kumar_V1.0
BANNED
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2009
- Messages
- 167
- Reaction score
- 0
Myth shatterd "india won 65 war?"
- Thread starter Myth_buster_1
- Start date
Windjammer
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2009
- Messages
- 41,319
- Reaction score
- 181
- Country
- Location
The same can be said of Indian members, with an ad hoc statement to back all the tall claims. It may make you feel big by showing aggression to your smaller neighbours but hell we are proud of standing up to any bully.
Myth_buster_1
BANNED
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2008
- Messages
- 9,016
- Reaction score
- -1
- Country
- Location
Just because Pathological lair indians were claiming this and that does not mean they captured or destroyed this and that.
Ironically it was Pakistan who captured more indian territory but brain washed deluded indians deny the reality because it can not satisfy their ego.
Pakistani soldiers, proudly carrying aloft Pakistans flag, pass the custom house when they captured Munabao.
Pakistans flag flutters proudly over the romantic Rajput fort of Kishengrah in Rajasthan where Pakistan army was in occupation of over 1200 square miles of Indian Territory
Munabao, the important railway station of Rajasthan , loudly contradicting Indias persistent propaganda that Munabao was not taken by Pakistan
Pak Army C-in-C General Mohammad Musa Khan at Khem Karan Railway Station after capturing of the town by Pakistani troops
Capt. Hisham (?) in Chammb after 1965 ceasefire - caprured Indian territory. Stationed with 3 Army Division Squadron, attached to 11 Division visiting 7 Division with Gen. Hamid.
Myth_buster_1
BANNED
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2008
- Messages
- 9,016
- Reaction score
- -1
- Country
- Location
Indian fort in Chammb after 1965 ceasefire. Stationed with 3 Army Aviation Squadron, attached to 11 Division visiting 7 Division with General Hamid
On captured Indian territory after the 1965 ceasefire
On captured Indian territory after the 1965 ceasefire
toxic_pus
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2009
- Messages
- 1,852
- Reaction score
- -4
- Country
- Location
Damn damn damn damn...that article is written from Pakistan's point of view with no views from the Indian side (I guess that is the definition of 'neutrality' to Pakistanis).
Did I mention, it is about 1971 air war
Did I mention, it is about 1971 air war
Windjammer
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2009
- Messages
- 41,319
- Reaction score
- 181
- Country
- Location
Habitually picky and choosy are we ?, If you have no guilt why not post the full sentence. Suppose half hearted pass floats your boat.
Pathetic digression from reality.
You knew that all along but then you did need sun shine blowing up your skirt. The same magazine carried the Indian version a month earlier, where yous claimed six PAF Mirages and ten Starfighters destroyed.
[Honesty is a buzz word for Indians].
Myth_buster_1
BANNED
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2008
- Messages
- 9,016
- Reaction score
- -1
- Country
- Location
toxic_puss
If you would have bothered to read the entire article Air Enthusiastic published IAF story few months before they posted this one. You being pathological lair and deluded its quite hard for you to swallow facts or too much factual pills may intoxicate you.
Myth_buster_1
BANNED
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2008
- Messages
- 9,016
- Reaction score
- -1
- Country
- Location
some factual pills that may intoxicate pathological lairs deluded indians.
kumar_V1.0
BANNED
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2009
- Messages
- 167
- Reaction score
- 0
You want me to post those pictures of Indian officers near lahore . Not doing that as some one has already done that.
The posts of yours are proof that how delusional is pakistan. Did u care to give an independent link that how pakistan had occupied more territory.
On any 3rd party account India had occupied atleast 3times the land pakistan had occupied and that too prime land(just go through the thread). So instead of using ur foul mouth use some brain and at least read through the post and refute those data.
Pakistan was superior air - May be Yes
Pakistan had occupied some land - Yes
Who occupied more land - definately India
who won the War - Undoubtebly India
If you still unsure , Go google who won 1956 India Pakistan war, and look for third party unbiased accounts from non party sources.
toxic_pus
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2009
- Messages
- 1,852
- Reaction score
- -4
- Country
- Location
Because I have already mentioned that it 'extols' PAF. Because those scanned images are there for all to see. Didn't know you needed spoon feeding.
