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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on January 24, 2021 at 1:35pm

If there is no revolutionary mood among the masses in the heartland of Punjab, revolution also seems highly unlikely in the face of the power of Punjab’s entwined landowning, business, military and bureaucratic elites, and the deep traditionalism of most of the population. Nevertheless, Punjab has also long been home to very strong strains of Islamic revivalism. The headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat, the world’s greatest Muslim preaching organization, is in Raiwind, 20 miles to the south-west of Lahore. The Tabligh have always stressed their peaceful and apolitical nature; but 10 miles to the north-west of Lahore is Muridke, the headquarters of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, mother organization to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which played a leading role in the jihad against India in Kashmir, and carried out the November 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai.

Lieven, Anatol. Pakistan (p. 271). PublicAffairs. Kindle Edition.

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on January 24, 2021 at 1:37pm

There does seem to be a sort of loose community of sentiment favouring Punjab among many senior Punjabi army officers and bureaucrats – though one which is endlessly cut across by personal and political ties and ambitions, and by considerations of qaum (community) and religious affiliation. As a senior official in Islamabad told me: You have to argue twice as hard to push through any project in one of the other provinces; and if I want to push through a project to help a city in one of the other provinces, I always have to be careful to balance it with one helping a Punjabi city; but it doesn’t work the other way round. Any Sindhi-based national government has to lean over backwards to show that it is not disadvantaging the Punjab in any way. Concerning official jobs, according to the quota Punjabis have less than their proportion of the population, but they are over-represented in the senior jobs. That is partly because they are better educated on average – and that also means that they dominate the merit-based entry and the quota for women. He also said that I should be aware that he is a Mohajir, and therefore possibly biased himself. The closest Pakistan came to a united Punjabi establishment was under Zia-ul-Haq, when a Punjabi military ruler created a Punjab-based national political party under a Punjabi industrialist (Nawaz Sharif). However, the alliance between the military and the PML(N) frayed in the 1990s and collapsed completely when General Musharraf overthrew Nawaz Sharif’s government in 1999. Since then, relations have been at best extremely distrustful. In turn, there are deep differences between northern Punjabi industrialists (who tend to support either the PML(N) or military regimes), and southern Punjabi ‘feudals’ (who tend towards the PPP). Punjabi industrialists, however, cannot dominate military regimes, as witness their failure to achieve their infrastructure and energy needs under both Zia and Musharraf. Finally, the Muslim religious leaders in Punjab are so fractured along theological, political, personal and regional lines that it does not make sense to speak of them as an establishment at all.

Punjabis from north-central Punjab certainly feel superior to the other nationalities in Pakistan, and this feeling – of which the others are well aware – helps to keep ethnic relations in a permanent state of mild tension. The Punjabis from these regions are quite convinced (and it must be said, with good reason) that they are harder working, better organized and more dynamic than anyone else in Pakistan except the Mohajirs; and while Punjabis respect Mohajirs, since the latter are not farmers they cannot really be fully fitted into the traditional Punjabi view of the world (as a very unkind saying about the Punjabi Jats has it: ‘Other peoples have culture. The Jats have agri-culture’). For the Sindhis, Punjabis tend to feel a rather amused and tolerant contempt, as for pleasant and easy-going but lazy younger relatives. For the Baloch there is contempt without the tolerance, as primitive tribesmen sponging off Punjabi charity. For the Pathans, however, Punjabi sentiments are very different, in ways that may have an effect on their attitudes to the Taleban and the war in Afghanistan.

Lieven, Anatol. Pakistan (pp. 282-283). PublicAffairs. Kindle Edition.

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Permalink Reply by Ameer Alam on May 25, 2021 at 11:31am

There is no questions that the components of military are the most organized in the country. However, the affairs of the population must always be run by their elected civilian leaders. However the people of Pakistan have no good choices but to successively elect corrupt politicians. They have not only mercilessly gutted the country out of its financial resources, but have also destroyed all independently institutions and the bureaucracy of the country. A spiraling culture of unscrupulousness pervades the country, resulting in mass exodus of talent and educated youngster.

