Operation Searchlight

Re Ras sahib # 205

You`re too kind sir. Ammi is in teaching Biology to the afternoon shift crowd at St Jo though she has promised us this will be her last year:)

Our house is in Mohammadpur; the new place is on Nazrul Islam Road (the name may have been different before) and the old one is off Zakir Hussain Road (almost by Lalmatia).

When I was there six years ago, Balaka Cinema was still opposite New Market. I suspect it still is.

Re Stuka 204

You`re right. I should have emphasized the hardiness of the earlier generation more. That said, the mix of the so-called citizen-soldier and the hedonistic culture does create rather less-than-hardy soldiers,

stuka #203 there is probably an element of fact in what you write about the pakistan right wing (or more accurately, the religious right wing) being less suave than their indian counterparts. the important thing of course is that both sides stink.

if someone is still a marxist, as you say bidwai is, then that is of course quite dumb. while some things marx wrote make sense (notably his theory that socio-cultural-political structures are a function of nature of technology) the rest (notably his call for socializing means of production) has of course been disproved after the colossal failure of the 70 year experiment aka the soviet union. as i said, i havent read enough of him to be able to pass judgement.

all i can say is that if someone (as in case of bidwai) annoys the religious right wing (suave or neanderthal) in india or in pakistan, then that person must be saying something right.

RE: #167 sigalph235.

Is your house towards Dhanmondi, Mohammadpur or the Old Capital side?

Is Balaka Cinema still there or New Market? Your mother teaches at St Jo?

No wonder you write so well....


RE: Dard #169

Your reply was music to my ears. You are a true Pakistani...


RE; #196 by shobuz

What can I say to you? Your honesty speaks for all of us...


I am truly sorry if I have offended anyone


Ras

Sigalph:

``I personally doubt that this band of warriors would have won the victory over the NAzis as quickly as their much hardier forefathers did. An army ought to reflect the society AROUND it but be thoroughly insular FROM it, so thought the British and they built us those wonderful cantonments. ``

I am surprised by your statement. The American soldiers who fought and died fighting the Nazis were predominantly citizen soldiers. One might argue that the ethos of society itself has changed with the boomers bringing on a whiny, self-centred outlook. But, the professional army pre WW2 was much smaller than the force which actually went to fight in Europe and the Pacific, draftees mostly.

TAhmed:

``i did read an article from bidwai on chowk that did not strike me as being particularly egregious. but again, i didnt read the article too carefully, being more interested in the discussion taking place``

Don`t get me wrong. If you take an individual article as a stand alone, u will find that Bidwai says a lot of reasonable stuff. The problem is that Bidwai writes a lot, and the MORE you read, you realize that his thinking is one track and there is a Marxist ideological bias.

I would concede that Pakistanis take more easly to introspection (a gross generalization, but my opinion nevertheless) as compared to Indians. The reason is that the english media in Pakistan is dominated by lefties who bash Pakistan all the time whereas the media in India is equally divided between lefties and righties therefore lefties bashing India often get bashed by righties in turn. Make sense?

Oh yeah, and Indian righties are more suave then Pakistani righties. The Pakistani rightist will talk of Hindu mentality etc and make a fool of himself thereby exposing himself to be a bigot. The Indian rightie will make all the right noises about secualrism and plurality but then pass on comments equally bigoted but will get away. :)

re: ahmadzai # 162

The level of ignorance is simply staggering...

My dear Ahmadzai ji, rather than taking the route you have chossen to, a wiser strategy for you would be to help lift Pakistan up.

stuka #163/pmishra #175: thanks for your posts describing further your views on certain indian writers like khushwant singh and bidwai. i certainly agree on the benchmark for judging a political commentator that stuka mentioned (i.e. if his reasoning is rational and based on reasonable assumptions). how well this applies to these writers, i leave for you to judge since my knowledge of what they are talking about is certainly limited.

i did read an article from bidwai on chowk that did not strike me as being particularly egregious. but again, i didnt read the article too carefully, being more interested in the discussion taking place (if a writer isnt available to defend his work on chowk, his article becomes quite uninteresting - since chowk is for discussion, and if one wanted to read a serious article albeit without the writer being present to respond to comments, there are enought books, magazines, websites avaialble for that). on khuswant singh, from your posts, it seems there is no controvsey then.

i am not sure how the writers on muslim culture and history that were also mentioned stack up in your view against the same benchmark. i do know that having read one of bernard lewis` books i found it to be quite factual, informative, interesting. it mostly had to do with the fall of the ottoman empire, and the reasons for it, and i thought it was quite insightful and well worth reading by all those who think maybe it is time to bring back a caliph in muslim countries. i see on chowk some pakistanis criticise him bitterly, but when probed for something specific he said i found no specific examples being presented.

someday i might become interested in finding out how sound bidwai, pipes and others are as writers, and that day i shall check out their originals as stuka suggested.

