A History of the Pakistan Army by Brian Cloughley

HP "I am posting this from the Dubai airport"

I'm glad you took my advice and are approaching the homeland, after having left the land of hypocrisy, Zeemax and I will receive you at the airport.....

I am posting this from the Dubai airport and still don't see the answer from both Pavo and Fuzair. I understand Ijaz's position but these guys have to post some reasonable response as why they claimed that 1965 was a good/great opportunity for Pakistan to takeout/knockdown or defeat India.

We have seen on this forum that many people make tall claims but when asked to justify or corrobate their assertion theie replies are mostly fail to answer the questions raised.

In this issue what Pavo wrote and Fuzair readily agreed, showed the conventional Wisdom or the lack of it within the Pak army and espcially in junior officers that Pakistan was in a position to inflict defeat on India.

In military terms, every action has to have a concrete goal and they are well defined. Here they just can't define what was the goal.

I am simply astonished at the lack of intellect and strategic thinking from these guys to even define what would constitute India's defeat. Not to talk of Takeout or knockdown as some scaled down goals. These guys cannot even show what would have knocke down India. What is meant by take out….defeating India! they don’t even know what it means.

Honeslty, currently there is no army in the world which can defeat India physically and cause a surrender. Some armies may incapacitate Delhi or may capture some ports but beyond that nothng more can be done. Was there a time in 1965 when Pakistan or any other country would have beaten India? I seriously doubt that. Defeating a nation as large as India in both population and geographical area is next to impossible in the current world. This is not 1200AD when if you had captured Delhi, you could have claimed the capture of India as there was no one else powerful enough in that India to chellenge you.

We have a serious problem with the Pak army. The lack of stratefic thinking, understanding the basics of planning or even defining goals is simply not taugt in the Military academies. Only thing these officers learn is how to get promotions and get to be in a position to get benefits out of their position. Pitiful situation!

Pavo,
Again you insist that Pakistan had a offensive strategy in 1965 but again you fail to define what that strategy was and what was the plan to achieve that. Until you are able to back up what you claim, your boasts about your knowledge and understaning of the army are just hollow. What other things you write, can be copy pasted from many sources.

What we need, if we are interested in studying the Pakistan Army is its "institutional" history, how, as an institution it has become incorporated into the power structure (economic, political and social) of the country. In this regard we need to look at i) Pre partition and colonization which affected the outlook of this force towards the West
ii) The catastrophie of the partition and being faced with a much larger foe, it gained in importance and political strength inside the nation
iii) The cold war and the alignment with the US, which led to its transformation into a proxy "occupation force" for the neo-colonial power
iv) As a result of iii its incorporation as a parasite into every nook and cranny of the Pakistan social structure as the dominant institution upon which the lesser institutions (including the political) depend for legitimacy and power (and not vice versa).

Any so called "history" and especially the gora orientalist history, that ignores these institutional aspects of the Pakistan Army will always miss by a broad margin...

#124 Posted by bulleya,

the biggest problem with AWT and Fauji Foundation and Shaheen Foundation and all their subsidiaries is that they are owned by the government, hence they are nationalised industries, however, they only benefit a select group.....i.e. military and that too senior officers.......

There's a major clarification to be made here. The funds for setting up military enterprises don't come from the Government, but from the deductions made from militarymen during service towards post-retirement benefits. So these are really not nationalised industries. Obviously since funding comes from the army pension pool, the benefits must accrue to the same. I think it's also fair largest share goes to the senior officers because they would also be the largest contributors from salary during service, though this aspect is obviously very contentious.

In fact, the REALLY corrupt practices are in Shaheen Foundation and the Bahria Foundation. In Bahria Foundation for example, entire industries exist only on paper ... while those which do exist are non-operational because it was never the intention to run them ... but just to pocket the commissions from machinery suppliers. I'm also witness to a transaction where a National Shipping Corporation vessel carrying iron ore for Pakistan Steel was deliberately diverted in connivance with Pakistan steel at the behest of the Admiral heading NSC, to delay arrival and to claim on the performance guarantee of the Indonesian supplier. Can you believe that?

.......it is good to hear that your driver got a job through AWT, but that job should be open to all poor citizens of pakistan.......

It is actually open to all citizens, but the skills and attitudes acquired in military training such as discipline, alertness, hard work are not easily found.

Man, Pavo, go easy on the hooch! you just peirced my ear drums and poked my eyes out with your shouting .... we heard you first time around.

Not withstanding your allegations, and bulleya's pet theme along with zeemax's nefarious propaganda, give us the real low down on
(a) Pakistan
(b) Pakistans nukes
(c) musharuf's viability
(e) whether Pakistan can take on the and win

Re: # 127 U GIVE THEM SOME COROLLA XLIs and DENUKE THEM . ALL HOPELESS GUYS.

WHAT A LOSS . SERVING IN PAKISTAN ARMY . WITH MOCHIS , WITH NAIS , WITH WASHERMEN LIKE KHALID LATIF MUGHAL. I DONT KNOW WHY MY ANCESTORS MIGRATED FROM AFGHANISTAN IF WE HAD TO LIVE WITH THESE THIRD RATE GUYS.THESE PUNJABIS AND THESE HINDKO PASHTUNS.

Re: # 122 THE THIRD CLASS PAKI ARMY HAD A 7 TO ONE SUPERIORITY IN KHEM KARAN , YET IT FAILED.

THATS THE BASIC THEME OF MY BOOK PAKISTAN ARMY TILL 1965.

u see my maternal as well as paternal grand fathers were doing well even before partition. and what do we get after partition.third class punjabi crooks . look at jullundhur before partition .there was no good muslim family there . and after partition a family called barkis comes from jullundhur.never heard this name before !

i would be rather under a Hindu Rajput than a third class Punjabi Muslim

third class so called pashtuns, from peshawar city , hindko speaking , the Pashtuns call them Kharays, like THORNS , third class guys like Iftikhar Shah ex governor NWFP and third class guys like Owais Ghani

very third class lower middle class guys in the paki army . we did have a corps commander from the washerman class called khalid latif mughal commanding 1 Corps.i would have been glad to serve under a hindu rajput from a rathore degree than this third class dhobi or the third class hindko kakar , that accursed punjabi speaking pashtun.

we did serve the paki army , but it was a pathetic lot , pashtuns,punjabis and some mohajirs , all hopeless job seekers, just hopeless guys , the americans can lay them any time , if they understand,just hopeless guys

Re: # 125 You give a Corolla XLI or a Corolla GLI to a Paki intelligence guy and he gets it as official car and this guy is very excited about it.This is his ceiling and his calibre.Its all quite BS.

Re: # 122 PAKISTAN had an offensive strategy in 1965 and it had the superiority at Khem Karan 7 to 1 but miserably failed.It sure did.THAT WAS THE CONCLUSION OF MY BOOK PAKISTAN ARMY TIL 1965.Pakistan Army THAT UNDOUBTED FAILURE.

Mr Fuzair, I dont know any person of that name .May be junior to me.

DENUKING PAKISTAN:-- This is a distinct possiblity .The guys dealing with Paki nukes are quite hopeless.They are after petty personal privileges.