http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160123/jsp/opinion/story_65310.jsp#.VqMY_VIpq38
Abhijit Bhattacharyya
Authentic information, rather than 'agenda interpretation', makes analysis credible, meaningful and useful for a nation to understand, decide and act. Hence let us get the basics right and then examine the fundamentals. The sole motto of Pakistan, post-1971 defeat and disaster at the hands of the armed forces of India, is revenge through religious jihad by the jihadists. Shuja Nawaz, the author of the magnum opus on the Pakistani Army, Crossed Swords, has observed that the number 786, which represents the numerological equivalent of the opening sentence of the Quran, is also the "identification number for the General Head Quarters of the new Pakistani Army".
The writing on the wall was too transparent to be ignored by India. The defeat, followed by surrender - resulting in the loss of the eastern wing of the Islamic state of Pakistan at the hands of un-Islamic India in December 1971 - made the Army-ISI duo of Pakistan take a vow of revenge. It was assessed, and appreciated, that no revenge can be successfully carried out through conventional warfare, owing to the superiority of India's man power and material inventory. The assessment and planning concluded a perpetual war of attrition through indirect, irregular and unconventional methods and tactics. The fighting machine of India had to be destroyed without fighting. And the people of the enemy country, must be won over through various means of " Taqiya Kalam", implying deceit, cunning, lies and the "charm offensive" and through the enemy's gullible, divided and vast civil society, a portion of which inevitably resorts to 'could-not-care-less' and 'as-long-as-I-am-not-affected' attitudes, and with the army-ISI recruited, financed, trained and deployed terror pool of unemployed and radicalized young people.
After the 1971 war, Pakistan's military ruling class, the army, made a final assessment that it would be futile to take on the war machine. Instead, it could resort to an indirect approach by permanently targeting Delhi's two principal border states, Punjab and Rajasthan, which is the largest quality reservoir of fighting men filling combat ranks of at least five of the 23 infantry regiments of the Indian army: Rajputana Rifles, Rajput Regiment, Sikh Regiment, Sikh Light Infantry and the Punjab Regiment. In this venture, the Pakistani army-ISI duo's job became easier, as it so often happened in the past, as few notoriously unscrupulous and corrupt Indians in public life have been conniving, conspiring and colluding with foreign invaders even today. Thus it certainly would not be incorrect to suggest that for the spread of the drug trade, particularly to the districts of Punjab and Rajasthan (located close to Pakistan), which are traditional soldier-recruitment (catchment) areas, some Indians have a deep nexus with Pakistan's nefarious activities, thereby posing a direct threat to the safety and security, and the unity and integrity of India.
Thus the Pakistani army-ISI's idea, together with the implementation of its plan of action, has become much simpler than what one would like it to be. Spread the drug to as many doorsteps of India's military catchment area as possible to make the youth mentally disoriented and physically disabled, thereby depriving the enemy forces of the services of some of the best soldiers. There appears to be an uncanny similarity with the Chinese history of the 19th-century post-Opium war era, engineered and organzied by the British, which continued for several decades, destroying the basic fabric of the Chinese polity, society, economics and armed forces. By the 1930s, China was jokingly referred to in international fora as the "sick man of the Far East". This trick of inducing and inducting drugs was resorted to by the Pakistani army-ISI duo also, in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency in 20th-century Afghanistan. Thus, during the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan war, huge numbers of Moscow Red Army soldiers, belonging to some of the crack units were so badly affected by drug addiction that it virtually slow-poisoned them, resulting in a battle-field disaster, followed by a rout, retreat and the ultimate demise of the USSR in 1991.
Ironically, the same menace of drug addiction came back in the 21st century to haunt the United States army too with drug addiction spreading to the barracks of US-led western coalition forces in Afghanistan. Widely reported, this virtually irreversible addiction to drugs resulted in several catastrophic performances by western troops in Afghanistan. Also, things turned worse when it came to light that some of their seniors could not resist the temptation to make a great deal of money from Kabul's multi-billion dollar drugs, produced in the southern part of Afghanistan, especially around Helmand.
In the context of the Pathankot attack of January 2, 2016, by Pakistan-connected terrorists, what comes as an ominous warning is the January 16, 2016, statement of the defence minister of India in Rajasthan who said that precautions were being taken to prevent honey-trap cases and "I do not think that such things (espionage) are at high level. Few things came to light but they were at lower level ".
Some forgetful Indians need to remind themselves that there exist at least 40 Islamic terrorist and extremist groups of/in Pakistan who are linked to the Pakistani defence and security establishment, and are 'rotated' for 'action' on behalf of the Pakistani State. It may not be wrong to suggest that there exist anywhere between two to three lakh ready-made private soldiers (and the numbers are increasing exponentially) whose death means no expenditure to the State, unlike the army soldiers or ISI operators whose family pension and other post-death expenses are borne by the State. The difference between a soldier and a jihadi is economics. Whereas the former is a long-term expenditure (say, 40-60 years, as the family pension gets extended after the soldier's death), the latter's short shelf-life (say, 10 years) is an asset to the army-ISI duo.
These irregularly operating soldiers maintain a useful "psychological" war tool to keep the conventional Indian armed forces busy and away from their regular operational roles and duties, increasing New Delhi's expenses considerably. Pathankot is an example of Pakistan's army-ISI psyche, for which "one Pakistani soldier is equal to eight Indian troops". Six Pakistani terrorists held on for three days, harrying six hundred troops. That, in itself, is a demonstration of "psychological warfare". Diplomacy or no diplomacy, talk or no talk, India needs to reorient and revisit its war-making policy and planning at once.
