Endangering Pakistan By One Of Her Own

The former ambassador Shamshad speculates that Bajwa has enticed the Americans to participate in the regime change. However, Maj. Adil Raja in his January 2023, interview with Mehdi has assumed the premise that  the former army chief Bajwa under pressure had buckled before the Americans to bring about a regime change. From this premise Maj. has posed a question.

In this post, I have placed select conversation between the two YouTubers—Maj. Adil Raja and Haider Mehdi. The conversation pertains to the question Maj. Raja had asked Haider. The Bajwa sponsored regime change has transpired his question.

Maj. Raja: Why the generals of Pakistan are cowards? Maj. Raja exemplified the Generals’ cowardly behavior with their stance on Kashmir, they crumble before Indians and they surrendered before the Americans.

Haider: Bajwa bent over and surrendered before the Americans. It was proven later Bajwa sold his country. Bajwa sold his Mother, our “Country.”

Maj Raja: It is just not only Bajwa, others are involved and are a part of the collusion. Director General Personnel Services (DGPS) would call me and tell me that you do not understand “strategic compulsion.” DGPS  is a Major General and has joined hands by understanding strategic compulsion. They [generals] in the name of strategic compulsion would like to enslave the entire country. If DGPS understands strategic compulsion, then the question arises, why these generals are so coward Sir?

Haider: We have to go to the 1857 army. Our army ethos is developed from the 1857. Our army is the 1857, and my unit was named 33 Panjabi Mohammadan, but who gave this name? The British created this name for us to have control over this region [Indo-Subcontinent]. Setting aside cowardness, the army has a lack of professionalism, lack of competence and the biggest, no moral courage, ethics, values and is indulged into self-financial gain.

Maj. Raja. Raja: But Indian Army is the vintage of 1857 army?

Haider: India made reforms in Nehru days. In Pakistan, the ambitious and the incompetent Gen. Ayub Khan climbed up the ladder. Gen. Ayub’s rule and created loyalist.

Maj. Raja: They [the generals] have to maintain their luxurious life [from plunder and loot] and to maintain that lifestyle then they have to save each other by sacrificing Pakistan for their luxurious life. Do you agree?

Haider: I was getting to that; privilege life. Gen. Bajwa had raffled four plots (or lots.) [Making pun.] Eventually, he gave lots to all the soldiers. There is something wrong in the system of the army that only a few generals coming at the top can compromise the entire population of the country. Junior officers are responsible from whom these generals draw power from. Why junior officers are loyally subordinating to the third-class generals? How did a psychopath (Bajwa) came into  power? Gen. Tariq Khan replied to my criticism of him proposing a technocratic government after the regime change. The COAS Munir may have asked his onetime boss Gen. Tariq, to promote a technocratic government.

If I can summarize Haider’s assessment, he said, “setting aside coward,” an army general behaves from his ethos, lack of professionalism, lack of competence and the biggest—no moral courage, ethics, values and is indulged into self-financial gain. Since all are loyalist to each other, a ‘coward’ is not called out, but is rather supported.

It should be noted, Mehdi has not answered Maj. Raja’s question, which is evident by he saying, “setting aside coward.” I am struggling to map Mehdi’s assessment of generals moral character to cowardice. I do not see a correlation between coward and competence; between cowardice and ethics and values. The famous American outlaw Jessy James seemed to have possessed a few values of Pakistan army generals, though Jessy would be embarrassed owning up to those; I do not see Jessy as a coward.

Let me bring Mehdi’s argument and contrast it with my point of view. True, the British named Mehdi’s unit the 33 Panjabi Mohammadan. This is a total-sum positive naming convention with a stupendous positive jolt to ethos. Since the Queen meant nothing to the Indo-subcontinent soldier, to make him fight under colonial rule, they were wisely given names (based on religion and denoting pride) and standards (symbols of religion and pride) that stood worth fighting for.  The 1857 army delivered WWII without a frailty in their character, were not cowards, and were not lackeys like Bajwa, and from the looks of it, like Gen. Asim Munir and the rest.

Majority of the British trained officers that Mehdi calls them the vintage of 1857, were loyal to their profession and country. Gen. Ayub was an exception to the rule that harbored sycophancy. Sycophancy began in Ayub Khan’s days, which has no proximity to a general being a coward.

