DEMOCRATIC governments serve the people. They enhance their quality of life. They protect, not kill, them.
That shows a basic misunderstanding of the concept. A democratic government reflects the will of the people. There are times - periods of riot and/or insurrection spring to mind - in a nation's life, however, when killing a certain fraction of the demos becomes necessary for the survival of the rest of them.
But the Musharraf government that claims to be democratic has not only failed to redress the grievances of the people of Balochistan and the tribal areas of the NWFP. It has also chosen to kill its own people while addressing the concerns of its masters in the West.
Pakistan is, with the exception of the Democratic Republic of Congo, about the most prone to riot and insurrection of any country I can think of. Paleostine doesn't count because it's not an official country.
It sent in the army into these regions to crush the people whom it has dubbed as terrorists.
There was a certain fairness to dubbing them terrorists, since they were killing their fellow citizens, terrorizing the ones they didn't kill, and they were in open rebellion against the gummint.
In the process, it has ignited the flames of insurgency which could have far-reaching consequences for the future of the country. The flames are rising by the day. Afghanistans ruling Northern Alliance and Indias RAW must be rejoicing. They have been given an opportunity to exploit the insurgency to settle old scores with Pakistan. Given their animosity towards this country, they would make every effort to keep the flames burning.
From where I sit, it looks like the flames are being fanned from someplace in Chitral. Baitullah Mehsud as a Norther Alliance catspaw? TNSM as an instrument of RAW? The square pieces don't seem to fit into the round holes, do they?
The Pakistan Army is trained to fight a conventional, not a guerilla, war. The strategy of one is the antithesis of the other. Year after year, the army units practise the conduct of operations in a conventional setting, where the battlefield has well-defined fronts, flanks and rear areas and where the dispositions of the enemy are known.
In other words, their training, planning, and operations are hidebound and conventional. There is no original thinking, nor is there much thinking directed at the actual situation on the ground. That's probably why they've never won a war.
They are trained to fight as part of a brigade, which is a part of a division, a number of which constitute a corps. The armys strategic plan is required to be unified in conception. Centralisation is, therefore, inherent in the armys structure. Consequently, at the higher level, the planners are trained in the application of operational strategy to the planning and conduct of war against an adversary who enjoys numerical and material superiority. Against this backdrop, they seek to create a favourable relative situation at the right place and time for the decisive battle.
Another idea whose time has gone. Been gone for 50 years, in fact...
Thus, the armys strategy is characterised by concentration in time and space. Guerilla warfare has a totally different character. In it, there is no battlefield in the proper sense of the word, no fronts, no flanks and no rear areas. Instead of one large blow, the guerillas strike a number of small blows in different directions, without giving the adversary any respite. They avoid holding ground as much as they avoid pitched battles. In this way, they deny opportunities to the army to assert its superiority in combat power.
That's why good intelligence becomes paramount in counterguerrilla operations. You've got a real problem when your intel agency is actually on the side of the bad guyz, don't you?
Decentralisation is, therefore, inherent in the guerilla structure. Thus, their strategy is characterised by dispersion in time and space. In this antithesis lies the essential difference between the strategies of conventional warfare and guerilla warfare concentration on one side, dispersion on the other.
And yet, guerrilla wars have been won in the past...
When the insurgents come under pressure, they reach out and strike targets outside their zone of operations, as they did in Mardan, Hangu, Kohat, Mardan, D.I. Khan, Kharian, Quetta, Swat, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Tarbela. In the process, they have also conveyed a message to the government that they can strike anywhere at any time.
The gummint, rather than responding by attacking those controlling the insurgents, has instead given into their demands, released prisoners, withdrawn the military from their territory, and in general displayed a spectacular incompetence.
After the SSG operation against Lal Masjid, they had warned of dire revenge; by striking at Tarbela they have taken their revenge. As a result, military installations across the country have become more vulnerable, and the sense of fear and uncertainty in the minds of their commanders, more intense.
Yet still they refuse to purge their ranks of Islamists and those allied with them. Where do they get these geniuses?
The insurgents fighting the army have close affinity with the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan.
Ohfergawdsake. They are the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan. And both branches are operating in coordination with the al-Qaeda central command in Chitral. Both Pakistan and Afghanistan have designated Qaeda qommanders.
They not only enjoy the support of the local population, but also have the sympathy of the people outside their area. As a result, they have developed an effective intelligence network that enables them to stay a few steps ahead of the army.
Especially when aided by their ISI controllers...