Abhijit Bhattacharyya
Authentic information, rather than 'agenda interpretation', makes analysis credible, meaningful and useful for a nation to understand, decide and act. Hence let us get the basics right and then examine the fundamentals. The sole motto of Pakistan, post-1971 defeat and disaster at the hands of the armed forces of India, is revenge through religious jihad by the jihadists. Shuja Nawaz, the author of the magnum opus on the Pakistani Army, Crossed Swords, has observed that the number 786, which represents the numerological equivalent of the opening sentence of the Quran, is also the "identification number for the General Head Quarters of the new Pakistani Army".
The writing on the wall was too transparent to be ignored by India. The defeat, followed by surrender - resulting in the loss of the eastern wing of the Islamic state of Pakistan at the hands of un-Islamic India in December 1971 - made the Army-ISI duo of Pakistan take a vow of revenge. It was assessed, and appreciated, that no revenge can be successfully carried out through conventional warfare, owing to the superiority of India's man power and material inventory. The assessment and planning concluded a perpetual war of attrition through indirect, irregular and unconventional methods and tactics. The fighting machine of India had to be destroyed without fighting. And the people of the enemy country, must be won over through various means of " Taqiya Kalam", implying deceit, cunning, lies and the "charm offensive" and through the enemy's gullible, divided and vast civil society, a portion of which inevitably resorts to 'could-not-care-less' and 'as-long-as-I-am-not-affected' attitudes, and with the army-ISI recruited, financed, trained and deployed terror pool of unemployed and radicalized young people.
After the 1971 war, Pakistan's military ruling class, the army, made a final assessment that it would be futile to take on the war machine. Instead, it could resort to an indirect approach by permanently targeting Delhi's two principal border states, Punjab and Rajasthan, which is the largest quality reservoir of fighting men filling combat ranks of at least five of the 23 infantry regiments of the Indian army: Rajputana Rifles, Rajput Regiment, Sikh Regiment, Sikh Light Infantry and the Punjab Regiment. In this venture, the Pakistani army-ISI duo's job became easier, as it so often happened in the past, as few notoriously unscrupulous and corrupt Indians in public life have been conniving, conspiring and colluding with foreign invaders even today. Thus it certainly would not be incorrect to suggest that for the spread of the drug trade, particularly to the districts of Punjab and Rajasthan (located close to Pakistan), which are traditional soldier-recruitment (catchment) areas, some Indians have a deep nexus with Pakistan's nefarious activities, thereby posing a direct threat to the safety and security, and the unity and integrity of India.
Thus the Pakistani army-ISI's idea, together with the implementation of its plan of action, has become much simpler than what one would like it to be. Spread the drug to as many doorsteps of India's military catchment area as possible to make the youth mentally disoriented and physically disabled, thereby depriving the enemy forces of the services of some of the best soldiers. There appears to be an uncanny similarity with the Chinese history of the 19th-century post-Opium war era, engineered and organzied by the British, which continued for several decades, destroying the basic fabric of the Chinese polity, society, economics and armed forces. By the 1930s, China was jokingly referred to in international fora as the "sick man of the Far East". This trick of inducing and inducting drugs was resorted to by the Pakistani army-ISI duo also, in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency in 20th-century Afghanistan. Thus, during the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan war, huge numbers of Moscow Red Army soldiers, belonging to some of the crack units were so badly affected by drug addiction that it virtually slow-poisoned them, resulting in a battle-field disaster, followed by a rout, retreat and the ultimate demise of the USSR in 1991.
Ironically, the same menace of drug addiction came back in the 21st century to haunt the United States army too with drug addiction spreading to the barracks of US-led western coalition forces in Afghanistan. Widely reported, this virtually irreversible addiction to drugs resulted in several catastrophic performances by western troops in Afghanistan. Also, things turned worse when it came to light that some of their seniors could not resist the temptation to make a great deal of money from Kabul's multi-billion dollar drugs, produced in the southern part of Afghanistan, especially around Helmand.
In the context of the Pathankot attack of January 2, 2016, by Pakistan-connected terrorists, what comes as an ominous warning is the January 16, 2016, statement of the defence minister of India in Rajasthan who said that precautions were being taken to prevent honey-trap cases and "I do not think that such things (espionage) are at high level. Few things came to light but they were at lower level ".
Some forgetful Indians need to remind themselves that there exist at least 40 Islamic terrorist and extremist groups of/in Pakistan who are linked to the Pakistani defence and security establishment, and are 'rotated' for 'action' on behalf of the Pakistani State. It may not be wrong to suggest that there exist anywhere between two to three lakh ready-made private soldiers (and the numbers are increasing exponentially) whose death means no expenditure to the State, unlike the army soldiers or ISI operators whose family pension and other post-death expenses are borne by the State. The difference between a soldier and a jihadi is economics. Whereas the former is a long-term expenditure (say, 40-60 years, as the family pension gets extended after the soldier's death), the latter's short shelf-life (say, 10 years) is an asset to the army-ISI duo.
These irregularly operating soldiers maintain a useful "psychological" war tool to keep the conventional Indian armed forces busy and away from their regular operational roles and duties, increasing New Delhi's expenses considerably. Pathankot is an example of Pakistan's army-ISI psyche, for which "one Pakistani soldier is equal to eight Indian troops". Six Pakistani terrorists held on for three days, harrying six hundred troops. That, in itself, is a demonstration of "psychological warfare". Diplomacy or no diplomacy, talk or no talk, India needs to reorient and revisit its war-making policy and planning at once.
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