I cannot wholeheartedly agree with Maj. Raja. Bajwa and his accomplices’ action speak more to committing treason. Gen. Asim Munir is part of the same mafia as Bajwa with heavy explaining to do. The country may slot Munir to have committed treason, or a cowardice act that I explain differently in my post. Since the lately stock of Pakistani generals have not acted in the interest of Pakistan, Musharraf and Kayani can be slotted as cowards by buckling to American dictates, which I explain in a different way. To baseline Maj. Raja’s sentiments, I require defining what cowardice is? A person is coward because his fear prevents him from facing danger.

Are all generals coward? Exceptions might be there in theory, but if we narrow the conditions to test generals by exposing them to coercion from foreign interference and the resulting immediate danger to self and their kinship.  Unless tested, they are cowards. No, I have not contradicted myself. This conclusion arises from a premise of logic such that a Pakistani general is rescued from the label in the narrow condition I have set.

There are measures we can take to undo what is seen as a general’s cowardness. The next example will unfold quite a few concepts and lessons. Our childhood pet Roofus, a golden retriever was not a coward. Our neighbor’s mean-posturing dog had challenged Roofus’ authority on occasions when I would take Roofus onto the neighbor’s property their dog was supposed to guard. My childish pride desired testing our brave dog. I tested our golden retriever’s courage to fetch a stone that I would throw in the imminent domain of the neighbor’s dog. The golden retriever would charge towards the stone, but fearing danger stopped short of the stone, and returned twice without fetching the stone. My value system desired more from Roofus.

I was developed from the structural values common to my ethnicity Vs the structure of power where authority is related between its people. At the age of eight, I stood strong in the vicinity of our neighbor’s dog, precisely at the point where Roofus anxiety before would make him not fetch that stone. In my mind I had taken up ground precisely at a point short of forcing our neighbor’s dog making a charge at us.  

With the comfort of Roofus on my side, knowing an exceptionally trained Roofus would face that formidable half-breed dog if needed—us ganging two on one! I dropped a stone a few feet away and  asked Roofus to retrieve, which he did. The second attempt at a stone’s throw and the last stone I threw from where I had cast the first stone. Roofus retrieved both.

In the aforesaid example, Roofus was no longer the lone entity that was facing the fear from danger and to act cowardly. Our strength overcame his fear and he fetched the stone. Our (Roofus and mine) structural values developed the worthiness of civitas (citizen) per se. The use of this term will become clear, and is the means to averting the risk or shifting the risk of generals to civitas—a citizen group. The neighbor’s dog still holding on to his bad-to-the-bone attitude had no means or tools left to challenge or manage the group of two.

A personal threat should not be confused with fearing danger during war time. War is different because it is uncertain who will become a fatality of war. I am told, in battle all men are initially scared (if this is the correct term) till the first shot is fired. Then the fear subsides and men are pitched against one another—all brave and all fearless to the core. No one likes to die due to lack of shooting.

A senior defense analyst once told me that the Pakistani generals receive personal threats. Therefore, the fight or flight response of a general’s nervous system is impacted by several factors, like, his kinship living abroad etc. Can all Pakistani generals turn courageous as my childhood golden retriever? Sure they can.

In a personal threat we speak of power and its ability of a coercive will over another to compel. In my assessment to undo cowardness, I place five ethnic Pakistani generals before us. One from each province and two from the KPK province.

The reason I have placed two generals within Pashtun ethnicity is to make a point. There are stark personality and trait differences between those—the Khattaks, the Wazirs and the Momands as compared to the Yousaf Zias. There are stark differences among each of the Pashtuns too.

Trivia: Pakistan army’s current mold will likely shy away to induct a soldier and will certainly not promote a Yousaf Zia pass a midlevel rank. His traits and behavior stops him nicely at a rank of a Major. Alternatively, he is eliminated.

I leave it to you, how would each of these ethnic generals react to a coercive will of a foreign power pending all things equal? By all things equal, we equate none to have kinship or attachment to a foreign land from where foreign power’s coercive threat has originated.

I can surely predict with some certainty the likely behavioral outcome of each of the ethnic generals. By doing so, I would not have triggered equal levels of serotonin among my readers that produce happiness and optimism!  To place a politically correct answer, though meaningful, lets wrongly assume that there is no difference in traits between the five ethnic generals and that they all will cowardly collapse to the power—the coercive will of a foreign power over the Pakistani generals.

