When the news broke of the arrest of a serving brigadier ‘for links with a “terrorist outfit” and that outfit turned out to be Hizb-ul-Tahrir — hardly anything close to “terrorists” — I knew there had to more behind the arrest. The possibility that there was at least one decent officer in the Pakistan army was certainly surprising; not at all surprising is the fact that the army had been out to get him and finally Kiyani ordered his arrest for speaking the truth one times too many….
Here is a BBC story that lifts the veil from this sordid affair and is presented in full below (My independent info told me he was arrested May 6, which is confirmed by this story too) :
23 June 2011 Last updated at 09:00 GMT
Brigadier Ali Khan: Pakistan’s dissenting army officer
Brig Khan has a long and distinguished record
Brigadier Ali Khan, the Pakistani officer detained for his alleged links with the banned extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, had been highly critical of the Pakistan army’s high command over its relationship with the US, reports BBC Urdu’s Asif Farooqi.
Brig Ali Khan had been exerting strong pressure on the top echelons of Pakistan’s military to stop co-operating with American forces in the fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents, army officers who served with the brigadier during his 32-year career told the BBC.
But Pakistan’s military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said that there was compelling evidence against the brigadier because of his contacts with the banned group. [Of course this is a LIE!]
Hailing from a humble background in Punjab province, Brig Ali joined the army in 1979.
Colleagues – who did not want to be named because they are still in service – say he was a gold medallist with a distinguished career who was consistently promoted.
But his career hit a roadblock when he openly criticised Gen Pervez Musharraf when he was still army chief of staff.
Passed over
At an army course at a prestigious military college in Quetta, Brig Ali asked Gen Musharraf why he would not divulge the details of an agreement with the US to the Pakistani public.
Brig Ali wanted the army to be less co-operative with the US
The brigadier also said the “limits” of co-operation with the US on “the war on terror” should be clearly defined.
A senior military officer who was present at the occasion told the BBC that Gen Musharraf was clearly unhappy with the questions, and had asked around about the officer.
A few weeks later, the army promotion board held its regular meeting under Gen Musharraf. Brig Ali, who had been tipped for promotion to major general, was passed over.
Successive promotion boards rejected Brig Ali while his colleagues and subordinates continued to rise up the promotion ladder, overtaking him. Indeed, to date, Brig Ali is the oldest brigadier in the Pakistani army.
His colleagues thought he would be unable to withstand a career going nowhere and would seek early retirement. But they were soon proved wrong. The brigadier told his colleagues he had more to accomplish in his job.
It soon became clear what he meant by that.
“The army is a cult in itself, so it’s intolerant towards any other cult within.”
— Maj Gen Athar Abbas
Brig Ali started writing letters to army generals, some of whom were his former colleagues, with suggestions on how to become “self reliant” and “to purge the army of the American influence”.
He told senior officers such as Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani that Pakistan’s “unconditional” support to the Americans was causing resentment in the lower ranks of the army.
He said that “growing” American involvement in Pakistan – especially in its military affairs – was negatively affecting the morale of the armed forces.
An officer who received one of these letters said that after coming to know that Gen Kayani wanted this sort of correspondence to end, he spoke with his former colleague and politely told him to refrain from annoying the senior leadership.
“But Ali wouldn’t listen to us. He thought his input was necessary to save the institution he was serving and loved,” the officer said.
Anger vented
Brig Ali even wrote to the President Asif Ali Zardari suggesting ways to make Pakistan economically self-reliant by freeing the country of American aid.
After the US Special Forces raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound on 2 May, Brig Ali finally got the opportunity to vent his anger.
On 5 May, he was invited to a meeting by his former student and now his boss, Lieutenant General Javed Iqbal at the army headquarters.
The question that officers were asked at this meeting was how to pursue an inquiry into the 2 May raid.
Gen Kayani THE PIG's attitude towards the US was criticised by Brig Khan
One officer present in the meeting said all had been going well until it was Brig Ali’s turn to speak. In his opinion, the culprits who had hidden Bin Laden and allowed the Americans to get away with breaching Pakistan’s sovereignty were to be found within the army.
Gen Javed Iqbal was furious at the end of the meeting. As it turned out, Brig Ali’s views were not those of a lone wolf – he had managed to persuade some of his fellow officers of the veracity of his case.
