Nothing achieved from Indo-Pak wars

Former national security adviser Mahmood Ali Durrani has said that the Indian Army crossed the international border to launch full-fledged war against Pakistan in 1965 because “low-level skirmishes were started from this side”.

“We started the intrusions on the borders, and I think we should think about the Indian response at that time,” said Durrani while talking to Daily Times Editor-in-Chief Najam Sethi on his Dunya News programme on Sunday. He said the high-level military command was not involved in “a strategy to disturb India”, but politicians knew about what was happening along the border. He said then foreign affairs minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto also had no idea that India would cross the international border.

Durrani said he had participated in two wars, and “I now think Pakistan did not achieve anything from these wars”.

“We should extend [a hand of] friendship towards India, and start peace talks to settle disputes,” he said.

Pakistan started war with India in 1965: Durrani
September 14, 2009

Ruler's Games

"Since 1977 (that is, after the deposition of Mr. Z. A. Bhutto) there has been a frank discussion on the 1965 War in Pakistan by writers and those who were directly connected with the war. Among them were Gen. Musa, who was the Army Chief then, Air Marshal Asghar Khan and Air Marshal Nur Khan, who commanded Pakistan's Air Force one after the other, Mr. Altaf Gaudar, who was the powerful information secretary then, and Gen. Yahya Khan, who was in charge of the Chhamb sector. All these writers have made points which show that invaders were sent into Kashmir under what Ayub's coterie called 'Opertion Gibraltar', not for the 'liberation' of Kashmiris but for strengthening the position of Gen. Ayub Khan, who was reportedly toying with the idea of either becoming the President for life or the Shah of Pakistan."

p108-109, My life and times by Sayyid Mīr Qāsim

1965 Truth

"I have given serious consideration to writing a book, but given up the idea. The book would be the truth. And the truth and the popular reaction to it would be good for my ego. But in the long run it would be an unpatriotic act. It will destroy the morale of the army, lower its prestige amoung the people, be banned in Pakistan, and become a textbook for the Indians.

I have little doubt that the Indians will never forgive us the slight of 65 and will avenge it at the first opportunity. I am certain they will hit us in E. Pak [East Pakistan] and we will need all we have to save the situation. The first day of Grand Slam will be fateful in many ways. The worst has still to come and we have to prepare for it. The book is therefore out.", General Akthar Hussain Malik in a letter to his younger brother Lieutenant General Abdul Ali Malik, dated 23 Nov 1967.

p49-50, Pakistan's drift into extremism: Allah, the army, and America's war on terror by Hassan Abbas

1965 Cover-up

General K. M. Arif [former Vice Chief of Army Staff] in Khaki Shadows writes that in the immediate aftermath of the 1965 War “Pakistan suffered a loss of a different kind…Soon after the War the GHQ ordered all the formations and units of the Pakistan Army to destroy their respective war diaries and submit completed reports to this effect by a given date. This was done? Their [the war diaries'] destruction, a self-inflicted injury and an irreparable national loss, was intellectual suicide.”

Clearly, the political-military nexus had an interest in ensuring that nobody should find out what actually happened during the 1965 War — the former because of its incompetence and lack of leadership and the latter because of its culpability in taking Pakistan to war.

1965 War: A Different Legacy by Dr. Athar Osama

6 September 2007

The Wrong War - 1965

“The performance of the Army did not match that of the PAF mainly because the army leadership was not as professional. They had planned ‘Operation Gibraltar’ for self-glory rather than in the national interest. It was a wrong war. And they misled the nation with a big lie that India rather than Pakistan had provoked the war and that we were the victims of Indian aggression.” , Pakistan’s ex-air chief, Air Marshal (Retd) Nur Khan.

Lessons of the 1965 war - Daily Times, Pakistan
07 September 2005