By Mathias Samuel
The recently published book “Militarism, Affects and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army” written Maria Rashid is another attempt to malign sacrifices of Pakistani nation and its armed force given to win war against radicalism and terrorism.
Maria Rashid who is psychologist by profession recently delivered a talk on her book launching at the London School of Economics. She, during the talk, tried to influence the audience while describing the militarism effect by using sacrifices in Pakistan Army as a political tool. One should remember that Dr Ayesha Saddiqa, a well-known anti-Pakistan Armed Forces character was also present on the occasion and was actively involved in the vicious discussion against our security institutions.
In her book, she has attempted to follow the popular spiteful narrative of the Pakistani liberals settled in the West i.e. hurling venom on Pakistan Army. She claims that this book is the only text on the Pakistan Army that ethnographically focuses on the lives and deaths of Non-Commissioned Officers and Soldiers.
This effort is the continuation of the campaign to hit the center of gravity of Pakistan for obvious reasons for which Pakistani nationals settled in the west are used.
Let’s put the record of the lady correct by following arguments:-
- Pakistan Army has won the war against terror in a manner that no Army of the world has been able to do in such a short span of time. This has been only made possible by the unprecedented sacrifices by the officers and soldiers of the Armed Forces.
- ‘Troops to Officers Causality Ratio’ in the Pakistan Army is the highest in the world. It has always been. Until we entered GWOT, it was as high as 1:12 i.e., to every 12 soldiers we lost an officer. Later it had risen further to 1:9. We should be very proud of this because our young officer leads from the front; dies but not buckles. A sizable number of one to three-star general officers are on the list of ‘Shaheeds’ in the Pakistan Army. How the claim of this lady can be taken as authentic when she says that ‘Pakistan Army reinforces its omnipotence in the lives of soldiers’.
- Only between 2009 to 2018 (10 years), 5796 security and law enforcement personnel laid their lives for defending their motherland during War on Terrorism. Which army of the world has lost such a big number of precious lives during War on Terrorism in modern history?
- Her piece of work is also an effort to create a wedge between the civil-military relationship which is at its best at present.
- Her research has been carried out abroad with shallow knowledge of realities on the ground. It is interesting to note that data refereed in this book is gathered from third sources like clipping of newspapers, previously published articles and all this data is obsolete and not official.
- Her book is nothing more than a trivial part of Hybrid Warfare against Pakistan which by the grace of Almighty is meeting disappointment on all the fronts and the nation and its Armed Forces are prospering and moving on the road to successes.
