Broken chain of command is fatal

Maswood Alam Khan

So goes the tale, brute commanders used to test loyalties of their soldiers by ordering them to embrace suicidal death in peacetimes. A cruel potentate, who boasted about his command on his fanatically loyal soldiers, as the story goes, used to invite his guests of honour on a railing-less flat roof of a high-rise building to show his soldiers' march past. 'March on!' he would command and the soldiers without any hesitancy would march ahead knowing fully well they were stepping into death. One soldier after another had thus fallen from the rooftop and died instantly.
   The chain of command in any organisation is the key to success. In civil administration any temporary deviation in the chain of command is not so fatal and is always amenable to correction. But, in military organisation 'the chain of command' is not only the master key to success but also the very lifeline during both wartime and peacetime. A chain of command, once broken, in a military organisation can also be corrected, but at a huge cost in terms of casualties, time, money and morale.
   
   Mortally dangerous
   A little discontent at any stage down the line which may spark a little hesitation on the part of a subordinate soldier to obey the order from his immediate higher command means something mortally dangerous.
   So, a soldier cannot think of disobeying his commanding officer's order, right or wrong. To a soldier the commanding officer is his god, an equation that is very vital in a disciplined force where one has to command thousands of soldiers equipped with lethal arms. Positive reinforcement and negative punishment, simply speaking 'reward' and 'punishment' are two tools a trainer uses to train his soldiers. Discipline, motivation, loyalty and leadership are the means on which a powerful trainee can be trained by a less powerful trainer. Without such training tools an 80-kilogram man could never tame and command a 6000-kilogram elephant to dance at the movement of a small baton!
   
   Military science
   It is unwise on the part of civilians to judge any wrongdoing of any armed personnel. Wrongdoing of a soldier has to be judged in a military court by a set of codes and laws which are different from those followed in civil courts of law. Armed personnel live in a different world; they follow a strict regimen in accordance with what is prescribed in military science.
   There is no democracy in army barracks; there is no trade unionism through which soldiers can ventilate their opinions or frustrations. And such strictness, though it sounds a little cruel, is essential for the greater interest of a disciplined force which is indoctrinated only to obey commands. Disobeying blatantly a command in a battlefield is deemed treason and is punishable in most cases by death sentences in a court marshal.
   It is the onus of the highest command to decide who should command whom. It is the responsibility of the commanding officers at different echelons to empathise with each and every soldier under his command and to bring to every soldier the best succour well before a soldier even asks for a little relief.
   A commanding officer who waits for a soldier to ask for something he needs is a bad commanding officer. The very commanding structure of a disciplined force obviates the necessity of trade unionism in armed forces. Because, what a commanding officer is to a soldier in a cantonment is a trade union leader to a worker in a factory. If professionalism is not allowed to be compromised, the commander-in-chief of a disciplined armed force rarely commits a mistake in choosing the right person in the right place behind the right cannon and in bringing the right succour to the right soldier in the right possible time.
   
   Intelligence mechanism
   A commanding officer, however, cannot command his subordinates on a whim because he has a command responsibility not only for his own command that is passed as an order, written or spoken, but also for any crime committed by his subordinates, if he fails to presage a subordinate's bad motive through his intelligence mechanism and prevent or punish those subordinates committing crimes like mutiny, thuggery, adultery, torture etc.
   Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has granted general amnesty to the BDR mutineers, because she had no other alternative at that moment to save the innocent who were held hostage inside the BDR camp. Her appeal to the BDR 'jawans' to cool down their temper and surrender their arms and her determination to take stern measures against those who would not obey her orders brought the uproar to a peaceful end.
   
   Beauty of democracy
   The leader of 160 million people of Bangladesh has shown to the world how a civilian prime minister, in her statesmanlike handling of a grave crisis, could melt the revolt away through her trusting words broadcast through a national hookup. We are happy to note that our opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia too urged both sides to exercise restraint. This is the beauty of democracy many leaders of the so-called great democracies like the former President Bush of the United States lamentably could not pursue in dousing flames of wars.
   Mutiny is a culmination of frustrations among soldiers. It is the intelligence agencies who have to garner discreetly why the soldiers were fulminating against their commanding authority. A corrective measure in time, which may not necessarily be very costly, can easily extinguish the volatility of the anguished soldiers.
   