They are battle-hardened and skilled in guerilla tactics and techniques, they know the local terrain well, and above all, are so highly motivated that they are willing to die even from suicide detonations.
They use the same tactics they use in Afghanistan, to somewhat less effect. The Afghans and ISAF regularly send 40, 50, 100 Taliban to hell in the course of a day's operations. The Paks lose 250 troops at a pop, just marching off under the guns of their fellow Moose limbs.
The soldiers on the other hand, do not know the terrain well and lack the support of the local people which also makes it difficult for the military intelligence to operate freely in the area. It was lack of correct intelligence that led to the capture and killing of 18 SSG commandos when they landed by helicopter on a hilltop in Waziristan for an operation.
And not apalling incompetence on the part of their officers. Certainly not.
Above all, the level of motivation of the soldiers when fighting their own people is as low as it is high when fighting an external enemy.
When your ranks have been infiltrated by the enemy that's often the case.
It was this factor, more than any other, which led the 300 armed soldiers to give themselves up to a small band of insurgents and it continues to manifest itself in the abduction of armed personnel of the security forces almost on a daily basis.
... making them look like a bunch of guys wearing similar suits, rather than an organized military force...
Given their traditional organisation and training, the soldiers find it difficult to adapt to the clandestine nature of guerilla warfare where the enemy, their own people, is invisible being everywhere, yet being nowhere. When they are moved from one point to the other, they are ambushed, and when they set up check posts, they are attacked.
... and there's not enough initiative to be found anywhere around them to figure what to do...
The heavy casualties, the surrender of 300 soldiers, the daily abductions, the attack in Tarbela, the killing of heli-landed commandos, and the sting of defeats suffered by the security forces, have clearly had a demoralising effect on them.
Poor guys. The Talibs are rubbing in the fact that on a scale of 1 to 10 they ain't squat.
This effect has been exacerbated by the fear that by fighting their own people they will neither become shaheed nor ghazi, and if they die, would they have died in vain, and remain unsung, like those who lost their lives in Kargil.
Life is tough. Decomposition's worse.
After the army crackdown in East Pakistan in March 1971, the Bengali soldiers of the army had deserted and joined the Mukti Bahini resistance force. In the tribal areas, a number of desertions by paramilitary soldiers are reported to have taken place. One hopes and prays that the Pathan soldiers, who constitute nearly 30 per cent of the armys rank and file, remain unaffected.
Go ahead. Hope. Pray. Make to attempt to weed them out, take no measures to minimize any damage they might do.
The government has blundered by sending the army to fight in an adverse operational environment, a so-called war on terror that the army knows it cannot win.
Sounds like they've decided they can't win...
History reacts sharply against those who refuse to learn from it. It did so against the United States in Vietnam and the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It is now reacting against the occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pakistan Army should have learnt this long ago.
Vietnam caused the U.S. military to reexamine its most basic concepts, to rebuild itself from the squad level up, not only correcting the problems it had in Vietnam, but anticipating the new problems it was creating for itself and addressing them as well. The former Soviet Union collapsed due to its internal contradictions, to express it in Marxspeak. 40th Army was organized pretty much like all other Soviet armies, and like the Pak army of today and the U.S. Army that went into Vietnam, it was trained and doctrined for conventional warfare. The Russers have actually learned something from the problems they had in Afghanistan, though it took them awhile to get away from the idea of using cheap and poorly trained conscripts against guerillas. But notice that they won in Chechnya, and that the win they racked up was driven by intel. Notice also that despite having taken out important players, including Maskhadov and al-Walid, the Chechen rebellion didn't collapse until the key player to whit, Basayev was obliterated.
The government must not go the way of those who ignored history and were punished. It must act with dispatch to extinguish the flames of insurgency before they engulf other areas.
That would seem to indicate using intel resources to indentify and locate those driving the insurgency, and military forces to kill them - that's actually preferable to capturing them and playing games with courtrooms and human rights yahoos. Notice that the Bugti insurgency dropped off drastically when Foster Brooks was killed.
If the negotiations with the most corrupt politician in Pakistan can be termed as being in the national interest, surely negotiating directly with the insurgents and reaching a settlement with them, would be in far greater national interest.
More likely it would involve giving them power. But that's what the writer would really like to see.
America would oppose this strategy because of its concern about cross-border infiltration.
It would force us to start crossing the border routinely.
This can be effectively addressed by prevailing upon the Americans to deploy the Afghan security forces on their side of the Durand Line to block all infiltration points.