Like Putin said,

"Pakistanis only come to die in their country"  

But one should remember that depending on the military to run the civilian affairs is not a long term solution, because lack of political wisdom can cause serious harm to the country. Lets not forget Bangladesh  

Ameer Alam

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on May 29, 2021 at 1:58pm

Meanwhile, the country’s military – always a key player in Pakistan’s politics – receives stunningly high ratings. Fully 87% say the military is having a good influence on the nation, up from an already high 79% in 2013.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2014/08/27/a-less-gloomy-mood-in...

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on July 14, 2021 at 5:44pm

Top #US general warned of a #coup in #Trump’s last days. General Milley: “They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed. You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with guns” #biden

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/14/donald-trump-reichs...


Shortly before the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, told aides the US was facing a “Reichstag moment” because Donald Trump was preaching “the gospel of the Führer”, according to an eagerly awaited book about Trump’s last year in office.

The excerpts from I Alone Can Fix This, by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, were reported by New York magazine on Wednesday. The authors’ employer, the Washington Post, published the first extract from the book a day earlier. It will be published next week.

Milley’s invocation of Germany under the Third Reich follows a report in another book, Frankly, We Did Win This Election, by Michael C Bender, that Trump told his chief of staff, John Kelly, “Hitler did a lot of good things”.

Trump denies having made the remark.

Leonnig and Rucker report that Milley spoke to an “old friend”, who warned the general that Trump and his allies were trying to “overturn the government” in response to Joe Biden’s election victory, which Trump falsely maintains was the result of electoral fraud.

Milley is reported to have said: “They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed. You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with guns.”

Reportedly calling Trump supporters “Brownshirts”, a reference to paramilitaries who served Hitler in Germany in the 1930s, Milley is reported to have believed long before the Capitol attack that “Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military”.

Milley notoriously appeared with Trump in Lafayette Square in Washington in June 2020, after anti-racism protesters had been aggressively cleared and as Trump walked to a church to stage a photo op with a Bible.

The general apologised for that incident. It has been widely reported that he resisted Trump’s efforts then to invoke the Insurrection Act and crack down on the protests.

Milley’s “Reichstag moment” remark refers to a fire at the German parliament which the Nazis used to consolidate their authoritarian rule in 1933.

Trump’s supporters attacked Congress on 6 January, the day the electoral college results were certified . Five people died.

Leonnig and Rucker report that Milley called the attackers “Nazis” and, in reference to two far-right groups, said “they’re boogaloo boys, they’re Proud Boys”.

“These are the same people we fought in [the second world war],” he reportedly said.

According to New York magazine, the authors also report that Milley, who made headlines and stoked rightwing ire last month by defending teaching about historic racism in army educational establishments, met former first lady Michelle Obama at the Capitol on 20 January, the day Biden was inaugurated.

“No one has a bigger smile today than I do,” Milley reportedly said. “You can’t see it under my mask but I do.”

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on December 2, 2021 at 7:08am

Gallup Pakistan
@GallupPak
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4h
Ninety per cent or 9 out of 10 Pakistanis believe that it is very important to respect the army in order to be a true Pakistani, according to a recent poll conducted by Gallup and Gilani Pakistan

https://twitter.com/GallupPak/status/1466356861297434627?s=20

Ninety per cent Pakistanis believe respecting army is very important

https://www.bolnews.com/latest/2021/12/ninety-per-cent-pakistanis-b...

LAHORE. Ninety per cent or 9 out of 10 Pakistanis believe that it is very important to respect the army in order to be a true Pakistani, according to a recent poll conducted by Gallup and Gilani Pakistan.

At the opinion poll on patriotism — released on November 25 – a national representative sample of adult men and women from across the four provinces was asked as to what degree he or she believes respecting the army is necessary to be a true Pakistani.

According to Gallup Pakistan, in response to this question, 90% people said it is very important; 7% said it is somewhat important; 1% said it is of very little importance while another 1% people said it is not important at all. One percent did not know the answer or provided no response.

Interestingly, slightly more rural respondents (92%) felt that it is very important to respect the army in order to be a true Pakistani as compared to urban respondents (87%).

The study was released by Gilani Research Foundation and carried out by Gallup and Gilani Pakistan. The recent survey was conducted using a sample of 1,730 men and women in urban and rural areas of all four provinces of the country from September 23, 2021 to October 8, 2021.

According to Gallup Pakistan the error margin was estimated to be approximately ± 2-3 percent at the 95% confidence level. The methodology used for data collection was CATI.

