Pak Fauj Ko Salam – Alright!

1. You get a healthy amount of money for doing exercise, which otherwise might cost you a month’s allowance if you try doing it in a gym.
2. You are paid for getting education, something only a student from Shehzad Roy’s NGO – I am paid to learn – can boast of from the civilian lot.
3. You can shop till you drop at discounted rates at Canteen Stores Department aka CSD, and still our forwarded text messages state the Parliament’s Cafeteria rates.
4. You have the authority to brand anyone who raises a voice against your earnings as an Indian agent.
5. No one ever counts the number of cars you own, the acres of plots you get and the amount of money you make throughout your career; we’ve got the punch-bag politicians to practice our bashing skills on instead.
6. Whenever you like, you can stand up and announce a coup, dissolve the elected assemblies, abrogate the constitution and you actually gather a huge public support for that. All you say is “Those bloody civilians”.
7. You get free media coverage not only on September 6, but also on any day that is feebly ‘national’, even if you weren’t born before 1965.
8. You are glorified as if you’ve come from the heavens for just being in the forces, for just doing your job (even if you aren’t doing it)!
9. Patriotism is synonymous to eulogizing you.
10. Whenever you fail, you are showered with petals and streets are decorated with “Pak fauj k jo khilaaf, wo qaum ka ghaddar!” banners in no time.
11. You can simply escape your failures by putting the blame on others. No one will dare ask you twice.
12. The truckers love you across Pakistan  with a portrait of “Ayub Khan” and slogan “Pak Fauj ko surkh salaam”

Of Obamas-Osamas and Poor Pakistan

The Pakistani military is miles ahead in innovation. The stuff cannot be believable that invading US choppers dodged the Pakistani radar system. An army that can make even its own breakfast cereal ( Fauji Cereal ) why cannot make dodging-proof radars? Having said so, Osama has reached to his logical or may be illogical end and :phew: now it is finally safe to live in this world again.

The aftermath of this dramatic episode culminates into singular practical conclusion. Pakistan is an extremely unsafe country where even Osama Bin Laden is not safe anymore! But at the same time if you looked the other side of the coin, a suggestion can be made to the newly wed British royal couple, for their secret honeymoon they should choose Pakistan, as they can hide there forever and nobody would find them.

The above couple of paragraph might qualify for some sort of satire but the objective was to highlight the real issue. In the absence of any concrete explanations at the official level, the media spin-doctors are drifting the opinion away from the core issue. How and why Osama Bin Laden was hiding in Abbotabad for six years and why nobody knew about him? On what basis our heads of states keep on making claims that Osama was not in Pakistan? This only qualifies to be the height of irresponsibility. Of course when I talk about leadership, I don’t necessarily take the civilian leadership into account as they have long time ago franchised the defense, finance and foreign affairs portfolios to the military. Thus the only leadership that is accountable is the military leadership and its affiliates.

In the latest round of Corps Commanders conference, the GHQ has admitted its mistake for the lapse in intelligence. Fair enough but an error of gigantic proportions is made, that requires accountability. Are we going to see some heads roll at the top brass of the armed forces? Is General Pasha going to resign? Highly unlikely! At the same time we shouldn’t be distracted by the media-games and let us keep our eyes on the ball. And that is the core issue, why and how OBL( Osama Bin Laden) kept on enjoying the serenity of Abbotabad with his wives and servants without getting any attention from the mighty ISI? At the same time we should rule out the rumors of collusion between elements within ISI and OBL, that doesn’t hold any ground. ISI and military would have earned a desperately needed lost credibility by netting OBL and it wouldn’t have been difficult for them to transport the detainee to Waziristan and then announce its arrest.

The clamor of sovereignty and violation of air space is bizarre. Like it happened for the first time! The sovereignty of Pakistan ceased to exist when GHQ knotted its ties with Pentagon in 1954 and Pakistani accepted to be the foot-soldier of US in latter’s adventures around the globe. We shouldn’t forget that Americans used to fly their spy planes from Badaber ( Peshawar ) to carry out their espionage of the erstwhile USSR back in 60s. Pakistan became  part of the SEATO and CENTO in 1950s and assumed the role of policeman of Middle East since then on the behest of US. Talk of sovereignty and seeking money to protect its nuclear assets from US, don’t go hand-in-hand. The bottom line is not when and how US choppers entered Pakistan airspace and carried out the Hollywood style adventure to kill their foe, rather it is why OBL was there in Abbotabad for so long, undetected, in the first place?

– To be continued —