Putting all the responsibility on the Afghan side. The Paks don't do real well with responsibility.
Since the Pakistani security forces are already deployed on their side of the Line, any large-scale cross-border infiltration through the two deployments would not be possible.
Certainly no more possible than, for instance, into Kashmir.
In the meantime, the government should initiate steps to restore the image of the army which has taken considerable battering in the last six years by transforming it from an instrument of a political party to an institution of the people.
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army.
This article starring:
Lal Masjid
Posted by: john frum ||
09/27/2007 06:44 ||
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#1
A retired brigadie? Let make the calculation this guy was lieutenanat or captain in the Pak Army when this murdered two million persons in Bangla Desh in addition to the rapes. Later he continued in the institution without being ashamed of it. Enough said.
#2
Yet still they refuse to purge their ranks of Islamists and those allied with them. Where do they get these geniuses?
Errmmm ... the madrassas?
Great inline, Fred, as always. Javed Hussain's Taliban cheerleading comes across like Condoleeza Rice and her glowing eulogy for Zarqawi. Hussain's sympathies are quite obviously not with democracy or freedom.
Here are some Nuggets snippets from the Urdu press that have ruined breakfast for me in the last few days: "Two women beheaded for alleged immorality in Bannu." "Barbers association imposes 5,000 rupee fine for shaving in Mingora, Swat." "Rocks with Buddhist engravings and images damaged by explosives in Jehanabad, Swat."
Bannu is around 100 kilometres from Islamabad, in the settled areas of the NWFP. Swat used to be one of our biggest tourist attractions in the days foreigners could come to Pakistan on vacation. We used to talk about the creeping Talibanisation of Pakistan over the last decade. Clearly, it is now moving at a much faster pace. One factor that has hastened its encroachment across the country is the presence of clerical-led governments in the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. By enacting retrogressive laws, and imposing stone-age rules, politicians in these provinces have encouraged extremists to bully citizens into accepting their primitive, Talibanesque lifestyle.
And as large swathes of the country are pushed back to the dark ages, the state remains a silent spectator. As we saw in the Lal Masjid drama, this government is prepared to use endless patience while dealing with Islamic extremism. But when a centrist politician like Nawaz Sharif challenges Musharrafs authority, all the massive coercive power of the state is deployed to thwart him.
One reason for this one-sided policy is that militants are armed and dangerous, while most mainstream political parties are not violent organisations.
One reason for this one-sided policy is that militants are armed and dangerous, while most mainstream political parties are not violent organisations.
Another reason for the softly-softly approach is that over the years, a symbiotic relationship has developed between the Army and Islamic militants. As far back as 1971, when the Army helped set up Al-Badr and Al-Shams in East Pakistan to fight the freedom fighters of the Mukti Bahini, GHQ has recognised the value of militant groups that could fight as adjuncts to regular units.
This lesson came in handy when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and the ISI, together with the CIA and the Saudis, supported a confusing array of jihadi outfits to combat the Soviets. Using jihad as a rallying cry, thousands of Muslim volunteers from around the world were summoned to join the cause. And Zia, as the dictator of Pakistan, played godfather to local and foreign Islamic militants. In fact, he is the architect of much of the shambles we see around us today.
A decade later, after the Soviet pullout, we had dozens of heavily armed jihadi groups sitting around in the NWFP and Baluchistan with no war to fight. Conveniently, the Kashmir insurrection broke out in 1989, and soon, volunteers from outfits like the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba were pouring across the Line of Control to fight Indian troops. Although they were largely financed by religious groups in Pakistan, their training was organised by serving and retired intelligence agency veterans of the Afghan war. Often, they crossed the LoC under covering artillery fire provided by the Army. Inevitably, all this state-supported armed militancy had a domestic fallout. Since Zias decade of devastation, fanatical militants have enjoyed state patronage and legitimacy. As Zahid Husain writes in his book Frontline Pakistan: "The continuing state patronage of Islamic militancy in return produced an escalation in domestic sectarian conflict. The two were closely intertwined. Pakistans elected civilian governments in the 1990s had to bear the brunt of sectarian violence and the resultant insecurity and alienation. Both the Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif governments took steps to combat sectarianism but, given the militarys backing for regional jihad, those efforts failed. The jihad connection made the sectarian militants more strident, and with easy access to sophisticated weapons, they turned more violent."
