How Dawn Leaks ruined Pakistan Army’s credibility

[fatman17]

How Dawn Leaks ruined Pakistan Army’s credibility
May 11, 20171121

GVS Analysis |

On May 10th 2017, the nation witnessed a historic compromise between the civil and military establishment over the “Dawn Leaks” issue. In quick succession, both ISPR and the Ministry of Interior released notifications which resolved the matter.

On its website, ISPR’s press release stated that the April 29th tweet by Director General ISPR Asif Ghafoor, which rejected the measures outlined by the Prime Minister’s Secretariat on the Dawn leaks issue, was hereby withdrawn. The ISPR release also proclaimed the Army’s commitment to safeguarding democracy and termed the Dawn leaks matter as resolved.

The fabricated story published by Dawn was, in essence, a breach of Pakistan’s national security. From the outset, this was the adopted stance of both Army and the PML-N government.
Immediately after the ISPR’s statement, the Ministry of Interior released a ‘fresh’ notification which seemed to be drafted rather hastily because it contained several misspellings. The only addition in the notification was the endorsement of actions taken against ex-information minister Pervaiz Rasheed. The notification did not specify the charges on the basis of which he was sacked.

The fabricated story published by Dawn was, in essence, a breach of Pakistan’s national security. From the outset, this was the adopted stance of both Army and the PML-N government. The inquiry commission assembled to investigate this ‘breach’ was directed to unmask the perpetrators behind this fabrication. The committee compiled and submitted its report on 25th April following which the Prime Minister’s secretariat released a notification which outlined the measures taken by the government on this issue. This led to the publication of the aforementioned tweet by the DG ISPR which ‘rejected’ the notification. Subsequently, the discussions on media platforms and public forums reflected a renewed hope in the military’s capability when it came to national security issues. However, this strain of speculation has now been proven unsubstantiated.

The change in temperature of the military’s resolve on issues of national importance has serious immediate consequences. Specifically, the nature of its role in the joint investigation team responsible for conducting the inquiry into the purported financial wrong-doings of the Prime Minister.
After all the events and yesterday’s anticlimactic resolution of the Dawn leaks saga, the real perpetrators of this national security breach have neither been identified nor has any punitive action been taken against them. In the backdrop of escalating hostilities on the Indian and Afghan borders, it seems the army has withdrawn from and discarded its previous stance which identified Dawn leaks as a propagation of the enemy narrative. Following this bathos in the Army’s effort to secure national interests, the prevalent perception of the military’s moral strength and capacity to secure the nation’s interests has been dealt a heavy blow.

This unfortunate outcome can be interpreted, in effect, as a victory for interests hostile to Pakistan.

The change in temperature of the military’s resolve on issues of national importance has serious immediate consequences. Specifically, the nature of its role in the joint investigation team responsible for conducting the inquiry into the purported financial wrong-doings of the Prime Minister.

The inclusion of members of the ISI and MI (who were also, coincidentally, part of Dawn leaks inquiry commission) in the Panama JIT was perceived as a move to add the military institutional integrity to the proceedings. This was meant to give weight to the inquiry’s proceedings and placate fears of the public and political opposition who had questioned the independence of this team.

Imran Khan, chief of PTI and the main proponent behind the movement to hold the Prime Minister accountable, stated in a tweet that the Dawn leaks issue was not exclusive to the civil-military establishment.
The Dawn leaks anticlimax has effectively destroyed any intelligent argument that could be used to justify the inclusion of the Army in the JIT. The nature of the investigation is that of financial forensics which by no stretch falls under the capability and mandate of the military.

This realization did not take long to sink into the minds of media and political strata as evident by the discussions which took place on news programs on the 10th of May.

Imran Khan, chief of PTI and the main proponent behind the movement to hold the Prime Minister accountable, stated in a tweet that the Dawn leaks issue was not exclusive to the civil-military establishment as it affected the interests of the whole nation.

Aitzaz Ahsan, the PPP opposition leader in the Senate, went so far as to say that the DG ISPR should have resigned rather than take back his tweet. He compared Pervaiz Rasheed, Rao Tehsin, and Tariq Fatemi to sacrificial lambs, disposed-off to save the “King and his Princess”.

The consensus forming in political circles now suggests that the opposition must harness the public if it wants to mount pressure on the government regarding the identification of actual perpetrators behind Dawn leaks.

This is a developing situation.

