Rightsizing of the Armed Forces

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Saima Shah #61 On India`s biggest enemy: T`aint China and t`aint Pakistan. It is poverty and ignorance and poverty and prejudice and poverty and poverty and poverty.
And this is Pakistan`s biggest enemy too. And China`s too.
And the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Someday, when people come to their senses, they will realize this.

riffatj #48: ``Presumably, some of the readers don’t have an idea that today even ordinary people -- right from illiterate lower working class to apolitical housewives -- have started squarely blaming Army for the sordid mess in the country.``

This is true if you talk about the interventions of the military into politics.

Not true if you look at the people`s view of the average soldier, doing his job on the border, or in his unit. Specifically in rural Punjab and NWFP, where nearly every, ``apolitical housewives`` and, ``illeterate lower working class`` person has at least one relative who is a soldier, and has no relatives who are politicians, expatriates engineers, or can even write and speak English.

I would say, overwhelmingly, Pakistanis (inlcuding me) have disapproved of any leadership that Pakistan has had, military or civilian. I would consider Musharraf`s three year rule to be the most honest, amongst the past thirty years, but would not approve of military rule as a solution, in general. Very few people would. I think after completing three years, Musharraf should now retire and put his name up as a civilian President. This however does not mean people approve of the Nawaz Sharif or BB either. People want a third type of leadership - no military, no feudals, no PML, no PPP. That is why they are now giving the maulvis a chance. After the maulvis, they may go to other groups.

However, this is different from critiquing the military itself, for its defence roles. The only motivation to rightsize a military, cannot be to reduce its participation in politics. There are, and should be, other reasons also. I don`t see how rightsizing the Army by 25%, as you have suggested, from 450k to 320k will reduce the chances of a coup. It may make the Army more efficient, and save money, but how does that reduce the chances of a coup, when most coups barely require 1000 soldiers. Could you highlight?

If survey after survery indicates a high deal of respect of the military in Pakistan (which they do), that does not mean these surveys justify a role of the military in politics. These are too different issues. I think the average Pakistani:

-Thinks low of the peformance of the Army in politics.
-Thinks low of the performance of all civilian political leaderships also.
-Does not want the Army as a long term political solution
-Thinks very high of the soldiers themselves in their role as protectors of borders. You can look at the writing of any journalist (Urdu or English), to the views of any politician (including even BB and NS). They will criticize Generals, but will never ever criticize the sepoy standing on the border. This is what the surveys point to.

The above are my views as well. I have lived in a lot of rural areas also, and at a personal level, seen how I am treated now as a relatively well-off expatriate civilian and was treated as a low-paid soldier, by the average farmer, taxi-driver, shopkeeper, etc. The common folk of Pakistan maybe hostile towards Generals (as am I), but I cannot imagine them being hostile towards the common soldier. Infact, they think far more lowly of the rich expatriates living in rich neighborhoods of Pakistan, employing the poor class of Pakistan (many of whom are actually relatives of low-paid sepoys).

People need to evaluate the military in two different areas:

1) Should it be in politics, and what damage has that done, and how will rightsizing improve that
2) Is it required to protect the borders against India, which is arming itself to the teeth, and how should it be rightsized to make it more efficient.

People tend to take an, ``all or nothing`` approach to the above. Those who think the Army is needed for border protection and that soldiers are sacrificing their lives for it (which they are in places like Siachen) tend to think this justifies the Army`s role in politics also, i.e. politicians are stupid, hence military should rule. The ones at the other extreme, state that since the Army Generals have been as poor, if not more poor, at ruling the country in comparison to the civilians, hence the whole Army is an evil and unnecessary, and is the cause of all of Pakistan`s problems. In both cases, the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater.

In my opinion, the Army is necessary to protect the borders, but not in politics (unless it comes in to protect the storming of the Supreme Court or in situations like the violence in Gujrat, India, or if Pakistan has reached a stage where it cannot even pay the salaries of it employees. Even in such situations when Pakistan is completely going of a cliff, it should come in and be out very quickly). However, the only way it will stay out of politics is if the people have faith in the civilian politicians, and thus rise up when a coup occurs. Could you highlight any other practical way of avoiding coups?

I do not agree with the, ``people have too many day to day problems to rise up,`` that you have presented. People have even more day to day problems in India, since it has far more poor people. Yet I doubt they would accept a military rule. Primarily because they seem to have a lot more faith in their civilian politicians.

