Jehangir Karamat Quotes
Maybe anti-US feeling has gone up in the army. But actually there is in the country a whole lot of anger over the way it happened and the humiliation suffered, and it is inevitably reflected in the army
The general was retired at the time of this interview. The United States found and killed the terrorist leader with an operation in Pakistan. The Pak military was not told and their own military nout only did not stop the incursion but didn’t even realize it was ongoing. There was much reason to believe that some military were supporting bin Laden, and this was also embarrassing. For those who wanted to bring him to justice, they were further humiliated that the Americans could find out what was happening in their own country when they could not.
Jehangir Karamat, General & Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army, Interview about the American Operation Killing Osama bin Laden, DawnNews, June 19, 2011
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The “Principals Committee” is the senior interagency forum for consideration of policy issues affecting national security. It includes the National Security Director (Chair), the CIA Director, the Secretary of Defense and his Deputy, the Secretary of State and his Deputy, the Chairman of the Jount Chief’s of Staff, The Special Representative to the United Nations and other staff as invited. Clarke was almost always invited to these meeting when terrorism was discussed but he did not have a vote. This is a very important quotation for several reasons. First, it shows the influence that the Defense Department and CIA leaders had with President Bush before the 9-11 attack. It also illustrates dramatically how reluctant our military and CIA were to use drones. It was President Obama who overruled them and changed America policy to use Drones to protect American interests. It also indicates how there was a split regarding the perception of the danger of Al Qaeda and bin Laden with Clark and some of the other Principals placing more value on a military strike than the military and covert action leaders. This is not uncommon despite the fact that public perception is that it is always the military leaders who are the hawks. Also, it illustrates the problem of allowing the military point of view to always prevail in national policy making involving use of force. See {639322}.
This was the first exposition of what turned out to be the winning Presidential Campaign strategy in 2004.
He had continuously been accused of not going after the infamous terrorist who people were suspecting was hiding in Pakistan. The President had heard these reports but maintained that he did not know where bin Laden was. On this occasion he challenged his challenger.
He gave the examples of the fact that two of the leading terrorists of the 9-11 attack had gone to school in the United States, Khomeni—the anti-Western leader of the Iran revolution—lived in Paris for a long while, and other examples.
The Muslim Brotherhood which had been elected after the Arab Sprint deposition of President Mubarak, had then begun to institute their own religious philosophy into what was becoming a theocratic government. Rights of Christians, and other non-Muslims as well as moderate Muslims, together with women, democrats and advocates for human rights and freedom were trampled. 30 million people demonstrated in the streets and the nation was about to have a civil war when the military, under el-Sisi, deposed the Muslim Brotherhood government. When the Brotherhood took to the streets, many with weapons, there was a clash where almost 1000 Brothers were killed as were almost 100 police. The general was addressing the Egyptians and the rest of the world explaining the reason for breaking up the demonstrations.
There are many who do not agree with Hayden’s thesis that there was a national consensus about the degree of compromise with Constitutional rights. It is the case that the 3 Presidents maintained a continuity, but there was no great outcry of public opinion for roundups and arrests of Muslims after 9-11. The government never at the time revealed the data on what they were doing. When that became public, it was clear that there was no consensus as was the case with torture. The military authorities who interned American Citizens of Japanese Origin argued that there was little public opposition but many citizens did not even know it was happening, and the ones who did, for the most part, thought that it was only the suspected saboteurs and spies who were interned, not American citizens who were suspected of nothing; not little children; not 90 year old men and women. When the facts were known Americans did form a national consensus—that it was one of the worst practices in which the United States ever engaged.
There was extensive hostility expressed by civilian populations in Pakistan and other countries where the United States made Drone strikes to take out terrorist leaders. However, there was much anti-American feeling in Pakistan before the Drone strikes.
This quotation describes an embarassng shortcoming of our American body politic.
General Jehangir Karamat LOM, NI(M), SBt, best known as JK, is a retired four-star rank army general of Pakistan Army,who currently live in USA after retirement diplomat, public intellectual, and a former professor of political science at the National Defense University. Appointed first to be served as the Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army in 1996, he was elevated as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee in 1997 until 1998.