Gen Iqbal promptly told the corps commanders what had happened the following day at a meeting chaired by Gen Kayani. That same evening Brig Ali was arrested.
Army officers who have worked with the brigadier say that nobody who knows him seriously believes that he has been involved in anything illegal.
“But the problem is that his anti-American views and [opinions on] self reliance were getting popular with middle and lower ranking officers,” one remarked.
In an interview with the BBC’s Urdu service Maj Gen Athar Abbas commented: “The army is a cult in itself, so it’s intolerant towards any other cult within”.
It looks as is Brig Ali’s cult was growing too rapidly and too dangerously.
Don’t you just love it? So Brig. Ali Khan has been RIGHT about everything and that is what bugged Kiyani so much. He 1s 100% correct in saying:
- stop co-operating with American forces in the fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents
- he openly criticised Gen Pervez Musharraf when he was still army chief of staff.
- asked Gen Musharraf why he would not divulge the details of an agreement with the US to the Pakistani public.
- the “limits” of co-operation with the US on “the war on terror” should be clearly defined.
- writing letters to army generals, some of whom were his former colleagues, with suggestions on how to become “self reliant” and “to purge the army of the American influence”.
- told senior officers such as Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani that Pakistan’s “unconditional” support to the Americans was causing resentment in the lower ranks of the army.
- thought his input was necessary to save the institution he was serving and loved
- wrote to the President Asif Ali Zardari suggesting ways to make Pakistan economically self-reliant by freeing the country of American aid.
- the culprits who had hidden Bin Laden and allowed the Americans to get away with breaching Pakistan’s sovereignty were to be found within the army.
Interestingly, all these points are what the current command pretends to be raising with it’s public face BUT we know that is all it is. And now no one should have any doubts for if they meant what they were saying, the’d have no issues with Brig. Ali.
BTW I just loved this bit:
“But the problem is that his anti-American views and [opinions on] self reliance were getting popular with middle and lower ranking officers,” one remarked.
(especially the use of the word “problem”) 🙂
Sort of related joke (though it is no joke):
Headline from last week:
CIA, ISI cooperation terminated: Gillani
Headline from today:
Embassy issues 67 visas for CIA staff
Bet Kiyani is proud of both Gilani and Haqqani 😉
F*ck Politics 
Interesting. Just for re-emphasis:
The aforementioned reminded me of “Re-Imagining Pakistan’s Defenses – Open Letter to a Pakistani General” November 30, 2007 (PDF tinyurl.com/Reimagining-pakistan )
But the following is where it stopped reminding me any further:
Asking Zardari sahib?
And the following completely tells me that your excitement may be pre-mature:
This Brig Khan can’t tell one puppetshow from another.
While all this is admittedly only the BBC report, and like anything else appearing in any media, must be taken circumspectly, the article clearly re-asserts the existence of boogeyman Ali Baba.
Notice the play: even the most zealous and patriotic Pakistani Brigadier who even dissented with the upper echelon of the Pakistani military (at this risk of his own promotion to major General) in its cooperation with the United States on the War on Terror, and wanted to limit its scope, also believed in the Osama Bin Laden, the Al Qaeeda, and other tales.
When a presumably patriotic Brigadier cannot see the difference between red-team/blue team operation, when a sitting Brigadier who by the account of this article should have been Maj. General by now, if not Lt. General, cannot see black-ops imperial projects to fabricate synthetic terror in order to create the hegelian dialectic of “evil doers” vs. the “good guys” in insurgency vs. counter-insurgency game of “imperial mobilization” ( tinyurl.com/insurgency-vs-counter ), it is not obvious to me what this fuss is all about.
Perhaps the Pakistani military command who are reading this blog (yeh!), might read ‘The Poor-Man’s Guide to Modernity’ (PDF tinyurl.com/guide-modernity-2011 ) and leave this poor but well-intentioned brigadier alone.
Brig. Ali Khan’s heart evidently is in the right place when he speaks of “self reliant” and “to purge the army of the American influence”, even if his analysis requires some rethinking.
And what exactly is the reality behind all this?
I won’t take the BBC’s word on it.
The only reason they have this article, in my view at least, is that the Mighty Wurlitzer is doing its job ( tinyurl.com/mightywurlitzer ).
Thanks.
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
But the following is where it stopped reminding me any further:
“Brig Ali even wrote to the President Asif Ali Zardari suggesting ways to make Pakistan economically self-reliant by freeing the country of American aid.”