till then, i shall content myself with the thought that there are enough chauvinists in indian as well as pakistani society that a few critics can only help. criticism hurts, but a critic is a society`s best friend whereas a chauvinist is not. imho.

re:#197 by pmishra2
Mishraji,
All that article points out is that BJP seems to be having a very flexible foreign policy geared to the needs of its security intersts, which is how it should be. It may have learnt its lessons from Gujarat carnage but only time will tell. Most of the rest are speculations by the author.
Sridhar

fuzair #194: Your comment about the Generals being promoted quickly, prior to 71, is insightful and accurate. Though, for some reason, it did not affect the PAF. I think Asghar Khan was 36 years old (?) when he became the Chief of Air Staff. I have always been amazed at his far sightedness. He single-handedly set up an Air Force, which gained recongnition outside Pakistan. Even though Air Force is such hi-tech business, and difficult for third world countries to operate.

Nur Khan is also highly thought of. Though he was a very young General also. I wonder why the Army has never been able to produce its Asghar Khans.

``I have a certain amount of first-hand observation experience here and I can safely say that, on average, our (both Indian and Pakistani actually) armies need officers to do what the US Army does with NCOs. You simply cannot rely on our enlisted men to carry out tasks competently and efficiently (with some honorable exceptions, of course)``

This is probably true for the Army. However, it is not true for the Air Force (and probably Navy also). In the Air Force, all enlisted ranks, regardless of country, have to put together and take apart aircraft. The ones taking apart F-16s in Pakistan have to do the same tasks as those in the USA. Many enlisted guys from the PAF become officers in the Army. In fact, I know a few enlisted airmen, who have even become Generals in the PAF.

Though for an Army, I would think loyalty, patience, dedication etc. would be more important than technical skills, for enlisted ranks.

Americans are an exception to the rule of enlisted. In the USA, people join enlisted ranks for a few years, to get an education, make some money and then get into civilian professional careers. I think Chuck Yeager`s son was enlisted. As were probably many successful CEOs, Professors, etc. in the USA. One of my bosses in San Jose, used to be an enlisted policeman in the USAF. He was the director of the company, I worked for, and had lines of MIT and Harvard grads under him.

US military is in a league of its own. One cannot compare it to other countries. It has no weaknesses. $400 billion budget. Extraordinarily good equipment. Hi-tech research. Well-fed and looked after. Excellent benefits. Well-trained. Dedicated. Enlisted guys getting Bachelors degrees. Officers getting Ph.Ds (including command branches, not just engineers). With a solid political leadership, deciding where they should fight and not fight.

The guy commanding the 101st Airborne (?) in Iraq did an interview. He is a Maj. General, and is a Ph.D. from Princeton in economics. Imagine.

Re 193 thru 195

Three years ago a certain Colonel Qayyum wrote some reminiscences and perspectives in Sehgal`s Defense Journal on the ideas and officers of the Pakistan Army. He basically surmised that the strategic outlook of individual Pakistani officers was largely non-existent or, at best, myopic in that they could never think beyond a battalion level. Such narrowness of outlook, the retired colonel further opined, continued as a given officer went from Lt. Colonel all the way to a senior general officer. Of the few exceptions to this phenomenom were Generals Attiqur Rehman, Shaukat Riza, and of course the aristocratic Sahibzada Yaqub Ali Khan.

With further reference to the Sahibzada as a cardinal example, Colonel Qayyum maintained that it was the cold, calculated, insular persona exemplified by the Anglicized old officer corps that Yaqub Khan personified and the newer breed detested. That fastidious, almost patrician, bearing also helped create a thoughtful, ie broader, strategic outlook. With the `nativization` of the Army and its officer corps, along with the true patrcian-ness the attendant visionary outlook was also discarded in favor of more `awami` type ethos (perhaps symbolized by Gen Musa?). When officers were officers, and men men, the author mused!

As for the ice-cream American soldiers, it may just have a grain of truth to it. I have always felt, in an almost snobbish Commonwealth tradition, that you downgrade the fighting quality of combat personnel as soon as you mix professionals with week-end warriors. UNfortunately, the United States Armed Forces are perhaps the biggest experimentation with this professional-weekender mixing. I personally doubt that this band of warriors would have won the victory over the NAzis as quickly as their much hardier forefathers did. An army ought to reflect the society AROUND it but be thoroughly insular FROM it, so thought the British and they built us those wonderful cantonments.

#192 sridhar

With regret I have to say this article is saying something different. It says that the Arabs and the Chinese don`t give a damn about human rights and episodes like Gujarat. And thats why the BJP finds it easy to talk to these parties. In contrast, we have the ``Christian`` west and hindu liberals who condemn the use of violence repeatedly, and have forced the BJP to restrain its ``lumpen`` foot-soldiers.