Before I build my hypothesis around the said assumption, let’s run one other scenario. We select one ethnicity among the distinct five groups and assume this ethnic group to without a fail lend Pakistan a stock of brave generals. Unbending to the coercive will of a foreign power because this ethnicity thrives from a structure of value (makes better people) and not from power that structures over relationship, which by the way is taught in the schools of Canada and the United States.

The moment this ‘super’ army chief with all his sovereign traits who is also involved in governing Pakistan is toppled or assassinated, the country will face some level of disarray.  The reasons are, the majority of Pakistan’s ethnic people are not holding values based relationships and they do not have civitas worthiness. This scenario requires the need to place a political structure not susceptible to the idea of originating threat as a tool from foreign country’s foreign policy toolbox, and the crises after eliminating a leader. Example, Gen. Ziaul Haq plane crash is more to do with he turning cunningly bold. If he had lived, Kashmir issue would have resolved. Deposing the brave Khan is another example.

What saved Afghanistan and what destroyed Iraq? Saddam Hussain relationships came from structure of power in his society. He was unbending, an outcome of being brave among other things. When Saddam was taken out, Iraq as a country crumbled. Horrors of Iraqi society surfaced.

Unlike Afghanistan, the three provinces of Pakistan are based on the structure of power where authority is related between its people. Afghanistan’s culture and country is governed by cohesive concentric circles driven by a structure of value system. (I explain concentric circles in my upcoming book.) One can overwhelm power of the outermost concentric circle by a more formidable power—the invaders, but overwhelming and destroying values within all concentric circles require building social infrastructure by the invading force. An invader’s smaller in number value system cannot bulldoze a larger prevalent value system. Especially, a Pashtun value system cannot be overcome.

When Nawaz Sharif says there is no difference between Hindu and Pakistanis (his kind), he says this because he is a product of a power structure related into people (him), and if the border gates between Pakistan and India are removed, Hindu culture will dominate the culture of Punjab. Those that do not think like the Sharifs, and are a product of structure of power requires additional explanation, but the culture of Punjab will get diluted.Thank Modi for his Hindu Zionist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideolog.

With housekeeping out of the way, I can address the original hypothesis. How to convert Pakistan army generals into ‘brave’ soldiers, which would answer Maj. Adil Raja’s quest—why are Pakistan army generals coward?

The making of an equation to turn a Pakistan general un-coward is in the very definition of a coward. That is, to shift the risk and the danger from army general to someplace else—the people—the citadel of learning. It is done by crafting civitas (citizen) worthiness. The burden of governance and the danger from foreign power is shifted from the hierarchy of the generals.

The prime targets of the coercive will of a foreign power are countries with people without civitas worthiness. To figure out if a country has people with no civitas worthiness, a good measure is a country’s military interference within the political system.

Then the focus becomes building civitas worthiness. In a military rule (direct or indirect—interference), civitas (citizens) that builds worthiness characteristic fail because the people and the army, which is not a republic, are not united by the law. 

Short of explaining the dynamics within my hypothesis, Pakistan’s very best, a dictator Ayub Khan, ruled for ten plus years, and he failed or would not nurture civitas worthiness. Bajwa’s regime change is a textbook case of eroding civitas worthiness and it has transferred the fear from danger at an alarming rate into one person—COAS Asim Munir heading a fascist regime.

What we have learnt, by default Asim Munir is a coward because of the system facing a threat from a super power. There is only one path to undo Munir’s cowardness. It is to create civitas worthiness, which calls for elections for the civitas worthiness process to begin. But a coward cannot take such measures. The status quo continues unless measures are taken.

The vulnerability from the U.S. threats to Pakistani generals lie in the army’s governance and operation in a vacuum that cannot enjoy the protection from civitas worthiness built by the republic law. This is a major fault line. This faggot (bundle of sticks) stands hollow from moral values is ever dangerous to the integrity of Pakistan.

In the past, the good Pakistanis had to cope with their misfortunes of Pakistan’s progress because the only hope they could look up to was not her polity, but her army. Army for the given reasons not only failed to develop civitas worthiness, but the people’s lone hope to an outsider gave a sense of a stagnant docile ‘orphan’ Pakistani.

