A
tribesman stands by his house, demolished by the Army
A
Former ISI Chief Attacks the Army Strategy
By
Lt Gen. (Retd) Asad Durrani
ISLAMABAD:
With all this military involvement, the people of Pakistan should
have understood their Army a little better. If the Army has not
learnt enough about things non-military, there might be a good
reason: soldiers are a simple lot and the world outside so complex.
There
is, however, no civilian excuse for mistaking some very simple
soldierly traits; what makes a commando for example.
Whenever our uniformed president does a bit of straight talking
or plays ‘up front’, it is called a “commando”
act.
A
commando on the other hand acts stealthily, usually behind the
enemy lines. His is a covert operation, planned minutely over
a long period of time. The climax is short and violent, followed
by quick withdrawal. If there was a military equivalent of terrorist
tactics, it is the commando action. No one can fault Pervez Musharraf
for any of that.
I think like so much else that is misunderstood in this country,
we can blame the Americans for this puzzlement. Our distorted
image of a commando seems to stem from Hollywood. In real life,
Schwarzenegger would never make it in any special forces. For
one thing, there are no large enough sanctuaries to hide his hulk.
Indeed,
the Americans are not responsible for all our ills. The Russians,
too, have had their share. Glasnost and Perestroika (G&P),
the Soviet Union’s last hurrah, did not pass away with the
Empire; these were passed over to us - to some of our military
thinkers to be precise.
The Soviets were not done in by G&P alone, but I do recall
a suggestion that they should have done Perestroika, the restructuring,
before opening up.
The
Chinese heeded the advice, even though the Glasnost is still waiting
in the queue. We did one better: restructured the civilians (remember
the Great Devolution!); and before most of us had heard of ‘Glasnost’,
the Great Mogul (also a commando) adopted it as a principle of
war; to win the hearts and minds of our friends and to strike
terror into the hearts of our enemies (remember Zarb-e-Momin!).
It all seems to have got mixed up lately.
Soon after we launched a peace offensive with India, we lost to
them in cricket and hockey, and that on our home grounds. I do
not believe we did it on purpose. Those who swing from “crush
India” to “love India” merely on a whiff of
peace do not have a purpose.
I
care little about cricket, and a lot about peace, but I still
suspect that we give our best against India, also on the sports
field, only when fired with the spirit of jihad.
These
days one gets fired if one as much as mentioned jihad, even in
its most sublime form, all to win the hearts and minds faraway.
Terror we strike only into the hearts of our near and dear ones.
Mercifully, we have corrected the course in the Tribal Areas.
Too bad that some Afghan-Americans and Yankophiles here are unhappy.
Too bad that Karimov, America’s best bet in Central Asia,
is also unhappy; except that he has some good reasons. Some of
his troubles did find their way to our border areas.
We
must find a way to deal with them, and with their human shields.
Hopefully, shooting with the gun can be avoided. I am not so sure
if we can resist shooting with the mouth.
After the military operations were “suspended”, some
of our compatriots, in and no longer in uniform, defended the
use of gun.
One
of them propounded that a “zarb” (strike)
was necessary to soften up the tribesmen (obviously, we have come
a long way from Zarb-e-Momin). Another blurted that it
was to give the “process” (of knocking sense into
the tribesmen, I suppose!) a “fillip”. (Ariel)
Sharon has the same idea, but not when dealing with his own people.
In
this post-glasnost world, the practitioners of force have to,
at times, talk to the people. It would help them to remember that
the golden principle, while using force or when talking to the
people, is the same.
The
force is best employed when the objectives are achieved without
its actual use; and the unsaid words convey the message most effectively.
The
writer is a former Chief of the ISI and recently retired Pakistan
Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. This article was published in The
Nation
