Grab Yeh Khamoshi Kahan Tak / یہ خاموشی کہاں تک Illustrated By Shahid Aziz Shown In Document

is a revolutionary book which has been written by an army officer with a lot of candid views of his career spread around forty years in the army and as the head of National Accountability Bureau after his retirement.
The author is also related to President Musharraf as Musharraf's son is married to Shahid Aziz's brother's daughter, The first thing to strike me was the choice of language adopted to write his autobiography, which is Urdu rather than the,other retired generals and civil servants who have chosen English as their medium, The general has also laced his book around the revolutionary poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz which I suspect was one the the major reasons why Urdu has chosen.

This book gripped me right from the start, as the real strength is the author's descriptions of his own life events, starting from his college days right down to his resignation as the head of NAB, were really well presented and absorbing.
I was impressed by the author's justifications for a majority of his decisions with the context well defined, I also found none of the customary egoistical self glorification demonstrated by many generals and high ranked civil servant autobiographies which is very pleasing indeed, but unfortunately the general looses the plot completely in blaming the Free Masons and 'elders of Zion' as the main architects of the current world order.
If Israel was a master stroke of the Free Masons and Zionists than how did Pakistan come into being General sahib

I am indebted to the general for restoring my pride into the great Pakistan army with his mention of a great number of unsung heroes and their wonderful tales of truth and bravery.
Indeed the Pakistan army has a great deal to feel proud of, and the pivotal role played by the junior officers and soldiers on a daily basis has to be highlighted, which this book has managed to portray very favourably.


The book can do with some serious editing as it is very repetitive with the romantic general long and hyperbolic paragraphs talking about a failed system over and over again.
The real material in the book is the depiction of army's culture, steeped in obsequiousness, and suaveness to a great degree, I also did not agree with good general's suggestion for the formation of an elite group of Pakistan elders in order correct the failed system, akin to the Elders of Zion maybe.
Instead, the system will evolve with enough elections where people will eventually learn the power of their vote, in my humble opinion, There was also no point in trying to get behind Shariah which no one has any experience of for at least a thousand years,

This book together with Musharraf's 'In the line of fire' make a great reading, juxtaposing the a liberal, western view with a conservative Islamic reformist view, as I would not place the general as a fundamentalist.


I would highly recommend everyone to read this book, instead of watching his interviews on YouTube, If you ever need to teach your kids the meaning of selfcontradiction and hypocricy, a few pages of this book should be all you need.
good to know the history
sitelink facebook. com/ The title literally means,how long will the silence continue,

Lt. General Shahid Aziz was once a close associate of General Musharraf, He played a part in the events that led to the ouster of prime minister Nawaz Sharif in thecoup, Later,he worked in key positions, But after he retired,he wrote this book which is very critical of General Musharraf,

This book is a mixed bag, The first portion deals with the author's military career,it had me totally engrossed, He won the Sword of Honour at the PMA, He fought in thewar in West Pakistan,and his younger brother,a lieutenant,was killed in action after cease fire had been declared !

His description of battle during thewar is vivid and very exciting,and had me on the edge of my seat.
That is the best part of the book,about actual soldiering,

Also,his criticism of the Kargil war and his role in thecoup which brought General Musharraf to power is worth reading, Then came/and the US threats and ultimatums to bomb Pakistan to the stone age,which left General Musharraf with little choice but to join the US as it began its military campaign in Afghanistan.


But here,too,the author gets very critical of the policies of his former boss, He doesn't spare the US,where he had received military training in mid career,

Then he gets into a discussion about "free masons" and their role in the world, He advocates a religious solution for all of Pakistan's problems, At this point,the book becomes all about his personal,very preachy views,

He was also part of the National Accountability Bureau NAB and details his frustration while working there,as corruption cases could not be brought to their conclusion because of outside pressures.
Today's NAB is much more aggressive compared to his day,enjoying a lot of powers as the cases against Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari indicate.