More importantly this thread is apparently about the war of 1965, where air war was just a part of it. If anybody is 'habitually picky and choosy' to 'float' one's 'boat', then it is you and your growling friend, who can't quite figure out what his own thread is all about. So confused is he, that he posted an analysis of 1971 air war in a thread that is supposed to discuss war of 1965.
Then again what more to expect from a congenitally confused nation.
You knew that all along but then you did need sun shine blowing up your skirt. The same magazine carried the Indian version a month earlier, where yous claimed six PAF Mirages and ten Starfighters destroyed.
It is irrelevant if Air Enthusiast had published IAF version a month earlier or after. That issue was not presented here. What is however relevant is the issue posted here and those scanned pages.
Nice attempt to raise a strawman. But that's all right for a nation high on 'Martial Race' branded jingo juice.
kumar_V1.0
BANNED
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2009
- Messages
- 167
- Reaction score
- 0
Losses
India and Pakistan hold widely divergent claims on the damage they have inflicted on each other and the amount of damage suffered by them. The following summarizes each nation's claims.
Indian claims Pakistani claims Independent sources
Casualties - - 3000 Indian soldiers, 3800 Pakistani soldiers
Aircraft destroyed 35 IAF, 73 PAF 19 PAF, 104 IAF 20 PAF aicraft
Aerial victories 13 30 -
Tanks destroyed 128 Indian tanks, 300-350 Pakistani tanks 165 Pakistan tank, ?? Indian tanks 200 Pakistani tanks
Land area won 1,500 mi2 (2,400 km2) of Pakistani territory 2,000 mi² (3,000 km²
of Indian territory India held 710 mi² (1,840 km² of Pakistani territory and Pakistan held 210 mi² (545 km² of Indian territory
There have been only a few neutral assessments of the damages of the war. In the opinion of GlobalSecurity.org, "The losses were relatively heavy ? on the Pakistani side, twenty aircraft, 200 tanks, and 3,800 troops. Pakistan's army had been able to withstand Indian pressure, but a continuation of the fighting would only have led to further losses and ultimate defeat for Pakistan."
India and Pakistan hold widely divergent claims on the damage they have inflicted on each other and the amount of damage suffered by them. The following summarizes each nation's claims.
Indian claims Pakistani claims Independent sources
Casualties - - 3000 Indian soldiers, 3800 Pakistani soldiers
Aircraft destroyed 35 IAF, 73 PAF 19 PAF, 104 IAF 20 PAF aicraft
Aerial victories 13 30 -
Tanks destroyed 128 Indian tanks, 300-350 Pakistani tanks 165 Pakistan tank, ?? Indian tanks 200 Pakistani tanks
Land area won 1,500 mi2 (2,400 km2) of Pakistani territory 2,000 mi² (3,000 km²
of Indian territory India held 710 mi² (1,840 km² of Pakistani territory and Pakistan held 210 mi² (545 km² of Indian territoryThere have been only a few neutral assessments of the damages of the war. In the opinion of GlobalSecurity.org, "The losses were relatively heavy ? on the Pakistani side, twenty aircraft, 200 tanks, and 3,800 troops. Pakistan's army had been able to withstand Indian pressure, but a continuation of the fighting would only have led to further losses and ultimate defeat for Pakistan."
ice_man
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2009
- Messages
- 6,727
- Reaction score
- 2
- Country
- Location
because we have an IDIOT as our PRESIDENT! no matter how hard india tried to put the thing on ISI & pakistan army & government NO PROOF let me repeat NO PROOF was ever found!!!!! which led to india getting embarrassed & pakistan for once getting vindicated
ice_man
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2009
- Messages
- 6,727
- Reaction score
- 2
- Country
- Location
convinently ALL indian posters tried to skuip this post!!! by RIAZ HAQ!!!!
