Why fight my Muslim brethren
The average Pakistani soldier has already psychologically crossed over to the Jehadi side. It is impossible to convince him to undertake military action against his co-religionist brethren.
New York Times eventually discovers, albeit belatedly, that the average Pakistani is not ready to believe that their home grown jehadis could be behind the recent spate of terror attacks in Pakistan. This explains the pressing need for the Pakistani government officials to fabricate evidence of an Indian hand in South Waziristan. It is another matter that Bill Roggio can easily disprove both the theory of an Indian hand and the purported evidence put forth by the Pakistani versions of Comical Ali.
While satisfying the popular opinion by producing such evidence may be a compulsion for the Pakistani political establishment, the challenge for the Pakistani Army is equally grave. How does the Pakistan army justify the action against fellow Muslim brethren to its troops, that too in an Islamic Republic, with a past history of associating closely with these Jehadis? Well, it has earlier resorted to claiming that the jehadis in Swat were actually Jewish.
There are many who believe that this is all a figment of fertile Indian imagination and a professional Pakistan army faces no such challenge. For those naysayers, here are a couple of slides from the presentation given by a Pakistan army officer, Major Ali Iqbar in a Workshop on Counterinsurgency Leaders held at US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center, Fort Leavenworth from 27 to 29 October this year. Major Iqbar was the operations staff officer of 315 Brigade in Swat when the Pakistan army moved in there for Operation Rah-e-Haq in 2007.
After identifying the crisis — of finding an explanation for the soldiers to act against those demanding Islamic Law in an Islamic state — Major Iqbar identifies the foremost challenge for the Pakistan army at the start of the operations.
The good Major doesn’t venture further to explain how his brigade commander and unit commanders successfully overcame this challenge. Perhaps because they did nothing except blame it on a Indian-Zionist conspiracy to destabilise the only Muslim state with a nuclear bomb!
As long as the bones of military aid and equipment are bring thrown by the US, the dog that is the Pakistan army, will have to continue with this charade of acting against certain sections of not-so-friendly Taliban. However even against these so-called enemies of Pakistan, Pakistan army will have to continually invoke the bogey of an Indian hand to motivate its soldiers — drawn from a radically Islamised society — to undertake military operations. When the average Pakistani soldier has already crossed over to the jehadi side — not physically but psychologically — no goading by the brass can force the average trooper to lift his weapon against his own co-religionist brethren.
There is no better way to understand the psychological make-up of an average Pakistani soldier than by going through this anecdote by Londonstani at Abu Muqawama’s blog.
In terms of perception of religious observance and its role in public life, there seems to be a shift towards the more severe and less tolerant. This doesn’t necessarily translate always into practice, but more a shared understanding that more severe and more rigid must equal more righteous, and that those who are very severe (or even just look it) must be deferred to.
Now, where this gets scary is when you hear a conversation like:
Person 1: “The Taliban couldn’t have blown up the market in Peshawar because a Muslim wouldn’t do that.”
Person 2: “No, the Americans did it. But you know, the market that got blown up catered for women. And you know it’s haram for women to go out of the house.”
Person 1: “oh…..yeah”[AM]
Couldn’t agree with you more. After the ‘71 war, Pakistan was forced to(?) stress on Islam. Its raison d’etre became the means of survival on all fronts. Under Gen Zia, Islam became an instrument of foreign policy to strengthen Pakistan’s relations with Muslim countries, and internally Zia also brought an alliance of sorts between the military and the Islam Pasand (favoring) parties. It suited everything, money from the gulf, leadership in a fighting muslim world, internal politics, Kashmir policy and keeping the internal cohesiveness.
Within the Punjabi officer dominated Army, it provided a much needed binding factor. Strangely, perhaps due to compulsions of the vanquished, it was Bhutto who ordered the then Army chief Gen Zia to Islamicise the Pakistan Army (ban on drinking was one measure!), which he later was to regret(not the drinking!) – so says Stephen Cohen in his book “The Idea of Pakistan”.
When it comes to men, as anybody who has led soldiers will agree, the motivating factors need to be strong and long lasting. In the case of Pakistan Army these reasons have been under conflict and not stood the test of time. The reason for creation was an Islamic land, while they fought against their muslin brethren( East Pakistan); they supported the Mujahidin against the Russians and are now fighting (?) certain sections of the Taliban.
Its a huge ideological test for Pakistan Military now. Soldiers will be tested both, on the battlefield and within the fundamentalist society from which they hail. Who wins is a tough call, but I hope for them and for us, that they do win.
I am not optimistic about the Pakistani army having the will, leave along the ability, to take on their jehadi creations. At some point, the only way the Army may have to preserve their power would be to openly take the side of the jehadis, and everything happening so far is only going to delay the inevitable.
The Pakistani army has shown no will to tackle their own creations, so they will not be successful. The problem is that the US has tied its own success to that of the Pakistani Army, and the Pakistani army is actually afraid of succeeding in the quest of eliminating their “non-state” terrorist capabilities. At some point, the Pakistani Army is not going to be able to even pretend to be in control of Pakistan, like it is doing today. Today, there is charade of a civilian govt. in Pakistan that owes its existence to the Army, and the Pak. Army is painfully aware that delegitimizing the civilian govt. and performing an Army Coup, as is the norm, will not win the Pak. Army any friends. There is simply no entity or organization with the ideological pull to counter the ideological pull of Islam that affects a large portion of the pakistani populace.
In the past, this would be about the right time for the civilian govt. to lose all legitimacy in the eyes of the pakistani public, signalling an imminent Pakistani army coup to bring “order” to the country. Shortly afterwards, a brand-new and shiny military dictator will be anointed Caliph of Pakistan, and he will be toast of the “international community” for the next 36 months.
However, losing control of their “non-state assets” has significantly weakened the Army’s leverage on the jihadi groups.
Musharraf was recorded saying that the Army had the terrorist groups by the scruff of their neck during Kargil. Clearly, 10 years down the line, Pak Army control of the jehadis can no longer be taken for granted by current Gen. Kiyani and his cohorts.
“is asking for religious law too much”
It is, absolutely. Religion, similar stuff like Astrology, Homeopathy, Chiropractic(s), Acupuncture should have no place in Politics, Law, Commerce, Crusades, Jihads, random Agony and Ecstasy, Trick or Treatments, blocking traffic in downtown Delhi with pedestrian processions, or Holy water to home carriers, or all night sing songs or noisy appeals to join in beseeching ‘im or her up there in some galaxy already busy monitoring the 57 ‘elementary’ particles all light and dark matter is composed of including mms.
The law can also be vicious without helpful inputs from Religion. Link:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6800233.ece
Reminds of the Punch cartoon, shows a gent stitching back the hand of a convict righteously punished for theft with the comment ‘ sorry old boy, the reprieve order arrived by camel post a little late.’
[...] who are waging their war in the name of Islam against the Karzai government. Pakistan army, when asking its troops to fight the co-religionist jehadis on its own land, has often used the subterfuge of Pakistani Taliban being part of a [...]