Here enters Gen. Tariq Khan. Gen. Tariq Khan’s argument is included because it ties into the problem at hand: How to create un-coward generals. Gen. Tariq is proposing a technocratic government. He is entitled to his free speech as in a vibrant society. Gen. Tariq proposes to give control of governance to the elite technical experts. It would make no difference to quickly discover those names—the problem solving infrastructure!

Let’s assume there are twenty-six elite technical experts in a technocratic rule. This number nicely equates to the twenty-six generals that are by all measure cowards and morally dysfunctional. Proof is in the pudding. Try fetching the people’s interest, now with fifty-two cowards, which will get exploited by the very same coercive-will over another to compel. The gestapo force has to ransack the people’s will, and their interest—to build civitas worthiness.This threat alone is Q.E.D. of postulation against technocracy.

The nail in coffin comes from a fantasy placed in the governance system by the technocracy. Division of roles—citizens parting value from their suggestions to technocrats to make a better mouse trap. A solution here is to submit to elections—the will of the people. Remember, people makes the State alive. Technocracy is not manufacturing this mouse trap for the people that are involved in anti-government revolution.

For the fun of it let’s assume, in this technocratic governance there is one luminary of economics. I have argued here, how miserably a particular economic luminary Mr. Mian  will fail because what he proposed cannot work, and what I have postulated here and here, in a series of my articles address Pakistan economic model that benefits from harvesting people’s strengths—the various institutions of Islam built within the people, is outside of what a technocrat will be allowed to benefit from. The fifty-two technocrats are all cowards, you see.

Generals educated in military tactics and history have proposed a technocratic governance, which is a political technocratic experiment. The Brookings Institute is also a proponent of a “stronger civilian and technocratic governance in Pakistan.” Really? Technocratic governance is means to killing Islamic societies from the divide stemming from political factions and running two systems together. One is the system within the people—the institution of Islam and the other the imported techno-system  or the British law and system. This point is argued well in one of the aforementioned links to my scholarship.

The global think tanks are worried about Pakistan. Their experts are not born in Pakistan, but eagerly and shamelessly pencil their thought. Shamelessly because what they say turns detrimental to Pakistan makes one question their sincerity.

Introduce technocracy in Pakistan, and Terrorism will rise in Pakistan. This premise of terrorism by way of corrupt government is argued here. The technocracy will have to be corrupt because of their value system stemming from being a coward and because they cannot be interested in investigating the Army high command in the killing of journalist Arshad Sharif and their alleged involvement in the assassination attempt on Imran Khan.  The citizens won’t come onboard if these two action items are pending.

Let’s assume Munir by some stroke of imagination deliver’s on a few of the predatory practices of his predecessors by removing his name from the predacious cadre by claiming sainthood in his imagination. You would think by outing the names of Arshad Sharif’s murderers it would save Munir’s  technocracy rule? By this time a lot would have happened. Munir’s technocracy will begin to crumble.  

The aforesaid argument cannot hold, if Khan is slotted to face another assassination. In fact, Khan is on borrowed lifeline. Only divine can make him live past six months. These are the odds survivorship of Munir’s technocracy is facing.

The people must have stakes in governance. Pakistan demographics is approximately 50% youth. How does one develop youth’s innovation and participation in technocracy’s enslavement? Not possible. Pakistan’s army is resented by the entire country is no exaggeration. The citizens are not stakeholders. What the army suggested and Gen. Tariq Khan supported—technocracy is a non-starter.

Khan’s tsunami is a factor in making the generals un-coward. Pakistan is in the process of building civitas worthiness. In doing so, the fear of risk and danger will shift to the people that are unsusceptible to coercion from a foreign power. India is an example.  

The way forward is for the people to grow. To become the citadel of learning, the technocrats—the experts. No youth desires leaving his or her country for foreign lands and when they do, many become a vibrant stock of technocrats—doctors, lawyers and business men and women.

It is in the long-term security interest of the United States to benefit from the civitas worthiness of the people of Pakistan—a path to influencing China and Russia within a cost-effective manner should be the means to mitigating the U.S. security threat. The U.S should exploit the much ignored and under-harvested, the people of Pakistan.