Bang Galore
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2010
- Messages
- 10,685
- Reaction score
- 12
- Country
- Location
You know, for a war that they are supposed to have won, there's heck a lot of passing the buck as to who was responsible for it.
see article:
By IANS, Islamabad :
Field marshal Ayub Khan, Pakistan's long-time president who ruled for much of the 1960s, has blamed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and generals around him for "misleading" him into launching a military conflict with India in 1965.
Ayub writes in his diaries "Friends Not Masters", being published this week, that he had been told that there was rebellion in Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan could capture the disputed territory with the help of infiltrators.
Pakistan's second president, who passed away in 1974, has also said that he removed friend-turned-foe Bhutto, who was foreign minister, because he had begun to "behave like Krishna Menon", India's leading diplomat-politician of that era.
Explaining at length why he fell out with Bhutto, Ayub said he had "given a notice" to him at his Sindh home. He had to remove him "because during last year or so, something perceptible went wrong with him".
Ayub faced flak at home and abroad for having removed Bhutto because of the latter's anti-US and pro-China stance and allegations that American aid to Pakistan was linked to his removal.
But there was none of this, Ayub has said. Actually, Bhutto had begun to "behave and speak irresponsibly" and was conducting "his own foreign policy" with the help of a small group of trusted people in the foreign office.
Besides, "he started drinking himself into a stupor and led a very loose life. It is a pity that a man of considerable talent went astray. I offered him a foreign assignment, but he was not interested", Ayub has written.
Details of who has edited the diaries and who is the publisher have not been mentioned by The News that carried the report Tuesday.............
Ayub Khan says Bhutto misled him into 1965 war | TwoCircles.net
Also found an interesting letter published in Dawn on June 14th 2007.See below:
I was a junior USAF officer with the office of the US air attache at the old US embassy in Karachi at the time of the 1965 Rann of Kutch battle(s). In fact, I was wounded on an innocent boar hunt in a PIA Land Rover, as the guest of Pakistani friends and business acquaintances who were key PIA officials, as we drove through this area on Jan 31, 1965.
A surprise Indian tank shell blew another Pakistani truck coming towards us in the marsh area, injuring all of us pretty badly.
This said, I have read much of the history of the 1965 India-Pakistan war, but also lived there during that war to have been "on the scene" literally.
This wordy preamble aside, foreign minister Bhutto largely engineered the foolish events that caused or incited the 1965 war. Ayub Khan had to have known what was going on, but his chief ‘goader’, if you will, into this war was Bhutto.
Neither Air Marshal Asghar Khan nor the chief of the Pakistan Navy was involved in the 1965 war pre-planning or early on execution of that war by Mr Bhutto and the then Pakistan Army chief of staff. The air marshal rightly and sanely telephoned his Indian counter-part to immediately do what he and they could to limit this sudden, unexpected hot conflict which was not expected by the air marshal of Pakistan or the chief of the Pakistan Navy.
In my view, living there at the time, I saw and still see Air Marshal Khan as a hero of immense proportions for his brave actions to limit and damp down the start of this ill- fated war as quickly as he could.
The 1965 war was a monstrously dumb move on the part of Mr Bhutto and the Pakistani Army chief of staff's who clearly initiated the whole war.
Your letter writer jumps to a wrong conclusion about Air Marshal Ashgar Khan, who I had met several times between 1963 and 1965 at my headquarters in Peshawar, the old US air base there. I was the USAF base liaison officer in the US embassy in Karachi.
In fact, Air Marshal Khan promptly resigned in protest over this unwarranted and wasteful war in 1965 which he had no part in planning or starting. Subsequently, the air marshal entered politics, was elected to your national legislature, was briefly jailed by his political opponent, Mr Bhutto, and then lost elective office. The air marshall has authored over 28 books, some related to this 1965 war, which the letter writer might want to read or re -read to be better informed.
COL (r) GEORGE L. SINGLETON, USAF,
Alabama, USA
DAWN - Letters; June 14, 2007
Another final article to sum up this discussion.
