To the honourable generals of Pakistan army – by Rashid Aurakzai
We have starved ourselves to treat you like Royals, sirs!
In the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s discovery by the US commandos in a Safe House in the garrison town of Abbottabad, it feels as if we, Pakistanis, are going through a horrible dream of being naked in public. No matter what we do, the guilt keeps building up till we wake up and feel relieved.
Do those ‘responsible’ feel the same? Not a single Ghairti (members of the so called ‘national honour brigade’) blew out his brain when 90,0000 Pakistan troops surrendered in Dacca. Why expect now?
The GHQ’s media implants within right-wing and liberal journalists are trying very hard to hide their masters’ big ugly fart by diverting public anger towards the favorite punching bag, i.e. Asif Zardari. ‘Why don’t ‘the rulers’ say something, Chaudhry Nisar interrogatively stated, conveniently missing out the fact that his own party chief enjoyed OBL’s generous support to impede Benazir Bhutto’s election as the PM of Pakistan.
Will GHQ’s proxies within politics and media tell us what can or should be said when ‘They’ are caught red handed? Why should PPP come to their tormentors’ rescue?
When were bloody civilian leaders ever taken into confidence by the Napoleans and Alexanders of Pakistan army. Back in 1990s, Benazir Bhutto, an elected PM, could not be trusted a visit to ‘sensitive’ facilities such as the Kahuta Nuclear Plant (otherwise known to the world) but Nawaz Sharif could be and was. This is because her father blundered by not hanging generals for laying arms with 90,000 men, a month’s supplies and ammo at hand?
But:
Shahadat Na Matlub-o-Maqsud-e-Momin,
Bulkay Paan Ki Pati aur Gaisoo-e-Bengali
Can a tax payer protest our saviours’ ever rising defense spending? Can the parliament debate Pak-India peace? Are we really free to analyze their cost to benefit ratio? Can they be told to open FATA to independent observers and media? What to talk of changing our foreign policy. The government cannot even devolve an insignificant institution like HEC when it is constitutionally illegal to keep it. Why? Because, our Military has stakes in every money making venture including education.
How easy it is in Pakistan to evade argument, blackmail emotionally and win. Nobody can dare or afford ‘their’ enmity. They are good at haunting and hunting the sparse and helpless Balochs. They can use, torture, malign, kill and sell Pakhtoons. They even can disappear hundreds of innocents for sometimes personal scores. They are good at nurturing, protecting and glorifying some of most dangerous terrorist organizations on earth. How could this be incompetence or ‘scanty resources’ or ‘ wide stretching’.
OBL was not found from Kohlu or Pind Dadun Khan but from Abbottabad where you walk into at least one intelligence official every 15 minutes. And how much ‘More is More’?
Don’t they deserve dismissals from services for even the ‘incompetence’? What about our lost decade taking us back into stone age under the Coward Commando? Who will account for deteriorated law and order, erosion of economy, degradation of civil services, loss of national credibility and rising of poverty?
No Sir, this isn’t incompetence but brazen arrogance in one’s stupidity.
And when a jackal’s life is to end, it runs into the city. They threaten the US and the world of ‘dire consequences’ if Abbottabad was repeated. Well Ghalib would say “Kia janta nahin tumhari kamar ko main” (Do I not know your belt?).
Do you want another Afghanistan for Chinese interest? Can a country incapable of meeting 16000 MW demand afford to fight another with 80,00,000 MW installed capacity? Do all our Corps Commanders and their bosses, Musharaf and Kayyani included, not owe us Pakistan’s honor? Has Kayyani not headed the cancerous ISI? Should he not resign and present himself to a court martial if cannot blow out his brains?
Shouldn’t accountability start from the most powerful?
Thank God a civilian government is sitting in office and democrats in the White House, otherwise another declared rogue state. Why should the world come to the compulsive liars’ rescue? Why should we respect Pakistani generals when they have no self-respect? Is there no one in the Command and Staff College or the PMA to teach them a little common sense? Could Osama win us war in Afghanistan? Let’s put it Cyril’s way. What could have been gained by keeping him, even if he was not caught till the doomsday?