   Jurists in military law
   General amnesty granted to mutineers by our Prime Minister must be honoured. But our legal experts and the experienced jurists in military law must now sit together to determine the coverage of the general amnesty. Will all the mutineers be pardoned and allowed to join their duties as usual, as if nothing had happened on the 25th February inside the Pilkhana BDR camp? No, in no way! Because, such wholesale pardon will create a bad precedence and encourage mutinies in other armed disciplines like the army, the navy, the air force, the ansars, the police, the armed guards of banks, the private security forces, or any other forces or guards who are equipped with arms.
   Home Minister should first determine who those officers were who did not or could not comply with the terms of their command responsibilities that fuelled unrest among the soldiers. They should also unearth why the intelligence agencies did fail to warn the authority beforehand for taking up pre-emptive measures.
   Now, by bringing to book all the culprits, including those responsible for brewing up the mutiny and the mutineers who would be adjudged responsible for killing the innocent officers, our Prime Minister may prove to the nation that she doesn't pardon the killers--killers who killed unarmed civilians during our liberation war, killers who killed the unarmed members of her own family, killers who killed leaders inside a prison, killers who killed the unarmed officers inside the BDR camp on the 25th or the 26th February, 2009.
   For the sake of upholding one single code of military discipline nine or even nine hundred undisciplined soldiers and officers may be executed with a view to sending loud and correct messages to the future errant. "Nine necessary executions now in time may thus safeguard one vital military discipline that in future may save nine thousand innocent lives".