The myth of September 6, 1965
Every year we Pakistanis celebrate September 6th with a lot of ‘national fervour’ and laud the armed forces for being ‘victorious’ against the Indian forces back in the 1965 war. The state commemorates the ‘Defence Day’ by holding various ceremonies and special programmes. Milli naghmay (patriotic songs) are aired on the local television channels and radio stations, while the newspapers bring out special supplements to mark the day. This is all very well, but I wonder if our people know that in actuality we are not celebrating a victory. Not only did we lose militarily in 1965 – state propaganda aside – but we also lost our national unity in the process. Forty-two years down the road, ours is a country that is on the verge of dismemberment, again.
August 1947 gave birth to two independent states, India and Pakistan. It also gave birth to territorial disputes that haunt both South Asian neighbours to date. Kashmir is one of the main disputed territories. The two infant states fought a war in 1948 on the Kashmir issue, but despite a ceasefire, the issue was never resolved. At the beginning of 1965, skirmishes between the two neighbours erupted once again on another disputed territory – Rann of Kutch. Having no real economic value, the Rann conflict was only rooted in the overall contentious relationship between the two sides. Fortunately, the Pakistan army was successfully able to defend itself against the Indian army and in fact gave it a bloody nose. This served as a morale booster for our military.
The high morale of the military, egged on by Ayub Khan’s overambitious foreign minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, led to a misadventure that cost Pakistan its dignity. In the late summer of 1965, Pakistan launched ‘Operation Gibraltar’. Pakistan sent infiltrators – military commandos in civvies – into Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) to ‘liberate’ it, and expected that the ‘downtrodden’ Kashmiris would support the insurgency. Little did we know that the plan would crumble like a house of cards.
It was not only a plan fraught with miscalculation, but a foolish one to begin with. There was no proper reconnaissance, no political intelligence, and the Kashmiris in IHK were not even taken into confidence. “Whatever his [Ayub’s] reasons, Pakistan went into Operation Gibraltar without any preliminary preparations and undertook a guerrilla operation inside IHK with a large number of regular soldiers, some SSG elements and a smattering of irregulars, expecting to be welcomed by the local population and raise them up in arms against the Indian government. They were destined to be rudely disillusioned. Far from rising up in arms, the local population denied any support and, in many instances handed over the infiltrators to Indian troops” (Qadir, Brigadier (retd) Shaukat, ‘Operation Gibraltar: Battle that never was’, Rediff.com).
Before the operation was launched, Z A Bhutto somehow managed to convince Field Marshal Ayub Khan that even if India responded to the incursions in Kashmir, it would not cross the international border. Thus there was no question of a full-fledged war. But as soon as India had brutally crushed the insurgency in IHK, it launched an attack on Pakistan on September 6, 1965. The public was led to believe that India had launched a ‘surprise attack’ on Pakistan, and that ‘Hindu India’ would be taught a lesson. Thus the armed forces had full public support.
It is to the credit of our air force and the jawans fighting in the battlefield that they put up a strong fight against a superior enemy. But it is the generals who let the country down. “Ayub had attempted to save his forces in Kashmir; more importantly, he wanted to avoid a general war. But the war he sought to avoid had come to Pakistan, and the nation had to be rallied to efforts not envisaged in the plans to capture Kashmir. The vast majority of Pakistanis knew virtually nothing about the course of the hostilities. All they knew came from Radio Pakistan, and in the name of national morale, the public was informed over and again of the successes on the battlefield, or at the very least, the heroism of units and individual members of the armed forces who had fallen in combat. The fact that Pakistan itself had been targeted by Indian forces, that air raids had ranged to Peshawar on the one side and Dhaka in East Pakistan on the other, did not shake the Pakistani public’s belief that the war was going well and that India was paying a heavy price for its audacious assault on Pakistani territory” (Ziring, Lawrence, Pakistan in the Twentieth Century: A Political History, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 293).
The reality of the much-touted ‘friendly’ relations between Pakistan and the US was also exposed during the 1965 war. Pakistan had allied itself with the US during the Cold War era, and in an effort to please the US, Pakistan joined the South East Treaty Organisation (SEATO) in 1954 and later the Baghdad Pact in 1955, which was renamed the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) in 1959. Being a signatory to these treaties gave Pakistan the necessary means and resources to strengthen itself militarily and economically. When the war broke out in 1965, Pakistan expected that the US would come to its aid and used US-supplied weaponry against India. The US never came to Pakistan’s help, because it perceived communism to be the threat to its interests, hardly India. Thus a military embargo was imposed on Pakistan and military supplies were cut off by the US.