Asking Zardari sahib?
Very true. Certainly gave me a hiccup as well — My first thought was “Not so smart is he?” — but I thought I’d let it slip.
“the article clearly re-asserts the existence of boogeyman Ali Baba”
No doubt but can anything else be expected from the MSM? I intentionally chose to look at this from a dumber level — that of MSM and army and “the most zealous and patriotic Pakistani Brigadier” — and ignoring the reality for a while for expecting a “Maj. General by now, if not Lt. General” to “see black-ops imperial projects to fabricate synthetic terror in order to create the hegelian dialectic of “evil doers” vs. the “good guys” in insurgency vs. counter-insurgency game of “imperial mobilization”” is really expecting too much, isn’t it? (Specially one who seems to believe his writing to Zardari would make a difference).
Perhaps the Pakistani military command who are reading this blog (yeh!)
Yeah, right! 🙂
“Brig. Ali Khan’s heart evidently is in the right place”
And that is the only point…
And what exactly is the reality behind all this?
I won’t take the BBC’s word on it.
The only reason they have this article, in my view at least, is that the Mighty Wurlitzer is doing its job ( tinyurl.com/mightywurlitzer )
I won’t take BBC’s word on anything…but leaving the reason for the article aside, I see more facts here than the complete fabrications coming from GHQ/ISPR (he was arrested NOT because he has links with HT and it has NOTHING to do with Mehran Base attack, as the army is trying to portray). No?
AOA, yes I also think this one of the key elements here:
‘“Brig. Ali Khan’s heart evidently is in the right place”
And that is the only point…’
But there is a second key element. And that is spelled out in the article which I constructed out of this comment yesterday. (And suddently blogger wiped out all my websites for a while and inexplicably brought it all back when I posted a message seeking why – see it here: )
Anyway the second key element, at least in my view, is this ( print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2011/06/bbc-pakistans-dissenting-army-officer.html ):
‘This BBC report, whatever its veracity, prima facie still underscores the undeniable fact of the mater. And that is, that even when the intention of rebellion might be genuine, even when the thirst for independence from empire’s mayhem might set an indigenous military patriot’s throat on fire in Pakistan, our modernity is a twisted devil. It comes wrapped in multifaceted Hegelian Dialectic. Without acutely comprehending this modernity, there simply cannot be any freedom for any nation and any people, no matter how fervently riled up they might get. That riling up is simply harvested on one or the other side of the Hegelian Dialectic. You are either a “militant” aiding and abetting “insurgency” if you don’t like hegemony or have been “tickled” into it, or, are part of empire’s Allies douching it with “counter-insurgency” if you don’t like the insurgents or just love to play house negro to the white man. Once caught in such a Hegelian Dialectic where both sides are orchestrated by the same powers, there is no escape from that matrix. ‘
It is towards finding a path to that very escape that both you and I, and the handful of many others (nonsequitor “handful” and “many”?) have been working on these past several years.
And speaking for myself, since the very day of 9/11, on September 11, 2001. I started with acertaining for myself that 9/11 was ‘operation canned goods’ by reading both, cover to cover, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William Shirer and Mein Kampf by Hitler. Once, having figured that out, the rest followed, beginning with informing my family, neighbors, friends, and not being satisfied with just talking to moving on to protest marches and attending teach-ins by others in similar position. In the aftermath of the FBI knocking on my door in 2003, that activism moved to my first piece of public writing, and interview to mainstream media (already noted in “They Dared to Knock on My Door” and “My Little Jihad” essays). It escalated rapidly from there into more intense work which included all sorts of activism, all sorts of valuable wasted time. While I have only aged ten years chronically, physically I have aged a lot more than my friends who have remained happy-happy pursuing their ‘American Dream’.
And now, in 2011, I have to concede that I admit defeat. There is simply, psychologically speaking, no escape from the matrix for those who are caught in it. If you didn’t know it from day one, then lamentably so, it appears to me that one is either type-1, or type-2. That is Hitler’s nomenclature from Mein Kampf and is explained in my report on “Master Social Science”. In a nut-shell, these are people who, for one reason or another, are unable to reason about the times they live in, logically, rationally, un-emotionally, and therefore are suceptible to propaganda and indoctrination. Type-1 are those who constitute the mainstream public. Type-2, evidently, are those who “suddenly woke up” for one reason or another and are now the dissentstream. That is the macro, most overarching, most comprehensive natural Hegelian Dialectic. It is as old as hegemony, as old as mankind (to borrow my favorite expression of Zbigniew Brzezinski). Take your pick, type-1 or type-2, you are still in the matrix! This is why, even when you dissent, unless you are type-3, those who can reason about the times they live in logically, rationally, un-emotionally, you behave like this unfortunate Brigadier Ali Khan. Clearly a type-2.