Clearly, then, the nexus between the Army and militant groups has been deadly for us as well as for the region. And although Musharraf has stated his intention of severing the Armys old ties to these groups, the fact is that they are still flourishing. Battle-hardened in Afghanistan and Kashmir, they are more than a match for the Army, as events in Waziristan and elsewhere have shown.
The most recent illustration of their prowess is the ease with which they have captured hundreds of our soldiers, without having to fire a shot. In fact, this is as much of a comment on our Armys morale as it is on the abilities of the militant groups. It would appear that soldiers are finding it difficult to fire on their own countrymen, and would rather surrender than fight what is seen as "Americas war." Given the fact the Army is the only institution in the country capable of fighting the jihadis, but is reluctant to do so for the reasons discussed above, what options do we have? Do we succumb to the forces of darkness, or can we somehow find the resolve and the means to draw the line?
Musharrafs political compulsions make it difficult for him to crack down on militants, despite his brave words. He is hamstrung by the presence of the MMA in the governments of the NWFP and Baluchistan. He is reaping what he sowed: in the 2002 elections, he made it possible for the religious parties to win so many seats for the first time in our history. With the provincial authorities dragging their feet, he cannot use the full strength at his disposal, even if he wanted to. And as we have noted, there is a continuing relationship between individuals in the intelligence agencies and the Army and the militants. Without political will, we cannot win this struggle. The battle can still be fought and won, but time is running out for Pakistan.
Posted by: john frum ||
09/27/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Pak military will not fight terror
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!
The charade is over. Pakistan will do nothing of substance to reverse its role as Terror Central. It is time to end this farce and begin a campaign of decimation in the frontier provinces bordering Afghanistan. They are nothing but a rat's nest of terrorist education centers and need to be catastrophically dismantled post haste. The Taliban's recent "capture" of a few hundred Pakistani regulars should end all doubt as to whose side the military really is on.
The mantra "there is no military solution to terrorism" is so rarely challenged these days that it was shocking to see the following commentary last Wednesday on the front page of Haaretz, a leading bastion of the "no military solution" theory.
"It's common to claim it is impossible to defeat terrorism," the analysis stated. But in the seven years since the intifada began, "the IDF and Shin Bet have come as close as possible to achieving victory. Since the beginning of the year, two soldiers (one each in the West Bank and Gaza) and six civilians (three in a suicide bombing in Eilat, two from Kassam rockets in Sderot and one who was stabbed to death in Gush Etzion) have been killed by terrorism. This is a very small number, considering the number of attempted attacks, and also compared to the high point of the intifada, when 450 Israelis were killed in 2002. The last suicide bombing in central Israel occurred 18 months ago, in April 2006.
"The formula that produced this achievement is known," it continued: aggressive intelligence gathering, the security fence and "the IDF's complete freedom of action in West Bank cities."
If this is not victory, it is a close enough approximation that most Israelis would happily settle for it. That is why the June Peace Index poll found Jewish Israelis overwhelmingly opposed to security concessions to the Palestinian Authority, with 79 percent against arming the PA, 71 percent against removing checkpoints and 54 percent against releasing prisoners: Few Israelis want to scrap measures that have reduced Israeli fatalities from 450 to eight over the last five years.
It also helps explain the stunning reversal in Israeli attitudes toward Sderot revealed by August's Peace Index poll. According to that poll, fully 69 percent of Jewish Israelis now support an extensive ground operation in Gaza to stop the Kassam fire at southern Israel - whereas last December, 57 percent opposed such an operation. Moreover, this support crossed party lines: Even among people who voted for the leftist Labor and Meretz parties, 64 and 67 percent, respectively, favored a major military operation in Gaza.
CLEARLY, THIS reversal occurred partly because in the interim, all other options had been exhausted. The December poll came a month after Hamas declared a cease-fire in Gaza, and while the truce had not fully taken hold, many still hoped that it would. By August, those hopes had died: Not only were rockets fired at Sderot almost daily during the "cease-fire," but in May, Hamas trumpeted its contempt for the truce by claiming credit for over 100 Kassam launches in a single week. Additionally, in December, Mahmoud Abbas was nominally in control of Gaza, and many still hoped that he would take action to stop the rocket fire. By August, Hamas was in full control.
The fact that Israel first sought nonmilitary solutions in Gaza resembles its behavior during the first 18 months of the intifada: It signed cease-fires (which instantly collapsed), declined to respond even to major suicide bombings inside Israel (Dolphinarium and Sbarro), and generally sought to get the Palestinian security services to reassert control. But as the casualty toll, especially inside Israel, mounted, it became clear that salvation would not come from the PA.