A little more than two weeks into the battle and it was quite evident to Ayub that the army was running out of logistics – ammunition, fuel, food, etc. It is reported that during the war, the American ambassador said to Ayub Khan, “They [the Indians] have got you by the throat Mr President, don’t they?” or words to that effect. It is ironic that when our fairweather ‘friend’ the US decided to leave us in the lurch, the communist Soviet Union came to our aid and helped broker a ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
The Pakistani nation was left bewildered about why Ayub Khan opted to end the war that we were ‘winning’ and instead signed the Tashkent Agreement. Since the public was kept in the dark about the real reasons behind the war and its actual progress, it was hard for them to understand that Ayub had indeed made a wise move by ending the war. The public considered it a sell-out and a betrayal. Little did the public know that had the war gone on, we would have lost much more than our ‘pride’.
There are some lessons to be learnt from the experience of 1965. One of the main lessons is that subjective and wishful thinking in politics and war is no substitute for objective analysis. It would be useful in this context to recall the old Clausewitzian adage: ‘War is the extension of politics by other means.’ It is also time we reflect on the loss of our national unity. Back in 1965, the nation stood behind our military. Today, the situation is quite different. Why is it that today we are not as emotional about our ‘sons of the soil’ as we were back in 1965? These are the wages of repeated military interventions at the cost of national unity. When the military took away the sovereign right of the people, the right to rule the country themselves, it took away the respect it rightfully deserved. We can still rediscover this unity if the military goes back to the barracks and allows the civilians to exercise their democratic rights.
http://mehmal.blogspot.com/2007/09/myth-of-september-6-1965.html
You guys had a chance to win this war. In 1965. On the battlefield. Not in 2010. Not on this forum
see article:
By IANS, Islamabad :
Field marshal Ayub Khan, Pakistan's long-time president who ruled for much of the 1960s, has blamed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and generals around him for "misleading" him into launching a military conflict with India in 1965.
Ayub writes in his diaries "Friends Not Masters", being published this week, that he had been told that there was rebellion in Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan could capture the disputed territory with the help of infiltrators.
Pakistan's second president, who passed away in 1974, has also said that he removed friend-turned-foe Bhutto, who was foreign minister, because he had begun to "behave like Krishna Menon", India's leading diplomat-politician of that era.
Explaining at length why he fell out with Bhutto, Ayub said he had "given a notice" to him at his Sindh home. He had to remove him "because during last year or so, something perceptible went wrong with him".
Ayub faced flak at home and abroad for having removed Bhutto because of the latter's anti-US and pro-China stance and allegations that American aid to Pakistan was linked to his removal.
But there was none of this, Ayub has said. Actually, Bhutto had begun to "behave and speak irresponsibly" and was conducting "his own foreign policy" with the help of a small group of trusted people in the foreign office.
Besides, "he started drinking himself into a stupor and led a very loose life. It is a pity that a man of considerable talent went astray. I offered him a foreign assignment, but he was not interested", Ayub has written.
Details of who has edited the diaries and who is the publisher have not been mentioned by The News that carried the report Tuesday.............
Ayub Khan says Bhutto misled him into 1965 war | TwoCircles.net
Also found an interesting letter published in Dawn on June 14th 2007.See below:
I was a junior USAF officer with the office of the US air attache at the old US embassy in Karachi at the time of the 1965 Rann of Kutch battle(s). In fact, I was wounded on an innocent boar hunt in a PIA Land Rover, as the guest of Pakistani friends and business acquaintances who were key PIA officials, as we drove through this area on Jan 31, 1965.
A surprise Indian tank shell blew another Pakistani truck coming towards us in the marsh area, injuring all of us pretty badly.
