The Constipated Faujiz

Author states:- One could say with reasonable certainty that Pakistan’s three most strategic assets were:

1. Nuclear program
2. Kashmir
3. Having ‘Strategic Depth’

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Whatever happened to the people, natural resources. intellectual capital, arts and crafts, mathematics, clean air, food, education, healthcare . . . what about these assets?

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Faujiz - the establishment of army at generals` level- is the one who plots to undermine civilian governments, overthrows them, grabs plots of residential and agriculture lands and rightly get the name of plot mafia. The only thing faujiz are known to have is the loyalty of armed forces because of discipline of the institution, otherwise they are not good thinkers, planners, smart or intelligent people as the statement of many of the former generals (now without the backing of armed forces) suggest. One can see the bizarre, crazy, stupid and irrational statements from Aslam Beg, Hamid Gul, Javed Nasir, Jahangir Karamat etc in the media. For Musharraf, Kargil alone speaks loud of his capabilities of thinking, planning and executing with no air cover, with no approval (As Aslam Beg has recently said in his interviews that Kargil was to undermine NS government and derailing his peace initiative).

History will remember Musharraf no better than Zia or Yahya Khan. Much like them, he has utterly failed to win support of masses and had to rely on worst kind of manipulation of the system and election process to gain few vote majority for his lotas......The persistance and support of PPP across Pakistan despite all the allegations is the proof of worse then PPP army generals` ruling over Pakistan.

The benefit of strategic depth was share for these people in the drug trade from Afghanistan. The benefit of Kashmir has been the right to overthrow civilian governments and the benefit of nuclear program was again share in the money comping from middle east. Pakistani generals come out winners in every game except wars......

****Whether one sees Abdul Qadeer Khan as a national hero or not, he succeeded in the task he was anointed to perform. One cannot make the same statement about the Pakistan Army- an organization which was unlikely to have been unaware of whatever it was the nation’s nuclear scientists were selling.****
AQK was/is a master thief. A metallurgist is the last scientist who can lead a genuine nuclear weapons development. Of course this stealth acts had collaborators and accomplices. He did what he did not for the people of Pakistan. He has amassed vast personal fortune. His confession is similarly not for any reason other than to save his hide and an unchased escape to his foreign properties.

****However, perhaps there is a silver-lining to all of this. For those who never saw any relevance to these strategic assets, this is good riddance. For those who feel saddened by the turn of events over the past three years, the change gives a chance for re-organizing priorities. National identity and pride cannot be based on such futile assets and policies. Poverty stricken nations do not deserve being held hostage to the whims of policies based on military adventurisms. ****
Exactly right. Pakistan had no justifiable reason ever to indulge in neglect of the burning problems of the populace. Remember, even the originators of Pakistan never had good of people at heart.

So veeresh you have to be an Indian to quote the irrelevances to the Pakistani combatants! There is indeed a silver lining. When the deluded Generals like Musharraf can be brought to see the light and when they start acting, there is hope for South Asia. I congratulate primarily Musharraf and secondarily the forces - is that a right word? - that brought him on the right path.

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In response to an excellent post at # 1:

Its because for the first time after Ayub`s era, that someone has broadened the net of Pakistan`s strategic assets, which also include people; natural resources; intellectual capital; arts and crafts; mathematics; clean air; food; education; healthcare; etc. that is giving constipation to his opponents.

Btw, the assets that you have mentioned give a country strategic depth, not a fundoo, extremist led country like Talibani Afghanistan.

:-)

“National identity and pride cannot be based on such futile assets and policies. Poverty stricken nations do not deserve being held hostage to the whims of policies based on military adventurisms.”
A loaded statement. “Poverty stricken nations do not deserve being held hostage to the whims of policies based on military adventurisms.” can be applied to rich countries too. We see that in the current US admin policies.
Getting back to the situation in Pakistan.

How would you describe “military adventurism”?? Your write up does not provide any example of military adventurism by Pakistan. The Army has yet to ‘formally’ attack any neighboring country. If you were referring to the overthrowing of civilian govt. in Pakistan, then that would be just a coup. I think your conclusions are like Pakistan Army’s domestic or foreign policies- clueless.

1. Nuclear program
2. Kashmir
I will just take up the Strategic depth. Other issues have been exhaustively discussed on this board.
3. Having ‘Strategic Depth’

Putting the national pride and other emotional bluster aside, no policy can remain stagnant for a long period and changes will eventually occur. The failure of this policy was due to changing international and regional dynamics. I think Pakistani military planners were executing this policy as best as they could.
The current US policy of pre-emptive strikes took a long time to develop into what it is now. It will continue to change as the International situation changes in US favor or against. The policy in itself may be right or wrong, the point is that no policy can remain stagnant. It has to change and evolve over a period.
The Pakistan policy of strategic depth: The idea in itself was important. The policy derived from this idea was not bad either but the assumptions driving the policy were shortsighted and relied on another sovereign country’s territory. I have not seen this policy in print and I have not seen how policy planners were thinking of mitigating the risk of relying on a sovereign country’s territory. The major assumption was that that there will always be a friendly govt. in Afghanistan. Would you agree with me that had that situation (friendly govt.) NOT changed after 911, the policy would still be good!!!!
The ground reality changed after the US attack on Afghanistan and the policy of Strategic depth went down with it. The policy failed because the risk assessment was not accurate. Anyways, this policy was not written in stone. A defense policy failure for a country like Pakistan does not mean a whole lot and the failure of policy of strategic depth had no bearing on the internal situation in Pakistan.

