A rather secretive lot
The Brahmanisation of matters military in the country has effectively barred everyone from commenting on them. Not because of a perceived fear when touching upon this prickly subject but because of a lack of actual ground knowledge on the issue. Apart from perhaps one or two, defence analysts in the media (the best gig around) grapple in the air regardless of which side of the pro/anti military divide they are on. Much is made of the lack of financial scrutiny of the military by civilians; no attention is paid to how little external scrutiny skills, preparedness and protocols undergo. Not many have any idea what they are talking about.
For instance, what to make of the COAS’s recent, much touted directive to his forces to suspend the chain of command and respond to any possible future attack? Would this imply that earlier all actions even in very localised theatres had to be approved by authorities all the way up? Conventional wisdom would assume that clear-cut parameters would have been laid down when it came to engaging foreign forces that were clearly encroaching on our territory. If indeed that was not the case, why wasn’t the SOP changed back when the Abbottabad operation took place? Or even earlier than that? The Salala incident, after all, wasn’t the first of its kind.
The Wall Street Journal’s recent report about how the military had actually authorised western forces to operate in the said area of the Mohmand agency is troublesome if true. It will take more than an ISPR refutation to convince the public that this was not the case. After all, weren’t the allegations about the Shamsi airbase denied with vehemence as well?
Civilian oversight is a missing ingredient when it comes to these matters. It would be hard to imagine the engineering departments in Pepco or Pakistan Railways eluding the seemingly unaware but deceptively intelligent gaze of the political class. The army should be no different.