This said, I have read much of the history of the 1965 India-Pakistan war, but also lived there during that war to have been "on the scene" literally.
This wordy preamble aside, foreign minister Bhutto largely engineered the foolish events that caused or incited the 1965 war. Ayub Khan had to have known what was going on, but his chief ‘goader’, if you will, into this war was Bhutto.
Neither Air Marshal Asghar Khan nor the chief of the Pakistan Navy was involved in the 1965 war pre-planning or early on execution of that war by Mr Bhutto and the then Pakistan Army chief of staff. The air marshal rightly and sanely telephoned his Indian counter-part to immediately do what he and they could to limit this sudden, unexpected hot conflict which was not expected by the air marshal of Pakistan or the chief of the Pakistan Navy.
In my view, living there at the time, I saw and still see Air Marshal Khan as a hero of immense proportions for his brave actions to limit and damp down the start of this ill- fated war as quickly as he could.
The 1965 war was a monstrously dumb move on the part of Mr Bhutto and the Pakistani Army chief of staff's who clearly initiated the whole war.
Your letter writer jumps to a wrong conclusion about Air Marshal Ashgar Khan, who I had met several times between 1963 and 1965 at my headquarters in Peshawar, the old US air base there. I was the USAF base liaison officer in the US embassy in Karachi.
In fact, Air Marshal Khan promptly resigned in protest over this unwarranted and wasteful war in 1965 which he had no part in planning or starting. Subsequently, the air marshal entered politics, was elected to your national legislature, was briefly jailed by his political opponent, Mr Bhutto, and then lost elective office. The air marshall has authored over 28 books, some related to this 1965 war, which the letter writer might want to read or re -read to be better informed.
COL (r) GEORGE L. SINGLETON, USAF,
Alabama, USA
DAWN - Letters; June 14, 2007
Another final article to sum up this discussion.
The myth of September 6, 1965
Every year we Pakistanis celebrate September 6th with a lot of ‘national fervour’ and laud the armed forces for being ‘victorious’ against the Indian forces back in the 1965 war. The state commemorates the ‘Defence Day’ by holding various ceremonies and special programmes. Milli naghmay (patriotic songs) are aired on the local television channels and radio stations, while the newspapers bring out special supplements to mark the day. This is all very well, but I wonder if our people know that in actuality we are not celebrating a victory. Not only did we lose militarily in 1965 – state propaganda aside – but we also lost our national unity in the process. Forty-two years down the road, ours is a country that is on the verge of dismemberment, again.
August 1947 gave birth to two independent states, India and Pakistan. It also gave birth to territorial disputes that haunt both South Asian neighbours to date. Kashmir is one of the main disputed territories. The two infant states fought a war in 1948 on the Kashmir issue, but despite a ceasefire, the issue was never resolved. At the beginning of 1965, skirmishes between the two neighbours erupted once again on another disputed territory – Rann of Kutch. Having no real economic value, the Rann conflict was only rooted in the overall contentious relationship between the two sides. Fortunately, the Pakistan army was successfully able to defend itself against the Indian army and in fact gave it a bloody nose. This served as a morale booster for our military.
The high morale of the military, egged on by Ayub Khan’s overambitious foreign minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, led to a misadventure that cost Pakistan its dignity. In the late summer of 1965, Pakistan launched ‘Operation Gibraltar’. Pakistan sent infiltrators – military commandos in civvies – into Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) to ‘liberate’ it, and expected that the ‘downtrodden’ Kashmiris would support the insurgency. Little did we know that the plan would crumble like a house of cards.
It was not only a plan fraught with miscalculation, but a foolish one to begin with. There was no proper reconnaissance, no political intelligence, and the Kashmiris in IHK were not even taken into confidence. “Whatever his [Ayub’s] reasons, Pakistan went into Operation Gibraltar without any preliminary preparations and undertook a guerrilla operation inside IHK with a large number of regular soldiers, some SSG elements and a smattering of irregulars, expecting to be welcomed by the local population and raise them up in arms against the Indian government. They were destined to be rudely disillusioned. Far from rising up in arms, the local population denied any support and, in many instances handed over the infiltrators to Indian troops” (Qadir, Brigadier (retd) Shaukat, ‘Operation Gibraltar: Battle that never was’, Rediff.com).
