The Greatest Generals of World

[mikkix]

captured Kashmir lol are u dreaming, the stinger missiles played a bigger role then General Zia, without CIA funding and weapons the mujahedins were sitting ducks and useless.

if missiles are really important then what nato is achieving in afghanistan...
Technology does matter but strategies, intelligence and brilliance drives the technology..

 

[mikkix]

This statement is truly mind boggling. You must be a great admirer of the worst calamity that happened to Pakistan.

Just read “Bhutto, Zia & me” by Lt Gen Chisti. Zia fought two wars (1965 & 1971) and did not do any thing worth mentioning in either even though he was a colonel in 1971 and you think he could conquer Kashmir! This is what imagination truly is.

Zia's claim to fame was when as an advisor to King Hussein of Jordan; he lured Palestinian fighters (a vast majority of these were Muslims) outside of Amman and massacred them with tanks. You are welcome to clap your heart out and jump with joy.

Afghanistan war won by the dogged determination of the Afghan Mujahideen supplied with US funds and arms from the West.

Zia was neither involved in fighting, nor directed the fighting. All liaisons with the fighters were thru ISI and there were US advisors for training the mujahideen fighters. You call this generalship? According to your logic Hamid Gul should be the best general, at least he was present on the field.

This thread is about the best generals of the WORLD. Alexander was such a great general that he is referred to in our holy book as “Sikander Dhulqarnain”. Dhul Qarnain is reference to the doubled horned helmet supposedly worn by Alexander.

Generalship is recognized thru actual exploits of war and victory on the battle field. To this day Alexander is recognized as one of the all time greats. You really think your favorite Zia was equal to Alexander?

Nature is very cruel and doesn’t take into account piety or religion when it comes to actual fighting else Khalid Walid (RA) would not have been able to defeat Muslim forces in the battle of Uhud or millions of devout Muslims killed off by pagan Mongol hordes led by Chengiz in the late 12th Century.

IMO opinion only one Muslim general can be compared with the best in world. This is Khalid bin Walled (RA) who defeated the Ghassanid Christains at Mu’tah;Sasanian general Hormuz at battle of the Chains near Basra and the Romans at the classic battle of Yarmuk. You count the bigot Zia as great?

Finally, this thread is not about great Muslim generals but Great Generals of the world. So please do not include the Muslim generals who are your heroes as greats. Only those generals that are recognized by all historinas of the world regardless of the race, creed or religion such as Alexander, Napoleon etc are worthy; Hazrat Khalid bin Walid surely is but certainly not the hypocrite Zia who murdered his biggest benefactor ZAB.

Zia does not even rank as one of the noted Pakistani generals such as Iftikhar Janjua, Akhtar Malik and Tikka Khan. You enumerate as him as one the greats, what a travesty of merit!

i m not a admirer of him what i m saying is he is played a vital role in capturing of Afghanistan and made USSR break with the help of west.
at first zia started the jihad against USSR and later joined by west when they saw that division of USSR could possible..
what he had done to Pakistan is off topic and you need a different thread for it..
as this thread is for gr8test generals and current time shows that he was one of the best to break the gr8test communist power USSR..

 

[amit27]

if missiles are really important then what nato is achieving in afghanistan...
Technology does matter but strategies, intelligence and brilliance drives the technology..

I agree but General Zia did not make the strategy or the intelligence it was in fact Charlie wilson.

 

[mikkix]

I agree but General Zia did not make the strategy or the intelligence it was in fact Charlie wilson.

charlie wilson later joined the war in afghanistan but zia was started the campaign way before...
Charlie wilson was a senator and worked as a lobbist for Pakistan in America and he played a part to convinced pentagon to joined Pakistan. Joined means zia started the struggle but later joined by charlie and pentagon...

 

[amit27]

charlie wilson later joined the war in afghanistan but zia was started the campaign way before...
Charlie wilson was a senator and worked as a lobbist for Pakistan in America and he played a part to convinced pentagon to joined Pakistan. Joined means zia started the struggle but later joined by charlie and pentagon...

Zia credited Wilson with the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan with the words, ''Charlie did it.''

November 1982, US Representative Charlie Wilson (D-TX) travels to Islamabad, Pakistan, and meets with President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq. He promises Zia to deliver a crucial weapons system that has so far been denied by the US—the latest radar systems for Pakistan’s F-16 fighter planes. Wilson also meets with CIA Station Chief Howard Hart, who is in charge of providing support for the Afghan resistance to the Soviets. He urges Hart to expand the program and stresses that vast amounts of money can be made available. [Crile, 2003, pp. 106-129] The next month, President Zia comes to the US to meet with President Reagan. Zia first meets with Wilson in Houston and expresses his gratitude for helping Pakistan acquire F-16 radar systems (see November-December 1982). Wilson then broaches the subject of Pakistan secretly purchasing arms from Israel for the Afghan War. Zia agrees to this in principle.


