By Ajmal Khan Yousafzai
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Air Force (PAF) former Air Marshal M Ashfaque Arain Friday said national unity and military preparedness were two most crucial weapons to thwart enemy’s nefarious designs.
Air Marshal (Retd) M Ashfaqu stated in connection with the Defence Day of Pakistan also emphasized to keep national interest supreme over personal gains as split only served enemy’s cause and would not help achieve the target of invincible defence. The former PAF Air Marshal emphasized upon the need for reviving the memories and spirit behind Pakistani armed forces’ success against much larger enemy armed forces.
Air Marshal (Retd) M Ashfaque Arain is presently Director ‘Strategic Defence and Security’ at Centre for Aerospace and Security Studies Islamabad (CASS). He said that the entire credit for achieving a huge victory over a massive and heavily armed enemy during the War of 1965 went to the national leadership, military preparedness that fought with courage at all fronts ad especially the PAF, which made IAF ineffective. He added that entire nation stood behind the armed forces at that time.
“Among the tri-forces, PAF was heavily outnumbered but it defeated the enemy and exacted unprecedented losses on the Indian Air Force and the surface forces. Additionally, Pakistani nation displayed unmatched resilience during the war.” “PAF”, he said during the War of 1965 was the first air force that introduced preemptive attacks on the Indian bases of Halwara and Pathankot which was replicated by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israel war.
He lamented the role of international community, which came forward to implement ceasefire but did not help resolve the Kashmir issue as was committed by India during the agreement. While discussing the current environment, Air Marshal (retd) M Ashfaque stated that India continues to work against Pakistan’s stability and interests. It had now resorted to 5th generation warfare.
In that, India was endeavouring to create divisions in the society through concerted disinformation campaign using its own media as well as social media and other platforms. The ultimate Indian endeavour was to create disharmony, chaos and anarchy to weaken Pakistan. He stressed on the need for the leadership, public and academia to understand the 5th generation warfare, as the enemy was attempting to exploit the fault lines and perceived grievances.
He also emphasized on the need to educate masses particularly the literate community which was unwittingly helping enemy spread its propaganda. “The nature of threats to national peace, security and defence have increased and appeared to be more complex and diverse whereas wrong use of social media and news platforms, primarily, reporting of unverified facts is providing rigour to the anti-state propaganda of enemy.â€
He stated that electronic media’s role had grown manifold due to its massive outreach to masses, and owing to the deluge of misinformation only credible and verified reporting of facts could help overcome the risk.
He urged the nation to maintain unity and solidarity among all its ranks and files to defeat the enemies, keeping in view, the unity displayed during the war of 1965. He also said that Pakistan was the only nation which successfully defeated the menace of terrorism through unity. He added that “Every individual has to realise its responsibility and role to rise above our petty ethnic, religious and socioeconomic interests to safeguard national interests that guarantee a bright future ahead.â