Gentlemen officers of our military! we starve ourselves, ignore our health, sacrifice our future to pay, entertain and arm you the best in third world, Sir. We keep you like Royals, Sir; even borrow if we have to, Sir. You are the most envied, respected, revered, served, saluted, paid and cared for, Sir. Though our 80% have no access to clean drinking water, Sir, we manage to keep swimming pools and lakes for your water sports, Sir. Our children can’t find a pitch to bowl and bat on Sir, but we keep your golf courses lush green, Sir. Our Professors can’t buy a two room flat with their pensions Sir but we build you tens of millions worth villas in posh Defense Housing Societies, Sir. There is no comparison between you, the ‘vital few’ Sir, and us, the ‘trivial many’, Sir. You have won not an inch of land Sir but torn apart, half of us, Sir. If only We hadn’t let you get away with it, Sir? You don’t respect anything of this country, Sir, not even constitution, Sir. May we ask Sir, Where we failed you, Sir?
Very true! The people of Pakistan should resign for failing their “military”! Pakistan would be a wonderful place if only civilians were not there.
Is saving the army’s arse not exactly what the PPP is doing by consistently saying no heads will roll?
The desperate cry of the wounded Pakistani is so apparent from this piece…and were it not for the ignorant and foolhardy Pak army, we could have been the best of friends and neighbours…Pakistan needs a new young leadership at the helm of affairs, not people who hark back to the days of partition and make every policy Indocentric thus cheating the civilian on the street from his dues…paisa lenge civilians se and shaadi karenge sirf fauji…achcha hai!
A master peice article. Beautifully narrated the dirty role of napak army and it proxies in media and politcs. They eat 80% of national budget but defame civilian for the poverty, lack of health and education fecilities in the country. Its because of their stratgeic depth policy due to which they protect Taliban and Alqa-eda in FATA and not open it for media and politics. due to this policy they kill their own ppl nd destroy their own country for the sake of so called national interest. As if people of FATA, Swat, dir,Banu and other districts of KP are not part of this nation and these areas are not part of PAkistan. “Every rise” has a fall and inshallah the downfall of these hypocrites has started and it will on their complet destruction….
What a great article …. from an honourable and brave man, exposing many dishonurable and despicable ones
so called pak army a very strong army in the world….. very funny is’t so?
Never win always loose and no one is here to talk about the issue……….nice man atleast one
Excellent post with very pertinent questions
