Raheel Remarks

“Army respects all other institutions of the state and expects them to respect it also”, was a simple and straight forward remark made by the COAS Gen. Raheel Sharif while visiting a Pak army commando unit near Terbela. Somehow it has created a furore totally unwarranted in certain quarters especially the electronic media who is blowing it hot and cold and quite out of proportion projecting it nothing short of an ultimatum by the General to the govt. All sorts of TV talk shows are being held where anchors are openly trying hard to create a hype. In their such effort they at times pose some silly questions to the panellists, such as, “would you call it the first warning or the last warning by the general to the govt?”. The absurdity of the question is self evident!!

Some others in their sublime (read ridiculous) wisdom attribute the remark to be a veiled threat to the govt. not to proceed against Musharraf – not realizing that now that he has been indicted by a court legal proceedings have to be resorted to till these come to a logical end.  

To me the whole matter is very simple and clear.  Some of the politicians, for reasons best known to them,  cannot hide their obvious hate and contempt for Musharraf.  But in doing so they instead of condemning him as an individual - Pervez Musharraf or ex President Pervez Musharraf  or even ex General Pervez Musharraf -  somehow emphasise directly or obliquely more upon his associations with the army than anything else and fling upon him  vitriolic and contemptuous remarks such as a “buzdil commando”,  “a darpoke jarnail”,  “ the Ghaddar jarnail” etc. etc.  The army most certainly doesn’t like to be associated with or told to have been commanded by a buzdil, darpoke or ghaddar army chief and ridiculed in default by such ostensibly veiled but quite obvious references to it by anyone. Hence, an honest and sincere riposte from the General for the concerned to refrain from ! deepening the chasm between the civil and the military which could be extremely harmful for the nation.

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)