan is fast becoming a facist state. Whether you choose to accept that fact, is entirely yours, and only yours, choice. I was merely using the example of the ex-COAS`s remarks to highlight what was going on in the country. If you want to believe that what he said was a lie and not the truth, of the problems facing Pakistan, then you are free to believe that Pakistan is a pillar of democracy. You are a free to believe that the political insitutions in the country are free from outside intimidation. You are free to believe that the politcans and the bureaucrats, who blunder from one crisis to another, are the most clear headed and farsighted non-corrupt officials in the history of Pakistan. You are free to believe that by destroying democracy the government is reinforcing democracy in Pakistan. You are free to believe what you chose to, but please do not tell us, who disagree with you, that we are anti-democratic, because we do not believe what you believe in.

You may disagree with my opinions and I may disagree with yours, but that does not imply that my perceptions are correct and yours incorrect or vice versa. I am extermely sorry that I do not see Pakistan through the same rose colored glasses as you do. In a democracy, as you suggested, we get what we deserve, but we also owe it to ourselves to tell the truth as we see it. In a true democracy we have the right to do that, or is that not a democratic right in the democratic republic of Pakistan?

Re: Those critical of Pakistan military.

Do you understand the role of Pakistan Army: to defend the country from both within and without.

Re: Those defending Nawaz Sharif.

This guy is a screwup. He has taken a bad situation and has made it worse. He is inept. His intelligence level is not higher than Larry, Curly or Mo. He must go, or Pakistan is doomed.

Re: Slink:

``he`s clipped the presidents wings - he`s clipped the judiciarys wings - he`s clipped the armys wings

who`s left?``

I just cant understand how you can defend these jesters. The appointed President of Pakistan was able to dismiss 3 popularly elected governments. What ever their flaws were, it was no business of this appointee to have such authority of refuting the will of the people.

This time around he was in cahouts with the Chief Justice - and both were planning to get rid of an elected government. I say clip their wings. Somehow it seems to me that with the system being so twisted we have lost perspective as to which side is up. As far as my understanding goes in a parliamentary style govt. the ability to dismiss a govt. rests with the parliament - and with the electorate at the end of the term. If N S is so incompetent then people can dismiss him in the next election.

Re: dL

``. and who is going to cut the `democratically elected government with a mandate` to size?``

And there lies the contradiction. If it is popularly elected govt. with a mandate then it is carrying the mandate of the people - and how dare you want to cut it to your perception of its size. If he is not carrying out the mandate of the people then let there be an uprising. But my Dear Mr. Intellectual or Mr. Responsible nobody handed you the responsibility of saving Pakistan - it is the illiterate, the poor, the middle class and rest who will save Pakistan.

Re: FerozK

``let me ask you this simple question: would you prefer to have a democracy or a country in the future ?``

I am a great believer in personal responsibility. Please don`t try to save Pakistan - if the people of Pakistan want to save it let them work for it, otherwise let them suffer the consequences. Stark reality can teach you wisdom in a hurry.

Re: Aliya

``In our haste to berate the whole army, lets not forget that if Pakistan were to be attacked today, we will all be sitting comfortably at our PC`s and looking up chowk while many young men will put their life on the line``

My God! This is the line the army has used to rule us for most of our lives. What do we have that India so desperately wants? Forceful unification? Are they nuts? Believe me they don`t want the headache.