Reading So what next (M. Tariq, Pakistan Today on 23-10-2010) who can disagree with the historical facts that he mentions including military manipulations as well as the setting up of mushroom parties, something no civil government would ever do.
After all the military are the managers of war and we on the civil side are the managers of peace. The military train for the next war during the peace time. In peace the civil authorities are concerned with both national and international matters comprising industry, commerce, education, social welfare, energy, environment as well as exchange rates and others.
Flexibility is required in these activities which are unfamiliar to war managers. This is when the civil side acquire their experience. During the war the civil side gets subordinated to the requirements of defence. No wonder when Musharraf inducted hundreds of military men into civil services, for no fault of theirs, they could not understand why so many standard operating procedure were out of date.
This resulted in demolishing whatever was left of the administrative infrastructure. The need of the hour for the civil side is to continue with whatever its shortcomings maybe.
Doubtless, we do require changes. The first and the most important is to ensure the executive, judiciary and legislature are at arms length. This means we need to follow our Islamic tradition of the nazar fil mazalim (complaint) courts, in which accountability of the executive remains within it. The Omayyed caliphs Abdul Malik bin Marwan formalized this. The Moghal kings did likewise.
I would also like to add that Charlie Wilson never advised a walk away from Afghanistan after the Russians were defeated.
MASOOD HASAN
Lahore