I think Pakistan will continue between civilian and military leaderships, until either an outstanding honest civilian leadership emerges, or until people finally decide in favor of one over the other (once and for all). Currently, people tend to favor civilian leaderships when they start, and then favor coups once the civilians disappoint. The coups are favored for a few years, and then they are disappointed with them as well, and want a civilian leadership, i.e. people like a leadership when it starts, but want it removed after about three years. Only a, ``relatively`` honest civilian leadership can break this cycle.

I am hoping people like Imran Khan and his party can fill this vacuum. But the way things are going, being fed up with military in politics and being fed-up with the PML and PPP and with ethnic parties like ANP and MQM, people are now tilting towards maulvis. If the maulvis end up improving the lot of the poor person in NWFP, regardless of their banning of co-education and cable TV, I have feeling they may start winning in Punjab as well.

Romair at # 67:

Although your post is addressed to Riffat, I would like to differ from you only on the action plan of the strategic mission of transition from pure military to pure democracy. I would reiterate that General Musharraf should continue till the time economic stability is not realized. A democratic government under its populist agenda would lead us to bankruptcy unless put on a leash (short or long does not matter) at least for few more years.

As to your last paragraph on the popularity of Mullas, they are raising non-issues and getting carried away by emotionalism. They have not raised a single issue yet, but are reaping a rich harvest. For example, people are much more prone to support Mullas when they raise the non-issue of American`s asking Pakistanis to register themselves in the USA. Not a single Mulla or his emotional follower would have an answer to the following question: Why would American listen to Pakistan on such small an issue like this one, when it is not listening to the entire world on Iraq? What I meant to suggest is that Pakistanis would not turn to Mullas on the grounds that Musharraf`s performance is bad.

Ahmadzai #68: You have made some good points.

I supported Musharraf`s coup for the three years time limit, because I felt the other options, (BB, NS) were dictators just on the verge of destroying Pakistan completely. An honest dictator is better than a dishonest one. I think in these three years, the economy has been stabilized, Pakistan is no longer internationally isolated, the press has been freed, and Pakistan is facing (most of) its skeletons in its closets.

At the same time, I wish Musharraf had gone after power groups like feudals, corrupt politicians etc., with the same zeal as he went after the maulvis and the beaurecracy. And I wish he had reorganized the military, in the lines I suggested in a previous reply (from what I have heard, he has done a great deal internally to de-mullah-fy the Army however). After doing that, he should have held elections and just retired into oblivion.

I agree if the current NA is given free reign, we will once again be back to the days of free-for-all loan defaults. So his presence is somewhat of a necessity now. However, it wouldn`t have been had he not allowed the same people into the elections, to begin with. Kind of a Catch-22 - such is the shortage of financially honest people in Pakistan. So he has himself (with the help of the Pakistani voter who keeps voting for the same people and then complains about the people he votes for) created kind of a situation where he is still needed.

I still think, for his own good, and for the reputation of the Army, he should now retire and put his name up for a civilian Presidentship through the NA. If they don`t elect him, well fine, he did whatever he could. He will leave with his credibility intact. And at the moment, Pakistan needs a leader who leaves while he is popular with credibility, far more than it even needs a good leader in power.

If Pakistanis want to support the maulvis and corrupt politicians, when they have (had) the choice of a leader, who for all his other faults, is scruplously honest financially and liberal, then it should be their choice. I dont think the country is now going off a cliff as it was in 1999, so military rule is no longer needed. In the end, Pakistanis will have themselves to give credit to or blame. From the referendum onwards, however, Musharraf`s popularity, due to his own double-mindedness has gone down and will continue to go down. If he doesn`t resign, people may respect him as a person, but not as a President - though they will still respect him more than the other clowns like BB, NS, Altaf etc.

As for the Mullahs: I think people are underestimating and not analyzying the surge in their popularity. I don`t think Pakistanis have voted for them due to religion or due to USA military presences. Pakistanis never vote for religion. They have voted for them because they have exhausted all other possibilities. The mullahs and the MQM are the only two parties which have candidates who are actaully, ``like`` the voters whom they represent. MMA has farmers, maulvis, shopkeepers etc. as its candidates. While MQM has pharmacists, taxi-drivers etc. as candidates.

The people have said that we will accept the mullahs ridiculous backwards shenanigans, in the hope that they may make us less poor and give us the facilitites that have been hounded by Pakistan`s upper class (which the ANP leaders and Baluchi tribal politicians belong to). It is no coincidence that Pakistan`s most educated and advnaced city, Karachi, now completely elects middle class and lower-middle class candidataes (MQM and MMA).