جب فوج پر برسنے کا وقت ہوتا ہے‘ تو یہ سب بھیگی بلی بن جاتے ہیں۔ ایوب خان نے آ کے اقتدار پر قبضہ جمایا‘ تو دم سادھ کر بیٹھ گئے۔ کچھ نے جنرلوں کی نوکری کر لی اور باقی اپنے اپنے کاموں میں لگ گئے۔ یحییٰ خان آیاتو کسی نے اس کی مزاحمت نہیں کی۔ سارے اس کے اشاروں پر ناچتے ہوئے انتخابی عمل میں داخل ہو گئے۔ اس نے انتخابی نتائج قبول کرنے سے انکار کیا‘ تو جتنے بھی لوگ آج فوج کے خلاف زبانیں کھول رہے ہیں‘ وہ سارے یحییٰ خان کے ساتھ مل گئے۔ حالانکہ اس کے خلاف کھڑے ہونے کا وقت تھا۔ اگر مغربی پاکستان سے اس کے خلاف مزاحمت ہو جاتی‘ تو کسی میں ہمت نہیں تھی کہ مشرقی پاکستان پر فوج کشی کرتا۔
مشرقی پاکستان میں شکست کے بعد کسی بھی غیرت مند شخص کو زیب نہیں دیتا تھا کہ جنرلوں کو دوبارہ سیاست میں آنے کی اجازت دے۔ مگر آج کے غیرت مند جلد ہی ضیا الحق کی کاسہ لیسی کر کے ”غیرت“ کا مظاہرہ کرنے لگے۔ جن جنرلوں نے پاکستان کو روایتی دشمن کے سامنے ہتھیار ڈال کر ہمیں بے آبرو کیا تھا‘ انہیں دوبارہ سیاست میں آنے کی ترغیب عوام دشمنی بھی تھی۔ مگر ان لوگوں نے نہ صرف ضیاالحق کو سیاست میں آنے کی ترغیب دی بلکہ اس کے لئے میدان بھی ہموار کیا تاکہ وہ اقتدار پر قبضہ کرے۔ ضیاالحق نے وہی کچھ کیا جس کی کسی جنرل سے توقع کی جا سکتی ہے۔ اس نے امریکیوں کے ساتھ مل کر افغانستان کے سوشلسٹ انقلاب کے خلاف سازشیں کیں اور جب وہاں کے حکمرانوں نے سوویت افواج کو اپنی مدد کے لئے بلایا‘ تو ضیاالحق نے امریکیوں کو پیش کشیں کرنا شروع کر دیں کہ وہ سوویت یونین کے ساتھ حساب چکانے کے لئے امریکیوں کی جنگ لڑنے کو تیار ہے۔جمی کارٹر نے 200ملین ڈالر بطور معاوضہ پیش کئے‘ تو ضیاالحق نے کہا کہ ”مونگ پھلی“ سے گزارا نہیں ہو گا۔معاوضہ بڑھا دیا گیا تو ضیاالحق نے امریکہ کو اپنی خدمات پیش کر دیں اور موجودہ پاکستان کی تباہی کی بنیاد رکھ دی گئی۔ دنیا بھر کے لوگ جو عرب ملکوں سے بھاگے ہوئے تھے‘ انہیں افغانوں کی صفوں میں داخل کر کے ہمارے معصوم قبائل کے آزاد علاقوں میں زبردستی بٹھا دیا گیا۔ انہیں فوجی تربیت دی گئی۔ امریکی ڈالروں سے ان کی میزبانی کی گئی۔ انہیں اسلحہ دیا گیا اور ان کی مدد سے سوویت فوجوں کے خلاف گوریلا کارروائیاں شروع کر دی گئیں۔ ضیاالحق کی سرپرستی میں افغان سمگلروں اور نفع خوروں نے پاکستان میں منشیات اور اسلحہ کے انبار لگا دیئے۔ ہمارے ملک کا امن و امان اور پرامن معاشرہ برباد ہو کے رہ گیا۔ اس وقت یہ سب لوگ ضیاالحق کی کاسہ لیسی کر رہے تھے اور ملک کو تباہ کرنے والے جنرلوں کے حاشیہ بردار بنے ہوئے تھے۔ ضیاالحق کی ہلاکت کے بعد جب فوج کو بادل نخواستہ اقتدار چھوڑنا پڑا اور منتخب حکومت قائم ہوئی‘ تو یہی لوگ اس کے خلاف متحرک ہو گئے اور جنرلوں کے ساتھ مل کر اس کے خلاف سازشیں کرنے لگے۔ اب سارے راز منظرعام پر آ چکے ہیں۔ کس نے آئی جے آئی بنائی؟ کس نے آئی ایس آئی سے پیسے لئے؟ کس نے آئی ایس آئی کے ایک ایجنٹ کے توسط سے اسامہ بن لادن سے ڈالر لئے؟ ان سب کے چہرے عوام کے سامنے آ چکے ہیں۔ مگر یہ عجیب لوگ ہیں کہ انہیں اپنی تمام کرتوتیں بے نقاب ہونے کے بعد بھی غیرت نہیں آتی۔ نوازشریف نے فوجی اثرات سے نکل کر عوامی مقبولیت اور ووٹوں کے ذریعے دوبارہ اقتدار حاصل کیا۔ تو انہوں نے پاک بھارت کشیدگی کی جڑ اکھاڑنے کی خاطر‘ تنازعہ کشمیر حل کرنے کی کوشش کی۔ جس میں وہ حیرت انگیز طور پر کامیاب ہو گئے۔ بھارت کی منتخب حکومت کے سربراہ واجپائی قومی اتفاق رائے سے تنازعہ کشمیر حل کرنے کا عزم لے کر لاہور آئے تھے۔ نوازشریف پارلیمنٹ کی دو تہائی اکثریت کی طاقت لے کر مذاکرات کی میز پر بیٹھے اور دونوں ایک ایسے فارمولے پر متفق ہو گئے جو پاکستان اور بھارت کے علاوہ کشمیری عوام کے لئے بھی قابل قبول تھا۔ و اجپائی کے دورے کے موقع پر کس نے ہنگامہ آرائی کی؟ ان لوگوں کو سب پہچانتے ہیں۔ یہ ہمیشہ جنرلوں کے اشارے پر حرکت میں آتے ہیں اور اس وقت بھی آئے تھے۔ چند جنرلوں نے سازش کر کے کارگل پر واردات کی۔ اپنے ہی افسروں اور جوانوں کو سویلین لباس میں بھارتی فوج کے آگے جھونک دیا اور جب وہ گھیرے میں آ گئے‘ تو نوازشریف کے سامنے جا کر گڑگڑانے لگے کہ انہیں بچایا جائے۔ حب الوطنی کا مارانوازشریف ان جنرلوں کا ماضی فراموش کر کے‘ ان کی جانیں بچانے کے لئے امریکہ چلا گیا۔ بھارتیوں کے گھیرے میں آئے ہوئے ہمارے فوجی جوانوں اور افسروں کو واپسی کا راستہ لے کر دیا۔ مگر ان جنرلوں کی بے حسی دیکھئے کہ جب بھارتیوں نے وہاں شہید ہونے والوں کی لاشیں واپس دینے کی پیش کش کی‘ تو ہمارے وہ بے رحم جنرل مکر گئے کہ یہ تو ہمارے بندے ہی نہیں۔ تنقید ان جنرلوں پہ ہونی چاہیے تھی۔ نفرت کا نشانہ انہیں بننا چاہیے تھا۔ لیکن آج کے غیرت مند اس وقت کے سازشی جنرلوں کے ایجنٹ بنے ہوئے تھے اور جب ان جنرلوں نے کورٹ مارشل سے بچنے کے لئے منتخب حکومت کا تختہ الٹا‘ تو یہ فوراً ان کی نوکری کرنے لگے۔ جنرل مشرف کو وفاداریوں کا یقین دلا کر‘ اس کے رچائے ہوئے انتخابی ڈرامے میں اپنے لئے قومی اسمبلی کی 60 سے زیادہ نشستیں بٹور لیں۔ 17ویں ترمیم کے ذریعے اس کی بغاوت کو جائز قرار دے دیا۔ میں نے جتنے جنرلوں کا ذکر کیا ہے‘ وہ سب پاکستان کو موجودہ حالت میں پہنچانے کے ذمہ دار ہیں۔ مگر ان جنرلوں کے خلاف یہ کبھی نہیں بولے۔ البتہ جب امریکہ نے پرویزمشرف سے آنکھیں پھیر لیں‘ تو ان غیرت مندوں نے بھی اس کا ساتھ چھوڑ دیا۔ پرویزمشرف کی رخصت کے بعد ‘ منتخب حکومت قائم ہوئی‘ تو یہ فوراً ہی سرگرم ہو گئے اور جنرلوں سے مطالبہ کرنے لگے کہ وہ منتخب حکومت کو ختم کر کے اقتدار پر قبضہ کر لیں۔ اس بار میڈیا کے کچھ عناصر بھی ان کے ہمنوا ہو گئے۔ نہ صرف جنرلوں سے اقتدار پر قبضے کی درخواستیں‘ گزارشیں حتیٰ کہ التجائیں کی گئیں بلکہ یہ دعوے بھی کئے جانے لگے کہ زرداری حکومت چند روز کی مہمان ہے اور دنیا بھر کی منطقوں اور دلیلوں کے ذریعے جنرلوں کو قائل کیا جانے لگا کہ وہ اقتدار سنبھالیں۔ افسوس کہ موجودہ جنرلوں نے آئین کے دائرے میں رہتے ہوئے اپنے آپ کو فرائض منصبی تک محدود رکھا اور اب وہ منتخب حکومت کو ان پالیسیوں کا چارج بھی دینے لگے تھے‘ جن پر 58ء کے بعد فوج نے اپنی اجارہ داری قائم رکھی تھی۔ انتقال اقتدار کا یہ عمل جمہوری طاقتوں کی حقیقی بحالی کی طرف پیش قدمی تھی۔ لیکن اس وقت چونکہ پیپلزپارٹی کی حکومت ہے‘ اس لئے انہیں جمہوریت کا استحکام اور طاقت بھی قبول نہیں۔
Nazir Naji
امتحان…سویرے سویرے…نذیر ناجی
http://search.jang.com.pk/details.asp?nid=528622
Our own destroyers
Ayaz Amir
Friday, May 13, 2011
We should be grateful to the Sheikh, our benefactor in death. For the trail leading to him has forced upon us, citizens of perhaps the most confused republic on earth, the soul-searching we would never have succumbed to on our own.