 

[fatman17]

For the Tweet (Withdrawal) Affected

by Ejaz Haider


Doing the ‘right thing’ is relative

One of the deep ironies of an irony-infested republic, generally benighted in its ways, is that the Army and its chief have come under abusive attack for doing the right thing—i.e., climbing down on an issue that, had it dragged on any further, could have potentially destabilized the system by pitting the civilian and military enclaves against each other.

How does one define ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘system’?

Life, individual and collective, is about making a choice between acting on the basis of the rightness that inheres in an action or acting contextually by weighing the consequences of one’s action(s). In the first instance, telling a lie to save someone’s life is a ‘no’ because lying is wrong in and of itself. In the second, lying is a secondary concern because the consequences of truth (the primary concern) could lead to loss of life.

The first is absolute, the second relative. In other words, while lying is not the right thing to do, we might surmise that in life, doing the right thing is not always the right thing to do.

And what is this ‘system’ that mustn’t be destabilized?

Going by the political fault-lines, supporters of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), pejoratively referred to as patwaris, would like to stick to it because it’s working to their advantage. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf supporters, pejoratively called youthias, would like to hang, draw and quarter the system because, for all their huffing and puffing, they can’t seem to pull the house down. The incumbent wants relativity, the challenger, for purely vested interests—the point to be remembered—wants absolutism. Put another way, were the challenger the incumbent, it too would want stability and relativity.

The Army, standing in the middle, for all its past sins of omission and commission, gets bricks from one and bats (no pun) from the other.

The system, to be precise, is modern in form but primitive in substance. On any given day, one can produce a litany of complaints against how it is both exploited and is used for exploitation. No one challenges the form. It’s the substance or lack thereof that frustrates the people.

On that score too, history informs us of two models of change: the Bastille and good old English gradualness. The former is about storming the system, uprooting it, witnessing more bloodshed and ending with much the same; the latter about plodding along, blundering and learning, but keeping at it. One is like flash floods, the other like the drop at the headwaters, winding tortuously over a long distance to become a great, perennial river.

In other words, a system, even when long on democratic form and short on participatory substance, is something more than any incumbent at any given time, even when it might, for sometime, be skewed for or against one or the other political actor(s).

Stability, then, is about playing within the framework of the system. It is, therefore, important to understand which side of complexity one wants to fall on. As Einstein is reported to have said: “I wouldn’t give a nickel for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”

To expect the Army to intervene, to want it to intervene, to forget the lessons of the past, to dub courage and maturity as pusillanimity, to abuse it, rather shamelessly, because it had much rather stick to what it is supposed to do professionally, is about falling on the side of complexity for which a thinking person won’t even give a nickel.

Perish the thought that those who are now abusing the Army—some of those tweets are unmentionable—even realize that they wanted the current prime minister packed off for allegedly bringing into disrepute a state institution and are now doing exactly the same, in fact worse.

But this is where lessons need to be learnt on both sides. While, some of us still consider that the form is an important precursor to substance and the Army must remain subordinate to the civilian enclave (a broader term that is not about this or that political actor but civilian governments), the current lot has to take a hard look at itself.

The prime minister needs to: (a) start making use of institutional mechanisms like the Cabinet Committee on National Security; (b) leash some of those around him so their enthusiasm for plunging the country into unnecessary and avoidable crises is dampened; (c) start coming to Parliament and institute a P.M.’s Question Hour as a regular feature; (d) hold regular briefings on issues and important policies so there’s less room for speculation; (e) right to information be accepted as a vital ingredient of relations between the government and the media; (f) stop treating the military as an adversary; (g) start governing, which is much more than acting like Sher Shah Suri; (h) stop acting like a one-man Foreign Ministry; (i) empower accountability institutions instead of weakening them; (j) stop acting like Pakistan is a personal fief.

There’s much else that can be listed here but this, for now, should suffice.

Put another way, those of us who talk about the system do not talk about the PMLN just because the PMLN happens to be the government at this point. Nor will we shy from pointing out all that’s wrong with the prime minister’s approach or stating the fact, in no uncertain terms, that until he is cleared of any wrongdoing in the Panama Papers case, his moral standing has been terribly weakened.

Equally, however, there’s absolutely no space in this worldview for the utterly cretinous, reprehensible and patently unconstitutional approaches adopted by the PTI and now increasingly the Pakistan Peoples Party, which, frankly, is not even a shadow of what it used to be. And that’s a very charitable view.