Overall, I think this articles arguments are very shallow and unsupported. Real-politik determines the progress India has made in Central, West and East Asia. It is tied to indian modernization, awareness that indians will be a large player in the next 5-10 years etc. It has very little to do with the BJP`s ideological moorings. People like Vajpayee have always had a broad non-ideological foreign policy in mind. This was true 20 years ago. Today the country has the economic heft to back up this vision.

On a different note, I am glad that even the nuts in the BJP (Shri Modi and company) recognize the importance of economic growth and progress. If nothing else, it will ensure that their brand of polarizing politics becomes irrelevant sooner than later. Or will it?

Some writing opens old wound, and some heals wound.

Some of the old hurlings pre 71:
Pakistanis to Benglais:
Bengalis eat fish-smell like fish.
urdu is the only way to advance
Bengalis eat white rice yet they are black.
Bengalis talk funny, smell funny and eat funny food.
Bengalis names are muslim but they are Hindu in their heart.

Bengalis to Pakistanis:
Panjabis are janowar
Pakis are half brained and half are ataa (flour)
..
..
..

Hurling went on between two sides for many years. It was inevitable that they would breakup today or tomorrow.

Any one knows of any of post 71 name callings.....

Some memory flashback of 71: …..A bihary boss killed Bengalis in is house and later EPR killed him and let go women…..A Punjabi guard killed his Bengali Boss, because he hurled him as ‘panjabi janowar’…..My father were constantly harassed by his Pakistani customer in Habib Bank, yet my fathers Bihari colleague helped us every single way by buying us food when we could not go out afraid of army gonna kill us… some ‘Major Manjur’ came (through some friends) to our house and when he saw me, he wanted to hug me so badly and my mother got afraid and was crying till he assured my parent that I only reminded him the son he left home in Rawalpindi. Major Manjur said he was told to come to East Pakistan and to kill ‘kafirs’, but he said he did not see any ‘kafir’……Army from Chittagong cantonment gathered unknown Bengalis near ‘Batali Hill’ and we used to see a light from the top of the mountain used to go out and few seconds later we used to hear the firing. We saw corpses in the big water drain of Bengalis and Biharis as some took the opportunity to settle old scores not related to war. We saw earless several Pakistani soldiers begging for their lives…..saw rikshawala lying dead with bullet hole in his head. We hide an assistant manager of a mill owned by Pakistani when EPR came to kill him………


I love my bengalism, but also liked urdu people. I enjoyed our differences and was bond with a faith of muslim brotherhood. Our common faith, Iman could not help us to see the benefit of brotherhood and peace. People with race-pride …..got their wishes come true.

I do fill a brother is lost though I had to loose him. People should not believe that army can solve the problem as West Pakistanis thought then.

When Pakistan and India played, my support went to Pakistan. When India played with any other nation my support went to India. Now I do not like any of them, as we loose miserably.

But again for the heck of it, I find many reasons to be found of both Indian and Pakistanis as I have friends from both countries.

Oh, and I should also add that our ORs are patient, long-suffering, and don`t complain a tenth as much as the US ice cream soldiers. However, for a mechanized force, they really aren`t that useful.

Re: the debate on Pakistani generals,

One thing that must not be forgotten is that everybody who became a general before 1971 was on the promotion fast track after Partition. They had neither the training nor the experience to adequately prepare them for the positions they held in the Pakistan Army. Ayub Khan, with British and US help, tried to send people for Senior Officer`s Courses and short training visits, etc, but this isn`t going to substitute for years of experience and proper grooming. As a rough rule of thumb, most people got at least two promotions past their level of competence and some (e.g., Musa) managed three (a distorted Peter Principle at work here).

In contrast to this, everybody who got their first star under Zia (the last of the prePartition commissioned officers) had much more formal military training and experience. However, they also served in a much more politicized and corrupt military, so what would have mattered more if there had been a full-scale war in 1986 or 1990? Who knows? Certainly the Pakistani Army would not have made the same stupid blunders then that it did in 1965 or 1971. It would have made new ones, of course.

Finally, lets not go overboard about our JCOs/NCOs/ORs. I have a certain amount of first-hand observation experience here and I can safely say that, on average, our (both Indian and Pakistani actually) armies need officers to do what the US Army does with NCOs. You simply cannot rely on our enlisted men to carry out tasks competently and efficiently (with some honorable exceptions, of course) and so the personality, character, competence and ability of the junior officer assumes a level of importance that has no paralell in Western armies. Whether this is because our men are basically illiterate or the way they are trained (memorize simple mechanical tasks), I don`t know. Both probably. However, to a good officer, they are loyal unto death. Unfortunately, good officers are hard to come by.

Stuka/Feroke/Urstruly #181: Interesting article, Stuka. Becomes even more credible, since it was written by an Indian. It is good to see both sides of the story.