Masters of living in denial, champions of a creative fiction that could have flourished in no other land or clime, only an earthquake of the magnitude of Abbottabad could have opened our eyes and led us to examine some of the tenets of our strange national security beliefs.
Yet the guardians of these beliefs are still trying to fight a rearguard action, hoping to deflect the harsh winds of criticism blowing in their direction. Addressing officers in various garrisons, the previously lionised but now out-of-luck army chief, Gen Kayani, came up with this explanation: “Incomplete information and lack of technical details have resulted in speculations and misreporting.”
So it’s all down to incomplete information. What’s incomplete about Osama bin Laden being discovered in Abbottabad and an American attack team, in the darkness of a moonless night, making it to his compound and flying back to Afghanistan undetected?
Consider also this plaintive wail: “Public dismay and despondency has (sic) also been aggravated due to an insufficient formal response.” Which amounts to saying that better spin could have softened the impact of this disaster. When the mountains quiver and shake still an attempt to clutch at straws.
Why don’t we try honesty for a change? Why don’t we stop howling about violated honour and breached sovereignty when we, with our own virginal hands, mortgaged our sovereignty in the first Afghan ‘jihad’? The Americans did not force themselves upon us? Gen Ziaul Haq invited them, indeed asked for better terms in order to make the whole of Pakistan the staging post, the launching pad, for an enterprise which, as the years went by, was to bring us so much misery.
The Bin Ladens and other Arabs, and Chechens and Uzbeks, were equipped and launched into Afghanistan by us. The US and the Saudis may have funded that ‘jihad’ and the CIA may have provided the weapons. But we were the distributors and the liaison merchants, fired by the glory of what we never stopped claiming was a holy war.
Long after the Americans departed, when the entire dynamics of the game had changed we kept playing it. And, drawing the wrong conclusions, for good measure opened another ‘jihadi’ front in Indian-held Kashmir.
Kashmir was not liberated but an indigenous movement of resistance was corrupted and destroyed. Furthermore, the militias raised and trained for Kashmir over time turned into domestic problems. The spectre of terrorism haunting Pakistan has many dimensions but through them all runs the common thread of the culture of ‘jihad’ sponsored and promoted by Pakistan’s official agencies. And even after the world has changed, and so much of conventional wisdom lies atop the trashcans of history, we haven’t been able to rid our minds of such strange notions as of good and bad ‘jihadis’.
