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Well said, general
By Kamran Shafi
Tuesday, 19 May, 2009 | 03:02 AM PST Has the army finally understood what it needs to do to win?
FOR the very first time, a clear and unambiguous statement from Gen Ashfaq Kayani: that the army was capable of fighting an insurgency. And that all it needed was specialised equipment and weaponry.
I have always said this: e.g. on April 21 I wrote: there is no greater canard that the Pakistan Army is only trained for conventional warfare and that the Americans have to come train our troops in the art of fighting an insurrection.
Nothing could be further from the truth. All that needs to be done is for our intelligence apparatus to start reporting the truth, and for the army to finally understand that its enemy is not on the eastern front but on the western. And that once what little is left of the so-called writ of the almost non-existent state of Pakistan is gone, the army too will be swept away.
Kudos to you, general, if you really mean what you say. May the Almighty give you the strength, the tenacity and the wisdom to lead our army to complete and final victory over the criminal and heartlessly cruel thugs who have spread so much death and destruction and despair in our country. And may He protect you and your officers and men.
To the Americans I say: instead of toys for the boys such as the F-16s which are not allowed by you to be used in an offensive role anyway, please immediately supply our army with night-vision equipment, attack helicopters, and close-support aircraft such as the A-10 Warthog.
And to you, prime minister this: please, please heed the advice I have oft proffered you, your president and your ministers: if you have nothing worthwhile to say dont say anything at all. I refer to the statement allegedly made on your behalf just two days ago by the garrulous Babar Awan that if the terrorists wanted to talk peace even now, the government was ready to talk.
You are unbelievable, you lot! How possibly can you talk peace with fanatical terrorists who have killed so many innocents in the most brutal ways possible? How possibly can you even think of making peace with those who blow up girls schools and slaughter women school teachers, after first marching them through the bazaars with dancing-girl bells on their ankles? What is wrong with you people? Do you not feel the agony of your own brothers and sisters? Talk peace, indeed! Instead of making fools of yourselves, will you kindly just stand behind the army, give it all the support you can, and see that it completes the job.
Neither were you alone in shooting off your mouth. Exactly one day after Gen Kayani said the army is capable of fighting an insurgency, our president (God bless us!) says the army needs training by American and British instructors! I ask you! Could Mr Zardari also please stop speaking in the first person singular: I need money; I need arms; I cant fight the Taliban alone, I need help; my democracy will succeed and so on?
And while you all are at it (and this goes for the senior officers of the services too), could you please order an immediate 70 per cent cut in the running expenses of your plush official homes and fancy offices? And ground all your executive jets? And ask that no more will huge bouquets of flowers be placed before you at meetings and other gatherings? And put a moratorium on all foreign junkets until Pakistan returns to peace?
And now, short report on what happened to a dear friend and college mates 30-year old son in Islamabad the Beautiful at the hands of the Rangers on May 2, 2008. But before that, a short word on the Rangers. In my day if getting a posting to the Scouts (the Frontier Corps) was a great honour for a line officer, a posting to the Rangers was considered a bloody disgrace, for the Rangers were always considered a subordinate civil armed force, into all kinds of argy-bargy on the border. It only came to prominence when the Commando used it to brazenly influence the 2002 election.
Anyway, this young man was walking on trail three just off Margalla Avenue with his cousin who, being more fit, left him behind. Soon he came upon two men in civvies, one wearing camouflage trousers and a blue T-shirt and the other a shalwar-kameez. The two stopped him and asked who he was and what he was doing there. (Not an intelligent question, what!). The boy told them, they asked for his ID card which he was not carrying at the time, upon which they told him he would have to come with them.
The boy in turn asked for their ID which they said they didnt have and pointed to a hand-held wireless, saying they were from the intelligence. Since hand-held wireless sets are freely available in the market and are hardly a means of identifying officials of the state, he panicked and started running away from them thinking they were kidnappers/Taliban, whatever. If readers will recall there have been stories in the press where the Taliban have been known to kidnap for ransom to feed their insurgency.
Anyhow, he was caught, trussed up like a criminal, blindfolded, and eventually led to the Rangers camp along the Margalla Road where he was produced before an officer. The usual phone calls were then made; influential people were brought into the loop and the boy was freed five hours after his ordeal began. What gives, Mister Rehman Malik, Lord and Master of all you survey? Is this the way citizens will be treated by your minions in your empire? Be ashamed of yourself, sir!
Something sublime now. While trolling through the Internet the other day looking for old books on Frontier warfare I came across Delphi Books which led me to a site salimansar.com. I was astonished at the sheer range of books and rare manuscripts offered for sale on this site.
Whilst one of the oldest books, the handwritten Qissa Shirin Farhad was published in 1166, and there are countless other such gems such as the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and The Kasidah of Haji Abu El-Yezdi, translated by Sir Richard Burton in 1880, what particularly interested me at this time was Operations in Waziristan put together by the general staff, army headquarters, India, in 1921.
Here is how the country is described: Waziristan lies on the western border of the Indian empire, and forms the connecting link on the Afghan frontier between the districts of Kurram and Zhob. For political and administrative purposes it is divided into Northern and Southern Waziristan its shape resembling a rough parallelogram .
I wonder if our present general staff is putting together an account of the operations they are conducting so that a full account can be left for posterity; and so that our succeeding generations can learn from what we are experiencing. I doubt it very much, for scholarship is at low ebb in our country.