Zia was a bit part player in the war he never made the strategy or provided the intelligence.

 

[mikkix]

Zia credited Wilson with the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan with the words, ''Charlie did it.''

November 1982, US Representative Charlie Wilson (D-TX) travels to Islamabad, Pakistan, and meets with President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq. He promises Zia to deliver a crucial weapons system that has so far been denied by the US—the latest radar systems for Pakistan’s F-16 fighter planes. Wilson also meets with CIA Station Chief Howard Hart, who is in charge of providing support for the Afghan resistance to the Soviets. He urges Hart to expand the program and stresses that vast amounts of money can be made available. [Crile, 2003, pp. 106-129] The next month, President Zia comes to the US to meet with President Reagan. Zia first meets with Wilson in Houston and expresses his gratitude for helping Pakistan acquire F-16 radar systems (see November-December 1982). Wilson then broaches the subject of Pakistan secretly purchasing arms from Israel for the Afghan War. Zia agrees to this in principle.


Zia was a bit part player in the war he never made the strategy or provided the intelligence.

See the bold part and then you can see the year which is 1982 and afghan war was supported from1979 by zia..
let me tell you one more thing Bhutto was first who took the initiated to help local commanders against USSR way back in 1976...
Charlie wilson just joined them and became popular due to the fact that he supported pakistan with the help of arms, dollars, diplomacy but who is the ground soldier that makes strategies???
It was a collaborative decision after charlie joined them buttttttttt
who made that successful in ground.......
I hate zia above is true..

 

[mikkix]

Zia credited Wilson with the defeat of the Russians in Afghanistan with the words, ''Charlie did it.''

November 1982, US Representative Charlie Wilson (D-TX) travels to Islamabad, Pakistan, and meets with President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq. He promises Zia to deliver a crucial weapons system that has so far been denied by the US—the latest radar systems for Pakistan’s F-16 fighter planes. Wilson also meets with CIA Station Chief Howard Hart, who is in charge of providing support for the Afghan resistance to the Soviets. He urges Hart to expand the program and stresses that vast amounts of money can be made available. [Crile, 2003, pp. 106-129] The next month, President Zia comes to the US to meet with President Reagan. Zia first meets with Wilson in Houston and expresses his gratitude for helping Pakistan acquire F-16 radar systems (see November-December 1982). Wilson then broaches the subject of Pakistan secretly purchasing arms from Israel for the Afghan War. Zia agrees to this in principle.


Zia was a bit part player in the war he never made the strategy or provided the intelligence.

he was the strategy maker that is why he was assassinated..

 

[amit27]

Among the weapons funded by Congress were hundreds of Stinger missile systems that mujahedin forces used to counter the Russians' lethal Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships.

And there were also tens of thousands of automatic weapons, antitank guns, and satellite intelligence maps. According to author George Crile, Wilson even brought his own belly dancer from Texas to Cairo to entertain the Egyptian defense minister, who was secretly supplying the mujahedin with millions of rounds of ammunition for the AK-47s the CIA was smuggling into Afghanistan.

The CIA became the grand coordinator: purchasing or arranging the manufacture of Soviet-style weapons from Egypt, China, Poland, Israel and elsewhere, or supplying their own; arranging for military training by Americans, Egyptians, Chinese and Iranians; hitting up Middle-Eastern countries for donations, notably Saudi Arabia which gave many hundreds of millions of dollars in aid each year, totaling probably more than a billion; pressuring and bribing Pakistan-with whom recent American relations had been very poor-to rent out its country as a military staging area and sanctuary; putting the Pakistani Director of Military Operations, Brigadier Mian Mohammad Afzal, onto the CIA payroll to ensure Pakistani cooperation.


I dont see how General Zia played a leading role in the afgan war? what strategy did he make himself? The idea of using Israel-ISI to funnel weapons was not his idea he just approved it being the leader of pakistan at the time.

 

[niaz]

i m not a admirer of him what i m saying is he is played a vital role in capturing of Afghanistan and made USSR break with the help of west.
at first zia started the jihad against USSR and later joined by west when they saw that division of USSR could possible..
what he had done to Pakistan is off topic and you need a different thread for it..
as this thread is for gr8test generals and current time shows that he was one of the best to break the gr8test communist power USSR..