The world has moved on. Times have changed. We remain stuck in the past, none more so than our military guardians. In a country like Pakistan the military should be a repository of enlightened ideas, secular and progressive in its thinking. Yet what we see is the phenomenon of the army’s worldview having much in common with the thinking of the most reactionary sections of Pakistani society, as represented by the cohorts of the far right.
If this were just an ideological aberration it could be dismissed as something peculiar to the military with no other consequences. But when such notions begin to affect state policies and become the underpinning of strange strategic doctrines, and when these same notions encourage extra-territorial adventures as in Kashmir or India or Afghanistan, then the consequences become more substantive and, as in our case, fatal with the passage of time.
Without getting into the discussion whether anyone in Pakistan’s security hierarchy knew anything of Osama’s whereabouts or not, the sobering point for us to consider is that of all the countries in the world Osama could hide only in Pakistan, not because anyone was complicit in his hiding but because of the kind of society we have managed to create.
After 30 years of pro-jihadi policies, from one end of the country to the other, from Peshawar to Karachi, we have created a support network for ‘jihadi’ sympathisers. And the entire thrust of our foreign policy, with its emphasis on influence in Afghanistan and undying hostility towards India, has lent philosophical support to this network. This is a physical network and a network of the mind and both supplement each other.
The US may have violated our physical sovereignty and we are right to be outraged by it. But physical sovereignty is a passing concept, rooted in geography which can change. Our geography changed in 1971 but the concept of Pakistan remained unaltered in our minds. Germany’s geography changed in 1945 but the idea of Germany, quite apart from any change in frontiers, remained alive. Even after German reunification this idea remained the same.
Our inner sovereignty, our true sovereignty, was violated by our misguided and false notions of jihadism. When we saw nothing wrong in hosting elements who were extra-territorial players, intervening in Afghanistan and Kashmir, did the thought not cross our minds that this effort might boomerang on us and expose us to someone else’s definition of sovereignty?
The Israelis kidnapped Adolf Eichmann, a wanted war criminal, from Argentina. They laid a honey trap for their nuclear whistleblower, Mordechai Vinunu, in Rome. It stretches the imagination to think that the Americans would come to know of Osama’s presence somewhere in Pakistan and not move heaven and earth to nab him.
We should have intercepted their helicopter intrusion into Abbottabad. But perhaps it was all for the best that the gods of the night were kind and we were able to see and intercept nothing. What if, as those shouting the loudest about sovereignty would have wanted, our Shaheens had scrambled and shot down one or two helicopters? How would America have reacted if, as daylight broke, it was revealed that Osama had been discovered in Pakistan? It is mind-boggling to contemplate what then might have happened.
Let us condemn the US by all means but let us also look within ourselves to see as to how with our bizarre ideological preoccupations we have disfigured a once beautiful country, with so much promise in it, and made it the butt of international slander and derision. Headquarters of global ‘jihad’, home to so many of Al Qaeda’s leading figures, the footprints of so many terrorist acts originating from or leading to Pakistan. Is this a legacy and a reputation to be proud of? Which world are we living in?
If it be not too cruel to say so, we have been living a lie for too long and, if at all we are interested in what we like to call national honour, we must return to the paths of truth, concentrating on setting our house in order, working to make Pakistan a civilised country, an example for the rest of the Muslim world to follow, instead of becoming a bastion of everything that can be classified as backward and reactionary.
The Abbottabad affair is thus less a tragedy over which we should tear our hair and mourn endlessly and more an opportunity to re-examine some of our more cherished concepts and turn a new leaf in our life as a nation. But if we don’t change even after this wakeup call, then heaven alone help us. Our nukes, alas, would be of little use.