I generally agree with Urstruly’s assessment of the Army-civilian relationship, with a few differences. I think Pakistanis are generally democratic in nature. However, they have very little faith in the democratic leaders of the moment, and are thus equally cynical towards both the Army leadership and the civilian leadership. Now they give economic progress more importance than anything else, amongst the middle-class and lower middle-class groups. And, “fear of mullah,” the biggest importance, amongst the upper-class groups (Chowk crowd).

The event that could act as a catalyst for getting rid of Army in politics, will be one of the following, in my opinion:

- A lower class revolution, combined with a religious ideological revolution, led by the maulvis
- A middle class revolution (if the economy goes down the drain, under the Army), led by an Altaf Hussain type figure, who has appeal across the urban populace of the country, and not just within one ethnicity

For the above to happen, a situation would have to occur, where the economy stays in the doldrums under the Army. Or if the world-wide, “us vs. them” war gains intensity within Pakistan, to uncontrollable levels. Other than that I really cannot see the people rising up in the street to bring back BB or NS type figures any longer. One only gets one chance to get the people to, “rise up.” BB and NS have had their chances and blown it. Perhaps PPP and PML, under completely new leadership, would get that chance. I doubt anyone would support the Army either, if it were the same General coming in, again and again. The Army has a new face at the helm, every time. And I think Pakistanis are willing to give each new face, about three years – be it from the Army or the civilian ranks.

Regarding the rise of Generals from Colonels. The Pakistan Army is very competent up to the level of Colonels. No doubt about it. Specifically at the level of NCOs, JCOs, Airmen, Sailors etc., i.e. enlisted ranks. They are loyal, dedicated, patriotic, and professional and have always performed well. They are also very highly respected in Pakistan, across the spectrum. I say this through personal experience. As well as through international surveys. They, along with Israel, India and USA, were ranked as the highest respected military, by their citizens, in the world. BB, NS, various editors, commentators etc. will never say anything negative about the Pakistani sapahi, jawan, fighter pilot etc. As a Lieutenant, I got nothing but respect, from the taxi drivers, shopkeepers, etc. The only groups that kind of looked down upon my profession, were the wealthy crowd (quite a few on Chowk), who considered the military, a profession below them, since, it is now very middle and lower middle class profession.

The problem starts, at the ranks of Brigadier and above, as FerozeK has correctly pointed out. The issues related to involvement in politics have been discussed. However, there are professional issues within their own profession of arms also, which have nothing to do with politics. The PAF and Navy, who do not get involved in Martial Laws, face these issues of incompetence, as well.

However, I don`t think the problems are because, “levels of intergration into the social and political ethos of the military officer corps and had very little to do with your professional skills.” Quite the contrary. The Pakistan military is actually a big meritocracy. Some of the individuals who have not been promoted may disagree, but statistics support it as a meritocracy.

The individuals, who graduate at the top of their class as cadets, generally become Generals. If you take a look at the previous Chiefs of the PAF, every single one was at the top of his class, in everything, from the age of 20 till 55. The top positions in the PAF are – going abroad as a cadet, flying the top aircraft (F-104, F-16), commanding an F-16 sqn, going abroad for staff courses, commanding PAF base Sargodha or Masroor, becoming head of Operations at the HQ, and then Chief. Basically every single Chief has followed this line. And they generally have a good record, fighting in wars also.

In the other branches, I don’t have all the details. But generally it is the same. All the candidates for Chiefs seem to be at the top in their cadet and staff courses. Ali Quli Khan, Asif Nawaz, Ayub Khan, Musharraf, Jehangir Karamat, etc., topped their local courses and all went abroad for cadet and staff courses.

One can argue that they are the most competent, amongst a group of incompetents, but that is a different debate. Within their groups, people generally rise on merit, up to the rank of Lt. Gen. After that, it is totally a political appt., depending on whom the PM and President like. In fact, any time this tradition has been broken by the politicians, it has harmed the politicians, themselves. Bhutto appointed Zia, against tradition, and look what happened. Nawaz Sharif tried to appoint someone, who was from his bradiri, but wasn’t in line for the position of COAS, and another coup occurred. Not quite democratic, but a good indication that merit counts.

The general trend is that the guys, who graduate at the top of their class as cadets, either rebel early on and leave the military, or they die performing their duties in wars or during peace times. Or they become Generals.

So, it is meritocracy, all the way, till Lt. General (with some politics thrown in, but they are not the deciding factor). The riffraff generally get washed out by the rank of Brigadier. Why do they Generals still show so much incompetence, even if they were at the top of their classes throughout their careers? In civilian affairs, because they don’t know how to run civilian enterprises, since they are not trained for that. In military affairs, due to various reasons (lack of exposure, lack of education of command branches, overconfidence etc.) which can be discussed in a later reply.