And that is a real problem. Indeed, the real heart of the matter. So, even while I will restate the first key point for the emhasis it deserves:
‘“Brig. Ali Khan’s heart evidently is in the right place”
And that is the only point…’
the second key point is on-par: the mind also has to be in the right place. Otherwise one remains caught in the matrix. There is no escape. No Exit!
This is so f*cking shocking a realization, and it appears to be both empirical and psychologically sound, that I am surprised that I even tried! A very good friend of mine who was teaching at LUMs in Lahore at the time, when I visited him in 2003 and gave him a copy of my maiden book Prisoners of the Cave on a CD, told me there and then, what it has taken for me to finally come to believe so many years later.
No one may inform another, no one can teach another. No one can make another type-3. At best, you move people from type-1 to type-2. At best, you give them data. Many can construct “information” out of it. A lot fewer can go a step further to extract “knowledge” out of it. And still fewer are able to extract wisdom. The limiting factor appears to be exactly this typification alluded to be Hitler. And this insight which evidently is also as old as wisdom itself, as old as wise men, and as old as religion, is the foundation of what’s stated in my pamphlet “How to Return to Palestine” from last year. Here is a snippet. If only Brigadier Ali Khan would be able to read it in his prison cell ( humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/p/pamphlet-how-to-return-to-palestine.html )
‘This article, From Genocide to ReGenesis in ZERO Compromise, penetrates deeper into the psychology, and the limitations, to The Way Forward. It is not that the aforementioned approach is a very profound discovery, or is classified top secret and I just accidentally stumbled upon it. It has been as open as any butcher’s knife in front of sheep. Yet, the sheep have never been able to revolt against the habit of the butcher to provide mutton to its paying-patrons. It obviously is incapable of thought. But we are human beings. What prevents us? What ab initio creates sheeples among mankind so democratically, that perfectly reasonable people, quite capable of thought, equally fall prey to the limitations of their respective world-views, follow pied-pipers, instead of doing their own independent thinking?
…
Commensurately, in order to benefit from this paper and The Way Forward, or even to challenge it with any value added, the reader too must do the same. Understand that one is naturally beholden to one’s world-view, no matter how profound or virtuous, which, one will naturally defend no matter what exposition with what evidence is set before one. Unless one consciously endeavors to overcome these “psychological cataracts” which tend to induce severe myopia, self-righteousness, and pathetic ignorance in the garb of lofty education, prestige, wealth, degrees, and applause, nothing new which is contrary to one’s world-view, can ever seep in. Incestuous self-reinforcement is a state of normalcy not just at the White House in its Zionist decision making! This is entirely self-evident, but most tend to apply it to only others, not to oneself. It is always that other fellow! Know thy self in order to know the world, is more than just a cliché of the Sufis. It is a necessity for genuine learning in a modernity which subjects the public to immense forces of social engineering. Not an easy task to accomplish, for it’s an on-going process to unlearn what has been spent a lifetime being taught and which has calcified in one’s world-view.
Nevertheless, it is an essential process for genuine seekers of truth, for the moral harbingers of real change, including the Palestinian rebels themselves, in order for one to not go through life as a gullible patsy of power, as a virtuous moron rehearsing mainly the incantations of power while calling it dissent, as a programmed robot celebrating the scholarship of others, or as a likkha-parrha jahil (pretentious ignoramus with advanced academic degrees from IVY Leagues) leading other morons. Having suffered is not an automatic qualification for knowing what to do next. It requires careful thought, like any engineering project. And the test of thought is daily, constant, like morality, and one can’t claim that Oh, I had thought in the 1960s, or “I was born with that thought”, and coast on that mileage! Saying that out loud sounds so bizarre, but it unfortunately captures the mindset of many a rebel today who prides himself on dissent – and follows the pied-pipers without analysis. The most thoughtful among this lot, in fact, have come up with a great excuse to not think: too much analysis leads to paralysis – “Just Do It”!’