If the mullahs can help the poor villager, whose kids dont go to college (and hence could care less about co-education) and who does not have even electricity (what to talk of cable television), and who is already quite conservative, he could care less about the intense convservitism the MMA will bring to the cities it rules. He just wants more food on his plate. And if the mullahs are successful in this, their popularity is bound to spread into Punjab and Sind, much to the disgust of the English speaking, upper class, secular and Westernized population of the big cities - which most of us interactors on Chowk belong to (Anyone in Pakistan who can speak English and has Internet access is actully part of the upper-middle class, considering that 65% of the population lives in villages and only 1% has Internet access).

If the mullahs also fail in raising the living standard of poor Pathans and Baluchis (areas where they rule), then I am not quite sure where the next group of politicians will come from. I am hoping it will come from newer parties like PTI (which is by the way now aligned with the MMA).

If the currently elected mullahs outright win the next election, while the condition of the country remains the same, then I can see another coup occuring, with strong support of the USA (and ironically from the secualr Pakistanis), in around five to seven years time.

Just few weeks back there was an article over here “Some Burning Questions” by Nighat Yasmeen, available at
http://63.194.130.82/cgi-bin/show_article.cgi?aid=00001766&channel=chaathouse&start=0&end=9&chapter=1&page=1

Dear romair, she has replied most of your questions quite eloquently in her letter. I fully agree that very few Pakistanis, if at all, don’t keep the soldiers [NCOs and JCOs] and junior officers [to the rank of Major] guarding national frontiers in utmost high esteem. No question about that. No sane person can have a grudge against those poor souls. The problem, rather let me call it the cancer, eating the nation from within, is our ca. 400 good-for-nothing star officers.

ahmadzai and romair, if you don’t mind, you seem to have some weird definition of “honesty”. As N Y wrote, khakis had transformed plunder and loot to institutional game. Modalities may differ the result is almost the same – accumulation of personal wealth. Can you mention ONE general among the serving ones [who are supposedly “honest” by your account] who is NOT a multi-millionaire?

I guess rightsizing, as proposed in the article, may not instantly eliminate the menace of military intervention, but it would definitely serve a message to the top brass that their “extra-curricular” activities are not accepted anymore.

See, judiciary, the corner stone of any civilized society, is totally discredited today due to the swine in khaki and the forced indemnifications under “doctrine of necessity”. Tell me, is there even a theoretical possibility for improvement where senior most judges have been “promoted” to royal whores? And who is responsible for that?

Today we have no institution worth mentioning left that is not in tatters, no political tradition, no constitution, only and only whims of few stupid generals and that’s all. What honesty and what economical stability you people talk about?

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Ref tahmed32 #66

[On India`s biggest enemy: T`aint China and t`aint Pakistan. It is poverty and ignorance and poverty and prejudice and poverty and poverty and poverty.
And this is Pakistan`s biggest enemy too. And China`s too.]

There is no way to eliminate prejudice. Education until 18 ain`t nothing but prejudice. After that, one has to do better than Rutgers or Oklahoma State to get the blinkers off one`s eyes.

On the other hand, one can hope to educate the next generation and the one after that and hopefully, in a couple of generations, you get people thinking about a job and putting food on the table and limiting families.... none of that 4-wives-and-16-children dream of waqaralisheikh. Then there is some hope of eliminating poverty.

[And the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Someday, when people come to their senses, they will realize this.]

Pakistan has already had this epiphany: their enemy is India, India`s enemy is China and thus proclamations of eternal friendship with China.

#37 by ahmadzai on February 8, 2003 6:56am PT

1. Oh so you guys know the truth after all? I thought the Pakistani propaganda machine had done a great job in blinding the average Abdullahs (in Arjun`s words) to the perfidious games Pakistan has always played since its birth. Pakistan of 1948 was busy trying to convince the whole world that it was not its armed forces, but the tribals who were doing it. Just as in 1999 it tried to hoodwink the world into believing that it was the Mujahideen who had occupied the icy peaks on the Indian side of the Line of Control, and not its own troops of the 4, and 5 Northern Light Infantry. In any case, the state of Jammu & Kashmir had not acceded to India when your “tribals” had attacked it.

2. Gen. Chowdhary having tea at Lahore Gymkhana? I consider myself a very avid reader, strange I never came across any such article. I do remember though having read that during the 1971 war, when under pressure from the Indian forces in East Pakistan, Pakistan opened up another front at Longewala (where a handful of men successfully defended the border against 200+ of your marauding tanks) on India’s Rajasthan border, your generals had hoodwinked your soldiers into believing that they would have tea at Jodhpur and dinner at Delhi.

3. Well I must say the break-up of the Soviet Union was indeed tragic. But more tragic to me is the drug and Kalashnikov culture that Pakistan inherited with the result that Pakistan social fabric has been irreparably torn apart, and Pakistan’s involvement in the Afghan Jihad could well prove to be the most decisive factor in Pakistan’s ultimate survival (or extinction).