Talking to Bol News with regard to the poll, analyst Imtiaz Gul said if it was a representative survey then it obviously reflects public sentiment and hence people at large should keep this in mind when judging the armed forces. Foul-mouthing or casting aspersions on any state institution is bad anyway.

Dr Maria Sultan, a leading defence analyst and South Asian Strategic Stability Institute University (SASSI) director general, said the armed forces are the backbone of the country’s defence and the survey reflects the fact that it is a truly representative organisation that will stand for the people.

“Hence the faith in the institution is the reflection of this expectation that the armed forces represent a commitment to the country’s and people’s interest in line with our strategic culture,” she said.

Agreeing with them, senior defence analyst Lt Gen (retd) Ghulam Mustafa said a very important thing about Pakistan which people forget is the relationship of the armed forces with its masses.

For him, firstly, one thing which cannot be denied is that every fourth or fifth Pakistani is related to the army one way or another directly or indirectly. Either his brother, sister or relative is part of the army because they are aware of what the army is doing for them, he said.

Read more: Lt Gen Nigar Johar’s appointment as AMC col commandant ‘matter of pride’, says COAS

“On the other hand, the army, about which it is said that they are spending a lot of money, also knows how they are doing gigantic tasks in such a limited budget.

“Secondly, this relationship of masses and the armed forces should be seen from another perspective as well that if one brother is a general or lieutenant general his brother could be a sepoy which speaks volumes about the merit of this institution as in the army the sons of sepoys can also reach the rank of general which is not possible in any other department or institution of this country.

“Even the masses are aware that in the army if a father is a general it is no guarantee that his son or daughter will also become a general. Due to all of these reasons the masses have a huge amount of respect for the armed forces,” he said.

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on December 18, 2021 at 2:19pm

Excerpt of Our Man, Richard Holbrooke's biography by George Packer

Pakistan’s generals, not its politicians, defined the national interest. General Ashfaq Kayani, the chief of army staff, and General Shuja Pasha, head of the ISI, were Punjabis from the lower middle class. The military offered a path upward to hardworking Pakistanis like them, and it taught them to despise the civilian politicians as privileged, selfish, undisciplined. Kayani was a chain-smoking golfer with a strategic mind that remained stuck in the 1950s, when the existential threat to Pakistan came from India. He had studied at Fort Leavenworth and admired the U.S. armed forces. He had all the time in the world for his American counterpart, Admiral Mullen, who made twenty-seven trips to Pakistan as chairman of the Joint Chiefs and always dined alone with Kayani at his house in Rawalpindi, the cantonment city next to Islamabad, patiently trying to understand what Pakistan wanted from the United States. Kayani had less interest in seeing Holbrooke.


Packer, George. Our Man . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Haq on December 18, 2021 at 5:08pm

Excerpt of "Our Man", US diplomat Richard Holbrooke's biography by George Packer

As for Pakistan’s politicians, they would always promise things they couldn’t deliver because they didn’t have the popular standing at home. The public was divided on violent Islamists but nearly united in its strident anti-Americanism, which no amount of flood relief could change. But the promises kept coming along with the deceptions, because the generals and the politicians needed the Americans. It was like theater, Haqqani said. The whole region was a theater in which everyone understood their part, except the Americans.

These lessons were delivered below the waterline. They bore no resemblance to the ambassador’s official cables to the foreign secretary in Islamabad after his formal meetings with Holbrooke, in which he echoed the Pakistani military’s suspicion of every American move. His cables were part of the theater. Holbrooke’s labors were gargantuan. The contemplation of them wears me out. Repeated trips to Islamabad, strategic dialogues in Washington, donor meetings in Tokyo and Madrid, the bilats, the trilats, the fifth draft of the thirty-seventh memo, the sheer output of words—in pursuit of a chimera. All the while knowing what he was dealing with—all the while thinking he could do it anyway, with another memo, another meeting… One evening he was sitting in Haqqani’s library when the ambassador took a copy of To End a War off the shelf. He opened the book and read aloud a description description of the Balkan presidents at Dayton—their selfishness, their lack of concern for the lives of their people. “Do you feel that you’re dealing with a similar situation now?” Haqqani asked. “God, I’d forgotten about that,” Holbrooke said. “Maybe it’s true.” Haqqani asked what Holbrooke was hoping to achieve. “I am trying to get the Pakistani military to be incrementally less deceitful toward the United States.”


Packer, George. Our Man . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

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