Finally, the Army: Those who think you have lost by withdrawing the tweet are the losers. As an institution of the state, as those who are under oath to defend this country, you have done the right thing by righting your earlier wrong. That requires courage and vision. Far from it making you weak, it makes you strong. The DG-ISPR said in his presser that a tweet is the fastest way of communicating. Correct, but only by half. Fast is not always prudent and judicious.

Intra-state communication and coordination is a five-day Test, not a Twenty-20 match. There are times for a fast draw and rapid shooting and there’s a time for bull’s-eye precision, five rounds in five minutes, as per the rules. It is vital to know when what’s required.

Also, using sponsored and bot handles against genuine critics is a bad thing to do because, as should be obvious, this medium can be used against you too—especially, when you are doing the right thing.

Haider is editor of national-security affairs at Capital TV. He was a Ford Scholar at the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C. He tweets @ejazhaider

 

[Leviza]

I don't think so, Army have done, what they have asked the gov to do in the first place ...

They didn't agreed and original tweet said , there are missing recommendations advised by the report.
Gov and Army did different rounds of discussions on it and missing recommendations were added. After this addition and discussions, army accepted the new recommendations and took their tweet back. which is what they always wanted and to make sure it does not happen again.

They only issue PTI and PPP had was on assumption that actually Mariyum Nawaz was involved and that was based on the lies by PTI .. Army never said it was her or her cell phone used..

Our people are emotional and they take anything which hits the GOV very much without thinking ... PTI and PPP tried to make it as if something really big but it turned out to be not the case... so disappointment is very much shown and defaming or Army by both parties started ...

I am not even pro PMLN, they have made alot of mistakes but its PTI and PPP who have done more wrongs...

 

[JOEY TRIBIANI]

پہلے بلدیہ ٹاؤن فیکٹری میں دوسونوے انسانوں کو زندہ جلانے والے ایم قیوایم کے دھشتگردوں کا معاملہ حل ہوا ،
پھر ملک کو لوٹنے والے پی پی پی کے ڈاکؤوں(شرجیل میمن ، ایان علی ، ڈاکٹرعاصم ، حامدسعیدکاظمی) کا معاملہ حل ہوا ،
پھر پانامہ لیکس کا معاملہ حل ہوا(جسے عوام صدیوں یاد رکھیں گے)
اب ڈان لیکس کا معاملہ ہمیشہ کے لئے "حل" ہوگیا
آہستہ آہستہ پاکستان کے سارے مسائل اور معاملات یوں ہی حل ہوں گے

.
Thank you General Bajwa .

General public may Army ki position badly shattered hui ha . punjab police jitni izzat reh gaee Pakistan Army ki .
.
Ab chahey ek qurbani do ya 100 . hamay koi farq ni perta .jab qaomi salamti per hi deal kerni ha to ye Qurbani waley dramey kyun? .

 

[YeBeWarned]

before it was just Politicians who are selling the country, now Army is in the game too .. i am expecting more housing societies in Behria and Malir Cantts' .. Looto te photto

 

[Skywalker]

A sold army, who can't even defend their own territory. I feel sorry for all the martyred of our country be it civilians or from armed forces, they did not know they will have creep called bajwa as their coas.

 

[Arsalan]

Reminds me of the day when Musharraf was termed a hero and savior of Pakistan based on the events of a few hours in 1999. The of the time when he was labeled a traitor and a curse based on the event of a few hours of another day. This is how quick we are to analyze, judge, evaluate and pass a verdict. I wonder why more of our people do not make it to NASA,

 

[El Sidd]

So what else has the son of the COAS got for us to give.

Qanoon ki baladasti me baitay ki baladasti bhi shamil hai to masla kia hai... jesi politics wesi fauj bolna shuru karden?

 

[Mrc]

youthiyans want army to over thorw govt and hand over reigns of this country to imran khan , so a mental slave of conniving and psychotic peerni can dance naked in the streets.....

which in turn wont be very different from current govt even slightly better then the previous govts ..... I only object to method.... 5 months form election....

 

[Asian.Century]

The economic situation is set to become worse in 2019, when $12.7bn of external repayments are due, compared with $7.7bn this year. Fitch issued a warning last week saying declining forex reserves and rising current account deficit were adding to Pakistan’s burgeoning external financing risks.

 

[fatman17]

How Hameed Haroon ruined DAWNs already suspect credibility with the BBC interview. He sounded and looked punch drunk.