4. And what about the treaties Pakistan signed left right and center to overcome its insecurities vis-à-vis India?

Ref Field Marshal #71

[At the same time, I wish Musharraf had gone after power groups like feudals, corrupt politicians etc., with the same zeal as he went after the maulvis and the beaurecracy. ]

What were you smoking when you wrote this? The maulvis and mullahs were out from house arrest as soon as the US turned its back after taking note of the fact that Mushy saluted smartly and banned a couple of terrorist outfits when they demanded it.

[If the mullahs can help the poor villager, whose kids dont go to college (and hence could care less about co-education) and who does not have even electricity (what to talk of cable television), and who is already quite conservative, he could care less about the intense convservitism the MMA will bring to the cities it rules.]

You are wrong. Back in the late 70s when TV started its spread through India, I was amazed to see antennae sticking out of the roofs of thatched huts in slums. One guy would buy a TV on installment payment, steal electricity from an overhead wire and all of a sudden he was running a nightly show for the neighbors for one rupee. When the most the Doordarshan could offer was Indira Darshan, as the news show was contemptuously called (or even better, Priyadarshini, this being Indira`s middle name), folks in Chennai were putting up 60-foot tall antennae to pull in Sri Lankan TV and I am sure the resourceful Punjabis were watching PTV as they do even now.

In case you didn`t read the coverage of the Afghan War by slate.com, the first things to come out after the Taliban fell were the TV sets, VCRs and porno movies on tape. This was in Kabul which according to you is more conservative than Lahore.

Actually, people want no interference. It is not for you, me or the mullah to dictate to them what they can and cannot see. Thus in India, there is Fashion TV which shows the catwalks from Milan, Rome, Paris, etc. Just yesterday, there was this model wearing a long skirt and a see-through dupatta-like cloth on her upper body... no bra either....when people want to see boobs, I guess TV will give it to them and the fact that the Hajj has started has no effect on the viewers, the cable TV stations, or even the morality police.

Romair : I think in these three years, the economy has been stabilized, Pakistan is no longer internationally isolated, the press has been freed, and Pakistan is facing (most of) its skeletons in its closets.

Yaar where do you live? Do you even bother to read the newspapers? Free Press? According to Press and Publication Ordinance issued by Musharaf in November Government can sue Press for ``false criticism`` and according to another Ordinance issued during the same time government can hold any citizen for a year in custody without charging him and without giving him access to a lawyer or court. In a country where police drinks the blood of Paksitanis as a Naashta this law gives horrible powers to state. Currently, there are 2k to 5k prisnors held in Paksitani prisons under such law. So much for the skeletons in the closet. And one must be on funny cigarettes to think that economy has been stabilized. Less said the better.

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I can bet that the most popular person in Pakistan is Abdul Sattar Edhi. You may use whatever benchmark you want to, Edhi is 100 times more adored and respected than all generals put together. His practical accomplishments too surpass the performance of the top brass by horse lengths.
Does all that should be a pretext for him to start demanding veto power in policy matters, let alone carte blanche to rape the country and/or tear apart the only document of consensus we have, namely 1973 Constitution?

The pertinent questions about the reliability of the referred surveys aside, what does the popularity of the military, as the defenders of the nation, has to do with the topic under consideration? Does that allow military bosses to keep the country hijacked to their personal ambitions?

Moreover, I think it is more than obvious that whosoever criticize the army doesn’t mean to bash the poor orderly polishing the shoes of officers and serving the bloody begums or those standing guard at Whaga. It is the filth at the top one is so damned tired of.

In fact, I would like to go one step further. We should try to have some sort of adjustment ala Switzerland. Dismantle this nasty army altogether. Slaughter this holy cow, kill this white elephant -- at the earliest. Confiscate all the plots and land grabbed by these so-called defenders. Put them in jail, for treason, those who sit on more than two residential plots.
Imagine that our generals travel around in bullet-proof limousines not in use even of German and French generals. And there are people who call them honest and good for stability. Think yourself, are these faggots capable of anything more than selling (and buying) souls and zameer (if they have any)?
Might be there are people who still respect them, I have no choice but to respect their perverted choice. I on my part wouldn’t like to disgrace my saliva by spitting on them.

Further to # 77

Does someone know where the Paksitan`s National Assembly is since last November? Four months have gone by and there hasn`t been a single legislative session? What the hell is going on? How the hell is country running its business.

Coming back to the subject of what the overgrown army is costing Pakistan, Ustad Daman said the last word:

Pakistan deaN maujaN e maujaN
Jedha vaikho faujaN e faujaN

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