Thanks.
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
It comes wrapped in multifaceted Hegelian Dialectic. Without acutely comprehending this modernity, there simply cannot be any freedom for any nation and any people, no matter how fervently riled up they might get. That riling up is simply harvested on one or the other side of the Hegelian Dialectic. You are either a “militant” aiding and abetting “insurgency” if you don’t like hegemony or have been “tickled” into it, or, are part of empire’s Allies douching it with “counter-insurgency” if you don’t like the insurgents or just love to play house negro to the white man. Once caught in such a Hegelian Dialectic where both sides are orchestrated by the same powers, there is no escape from that matrix. ‘
Do you really think ANY of our leaders — military or civil including bureaucracy) — have any clue as to what you are talking about? I have always been (shockingly?) amused by how limited a perspective our top military/security top-dogs see things through. Talking Hegelian Dialectic to them is like talking to a brick (though one might have more success with a brick). Seems you missed the latest offering from their collective brains and their ways of dealing with the only ‘enemy’ that they see facing them… (Oh by the way, Season 2 of Faseel-e-Jaan Se Aagay just started :))
There is simply, psychologically speaking, no escape from the matrix for those who are caught in it.
Indeed! Once there (by default?), no one wants to escape now do they? Again you are right on the money here: “No one may inform another, no one can teach another. No one can make another type-3. At best, you move people from type-1 to type-2. At best, you give them data.” Not only is “one is naturally beholden to one’s world-view”, one fight tooth-and nail to stay with it (no matter how good or even plain your evidence against it. So many times I have tried and thought I succeeded but within a week I have found people to completely have reverted back to their old way as if they were never introduced to that “data” (meaning even that ‘data’ is forgotten/put in the trash bin) — back to the state of sheep you talk about (“Yet, the sheep have never been able to revolt”). No one seems to want to “consciously endeavors to overcome these “psychological cataracts”“. Is it because they have invested too much in that comforting world view (‘Study and you will get a job’, ‘Justice is blind’, ‘work hard and even you can become president’, ‘democracy is the best’, ‘your vote counts’, ‘invest in an IRA’, ‘US is spreading freedom’, etc., etc.) ?
And who today has time to “Know thy self” in this age of Facebook and SMS where one is too busy typing “Aww, you look cute! Nice!!” under people’s pics twenty (or more) times a day, day after day? Every one is too busy with “What others think of me” which hardly leaves any time for “careful thought, like any engineering project”
And the test of thought is daily, constant, like morality…Saying that out loud sounds so bizarre, but it unfortunately captures the mindset of many a rebel today who prides himself on dissent – and follows the pied-pipers without analysis. The most thoughtful among this lot, in fact, have come up with a great excuse to not think: too much analysis leads to paralysis – “Just Do It”!’
Are you not asking for too much here, at least in case of the example at hand? Let’s remember who we are talking about here. Brig Ali is not even a Smedley Butler (and even Smedley Butler did not write ‘War is a Racket’ till after his retirement..). If Brig Ali had any sense, he would not be writing any letters to Zardari of all the people. BTW, I was surprised you did not mention the fact that this BBC story is another propaganda piece to indirectly remind everyone/confirm the lie that “Obama bagged Osama last month”:
Let’s not also forget the words of the army spokesperson himself who unintentionally admitted “The army is a cult in itself…” and expecting cultists to see reason is no short order (I am surprised Maj Gen Athar Abbas has gotten away with such an admission, at least for now).
Thank you for pointing this out – I should have put it in my Mighty Wurlitzer report ( tinyurl.com/mightywurlitzer ) when I had last updated it after “Obama bagged Osama last month” – it seemed to have fallen through the cracks:
Please leave me a citation for it. I can’t rememeber where I had seen it.
Your comments are, as usual, very perceptive. There is more thoughtful content in this one little anon website than there is many a newspaper combined. I hope Pakistan Military is reading it. All I can suggest is that “ilm” is no one’s exclusive purview. It can become anyone’s blanket on a cold night (in theory). It is the most egalitarian acquisition and accessible to anyone and everyone. This is even proveable – at least for Muslims. Qur’an even teaches a prayer in this respect:
Yet, we find ourselves living in the age of Jahiliya! Especially among the “likkha-parrha jahils” ( tinyurl.com/modern-idiots )
Never mind “ilm”, even simple moral decency escapes us today! Just your two articles on ‘Slaughter of Chechens in Quetta’ is empirical proof enough of this despicable “vulture culture” zietgeist.