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On February 5, 2004, Na Pak Army has parted its ways from its people and we the people said `good riddance`. We can tolearte corrupt, incompetent, and even moronic rulers but never cowards. It is the second time Na Pak Army has surrendered its weapons. At least in 1971, they had put up a good fight, but this time they have stabbed the whole nation in its back.

From now on we have no business with the cowards. From now on we are occupied people who are struggling to win freedom from these gun totting criminals, thugs and cowards. Our ways have parted. From now on if a Na Pak fauji is killed at Afghan border, he died like a dog; because he was not trying to save the honor of his nation but he was obeying the commands of his foreign masters like a dog. No eye should shed a tear for that dog from now on. And no mother should bless her milk for that coward from now on. And from now on if a Na Pak fauji dies at Indian border then he died the death of a pig for he didn`t die for us but for his masters. No eye should shed a tear for that pig. We have no business with these cowards.

Long live resistance.
Pakistan Zindabad - for we will outlive you. I promise you that.

#3, sameerJB:
I disagree. Musharraf will go down as the man who has the courage to return to the correct path, inspite of grave personal threat from fanatic Pakistanis. This is more than can be said for idiotic Zia and Yahya.

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#9 Inquirer:

Yes, there are differences between Ayub, Yahya, Zia and Musharraf. Ayub and Yahya manipulated and arm twisted the head of states into handing over power to them. Zia overthrew Bhutto without resistance and law and order situation has been pretty bad for several months due to PNA opposition playing in the hands of army intelligence against Bhutto. In case of Musharraf, civilian government resisted, tried to arrest him after dismissing him from the COAS position but failed due to the loyalty of Rawalpindi core commander Mahmood Ahmed to Musharraf instead of newly appointed army chief. So in this case personal grudge was a unique factor in Pakistan history. While other coups look like hostile corporate takeovers stock market style, Musharraf one looks like burglary or a disgruntled former employee coming back and opening fire on his employer.

Musharraf failed the most important test of his professional carrier on two counts of incompetency in planning and execution and disregard for approval (Kargill case). He does not have the courage but will to keep himself in the power by all means - right now backing of the USA is most crucial to his power hunger so he is obliging. Before 9/11, he was buddy buddy with mullahs and toying the idea of mullahs backing to his rule.

#8, urstruly:
You are one of those fanatics. You should be stripped of your Pakistani citizenship, if you have it, for being so crude and ungrateful to the Pakistani Fauji. I am an Indian Hindu and probably would do best that I can to fight the fauji from Pakistan if he/she invades India but I would still respect him/her to have valorous life and death. Unlike you, who calls them dogs and pigs. SHAME ON YOU.

get ready for romair to stand on his head and spin his ass on this thread

HP:

Military adventurism:

1) Encouragingly and actively recruiting jehadi organizations like Laskha-e-Taiba to infiltrate across the border
2) Arming Kashmiri groups
3) Allowing a person like Masood Azhar to roam freely
4) During the Zia era, the creation of organizations like Sipha-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
5) Assisting to create MQM and encouraging other militant organizations from taking root solely to destabilize the only national party and thus help perpetuate military rule
6) The secret operation Kargil and the preceding hatred for the peace process initiated by Sharif and Vajpayee
7) The active aligning and re-aligning with various warlords causing havoc in post-Soviet Afghanistan

All these actions were used to create policies for the country by the Faujiz. The list of military adventurisms- both internal (Perhaps the most tragic internal adventure was in 1971) and external is endless. The faujiz made it very clear to the civilian governments that they wanted to have no peace with India. The reason Benazir was disallowed from visiting any nuclear installations while she was Prime Minister was because the Faujiz ‘felt betrayed’ after she handed out the secrets of the Khalistan movement in India to Rajiv. Nawaz was a ‘traitor’ for going all gun-ho for peace with India. What do you call this attitude? Those civilian governments were basing their desires for peace on ECONOMIC grounds. They were under no duress to initiate peace as we are having to face now from the west. I think most would like peace with India. What I’m saying is that it’s clear the faujiz wanting to be at peace with India is no change of heart. Rather, America and India have cornered them. Was it Henry Kissinger who said ‘If you’ve got ‘em by the balls, their hearts and minds would follow’? Faujiz are seriously in distress. Whether those earlier policies were good or bad, what is clear is that the Faujiz have failed miserably. I doubt though, if they have learned any lessons.

Veeresh:

“Whatever happened to the people, natural resources. intellectual capital, arts and crafts, mathematics, clean air, food, education, healthcare . . . what about these assets?”

A nation’s strategic assets would be those on which the state spends the most resources. Over the past many years, the average budgetary allocations for the above combined would total less than 10% of revenues. So the real assets (or rather as arjun_m comments, strategic national objectives) are/were nuclear program, Kashmir and having strategic depth.

Inquirer:

As Kaurasuch says, Musharaf has not seen any light. The faujiz have capitulated (ie they are cowards as per Urstruly’s words), and are constipating. They would never have accepted any of the demands placed on them had they not been forced to do so externally. In fact, given an opportunity, or were Pakistan’s position strengthened somehow (hard to see how), they’d quickly go back to their old ways of usurping the resources of the economy on the three strategic objective/asset pretexts – as pointed out by SameerJB.