The retreat that is welcome

IT was long overdue but what finally clinched the decision by the army high command to withdraw its personnel from cushy jobs in civilian service was the appointment of a new army chief who rightly, and timely, concluded that his force must be depoliticized to restore its much-threatened reputation as a professional fighting machine. Over the last several decades, but particularly during the Zia-ul-Haq and Musharraf eras, the military dictators had doled out civilian positions to their favourites. The practice became so rampant that it acquired institutional sanction and over the time special quotas were fixed for the military inductees in civil service. That helped many young commissioned officers, thanks to their superior pedigree; enter into Central Superior Services - at a huge cost of demoralising their new colleagues who came through the Federal Public Service Commission. But the rulers were not content with the quotas and would not hesitate in sending their favourites on secondment to other civilian positions. As a result, some 300 key civilian positions in the present government are being manned by the serving military officers. Much of the Musharraf dispensation’s political and administrative failures are correctly blamed on these inductees, for each one of them being the ‘eyes and ears’ of the President enjoyed unquestionable authority to play havoc with the things under or around him. In a sense they are political appointees like the ones who join the US Administration with every change in the White House occupancy. Now that at the 106th Corps Commanders’ conference on Thursday Army Chief General Kayani approved ‘de-induction’ of serving personnel hope has emerged that back-to-barracks public call has been heard and is being honoured. Equally significant is the new chief’s decision that the army would not micro-manage the forthcoming elections. Late last month the ISPR had stated that the task of conducting elections is the sole responsibility of the Election Commission of Pakistan and the army would stay away from the electoral process except for its duty under the Constitution to help maintain law and order.
But if there was any confusion as to the role of the army in the elections that should dissipate with the army high command reiterating that the force would stay away from the elections and it is up to the Election Commission to ensure the fairness and transparency of polls. Of course, this is reiteration of the army chief’s earlier statement, but some observers think that given the fear that the opposition parties would reject ‘unfavourable’ results the army high command thought it proper to de-link from the electoral exercise. Whatever be the reason for army’s clearly heard stance that it has nothing to do with the conduct of elections the message comes loud and clear that army would like to jettison its political role in order to enhance its professional reasonability of defending the country’s frontiers. His decision to celebrate 2008 as the ‘Year of the Soldier’ also strongly suggests his perception that frequent embroilment of the armed forces in political matters has greatly damaged the image of the forces and that action to redeem that image cannot be any further delayed. If these moves by the army high command to retreat from the political arena have been welcomed by the public it becomes incumbent upon the public, through its civilian leaders, to make sure that the forces are not ‘invited’ to clean the mess they create as elected leaders.

Flawed trial

WHITE House claims that the military trials of the six Guantanamo detainees alleged to be behind the 9/11 will be “fair” and that justice will be done are specious nonsense. This is a flawed trial in a flawed detention process driven by a deeply flawed US administration that persists in folly, even when it is against its own best interests. These men should be brought to trial within the US mainland judicial process, not in some hole-in-the-corner military tribunal at an offshore base. They should have always enjoyed the rights of all accused, protected from torture and if they were indeed found guilty of the monstrous crimes of which they are accused, duly punished. Instead, they have been detained for up to six years in degrading conditions and some, including the alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have allegedly confessed after being exposed to torture, including the loathsome and illegal technique known as “waterboarding”. Most people, probably including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who authorized this torture, would confess to anything their torturers wanted to hear in order to save their lives and escape further horrific treatment. Thus these “confessions” will prove worthless. Worse, defendants who may not in fact have been tortured will be able to claim convincingly that any admissions they made under ordinary interrogation were equally false.
The reason the Bush administration threw away the rulebook is clear. They wanted to extract as much information as quickly as possible from these suspects, so that they could close in on the rest of Bin Laden’s organization. But in doing this, they made any future prosecution of these individuals in a normal court of law entirely unsafe. Thus the deplorable need to keep the process within the military. But even this is a doomed ambition. In part because it has been made clear that the military prosecutor will be seeking death penalties, it is inevitable that these cases will in time escape the military and almost certainly find their way to US Supreme Court. Along the way, lawyers and legislators will attack the way in which these men have been held and treated. Although it may seem unthinkable to many, there is, therefore, a chance that the cases against the accused will actually collapse because of the widespread perversion of their legal and human rights. If that happened, guilty men might actually walk free and there would be no conviction and no punishment for the world’s greatest single act of terrorism. The detention of Al-Qaeda suspects in Guantanamo Bay was an ill-conceived ploy to keep alleged terrorists away from the proper judicial process. The Bush White House was warned repeatedly by friends and allies that this process was not the solution, that it was illegal and that it would create more problems than it solved. Guantanamo attacked the very principles of justice and fairness on which the US was built and would, therefore, ultimately fail. And so it is proving.

—Arab News