So never mind blaming the zionists and the imperialist storm troopers for enjoying their own killing fields among the “terrorists”. When we stop doing it to our peoples, only then will others be compelled to stop doing it to us! No one will respect one more than oneself. If one has no self-respect, one ain’t gonna get any from others! This is so damn pathetically obvious, a truism, that it is banal to even say it.
No – the Pakistan military must come to understand Hegelian Dialectic, if they are to protect the nation. Every military of every nation in the world must come to understand it.
And you know what? I am 100% certain that it is news to them. From Westpoint to Sandhurst, and from Rand to whatever, they know, and teach, the art of war! Again Sun Tzu (PDF tinyurl.com/political-dialogs ):
Not a rocket science. But as noted in the Followup II below, it does require a functioning heart and functioning mind to see it when one is born into house negro.
Our biggest enemy for 200-300 years has been that systematic mental colonization. Here is Lord Macaulay in 1835 speaking before the English Parliament – was he perchance already thinking of the twenty-first century and beyond, to the global governance by the Anglo-Saxons:
Worth a full read for its full context for those unfamiliar with the pernicious process of mental colonization ( PDF tinyurl.com/Macaulay1835 ).
So long as we have such perversion among us, we will continue to nurture fifth columinists. So long as we have fifith columnists among us, we will continue to open the gates to the barbarians at the door instead of standing up to them as a dignified peoples.
We are seeing the exploits of the East India Company reincarnated today at a global scale to finally create their global governance. As the Council on Foreign Relations author wrote in 1974 ( tinyurl.com/hardroad-worldorder ):
That is the exact modus operandi that was adopted by the East India Company to take over the indo sub-continent!
It is nothing more profound than that.
Thanks.
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
Followup II
While not the case of Brigadier Ali Khan per se – he is evidently still acting in moral principle, but unfortunately with poor knowledge – there is a much greater problem of not acting at all. While the above discussion is about acquiring accurate knowledge in order to act propitiously, an even greater observable truism is that accurate knowledge by itself does not equate to human action for the vast majority of mankind! Evidently, what limits people to act courageously in moral causes is not their lack of knowledge about a matter. As empiricism amply suggests, a surfeit of knowledge by itself rarely tickles the public’s conscience to act.
We see this sufficiently in our own times to know that it is a universal truth. Bringing knowledge to the masses in the hope of their reacting to it with wisdom and sagacity, therefore, is at best an interesting theory. At worst, a specious thesis upon which the edifice of the fourth pillar of democracy is Machiavellian constructed. An illusion of a workable system of governance has been created for the public in their name, but which, in reality, only replaced overt oligarchic rule in the name of gods of yesteryear, with a covert one in the name of democracy. This was elaborated in my Letter to Robert Jensen, September 15, 2009 – Re-titling can perhaps make the problem-space more apparent: Can journalism schools be relevant in a New World Order of one-world government?. The motivational linkage between knowledge and act was also examined in my recent article: Islam and Knowledge vs. Socialization.
Consequently, I imagine it is also fair to observe that Brigadier Ali Khan has overcome a much harder problem. That of apathy, indifference, and most pertinent, servitude as a house negro. By the evidence of this BBC report, the Brigadier is already taking a courageous stand for his nation which he had presumably sworn to defend against all enemies when he first joined the army. To move to the next phase therefore, of actually taking a wise and correct stand with sufficiently accurate knowledge of the matter, is the next biggest challenge. Perhaps someone might send Brigadier Ali Khan my short book identifying the enemy. It’s written for motivated people inclined to do something about a matter rather than merely talk about it: The Poor-Man’s Guide to Modernity. As Sun Tzu stated 2500 years ago on The Art of War:
The fabricated charge of “terrorism” can fall upon anyone at any time. That was made obvious from day one, when, on Thursday, September 20, 2001, in his address to both Houses of U.S. Congress, amidst more than twenty standing ovations, President George W. Bush read off the scripted Hegelian ultimatum to all nations of the world: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” (Applause.) As the BBC report indicates, clearly Brigadier Ali Khan was not afraid of such labels. A venerable man of heart. But he got the substance wrong.