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Praful Bidwai in New Delhi

A week after Islamabad admitted that the plot to carry out the Nov. 26-29 attacks on Mumbai was partially planned in Pakistan, and that Pakistani nationals were among the assailants, there are tentative signs that the strained relations between the two neighbours may be thawing.
   At least five such signs are now discernible.
   First, and most important, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee on 12 February ruled out a military option against Pakistan and emphasised that New Delhi would only use diplomatic means to get Islamabad to act against the terrorist network involved in the attacks.
   Mukherjee strongly defended India's diplomatic approach towards Pakistan even as he emphasised that India would continue to demand that Pakistan dismantle "the terrorist infrastructure" in the country "in a verifiable and credible manner".
   He said: "Diplomacy has not failed. Diplomacy has prevailed. They (Pakistan) had admitted the involvement of elements from their country behind the terror attacks... We did not mobilise a single soldier, we did not press the panic button, we did not lay mines on the border, but we said we expected Pakistan to fulfil its commitment. They informed us in February admitting the involvement of elements in their country."
   Islamabad's admission came five weeks after India handed over a detailed dossier on Mumbai to the Pakistan government, containing evidence of the involvement of Lashkar-e-Toiba militants in the Mumbai assault.
   Mukherjee was careful to add India "doesn't mean to rub [Pakistan] on the wrong side. We know the complexity of our neighbour. Everyone knows that [the] Pakistan situation is complex''.
   This is the clearest statement so far from an Indian high official indicating that New Delhi does not intend to use coercive means to secure Pakistan's cooperation in preventing and punishing terrorist activities carried out from its soil.
   "This is undoubtedly a marked departure from the recent rhetoric employed by India accusing Pakistan of denial, evasion and prevarication," says Kamal Mitra Chenoy, a professor in the School of International Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
   Second, according to Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, "India has expressed a wish that a team from the FIA [Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency] should visit India. We are considering this request."
   India has not officially confirmed this. But if this is true, then New Delhi may be more willing than in the past to accept Pakistan's offer of a "joint investigation" into the Mumbai attacks, or at least, to explore a cooperative approach.
   Third, India has made it clear that it does not intend to suspend communication links and people-to-people contacts with Pakistan.
   Later in February, Mukherjee said: "I must underline that we have no quarrel with the people of Pakistan. We wish them well and we do not think that they should be held responsible or face the consequences of this situation. We have, therefore, consciously, and after due deliberation, not thought it necessary or fit to curtail people to people contacts, trains and road links."
   Fourth, New Delhi has dispelled fears that it would not appoint a new high commissioner (ambassador) to Pakistan as soon as the term of the present incumbent expires at the end of this month.
   Earlier, there were reports that India would delay the appointment of his successor until a new government is in power in New Delhi in May after the coming general election partly as a way of temporarily downgrading diplomatic relations with Islamabad in response to Mumbai.
   And finally, India is likely to respond in a cooperative and professional fashion to questions about the Mumbai attacks raised by Pakistan. A week ago, Islamabad had highlighted 30 issues on which it wanted further information and clarifications from India.
   "All this suggests a measured, friendly and mature response to Pakistan's change of stance," argues Mitra Chenoy.
   He adds: "It is a sign of sobriety that India resisted calls for retaliation against Pakistan, and that Mukherjee said that 'human liberty and values are sacrosanct. We cannot imitate certain other countries and their actions' which are causing the loss of innocent lives every day. Mukherjee was implicitly referring to the United States' global 'war on terror'.
   Ironically, however, the U.S. is reported to have played an important role in facilitating intelligence exchanges between India and Pakistan, which led to Pakistan's admission of the involvement of its nationals in the Mumbai attacks.
   The Washington Post reported on Feb. 16 that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) played a proactive role and "orchestrated back-channel intelligence exchanges between India and Pakistan, allowing [them] to quietly share highly sensitive evidence."
   "The intelligence," says the Post, "went well beyond public revelations and included sophisticated intercepts and an array of physical evidence. Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies separately shared their findings with the CIA, which relayed the details while also vetting the intelligence and filling in blanks."
   The Mumbai police had allowed the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to interrogate the sole surviving attacker, Amir Ajmal Kasab. The FBI reportedly shared the information it gathered, with intercepts of conversations between the attackers and their minders, with the Pakistani authorities.
   In their briefings, Mumbai police officials have said FBI personnel might be requested to appear as prosecution witnesses against Kasab.
   The FBI is known to have contributed to the writing of the Mumbai dossier and probably played a major role in persuading Pakistani investigators to accept its authenticity.
   Perhaps even more important was the recent visit to South Asia of U.S. President Barrack Obama's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke.
   "Holbrooke is a hard-driving diplomat, who used unconventional means, including bluster, bullying and deception, to reach the Dayton agreement which ended the Balkan war in 1995," says Karamat Ali, a Pakistani political analyst and social activist.
   "It is inconceivable that he did not press the Pakistani leadership to admit that the Mumbai attacks originated on Pakistan's soil, and to promise to act against the culprits," Ali said.
   "This does not argue that India's bilateral diplomacy and Pakistan's domestic politics did not play a major role in pushing Islamabad,'' Ali added. ''They obviously did. But U.S. pressure was probably an important factor in enabling the civilian leadership of Pakistan to mount pressure on the military and break its resistance to responding positively to India."
   Despite the new signs of a possible thaw, not all is hunky dory between India and Pakistan. New Delhi still expects decisive action not only against the six men that the Pakistan government has arrested, and also against the larger terrorist networks of which they are part.
   It is not clear if Islamabad will move quickly to dismantle what India calls "the terrorist infrastructure" in Pakistan.
   India has expressed serious concern at the just-concluded agreement in Swat between the government of the North West Frontier Province and Islamic militants who have overrun the area, attacked and shut down girls' schools, and are bent on implementing the Shariah code.
   New Delhi believes this will encourage jehadi extremists connected with the Taliban, and poses a serious danger to the entire region.
   Whether and to what extent that complicates India-Pakistan relations remains unclear. But if both governments continue to reciprocate positive and friendly gestures, a fruitful dialogue on how to contain and combat terrorism might become possible.
   -Inter Press Service

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