Before the operation was launched, Z A Bhutto somehow managed to convince Field Marshal Ayub Khan that even if India responded to the incursions in Kashmir, it would not cross the international border. Thus there was no question of a full-fledged war. But as soon as India had brutally crushed the insurgency in IHK, it launched an attack on Pakistan on September 6, 1965. The public was led to believe that India had launched a ‘surprise attack’ on Pakistan, and that ‘Hindu India’ would be taught a lesson. Thus the armed forces had full public support.
It is to the credit of our air force and the jawans fighting in the battlefield that they put up a strong fight against a superior enemy. But it is the generals who let the country down. “Ayub had attempted to save his forces in Kashmir; more importantly, he wanted to avoid a general war. But the war he sought to avoid had come to Pakistan, and the nation had to be rallied to efforts not envisaged in the plans to capture Kashmir. The vast majority of Pakistanis knew virtually nothing about the course of the hostilities. All they knew came from Radio Pakistan, and in the name of national morale, the public was informed over and again of the successes on the battlefield, or at the very least, the heroism of units and individual members of the armed forces who had fallen in combat. The fact that Pakistan itself had been targeted by Indian forces, that air raids had ranged to Peshawar on the one side and Dhaka in East Pakistan on the other, did not shake the Pakistani public’s belief that the war was going well and that India was paying a heavy price for its audacious assault on Pakistani territory” (Ziring, Lawrence, Pakistan in the Twentieth Century: A Political History, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 293).
The reality of the much-touted ‘friendly’ relations between Pakistan and the US was also exposed during the 1965 war. Pakistan had allied itself with the US during the Cold War era, and in an effort to please the US, Pakistan joined the South East Treaty Organisation (SEATO) in 1954 and later the Baghdad Pact in 1955, which was renamed the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) in 1959. Being a signatory to these treaties gave Pakistan the necessary means and resources to strengthen itself militarily and economically. When the war broke out in 1965, Pakistan expected that the US would come to its aid and used US-supplied weaponry against India. The US never came to Pakistan’s help, because it perceived communism to be the threat to its interests, hardly India. Thus a military embargo was imposed on Pakistan and military supplies were cut off by the US.
A little more than two weeks into the battle and it was quite evident to Ayub that the army was running out of logistics – ammunition, fuel, food, etc. It is reported that during the war, the American ambassador said to Ayub Khan, “They [the Indians] have got you by the throat Mr President, don’t they?” or words to that effect. It is ironic that when our fairweather ‘friend’ the US decided to leave us in the lurch, the communist Soviet Union came to our aid and helped broker a ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
The Pakistani nation was left bewildered about why Ayub Khan opted to end the war that we were ‘winning’ and instead signed the Tashkent Agreement. Since the public was kept in the dark about the real reasons behind the war and its actual progress, it was hard for them to understand that Ayub had indeed made a wise move by ending the war. The public considered it a sell-out and a betrayal. Little did the public know that had the war gone on, we would have lost much more than our ‘pride’.
There are some lessons to be learnt from the experience of 1965. One of the main lessons is that subjective and wishful thinking in politics and war is no substitute for objective analysis. It would be useful in this context to recall the old Clausewitzian adage: ‘War is the extension of politics by other means.’ It is also time we reflect on the loss of our national unity. Back in 1965, the nation stood behind our military. Today, the situation is quite different. Why is it that today we are not as emotional about our ‘sons of the soil’ as we were back in 1965? These are the wages of repeated military interventions at the cost of national unity. When the military took away the sovereign right of the people, the right to rule the country themselves, it took away the respect it rightfully deserved. We can still rediscover this unity if the military goes back to the barracks and allows the civilians to exercise their democratic rights.
http://mehmal.blogspot.com/2007/09/myth-of-september-6-1965.html
You guys had a chance to win this war. In 1965. On the battlefield. Not in 2010. Not on this forum
Last edited:
Similar threads
- Article