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http://thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=46782&Cat=9&dt=5/12/2011
The Funambulist State
Questions of balance will let Pak generals brazen out Abbottabad
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Hopes that Pakistan might abandon its policy of supporting jehadis with its right hand even as it slaps them with the left died shortly after the killing of Osama bin Laden by the US navy’s seals in Abbottabad. The world’s most prized fugitive was discovered ensconced in a mansion close to the famed Kakul Military Academy. But in spite of what columnist Ayaz Amir called the “mother of all embarrassments”, introspection and remorse were noticeably absent at the corps commanders’ conference three days later. Bluster dominated: the US would get a befitting response should it again violate Pakistan’s territorial integrity through “unilateral military action”.
The civilian government quaked as all this unfolded. It dared not suggest that the military was responsible for the putative intelligence failure. Tongue-tied for 36 hours, it awaited pointers from the army and then dutifully followed them. But the army was not satisfied; it wanted a proactive defence from the government. Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani made clear his unhappiness: “Incomplete information and lack of technical details have resulted in speculation and misreporting. Public despondency has also been aggravated due to an insufficient formal response.”
Thus prodded, a full eight days later, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani broke his eerie silence, absolving the army and the ISI of “either complicity or incompetence”. Before an incredulous world, he claimed both charges were “absurd”. And in a desperate attempt to spread the blame, he declared, “This is an intelligence failure of the whole world, not Pakistan alone.” In mutually contradictory statements, the government condemned the assassination while also claiming that the operation was carried out “in accordance with declared US policy that Osama bin Laden will be eliminated…wherever found in the world”, and that his death is a “setback to terrorist organisations around the world”.
The future? Though epoch-making, Osama’s assassination will have astonishingly little impact on Pakistan, or even on US-Pakistan relations. Angry US congressmen have accused Pakistan of double-dealing, and moved a bill to cut off all aid. This is unlikely to pass. Osama’s fortuitous elimination gives the US good cover to cut and run from an unsustainable war in Afghanistan. But until the US largely withdraws—which will certainly not happen before 2014—it will remain beholden to Pakistan for allowing nato supplies to be trucked across its territory as well as for limiting the operations of the Haqqani network (run by Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, and allied to the Taliban) in North Waziristan. Even more importantly, it is nervous about Pakistan’s ever-expanding nuclear arsenal and does not want its working military-to-military relationship to end.
Pakistan has its own reasons to avoid a divorce. Its economy is dependent upon US largesse and could otherwise rapidly collapse. It also sees strategic depth in Afghanistan once again lying within the realm of possibility, but this requires US acquiescence. All things considered, neither side feels it can afford to really upset the apple cart.
The Pak-India balance will also remain stable. Abbottabad might inspire some Indians to dream about Muridke and Bahawalpur, where the Lashkar and Jaish have HQs. But Indians know that, should they engage in an Abbottabad-like mission, the Pakistani response would be different—and disproportionate. Where nuclear-tipped missiles are poised for flight across borders, it is wise to avoid such fatal fantasies.
One need only recall Operation Parakram, India’s response to the December 2001 attack on its Parliament. It saw India mobilise nearly half a million soldiers along the LoC to punish Pakistan for harbouring Jaish, which had initially claimed responsibility for the attack. When Parakram fizzled out, Pakistan claimed victory and India was left licking its wounds.
Thus, New Delhi is unlikely to emerge with major gains. Its major demand—the crushing of anti-India militant groups on Pakistani soil—will not be fulfilled in the immediate aftermath. Pakistan’s strategic culture remains predicated on countering India. Maintaining, expanding and upgrading Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal to offset India’s growing military strength will therefore remain key to maintaining balance. Frankly, India should blame no one but itself for having aggressively initiated the nuclearisation of South Asia, in which the ultimate winner has been Pakistan.
Pakistan’s generals are red-faced today, but they are practised survivors. Secretly sending militants and soldiers across the LoC in Kargil, profiting from A.Q. Khan’s sale of nuclear wares and giving tacit permission to the Lashkar’s operations—none of this proved fatal when discovered. They will surely survive this crisis as well. For Pakistan’s people, it shall be business as usual. Unfortunately.
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?271831
Murderers and still honorable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PPP people still have the audacity to write this article. You should bee ashamed of your double standards!