Regret to say that this does not agree with what I know. I was working in Kuwait at that time. As my family was based in Karachi, I used to visit Pakistan very often and the events unfolded literarily before my eyes.

USSR troops entered Afghanistan ostensibly at the request of Babrak Karmal following the overthrow of Hafizulah Amin in December 1979. Initial support by Pakistan under Zia regime was limited to provide safe haven to the millions of Afghan refugees that started pouring into Pakistan from mid 1980 onwards. This was despite resistance from Wali Khan & ANP (Afghan refuges were referred to by ANP as Afghan Bhagorey)

Since this happened soon after ignoble US evacuation from Saigon in 1975; US administration saw this as opportunity to create a ‘Vietnam’ for USSR and Jimmy Carter offered Zia $400-miilion in aid to ferment trouble inside Afghanistan. This was
spurned by Zia as “Peanuts”.

Later with the Reagan administration in place; a package worth $3.2-billion in military & economic aid was offered and the mayhem started. Thus to the best of my knowledge Zia did not start the war with USSR troops in Afghanistan. Any fighting before the US and the West joined in was done by the Afghans without any outside help.

As a hind sight, think that Wali Khan and ANP were right. While USA succeeded in created an economic black hole which resulted in the break up of USSR; Pakistan would not have been in the mess we are in today if Zia had declined to help US in their proxy war with USSR.

Pakistan never had human, technical or material resources to challenge any major power. Even to think that it was Zia who defeated USSR, tantamount to living in cuckoo land. Only good thing that Zia ever did was to continue with the Pak Nuke program started by ZAB.

You are of course welcome to believe whatever you like.

 

[vnomad]

In modern history three names stand out - Erwin Rommel, Erich von Manstein and Heinz Guderian. The Allies never had any general in the same class. Not Patton, not Eisenhower, not McArthur and not old Montgomery.

From history the two greatest that come to mind are - Napoleon and Alexander. Of the rest, I doubt if we can conclusively decide given the absence of accurate information of both strategic and tactical management and the quality of the opposition vis-a-vis the general's own forces.

 

[GOD OF WAR]

SEEMS LIKE MOST OF YOU HAVE READ 'CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR'

well, read THE BEAR TRAP and you'll know who was orchestrated the Afghan war that decimated the CCCP.

Charlie Wilson, contributed for his own reasons, but it was the ISI who ran the real show.

Yet another testiment of the West convieniently stealing some one else's credits.

 

[Icarus]

In modern history three names stand out - Erwin Rommel, Erich von Manstein and Heinz Guderian. The Allies never had any general in the same class. Not Patton, not Eisenhower, not McArthur and not old Montgomery.

From history the two greatest that come to mind are - Napoleon and Alexander. Of the rest, I doubt if we can conclusively decide given the absence of accurate information of both strategic and tactical management and the quality of the opposition vis-a-vis the general's own forces.

Indeed, after WWII, the concept of "The Perfect War" developed which said the perfect war would be one with: German generals, British officers, Indian soldiers, American weapons and an enemy like Italy.....(I forgot the name of the man who quoted this)

 

[KS]

SEEMS LIKE MOST OF YOU HAVE READ 'CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR'

well, read THE BEAR TRAP and you'll know who was orchestrated the Afghan war that decimated the CCCP.

Charlie Wilson, contributed for his own reasons, but it was the ISI who ran the real show.

Yet another testiment of the West convieniently stealing some one else's credits.

Yes the ISI played an important role....but w/o American weapons,their cash fundings and more importantly their supporting presence with Pakistan - the bear would have mauled the ISI into pieces.

Americans truly deserve the credit (not from me..as I would have liked the USSR to exist today) for orchestrating a master plan.

 

[amit27]

ISI never came up with the idea of supplying weapons to the mujehedin it was Charlie Wilson's idea and Israel-ISI were used to funnel these weapons.

 

[Old School]

In modern history three names stand out - Erwin Rommel, Erich von Manstein and Heinz Guderian. The Allies never had any general in the same class. Not Patton, not Eisenhower, not McArthur and not old Montgomery.

From history the two greatest that come to mind are - Napoleon and Alexander. Of the rest, I doubt if we can conclusively decide given the absence of accurate information of both strategic and tactical management and the quality of the opposition vis-a-vis the general's own forces.

Germany always produced very high quality Generals and it is no wonder why they are the one who invented the current General Staffs system thanks to another German(Prussian) General Helmuth van Moltke who is the father of Modern Military.