This is a wonderful article by a former Pakistan Army officer that highlights many important points about problems in our military culture and how that impact popular support for the army.
In the very recent past there has been some sanctimonious, and quite sickening, hectoring in a section of the press to the effect that Pakistanis were not standing behind their army like other people. Such as the Americans tying yellow ribbons in honour of the soldiers fighting ‘wars’ in Iraq and Afghanistan.
About the allegation that Pakistanis are not supporting their army like the Americans are theirs, let us for the moment leave aside the fact that before this latest action in Swat and Buner (that came about, let us not kid ourselves, after a massive American kick) the army’s performance was dismal to say the least. And, since the comparison is with the ‘patriotic’ people of the United States let us for now just look at the face the American army shows to its people.
I have been to Fort Myer in Virginia with my chum and course-mate Zafar Kayani who was married to Colonel Jo Ann Kayani, now sadly passed on, good and gracious woman. Jo Ann was commander of Headquarters Company, US Army, stationed at Fort Myer and it was my pleasure to visit not only her spartan office but also the canteen where officers ate alongside privates, carrying their own trays and standing in line waiting their turn. Fort Myer serves the Washington D.C. military district and the senior-most officers serving in the Pentagon live there. I have had the pleasure of seeing Gen Colin Powell, then chief of the joint staff, mow his own lawn in one of a row of houses that housed him and other senior generals including the chief of the army staff. The houses were in typically American suburban style: no walls, with sloping lawns running onto the pavements.
Most of all, I was astonished to see that there was no wedding hall anywhere in Fort Myer. Neither was there was any burger joint catering to all comers in any of the officers messes, and none of the mess buildings had bank branches and wedding dress boutiques in them. The US army had not constructed shops all around the fort either, and its soldiers did not sell pastries and bread.
I saw no evidence of banks and travel agencies and textile mills and sugar factories and cornflakes-manufacturing mills and estate agencies being run by the US army (or the US navy and the US air force for that matter) in my travels across America. Armed forces stations were just that: armed forces stations with limited access to civilians, and those too who were accompanied by a member of the armed forces or their dependent(s). Neither, and this is important, does the US army run farming operations and get into disputes with the tenant farmers who till the land as share-croppers.
Since one mostly drives in the US to get from point A to B, many were the times that I came upon army convoys on the highways. Every single time the convoy travelled in the slow lane, at the designated speed, the drivers with both hands on the steering wheels, headgear on, looking straight ahead. No slouching, no cigarette hanging from the drooping lower lip Humphrey Bogart style. In the back, if there were soldiers being transported, they sat up straight, headgear on, no slouching, no smoking. And no leering at passing cars either!
Never has a US army captain who was given a ticket for a traffic infringement gone back to his barracks, filled a truck or two with soldiers from his company, and driven to the police station to which the offending policeman belonged, and proceeded to beat up everybody in sight. Never has a US army general’s wife got so infuriated by her driver being ticked off by a police constable that the local army authorities kidnapped the offender and beat the daylights out of him, among other ministrations.
Is this enough for those who would say to the rest of us that we are not as ‘patriotic’ as other people because we do not have respect for our army the way those others do? There was also a hint that those who were writing against the army did not know what it takes to serve in it. Well, they need not talk down to me because I spent 11 wonderful years in this same army and loved every minute of it.
That was the army when, as young officers, we dared not ride our bicycles without a light at night for fear of getting a ticket from a patrolling policeman. For if you got one, you were warned by the adjutant; the second one got you hauled before the CO — a fate worse than death itself. For subalterns never even laid eyes on the CO other than in the training area or in the tearoom for elevenses when he deigned to come; and on mess and dinner nights. And of course when he and his lady invited all the officers for the biannual dinner at their home.
Those were the days when the CO would order a young officer who had made the cardinal mistake of bringing a car (in my case a 1951 Chevrolet California two-door coupe’) to the unit to jolly well go home and leave it behind. And to buy a bloody bicycle because even the 2-I/C did not have a car! Idiot!
So please, no sanctimonious lectures!
As for the present operations going on in Swat and Buner, I can only caution against the use of fighter jets and artillery. The cruel and criminal thugs aka ‘Taliban’ roam the countryside in their twos and threes and tens; they do not move in battalion or even platoon formation, and their numbers are hardly targets for the aforesaid weaponry which only spread fear and alarm among the populace. Good intelligence, and God knows our “agencies” are huge enough and powerful enough, and the correct use of the PBI, the Poor Bloody Infantry, will win us our war. And yes, the selective use of our much-vaunted SSG.
Also, the next time anyone says the Pakistan Army and the Frontier Corps are not trained to fight insurgents, in their own country, in their own villages, dash it, will all Pakistanis kindly tell them to shut their mouths? So then, let’s get on with it gentlemen, let’s rid our country of the Yahoos once and for all. And if my services are needed I am ready for the call-up notice. Kai Kai, Baloch!
Let me end by saying that it is disgusting to see the MQM appealing to the COAS and the DG ISI to take action against the ANP and the PPP in Karachi. Who too deserve our opprobrium for not protesting the loss of innocent life on that horrid, horrid day.