04-16-2009, 03:39 PM
<b>An open letter to General Kayani</b>
Thursday, April 16, 2009
I appreciate Colonel Harish Puri's bold letter to Gen Kayani published on these pages on April 14. The writer seems to have pitched Pakistani generals, people and politicians against each other and the intention seems to be to drive a wedge between the people of Pakistan and the Pakistan army.
Injecting hatred among Pakistani masses against the armed forces, creating divisions between the army and the government, differences between state and religious parties and ethnic groups in Pakistan is what India does best and feels that is necessary for its own survival. I think the good colonel should also write a similar letter to his own army chief, reminding him of India's poverty rate and asking him to do something about the millions of people who sleep on the roads in India. He should also ask the Indian army chief about the atrocities committed by Indian soldiers in Kashmir and about the shenanigans of RAW. Of course, he should also not miss out asking the Indian COAS to rid Indian society of Hindu extremists, who are all giving a bad name to India.
While the Indian media highlights and concentrates only on India Shining, the reality is that India has the world's highest number of poor people and hundreds of millions have no access to clean drinking water or proper healthcare or education.
Col (retd) Liaquat Ali
Rawalpindi
*****
This is with reference to the open letter written to Gen Kayani by an Col (retd) Harish Puri. I strongly feel this letter should not have been published because it is tantamount to undermining the morale of the Pakistan Army. While talking about the surrender by the Pakistan Army in 1971, Col Puri forgot to mention that the Indian Army attacked East Pakistan with three corps backed up by around 175,000 Mukti Bahinis â and that they faced three divisions of the Pakistan Army â which is roughly a 100,000 troops. Army fought a great war with such less manpower and without air cover and that too without any reinforcements that is a pre requisite of any war.
As for the flogging of a teenaged girl in Swat, Colonel Puri would do better to concentrate on the murder and rape of unarmed civilians in Occupied Kashmir by the Indian army. The Pakistan army is helping politicians to find a peaceful solution to the problem in the tribal areas particularly Swat and have succeeded in bringing two factions to strike a peaceful settlement.
Gen Kayani knows what to do and does not require any advice from any direction.
Lt Col (retd) Mukhtar Ahmed Butt
Karachi
*****
This is with reference to Col ® Harish Puri's open letter to General Kayani (April 14). Being a retired soldier I could not hold back my pen to write a worthy response to the Indian colonel. The colonel has in fact done us a favour to remind us of our defeat in 1971, thereby telling the younger generation of our soldiers who our real enemy is.
Let me start with the real motive of this letter, that is to discourage the army from support the Swat peace deal â which has now been expressed as the collective will of the people of Pakistan through a resolution passed by the National Assembly.
Being a disbeliever, the colonel may not understand the power of Islamic ideology. If for a while we assume that suicide bombers were motivated through Islamic ideology to die for a cause then we should stretch our imaginations as to what wonders can we perform if we motivate ourselves to live in accordance with the injunctions of Islam. That happens to be the collective desire of the people of Pakistan as enunciated in our constitution. Probably the time has come for operationalization of Article 2-A of the 1973 Constitution. Therefore, the colonel correctly perceives the threat to Hind.
Notwithstanding the circumstances that led to the passage of resolution by National Assembly, it should not be seen as collapse of the present system or failure of the state, but rather the will to move forward towards the accomplishment of Pakistan as desired by our forefathers who decided to lead their lives according to their own ideology.
Colonel Puri's dream to command a Pakistani soldier is a misplaced desire. If it is based on a perception of the motivational power of Islamic ideology then the colonel must write to his own army chief to enroll the Muslims of India into the Indian army. â so that they can be uplifted beyond being cobblers, barbers and washermen.
Aneela Anjum
Quetta
+++++
<b>An open letter to Gen Kapoor</b>
Thursday, April 16, 2009
For decades, I have been reading closely about the feats of the Indian army. Like me, many round the globe look at the Indian Army with a mix of awe and fascination. As I move further with my research on Indian security mechanisms, I found that while the Indian Army is one of the largest military machines in the world, in reality it does not even come close to the periphery of what is seen as a universally-respected soldierly ethos.
India's defence budget is increasing every year by leaps and bounds â this year it was 345 per cent higher compared to last year's outlay. Surely, this comes at the expense of the poverty-stricken in India. Despite this, you are raising two new mountain divisions each of which will cost the poor nation between Rs6.5-7 billion. Apart from this, the Indian media has reported of late on the involvement in corruption by senior military officers. Certainly, you will not deny that in recent years dozens of your officers have faced charges of misappropriation, embezzlement, fraud, cowardice, falsification of official documents and fake encounters. Because of this, the confidence of your troops in the officers' cadre must be at a low ebb and this must mean that the gulf between the officers and troops is fast widening.
Your predecessor General J J Singh during his visit to Srinagar on Nov 3, 2006, publicly said that "on average" the army had "about 100 suicide cases a year in the past four to five years" and that these were "mainly in the insurgency-hit areas". As for Pakistan, suicide is a word missing from the dictionary of its armed forces. From 2004 to 2006, only 282 Indian soldiers had been killed in militant attacks whereas 333 committed suicide and 75 had been murdered by fellow soldiers. This all must be an eye opener for you. The news of forced rape of a 26-year-old Australian tourist on board the Jaisalamer-Jodhpur Express by Naib Subedar Attar Singh of your army might also have come across your studious eyes.
An Indian civilian hailing from the state of Gujarat met me abroad with tears in his eyes saying that the Indian minorities were under constant threat from the follies and failings of your subordinates? Indian minorities are scared of your officers like Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit who was involved in the Samjhota Express bombing and the 2008 Malegaon blast. I hope action will be taken against him as well.
Ehsan M Khan
Rawalpindi
Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->