Praveen Swamy - Shoddy intelligence, inept generals expose India’s military mess
... the ace spies took a tale from a petty informant—and then linked up the cool-aid for public consumption. Ill-informed television hacks lapped up the lassi, as Delhi boys would put it.
THE IMPORTANT take-away here, though, isn’t that its easy to make monkeys of journalists, which it undoubtedly is. The document itself is genuine, so you can’t blame reporters for carrying it. It was, highly-placed government sources told Firstpost, prepared by the Military Intelligence directorate for a meeting of MAC, and then recirculated on 9 October. It is identical, in its structure, to a MAC document, except in the identification tag. Firstpost is withholding the correct format of MAC identification tags, for obvious reasons
.
It boggles the imagination, though, that the army would actually want to leak this awful demonstration of the complete incompetence of its intelligence corps, rather than be yelling out the clearly ill-trained and incompetent junior officer for being suckered by an informant. For what its worth, my guess is that the gentlemen concerned—who journalistic convention regrettably forbids me from naming—thought the leak would deflect attention from another ongoing embarassment. This morning, newspapers carried fresh revelations on the army’s Keran fiasco—even failing to retrieve lost observation posts while announcing to the media that that it had wound-up operations.
The story, broken by Firstpost, came at the end of a series of incidents that suggested thoroughgoing command incompetence, ranging from attacks on troops in Srinagar which went on for an hour before anyone responded, to beheadings of sleeping soldiers on the Line of Control, and of course the ease with which terrorists hit Samba. Its also possible the leak was meant to let the political executive off the hook for its continued engagement with Pakistan: after all, the Military Intelligence document says the ISI tried to restrain jihadists from carrying out the attack, but couldn’t. Either way, its a disgrace. It isn’t the only one in recent years.
IN ANY OTHER country, generals would have been sacked for errors and outright fabrications that cost the lives of soldiers in Kargil—allegations upheld by the highest military tribunal of our land. In any other country, heads would have rolled when top brass peddled vastly exaggerated claims of the killings of terrorists in Poonch, in a bit to win honours. In any other country, there would have been a serious reckoning of the command failures that allowed an army unit in Saichen to fake operations, using a hand-held camera and, incredibly, ketchup. For two decades now, we’ve done nothing—allowing politicians to pass off the veneration of corrupt and incompetent top brass as respect for the army. In return for this relic-worship, the generals have played along with the politicians, rarely speaking the truth about the disturbing state of our national security apparatus.. read more:
.
http://www.firstpost.com/india/shoddy-intelligence-inept-generals-expose-indias-military-mess-1184837.html
THE IMPORTANT take-away here, though, isn’t that its easy to make monkeys of journalists, which it undoubtedly is. The document itself is genuine, so you can’t blame reporters for carrying it. It was, highly-placed government sources told Firstpost, prepared by the Military Intelligence directorate for a meeting of MAC, and then recirculated on 9 October. It is identical, in its structure, to a MAC document, except in the identification tag. Firstpost is withholding the correct format of MAC identification tags, for obvious reasons
.
It boggles the imagination, though, that the army would actually want to leak this awful demonstration of the complete incompetence of its intelligence corps, rather than be yelling out the clearly ill-trained and incompetent junior officer for being suckered by an informant. For what its worth, my guess is that the gentlemen concerned—who journalistic convention regrettably forbids me from naming—thought the leak would deflect attention from another ongoing embarassment. This morning, newspapers carried fresh revelations on the army’s Keran fiasco—even failing to retrieve lost observation posts while announcing to the media that that it had wound-up operations.
The story, broken by Firstpost, came at the end of a series of incidents that suggested thoroughgoing command incompetence, ranging from attacks on troops in Srinagar which went on for an hour before anyone responded, to beheadings of sleeping soldiers on the Line of Control, and of course the ease with which terrorists hit Samba. Its also possible the leak was meant to let the political executive off the hook for its continued engagement with Pakistan: after all, the Military Intelligence document says the ISI tried to restrain jihadists from carrying out the attack, but couldn’t. Either way, its a disgrace. It isn’t the only one in recent years.
IN ANY OTHER country, generals would have been sacked for errors and outright fabrications that cost the lives of soldiers in Kargil—allegations upheld by the highest military tribunal of our land. In any other country, heads would have rolled when top brass peddled vastly exaggerated claims of the killings of terrorists in Poonch, in a bit to win honours. In any other country, there would have been a serious reckoning of the command failures that allowed an army unit in Saichen to fake operations, using a hand-held camera and, incredibly, ketchup. For two decades now, we’ve done nothing—allowing politicians to pass off the veneration of corrupt and incompetent top brass as respect for the army. In return for this relic-worship, the generals have played along with the politicians, rarely speaking the truth about the disturbing state of our national security apparatus.. read more:
.
http://www.firstpost.com/india/shoddy-intelligence-inept-generals-expose-indias-military-mess-1184837.html