I would like at least one sitting military officer in Pakistan, and in the United States – the two countries I call home – to get the substance right. To recognize the real enemy and to act courageously in their uniform while they still command their posts. Writing memoirs upon retirement hardly cleanses the blood. Take a leaf out of Bush’s own speech – the words of the emperor are also one’s best defense against any trumped up terrorism charge: “Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.” If I can prove who is the greater terrorist, the pirate or the emperor, so can anyone with half a brain! But this proof is obviously irrelevant in the emperor’s court. Proving it before the emperor is not its purpose. St. Augustine demonstrated 1600 years ago in The City of God, that it was already a universal truism:
But when the pirate works for the emperor and is furthering the emperor’s own agendas, that requires more than half a brain to see it. It is no longer a matter of simple truism like St. Augustine’s. It can even be counter-intuitive. People with Ph.D. can succumb to its deception. Therefore, proving to oneself is the purpose. That takes a fully functioning rational mind.
A fully functioning rational mind and a fully functioning empathetic heart coming together in the same person, in a sitting general for instance, and we have a winning combination of one who will not fear the result of a hundred battles, each leading to victory. Again from Sun Tzu:
Since no sitting general of such moral fiber with a fully functioning mind can ever exist in the emperor’s or its allies’ armies except in the service of the emperor, there is no practicable waging of real dissent against the emperor’s “imperial mobilization”. The emperor will always win by definition – unless the entire mid-ranking cadre refuse to obey immoral orders! A caveat which presumably exists in all nations’ military rule books governing soldier conduct since World War II. But in order to exercise that caveat still requires the twain characteristic of mind and heart to be simultaneously functioning in the modern soldiery. I doubt that this is more than just a theoretical possibility today.
If you have the heart, you are often dumb enough to join the military under the false flag of patriotism against fabricated enemies where, once enlisted, all compassion and empathy is driven out of you early on. You are taught to obey orders and not to think for yourself. Your higher ranking officers always know better. And the highest ranking officer of every military is always a house negro. If you have a mind, you don’t join the military except to rule others. People with both functioning heart and functioning mind are not to be found in modern professional standing armies – they become poets. I hope I am wrong here. That Brigadier Ali turns out to be a poet soldier – like the illustrious one of antiquity he is named after! That sublime path to valiance is obviously open to all regardless of name. But it does require the heart and mind to both be fully functional simultaneously!
Thanks,
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
[ To continue with the point from your comment of June 25, 2011 at 9:23 am above, and my reply to it – I think my mind might have been elsewhere and I didn’t flesh it out sufficiently. I must have been tired as had trouble remembering where I had read the quote (asking you to leave me a reference to it) when it was in the BBC report itself, and which I had quoted myself earlier. Sorry about that. BTW, I am informed that my article has been sent to the military in Pakistan. It is also published by Veterans Today veteranstoday.com/2011/06/27/pakistans-army-dissent/ . As you know, that website is frequented by military types, both Americans and Pakistanis. So I hope that the article will make its way to some above average man of heart and intelligence in both, the Pakistan military, and the American military. As I have written elsewhere, one good man at the top can change the entire game on the Grand Chessboard overnight!! And I care not how many professionals they slept with before – all I care about is that they finally be faithful to their professed love and seek none other beside their own people whom they have sworn to protect! Miracles can happen – after all, as we say, “allah chala raha hai” – right? ]
Followup IV
The BBC playing up Brigadier Ali Khan’s alleged opinion:
‘One officer present in the meeting said all had been going well until it was Brig Khan’s turn to speak. In his opinion, the culprits who had hidden Bin Laden and allowed the Americans to get away with breaching Pakistan’s sovereignty were to be found within the army.’,
is even more revealing of the Mind War being waged against Pakistan. There is no direct quote, no named source, the Brigadier is already in the brink so he can’t clarify BBC’s version of the “one officer’s” interpretation of what he really might have said and not said. What’s the point of this anonymous “officials say” style of journalism? Let me suggest from Mount Fuji:
‘Aspire to be like Mt. Fuji, with such a broad and solid
foundation that the strongest earthquake cannot move you, and so
tall that the greatest enterprises of common men seem insignificant
from your lofty perspective. With your mind as high as
Mt Fuji you can see all things clearly. And you can see all the
forces that shape events; not just the things happening near to
you.’ — Miyamoto Musashi, quoted in Political Ponerology
That, such reportage also furthers the recipe for the self-destruction of the Pakistan military from within. World government cannot have large independent standing armies. And Pakistan’s is the fifth largest (I am told). All sovereign armies must eventually be destroyed, disarmed, and turned into local policing militias as surrogates of the single global military force.
