Daily Times

Did Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani speak too soon — back-to-back — in his two press statements, which appeared on Sunday, August 21, 2011 and Monday, August 22, 2011? While expressing “grave concern” over the deteriorating law and order situation in Karachi, on August 21, he said that the army was “ready to restore peace in the mega city, if asked by the government”. In his second statement on August 22, he expressed his “complete” satisfaction over the “nation’s support to the armed forces”. That would include the Pakistan Navy and the Pakistan Air Force.

The armed forces, he added, would “live up to the expectation of the nation”. When someone as quiet — naturally and deliberately — as General Kayani speaks with such candour and frankness, it pricks up one’s ears. Even if unintended, the army chief’s statements carried a shade of doing it for the sake of public relations, normally left to his spokesman, the ISPR chief. Was it then an opportunistic call or an alarm bell? Ever since the traumatic Abbottabad episode of May 2, and the grave damage it did to the military image, it was for the first time that the army chief went public in so robust a vein about the state of the armed forces and the support of the nation to them.

Kayani is no Musharraf, who was enthralled with his media coverage day in and day out. His had been a carefully crafted self-image every time he would appear before the print and electronic media. Overdone, the PR did more harm than good to Musharraf. His voice, initially loud and clear, and body language exuding absolute confidence, in time had acquired a hollow ring and an exhausted look. As for the forefathers — Ayub and Zia — they wrote up their own obituaries via their exuberant media coverage.

Ayub had been a darling of the media, especially of the foreign press. He was admired for his towering personality, physical presence and clipped Sandhurst accent. He would fill every place with his presence be it the Pentagon or the White House. This went on until he failed in war, a soldier’s ultimate test of coverage and total commitment to his profession.

The 1965 war turned into a blind alley for Ayub, a cul-de-sac without an outlet.

Zia donned the robe of a religious dean along with his gorgeous (colonial/secular) armoured corps uniform to make such an odd combination of the holy and the profane. Together with the ungodly capitalist US, he beat the godless Soviet Union in the Soviet-Afghan war. He helped the US turn the war into a jihad to leave Pakistan grappling with the legacy of endless militancy. Pakistan bleeds with the backlash of Zia’s perpetrated jihad-fi-sabil-Allah (just war).

His three-point official motto for the army, imaan (faith), taqwa (piety) and jihad fi-sabil-Allah, made a mockery of a modern, highly professional and salaried military force. Mercifully, the legacy died with him for all practical purposes.

Yahya, besides his part-time duties as the president, army chief and the supreme commander, had so much else in his private life to bother too much about his public image. His PR had been restricted mainly to his quarterly policy speeches to give the nation enough to discuss and debate for the next three months. In the meantime, he would address an odd press conference or grant an interview. Yahya was not afraid of the press but would rather keep them at arms length as far as possible.

He died as an unsung army chief. His name is hardly ever mentioned along with Ayub, Zia and Musharraf — each of whom treated this unfortunate country as his happy hunting ground.

General Kayani has two years plus to go before completing his extended six-year tenure in November 2013. His one enduring task would be to live down the stigma of Abbottabad as best as possible. That would be no ordinary task. For the first time ever, Abbottabad brought an ISI chief to the floor of parliament to apologise for his and his organisation’s failure in anticipating and upstaging the US air raid deep inside our territory.

Karachi may well turn out to be, by far, the most daunting task for the army and its chief, and for the rest of his tenure if it is deployed there. The military must succeed in the ordeals ahead. It stands on the cutting edge of the razor.

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army