The more you try to change, more it remains the same. In search of trees, we lose sight of the forest
Like most Pakistanis, I am also a dreamer. In the backdrop of family tradition, these dreams started early. Choosing soldiering in 1972 was a stepping stone.
It is 17 Years since I retired. My students and cadets served as three stars and retired. Some are still around in highest positions. Despite despair, hope is not forlorn. Like most, I have not counted trees. I wish Pakistan to rise beyond horizons.
Despite majority we are a drop in the ocean because the elites that control Pakistan leave no space for common aspirations. They by definitions look beyond horizons only for their interests. They are happy counting trees as long as they perpetuate. Someday, this cycle will break. There will be a Bastille and a Revolution. It could be in my twilight years or later. Happen it must and happen it will!
I served with three Army Chiefs. With appointment of each, I saw hope only to fade with time.
General Jehangir Karamat who oversaw Pakistan’s nuclearization was equally insistent on Fast Track National Development. I remember the day he left office never to return. My dreams took a knock.
General Pervez Musharraf was more vigorous. After the coup he started with an early flourish. Economy and development were on wheels. By 2004 he was surrounded by courtiers. He lost track and fizzled out.
General Ashfaq Kayani was more laid back and thought deeply. Most, he remained busy in sustaining two governments that were product of National Reconciliation. There was nothing spectacular. His extension caused attrition and gaps to chain of command already damaged by General Musharraf’s long tenure. The fruits of economic revival during General Musharraf’s tenure were capitulated and fate of Pakistan put in the hands of thugs.
After a brief tenure of Imran Khan with GDP averaging 6 from 2020-22, he was removed and stripped through a regime change operation. The thugs are back and hence the continuity from 2007 to present.
The manner with which these carpetbaggers have been managed indicates a rough going for Imran Khan already recovering from three multiple gun wounds. The system is loaded against him inasmuch as aspirations of the people of Pakistan are with him. A change, here or there would make no difference.
The actors of NRO since 2007 are International and National.
The international actors relentlessly pursue a global dominance agenda for a weak, pliant, discredited and non-nuclear Pakistan. The internal are miserly pawns dancing to the bigger orchestra. 2007 till today they have danced to the same chords.
On the geostrategic template, Imran Khan is a small dot, who dared and challenged the dominating equilibrium led by USA. He was a free-thinking voice of reason and self-esteem. His comments on peripheral wars were not taken well. He seemed too independent in contrast to pliable regimes that ruled and served masters for the past decades. Therefore, he had to go.
Objectives of local apologists are not clear.
If the objective was to get a pliant leadership into power, the objective is met only halfway because bending Pakistan backwards is also back breaking? In eight months more than three decades are lost.
If the objective was to get a credible leadership into power, 60% of the lot is involved in massive corruption and facing charges, arraignments and accountability in courts? To save and survive them, accountability laws have been changed.
If the objective was to put Pakistan on a nose-diving trajectory leading to bad governance, unrest, adverse public reaction and destabilisation, then it is certainly achieved. This is an imported objective and hence imported crises.
It is true and factual. The night is long, dark and tempest ridden. There will be a tomorrow!