In March 2002, Israel reconquered the West Bank in Operation Defensive Shield - and Israeli fatalities dropped dramatically, that year and every year thereafter.
So in March 2002, Israel reconquered the West Bank in Operation Defensive Shield - and Israeli fatalities dropped dramatically, that year and every year thereafter.
HOWEVER, there is one crucial difference between the intifada's early years and the recent Israeli quest for a nonmilitary solution in Gaza: While Israelis would always prefer to avoid risking soldiers' lives, they now know, as they did not in 2002, that the military option works. After all, not a single Kassam has been fired at Israel from the West Bank. Hence Israelis are not awaiting leadership from above; they are backing military action even as the politicians still vehemently reject it.
Given this growing recognition among the Israeli public, it is bizarre to hear senior politicians and military officers still parroting the "no military solution to terror" mantra. But at least these officials understand that in practice, Israel's defensive measures in the West Bank work, and therefore, ending them would be a bad idea (not to mention unpopular with the voters).
International agencies and diplomats, in contrast, have not even gotten that far. Any of them could, if they took five minutes to examine the data, realize that Israel's military measures in the West Bank have dramatically reduced Israeli fatalities, especially inside Israel, since 2002; yet they persist in declaring that these measures are unnecessary and must be scrapped. Thus Condoleezza Rice uses her every visit to pressure Israel on this issue, while the World Bank once again demanded last week that Israel remove West Bank checkpoints, open its border with Gaza and restore freedom of movement between Gaza and the West Bank.
Or perhaps this is feigned ignorance, meant to cover a willingness to sacrifice Israeli lives in order to demonstrate "progress" in the peace process. The World Bank report, for instance, coyly stated that "the costs are subjective to each side and are beyond the scope of this report" - thereby sparing it the need to acknowledge that the likely cost is Israeli lives - but "all parties will need to expend more resources and assume more risks than they have done in the past."
Is it really unaware of what those carefully unstated risks are? Either way, however, this willful blindness perpetuates the conflict by ensuring that a key obstacle to resolving it - Palestinian terror - remains unaddressed. In 1993, many Israelis hoped that a peace agreement would end terror. Fourteen years later, after having suffered more fatalities from Palestinian terror post-Oslo than during the entire preceding 45 years, most Israelis have concluded that the allegedly nonexistent military solution does a much better job of protecting their lives. And until there is concrete evidence of Palestinian willingness and ability to do the job as well or better, there will be no Israeli majority for any deal with the PA.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/27/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
The next step is figuring out that (i) Paleos are just the tip of the knife & (ii) "International Community" will never be entirely happy with Israel's existence.
#2
Or perhaps this is feigned ignorance, meant to cover a willingness to sacrifice Israeli lives in order to demonstrate "progress" in the peace process. The World Bank report, for instance, coyly stated that "the costs are subjective to each side and are beyond the scope of this report" - thereby sparing it the need to acknowledge that the likely cost is Israeli lives - but "all parties will need to expend more resources and assume more risks than they have done in the past."
The unwillingness of participating partiesincluding Americato foresake their heavy investments of political capital in the "Roadmap" is amounting to nothing less than creeping anti-Semitism. Much like "slow jihad", continued coddling of Palestinian terroristswhile simultaneously ignoring routine loss of Israeli lifeexplicitly implies the acceptability of "slow Genocide". This can no longer be countenanced by any nation with the least pretenses of civilization. It's long past tea to expel all Palestinians on Israeli soil into surrounding Muslim nations and be done with this murderous farce.
Paleos are just the tip of the knife
Word, gg. Palestinians are merely the bayonet on Islam's machine gun.
#3
After all, not a single Kassam has been fired at Israel from the West Bank. Hence Israelis are not awaiting leadership from above; they are backing military action even as the politicians still vehemently reject it.
How is it that democracies have spawned politicians who follow rather than lead ? This happens here and apparently in the EU also. Too many elites, too many elites.
#4
When the Palestinian Arabs hit rock bottom Israel can go into the West Bank and establish a puppet government (called Judea to really torque folks). A puppet that could do the real dirty work Israel is unwilling to do at this point. a real aparthied state if needs be but one that has job and industry to employ Arabs and keep htem from going into Israel for work. They could try and execute war criminals and expelling others to Gaza and Jordan and otherwise do the nasty stuff Israel doesn't really have the stomach for.
The Boers had two republics after all, why not the Jews. Let them do a Good Cop/Bad Cop just like the Arabs did with the Palestinians.
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