The ‘q’ word
Eric Shinseki was fired for telling the truth about Iraq:
As Army Chief of Staff, General Shinseki testified to the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee that “something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers” would probably be required for postwar Iraq… it was rejected in strong language by… Rumsfeld… Shinseki was correct… [but] the end of his term of Army Chief of Staff came in June 2003, just three months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq… [Wiki]
Mahmud Ali Durrani was fired for telling the truth about Kasab:
Pakistan’s national security adviser, Mahmud Ali Durrani, confirmed Wednesday that… Muhammad Ajmal Kasab is a Pakistani citizen. Hours later Mr. Durrani, a respected retired army general and former ambassador to the United States, was fired by the Pakistani prime minister for “irresponsible behavior”… two government spokesmen confirmed Mr. Kasab’s citizenship. [NYT]
Let the 11/26 fallout be the Pakistani military’s quagmire.
on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009, 7:11 pm in Military › 
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Thanks for blogging this, Manish, but I don’t think you can compare ‘MAD’ getting fired with Eric Shinseki getting ‘fired’. First of all, Shinseki wasn’t exactly fired.
same wiki link
The MAD firing is not for what was offered as the putative reason. He was fired because he was perceived, correctly in my opinion, as Musharraf’s man in the PPP Government, left behind after he resigned in August. MAD was till May 2008 the Pakistani Ambassador to the US. Then, after the PPP Government, which took office 31 March 08, appointed Hussain Haqqani to that office, MAD was appointed NSA by Musharraf. PPP were looking for a reason to sack him, and he gave them one by supposedly speaking out of turn.
This is the Army-ISI vs the civilian government tussling, and MAD was on the Army-ISI side. His ‘firing’ is part of the progressive demilitarization of the Pakistani government. Let’s shed no tears for MAD. He represents Pakistan’s military Establishment, and there are already rumblings about whether ‘they’ will tolerate this ‘affront’. They may have no choice.
Shinseki wasn’t re-upped, which is very unusual for an army chief of staff in the middle of a presidential term. It’s usually a formality. That it technically ran out right after he offended Rumsfeld gave them a fig leaf.
Yup, it’s not a direct analogy. But it’s striking that in Pakistan, saying what everyone already knows is considered a legitimate pretext for firing, whatever the behind-the-curtain reasons. Military spin tends to be clunkier than Dana Perino’s.
Hey, Lt Gen Shuja Pasha is still around as ISI Chief. He said: “We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds. We know full well that terror is our enemy, not India.” Link
This is not just 180 degs from traditional ISI thought, it’s heretical beyond description.
The MAD firing thus positions the PPP government to the right of thecurrent public ISI stance, and thus gives them space to move leftward when necessary. Nice move, I’d say.
This is a half truth. The whole reason the Mumbai opertaion was done, was to provoke a war on the Eastern front so that Pakistan can have a legitimate excuse for removing forces from the western front where they are “fighting” an unpopular war with the Taliban. Not so surprisingly the new leader of Pakistani Taliban has pledged his support for Pakistan against any military intervention from India.