Pakistani Army commentary

**davidbfpo** · 08-01-2015

Hamid Hussain our occassional SWC contributor has a short paper on this aspect, which IMHO is a strange price to pay when the Pakistani state has "relations" with a good number of its jihadist enemies. See the attachment.

Someone asked about a little known aspect of current conflict and following was my response. On every trip to Pakistan, I visit local military graveyards and on every visit I see new and fresh graves of fallen soldiers.

**davidbfpo** · 08-09-2015

An update to the last post by Hamid Hussain our occassional SWC contributor:

Last circulation of the targeting of senior Pakistani army officers prompted an officer to remind me about late Colonel Sultan Amir Tarar, aka Colonel Imam who was abducted by Pakistani Taliban along with Squadron Leader (R) Khalid Khawaja. Both were later killed by Hakimullah Mahsud (ironically accusing them for working for CIA) who in turn was returned to his maker courtesy of a drone. Monsters usually eat their own creators as well as their own children.
Here is a profile of Colonel Sultan Amir by his friend and colleague and my two cents in red in main text. One small typo error. He was commissioned in 2nd Pathan; now 15 FF.

**omarali50** · 09-06-2015

Remembering the war of 1965

http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/201...ajor-amin.html

**davidbfpo** · 10-06-2015

Two contrasting articles on the Pakistani Army, one almost laudatory and the other asking questions.

Link thanks to WoTR:http://warontherocks.com/2015/10/why...ef-so-popular/

In the other corner, from a previously unknown website, with mainly American academics involved:http://muftah.org/where-things-stand.../#.VhQDZW4dzuk

**davidbfpo** · 10-08-2015

On the attachment is an exchange between Hamid Hussain and a ret'd Pakistani Army general, which illustrates how the army thinks. It is in the public domain.

**omarali50** · 01-28-2016

Sahibzada Yaqub Khan died on Jan 25th 2016 after a long and eventful life. More famous as a diplomat than as a general (he was more of an armchair general, did well with introducing academics into the army but never did anything notable in the field), he was a pillar of the Pakistani establishment. I combined obituaries/notes from Dr Hamid Hussain, Major Amin and a family friend into one blog post.

http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/201...aqub-khan.html

Excerpt:

..Of course, Sahibzada sahib's career as Bhutto's ambassador to several great powers, as Zia's foreign minister, then as the establishment's chosen foreign minister to keep Benazir in check, and then as Musharraf's envoy to justify his coup, all indicate that he was a solid and upstanding member of Pakistan's ruling elite and was comfortable with military rule, and with the foreign policy priorities of the Zia and Musharraf regimes (including the jihad in Afghanistan and its softer version in the Musharraf era). He was also highly educated and well read and had an impressive personality that a lot of people remember with awe. And of course, he got high praise from people like Nixon and Kissinger. One imagines that had he been born into the elite of a great power (instead of being born into the fading North Indian Muslim elite) he could have been an Edward Grey, though probably not a Curzon or Palmerston...

..
Yaqub’s critics point to three incidents pertaining to three different times of his life. First is when he was in Kashmir war in 1947-48. Yaqub was ordered to rescue a small picket surrounded by Indians. He was a thinking officer and kept calculating his own likely action and enemy’s possible reaction. In the meantime, Indians overran the picket. Second was when he refused to carry out military action against Bengalis when he was commander of Eastern Command. Yaqub was sacked from the army for his refusal. At that time, almost all officers regardless of their rank and social background denounced Yaqub. Later, with hindsight, some changed their mind and thought Yaqub did the right thing. Third criticism relates to his post retirement career. He served at important ambassadorial positions under Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and later served as Foreign Minister of Bhutto’s executioner General Muhammad Zia ul Haq without any qualms.