Tronic

AM, I think you don't notice because you're never actually looking out for it; and only see when it happens to you. Mainstream Pakistanis do it all the time; Adnan Sami, or watch any of Jal's interviews in India, and heck, listen to Bohemia's song Akhri Manzil, the whole song is about how partition was a stupid thing.

__________________
Nabha Sparasham Deeptam
-Touch The Sky With Glory

Ray

Cactus,

The link, please.

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Cactus

Then recruit them into the Pakistani Army, train them with regular NCOs and JCOs, and station them in Rawalpindi, Lahore or Karachi. Meanwhile send in the regular Army battalions - with already solidified loyalty to the Pakistan's national policy commitments - to do the job in the NWFP. Don't waste good money and time trying to fix a rotten deal. And if you do, do it with our own money and after the campaign you have commited yourself to.

Agnostic Muslim

The point I was making was actually more nuanced than just that:

"That the force has held together despite these odds indicates that there already is a strong sense of identity and loyalty to an entity beyond merely the Tribe.

Or it may be that the loyalty to tribe and faith is still paramount, but the organization of the FC has allowed for it understand the danger posed by an ideology or organization (Taliban), working against the interests of the State (Pakistan, Pakistan supported Tribal Systems), to the Tribe and faith as they know it."

And I am arguing that the it is under the changed conditions of deployment, as the "chaff gets separated from the wheat" (desertions etc.), that it is becoming apparent that the FC is not abandoning its new duties en mass - the fulfillment of which puts it in direct conflict with the "Tribe and Mullah".

There is also the question of "allegiance to faith", along with tribe, a factor that is at play not just in the Tribal areas, but Pakistan proper as well. So attributing the "treachery" of those who "don't stay and fight" to only Tribal and Ethnic affiliation would be incorrect.

__________________
Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission - Jinnah

Agnostic Muslim

Thats a valid point.

I don't listen to Adnan Sami however, and who are Jal and Bohemia?

More of a System of A Down, Audioslave and occasional Jazz listener - Junoon sometimes

Cactus

S-2: You are correct, it was the incident in May 2007 that I pointed to as treachery by the Frontier Corps guard. I read about it earlier this year, hence the confusion.

Brig Ray: Did you mean links about the Pakistani Frontier Corps, or the incident? If it was the latter, I should have known better , as one of the article you posted recently referred to it: Targeting the Khyber Pass: The Taliban’s Spring Offensive

Ray

Details on the FC org and all that.

Cactus

Brig Ray

The points I brought up about the Pakistani Frontier Corps was drawn from a number of random, miscellaneous readings. Wikipedia is a good start, but it is not very thorough and quite open to revisionism.

Frontier Corps - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Khyber Rifles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Here you will notice the obvious Gorkha Khukri, mistakenly attributed as an Afghan/Khyber knife).

Unfortunately the excellent regiments.org has now disappeared, and with it some very good works and references as well. John Gaylor(?) I believe had published a few regimental sketches on post-Independence Pak forces, including components of the Frontier Corps, and they were all referenced there. Maybe some Pakistani enthusiasts have archived it elsewhere? I link it here if I come across any.

On the print media side, I have borrowed liberally and mainly from Philip Mason's A Matter of Honour: An Account of the Indian Army, Its Officers and Men, as well as Maj Gen. MacMunn's Army of India in providing historic perspective. But perhaps most the points most relevant to this topic from history comes from The army in India and the development of frontier warfare, 1849-1947 by T.R. Moreman. Then there are random anecdotes I have come across in various publications about Pakistan and Afghanistan from post-Independence travelers, for whom a visit to the Khyber Rifles' last post is still a must.