By Kamran Shafi
Tuesday, 19 May, 2009 | 03:02 AM PST Has the army finally understood what it needs to do to win?
FOR the very first time, a clear and unambiguous statement from Gen Ashfaq Kayani: that the army was capable of fighting an insurgency. And that all it needed was specialised equipment and weaponry.
I have always said this: e.g. on April 21 I wrote: there is no greater canard that the Pakistan Army is only trained for conventional warfare and that the Americans have to come train our troops in the art of fighting an insurrection.
Nothing could be further from the truth. All that needs to be done is for our intelligence apparatus to start reporting the truth, and for the army to finally understand that its enemy is not on the eastern front but on the western. And that once what little is left of the so-called writ of the almost non-existent state of Pakistan is gone, the army too will be swept away.
Kudos to you, general, if you really mean what you say. May the Almighty give you the strength, the tenacity and the wisdom to lead our army to complete and final victory over the criminal and heartlessly cruel thugs who have spread so much death and destruction and despair in our country. And may He protect you and your officers and men.
To the Americans I say: instead of toys for the boys such as the F-16s which are not allowed by you to be used in an offensive role anyway, please immediately supply our army with night-vision equipment, attack helicopters, and close-support aircraft such as the A-10 Warthog.
And to you, prime minister this: please, please heed the advice I have oft proffered you, your president and your ministers: if you have nothing worthwhile to say dont say anything at all. I refer to the statement allegedly made on your behalf just two days ago by the garrulous Babar Awan that if the terrorists wanted to talk peace even now, the government was ready to talk.
You are unbelievable, you lot! How possibly can you talk peace with fanatical terrorists who have killed so many innocents in the most brutal ways possible? How possibly can you even think of making peace with those who blow up girls schools and slaughter women school teachers, after first marching them through the bazaars with dancing-girl bells on their ankles? What is wrong with you people? Do you not feel the agony of your own brothers and sisters? Talk peace, indeed! Instead of making fools of yourselves, will you kindly just stand behind the army, give it all the support you can, and see that it completes the job.
Neither were you alone in shooting off your mouth. Exactly one day after Gen Kayani said the army is capable of fighting an insurgency, our president (God bless us!) says the army needs training by American and British instructors! I ask you! Could Mr Zardari also please stop speaking in the first person singular: I need money; I need arms; I cant fight the Taliban alone, I need help; my democracy will succeed and so on?
And while you all are at it (and this goes for the senior officers of the services too), could you please order an immediate 70 per cent cut in the running expenses of your plush official homes and fancy offices? And ground all your executive jets? And ask that no more will huge bouquets of flowers be placed before you at meetings and other gatherings? And put a moratorium on all foreign junkets until Pakistan returns to peace?
And now, short report on what happened to a dear friend and college mates 30-year old son in Islamabad the Beautiful at the hands of the Rangers on May 2, 2008. But before that, a short word on the Rangers. In my day if getting a posting to the Scouts (the Frontier Corps) was a great honour for a line officer, a posting to the Rangers was considered a bloody disgrace, for the Rangers were always considered a subordinate civil armed force, into all kinds of argy-bargy on the border. It only came to prominence when the Commando used it to brazenly influence the 2002 election.
Anyway, this young man was walking on trail three just off Margalla Avenue with his cousin who, being more fit, left him behind. Soon he came upon two men in civvies, one wearing camouflage trousers and a blue T-shirt and the other a shalwar-kameez. The two stopped him and asked who he was and what he was doing there. (Not an intelligent question, what!). The boy told them, they asked for his ID card which he was not carrying at the time, upon which they told him he would have to come with them.
The boy in turn asked for their ID which they said they didnt have and pointed to a hand-held wireless, saying they were from the intelligence. Since hand-held wireless sets are freely available in the market and are hardly a means of identifying officials of the state, he panicked and started running away from them thinking they were kidnappers/Taliban, whatever. If readers will recall there have been stories in the press where the Taliban have been known to kidnap for ransom to feed their insurgency.
Anyhow, he was caught, trussed up like a criminal, blindfolded, and eventually led to the Rangers camp along the Margalla Road where he was produced before an officer. The usual phone calls were then made; influential people were brought into the loop and the boy was freed five hours after his ordeal began. What gives, Mister Rehman Malik, Lord and Master of all you survey? Is this the way citizens will be treated by your minions in your empire? Be ashamed of yourself, sir!
Something sublime now. While trolling through the Internet the other day looking for old books on Frontier warfare I came across Delphi Books which led me to a site salimansar.com. I was astonished at the sheer range of books and rare manuscripts offered for sale on this site.
Whilst one of the oldest books, the handwritten Qissa Shirin Farhad was published in 1166, and there are countless other such gems such as the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and The Kasidah of Haji Abu El-Yezdi, translated by Sir Richard Burton in 1880, what particularly interested me at this time was Operations in Waziristan put together by the general staff, army headquarters, India, in 1921.
Here is how the country is described: Waziristan lies on the western border of the Indian empire, and forms the connecting link on the Afghan frontier between the districts of Kurram and Zhob. For political and administrative purposes it is divided into Northern and Southern Waziristan its shape resembling a rough parallelogram .
I wonder if our present general staff is putting together an account of the operations they are conducting so that a full account can be left for posterity; and so that our succeeding generations can learn from what we are experiencing. I doubt it very much, for scholarship is at low ebb in our country.
