Hello all,
I think it's time we stopped this madness. Enough is enough!
We've been watching and reading about militants targeting our forces for nearly 2 decades now with IEDs and ambush attacks in the troubled areas of our country.
I just read about the latest IED attack yesterday on a DSP in KP where 4 lives were lost in a Hilux, again..
This is less than a week after an ISI Brigadier was martyred. There has been debate on this forum for MRAPs to uparmoured hiluxes for years now as well. I think it's there for all to see that little to no results apart from a couple of lollipops in the form of an order or two and pictures of armoured hiluxes from HIT. It's more than apparent that everyone is asleep at the wheel while our forces get martyred everyday
I am speaking about this here because I've simply had enough I don't care about the consequences and I'm sure my fellow Pakistanis here would agree that something has to be done. I propose that we alter the modus operandi, rather than waiting for foreign firms to deliver our orders which we would pay with our non existent dollars we need to take quick and affective steps.
I'm talking about something that can be rolled out next month. We have already seen that HIT has the capacity for it and it's only the implementation that's lacking. Start with identifying the 10 most affected districts across KP & Balochistan, tabulate the losses in the last 2 years and allocate to the forces whether levies, frontier constibulary, FC or the respective police forces/CTD. Start off with the unused Mohafizes parked across the country in Sindh/Punjab both with police and military forces and lend them to the forces at the forefront of this battle even if as a stop gap. The number doesn't have to be many, even something as little as 50 vehicles will have an affect on both morale of the affected forces but it also helps strengthen our federation. The FC, KP or Balochistan Police jawaan would feel that the country stands with them in a moment of hardship.
Moving on Step 2, which should revolve around minimum intervention for maximum affect. Uparmouring the existing vehicles is a non brainer to protect the most vulnerable of our forces including the army but allocation in terms of the most affected and the districts where lower quality of IEDs are being used. This would ensure that the modified vehicles will atleast be partly effective in actually countering the threat. Underbody, passenger and driving compartment protection should be the starting point. Make body armour for soldiers and police available more readily as well.
A minor cut in salaries of senior 10 percent of officials both civil and military can be used to fund this intiative if on the extreme off chance even if as a symbolic gesture it cannot be funded from existing government sources which should not be a problem as we have seen in the past the army funding billions for the fencing project using it's own stores and workshops if funds were an issue. The funding aspect is open to suggestions as this is not my area of expertise.
This obviously has to be followed up with deliveries to the units and incorporating unit army workshops and reliable local vendors so that foreign exchange and dependency is limited.
What's clear is something needs to be done and for all how all of this will be implemented and then moved forward upon, I have a very humble suggestion. We need to make this a talking point for the decision makers and a first step could be to trend on Twitter regarding the issue. Something along the lines of our forces deserve better or help our forces out. The message should be constructive and not involve criticism of past failures. All media and resources should be shared of the possible options. Tag the higher ups whether politicians or army. Lobby for our jawaans with the people you know personally. I know this is just one aspect of this conflict. Our forces shouldn't be targeted in their own homeland with IEDs in the first place and this involves many steps from making the material less available without scrutiny to actually getting this TTP, BLA and other extremist problem resolved by both the carrot and the stick.
I look forward to everyone's responses and a way to take this forward, kindly take this seriously we can't afford to loss any more lives of our police, soldiers and officers to a lack of the necessary equipment. Even the rag tag ANA which couldn't stand one week against the taliban was provided with much better equipment in the form of protection and humvees along with air support then our jawaans do. Our forces have fighting this war for us for the last 20 years this is the very least we can do for them!
Pakistan Zindabad.
For the mods, I cannot make a new thread but they are welcome to open one for discussion if this not the relevant thread.