Clearly, for the “insurgency” in Pakistan to continue to be deadly and long-running, mercenary elements from within the Pakistan military and its intelligence apparatuses are themselves behind it, covertly aiding and abetting, and “tickling” the “insurgents” as necessary, but entirely as surrogate local handlers of American-financed black-ops of the red-team (the bad guys). The Pakistani jawans in uniform are subsequently encouraged to fight these “insurgents” very patriotically as the blue-team (the good guys). As already examined above, this was deconstructed in my September 2009 report “The Decapitation of Pakistan by its own Military!” ( http://tinyurl.com/insurgency-vs-counter ). The topic was also fleshed out in the November 2009 followup “Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory!” ( http://tinyurl.com/bring-zen-to-pakistan ). The systematic demoralization of the world’s fifth largest standing military can be the only end result of such internecine warfare. How much of a patriotic fighting spirit can any army muster after soiling their hands in the blood of their own? A demoralized military will surrender to any superior force without offering much resistance. The world already witnessed how the 90,000 jawans of West Pakistan’s army under the command of its three star general trivially surrendered in East Pakistan after despoiling their consciences and pak ammunitions with the blood of the Bengalis. That is now being repeated in the blood of the Pushtoons, the Baluchis, and soon others.
In the modern art of war, full spectrum demoralization of the enemy is a calculated method of staging the so called fifth generation warfare without the traditional open declaration of war: get the enemy demoralized by hook or by crook and amenable to PSYOP such that they come around to your point of view without further “persuasion” or casualty on your side. Pick up any military doctrine manual and one sees the foundation of that thesis. How can any modern military be unaware of it? No – they are not unaware of it. When all that is impossible is eliminated, what remains is the truth.
My confrere and former writer/journalist, Abid Ullah Jan thanklessly warned Pakistani military in his many books and writings about these traps facing Pakistan’s military to soften up the high value targets from within. I think he genuinely believed, as I once did, that there were generals in the Pakistan military not beholden to the massa.
That unfortunate fact however was the principal reason for the orchestrated rise of Pervez Musharraf from obscurity to run Pakistan during the most momentous epoch of our times: the initial launch of “imperial mobilization” to Afghanistan to commence “World War IV”.
Without General Pervez Musharraf at the helm in “nuclear armed” Pakistan of that time, invasion of Muslim Afghanistan would not have been a game-theory backed viable military option for even the mightiest sole superpower on earth. Because of this, I have long come to the realization that if Pakistan did indeed ever possess any physical nuclear weapons of her own at any time, and my study has led me to seriously question that global truth, they were effectively neutralized by General Pervez Musharraf before the first American bombs ever fell on Afghanistan. The greatest traitor to Pakistan since the loss of East Pakistan to the tyranny of his predecessors occupying the chair, General Pervez Musharraf set the stage for all other traitors to follow in his boots as Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Today, under his successor duo General Kiyani – President Zardari tag team, Pakistan is as toothless a paper tiger wearing the pious robe of “democracy” armed with “nuclear weapons” as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was under the vile robe of “dictatorship” armed with “weapons of mass destruction”. And as is already self-evident, the two nations are sharing in the same fate. Their peoples, first victimized by their own military, and then by the “shock and awe” of the barbarians who waited patiently for decades before unleashing their munificent payloads upon the pawns on the Grand Chessboard.
It is my great misfortune that within my own lifetime, I am seeing the systematic birth-pangs of a new Pakistan for a second time at the hands of her own patriots too greedy, and too dumb, to understand the modern world. For some of us who have lived long enough, this raising of the phoenix from the blood-soaked ashes of ritual pawn sacrifice is the third time.
We sadly tend to think that just because some of us have indeed lost our tail descending from the tree-tops (although Pakistani columnist Cowasjee once wrote that we have yet to lose even our tail), that we necessarily have also acquired an iota of higher cognitive intelligence.
Thanks.
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
Source URL: print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2011/06/bbc-pakistans-dissenting-army-officer.html