The Pakistani military has been cursed by Generals who have been overtly political. Military men have contributed to the atrophy in the current narrative
The 1980s were the infamous years of Gen Zia-ul-Haq’s murky cold war machinations in Afghanistan and the “shariasation” of Pakistan that muddied the cultural air of the Pakistani military for posterity. After Gen Zia’s mysterious death in an air crash, his bête noire, Gen Mirza Aslam Beg, took over the Pakistani Army and was dutifully accused by Gen Zia’s son, Ijaz-ul-Haq, of being complicit in the conspiracy to kill his father. It was only after this successively controversial Chief of Army that the Pakistani military got a rare professional at the helm of affairs in the form of Gen Asif Nawaz Janjua.
The thoroughbred and third generation soldier from fifth Punjab Regiment (Sherdils), Gen Janjua was trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the UK. He was a no-nonsense combatant, who had earned his stripes as the “soldier’s soldier” for his vast experiences in the field. He stayed away from the political intrigues of the Islamabad-Rawalpindi axis and could not tolerate overtly political, Machiavellian and bigoted colleagues like Lt Gen Hamid Gul (also known as the “father of Taliban”). The hardcore soldering instincts of Gen Janjua militated against the wheeling and dealing style of some Pakistani military staff, who partook shady political initiatives. Prominent among them was a mediocre though ambitious Brigadier, Pervez Musharraf, whom Gen Janjua aptly and prophetically labelled “tricky Mush.”
The patent Pakistani saga of the long night of the Generals soon consumed the upright Gen Janjua as he died a mysterious death. Slamming it as “murder”, his family members suspected certain disgruntled colleagues, who could not match up to his exacting standards. Providentially, “tricky Mush” was to become more famous later as he deposed his one-time mentor, Nawaz Sharif, and ensconced himself as the Chief Executive and then the President of Pakistan.
The incorrigibility, recklessness and ruthless ambitions of “tricky Mush” were soon to emerge in his misadventures in Kargil, where he apparently kept even his own Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the dark. This deviously planned military operation happened in the backdrop of reconciliatory moves between India and Pakistan, which included the Lahore Bus initiative, where democratically-elected leaders on both sides were seemingly thawing the freeze. The shame of the Kargil result notwithstanding for Gen Musharraf, he was soon to manipulate what he himself called a “counter coup.” He banished the man, namely Sharif, who had superseded two other senior officers to make “tricky Mush” the Pakistani Military Chief as he had postured himself as the most apolitical bet. He punished a senior general in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) after coming under intense pressure to admit a presidential referendum which he won was heavily rigged.
Almost immediately, Musharraf set about re-scripting the official narrative pertaining to his Kargil debacle and was forced into officially reneging his past alliances with the Taliban and supposedly joined the global “war on terror.” However, “tricky Mush” had unprecedented standards of duplicitousness, which were inevitable in his blow-hot-blow-cold belligerence at the Agra summit, as indeed, his continued patronage of terror outfits was either India or Afghanistan-facing.
Musharraf’s continued deceitfulness in handling terror organisations frustrated and riled the Americans to start taking unilateral and direct strikes via drones. The US got increasingly concerned about Musharraf’s commitment to nail the most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden. Former US President Barack Obama had forewarned of expecting any change in the Pakistani fate with Musharraf’s patent grandstanding and megalomania as the only leader capable of doing the needful by saying, “I argued for years that we need to move from a ‘Musharraf policy’ to a ‘Pakistan policy.’”
In 2011, Osama bin Laden was found just half a mile away from the Kakul Military Academy in the garrison town of Abbottabad when the American journalist David Ignatius even alluded to the said “safe house” to be arranged by the Pakistani Intelligence, on the orders of Gen Musharraf. Former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, who was aware of the Pakistani involvement, unambiguously stated the reason to keep the mission a secret as, “It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardise the mission. They might alert the targets.” A former CIA official, Bruce Riedel, had quoted former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief, Gen Ziauddin Khawaja, as saying that Musharraf “knew bin Laden was in Abbottabad.” Osama bin Laden had moved into the Abbottabad compound when Musharraf was in power and had lived there ever since.
Brazenly, Musharraf was left lamenting that the US had “violated” Pakistan’s sovereignty by conducting the Osama bin Laden raid, while meekly washing his hands of any complicity. However, by then, Musharraf had lost all credibility inside and outside of Pakistan. Had it not been for the timely intervention of the Pakistani military, “tricky Mush” would have been convicted for various wrongs after having been disobliged by all political parties, including Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (N), Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which questioned his role in her murder, or even Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which spurned his attempts to coopt him as his Prime Minister.
Today, Musharraf is desperate to remain relevant and makes outlandish (though often true) statements that may earn him a following among extremist elements in Pakistan. But that does not behove a former leader of a nation, let alone a professional soldier. Recently, he belligerently stated the obvious and the worst kept Pakistani secrets by admitting that they had trained Kashmiri militants and that terrorists like Osama bin Laden and Jalaluddin Haqqani were “Pakistani heroes.”
Recent video clips released by a Pakistani politician, Farhatullah Babar, where Musharraf is seen stating the obvious — the disingenuousness of Pakistani double-speak on terrorism — confirms it yet again. While civilian politicians have not exactly covered themselves with glory, military men in Pakistan like Gen Zia and Gen Musharraf have done far more systemic and institutional damage with the ISI directly under their charge.
The Chairman of the US Joint Chief of Staff, Gen Joseph Dunford, had told the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations during a Congressional hearing in 2017, “I think it’s clear to me that the ISI has connections with terrorist groups.” Till date, the likes of “tricky Mush” are responsible for the sort of infamy that they afford on the institution of the Pakistan military, and by that extension, Pakistan as a nation.
(The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)