I liked the portion of the book dealing with military matters,I'd rather skip the rest,

The book is published only in Urdu, A personal egoistic story of an idiot army general who conquered his own country with full pride, Another dark side is, he proudly writes a book about his illegal adventure, Another darkest side is ,people read it and among best seller in pakistani bookshops and widely read in libraries, bookreview

بول کے لب آزاد ہیں تیرے

اس پر پا بندی اسی وجہ سے لگائ گئی کہ ایک میجر اتنا سچ کیسے بول سکتا ہے
شاہد عزیز کو اس بات پر داد دینی پڑے گی کہ انہوں نے اپنی غلطی اور کوتاہیوں کو کھل کر بیان کیا ہے

مشرف سے محبت کا افسوف ساری زندگی ہوتا رہے گا میجر صاحب کو غلط انسان پر بھروسہ کر بیٹھے اس کتاب میں بیان کیا گیا ہے کس طرح فوجی قیادت کرپشن کو ختم ہونے ہی نہیں دیتی

پہلے اچھے اچھے خواب دکھا کر مارشل لاء لگا دیا جاتا ہے کہ حکمران کرپشن کر رہے ہیں پھر خود ہی حکومت میں آکر کرپشن پر “خاموشی” اختیار کر لیتے ہیں

اس کتاب میں وہ اپنی جوانی پھر فوج میں بھرتی اور محنت کرکے ٹاپ لیول کے میجر بنے اور مشرف کے چند قریبی ساتھیوں میں تھے کس طرح امریکہ میں کورس کے دوران پاکستانی فوجیوں کی برین واشنگ ہوتی ہے

کس طرح وہ کینسر جو جنرل ایوب کے دور میں شروع ہوا تھا مشرف کے دور تک پاکستان کو کھا گیا بس اب ڈھانچہ ہی بچا ہے فوج کے کاروبار کو کھل کر بیان کیا کس طرح لوگوں کی بیکریاں پیٹرول پمپس اور زمینوں کے کاروبار کرتے ہیں

ڈی ایچ اے این سی ایل چینی کرپشن پیٹرول کرپشن مشرف دور میں ہوئ کچھ اپنے ہی سفارش کرانے نکل پڑتے ہیں سفارش کا نظام فوج کو کمزور کر رہا ہے حسد جلن غلط بیانی بھی فوج میں عروج پر ہے

ترقی کیلئے حکومت کا ساتھ دیا جاتا ہے مشرف نے بھی مارشل لاء اسی غلط فہمی میں لگایا کہ ان کو ہٹا کر کسی اور کو چیف بنایا جا رہا ہے لیکن مشرف آنے پر مٹھایاں بھی بانٹی گئیں

شروع میں مشرف نے امریکہ کے ساتھ افغان وار میں نیوٹرل رہنے کی پالیساں بنائیں پر وہ ہاں ہاں کرتے چلے گئے اور حالات پاکستان میں بد سے بد تر ہوتے گئے

شاید وہ افغان بھائیوں کے خون میں ساتھ ہونے کی سزا تھی یہ غلاط پالیسیوں کا نتجہ نقصان

پاکستان کا ہی ہوا

جو کچھ پچھلے آٹھ ماہ سے ہو رہا ہے اسکی کچھ جھلکیاں بھی ماضی سے ملتی جلتی ہیں جب آپ پڑھیں گے تو پتا لگ ہی جائے گا کہ ہابندی کیوں لگی اور شاہد عزیز صاحب بھی کئ سال سے منظر سے غائب ہیں

Its correct Shahid Aziz retired from the Pakistan army after a long and successful career, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Generalstar general and serving as DG analysis wing of the ISI, DGMO director general military operations, CGS chief of general staff and corps commander commandingcorps in Lahore.
After retirement, he served as chairman of the powerful National Accountability Bureau NAB, the main anticorruption watchdog in Pakistan, In spite of having been one of General Musharrafs closest associates and related to him by marriage the daughter of one of Shahid Azizs cousins is married to Musharrafs son he became increasingly critical of Musharraf after retirement and inhe wrote a book that was highly critical of Musharraf and of Pakistans supposedly proUS policies at that time.


In Maythere were several news reports claiming that General Shahid Aziz had left his home last year or even earlier to join the Jihad against the West and had been killed, either in Syria or in Afghanistan General Musharraf was the one who claimed he was killed in Syria, most other reports said Afghanistan.
While his family has denied these reports, they have not been able to produce any explanation about where he is if he has not actually died on Jihad.
So I decided to read the book, Having read it, I think the combination of naive idealism and PMAlevel Islamism found in his book makes it very likely that these reports are true.
My review follows please also read this review by Abdul Majeed Abid as a complementary piece

The first surprising thing about the book is that it is written in Urdu.
Most military autobiographies in Pakistan have been written in English, a simplified/desi version of which is the lingua franca of the Pakistani elite, This may be because General Shahid Aziz like his mentor Musharraf was a Mohajir, and unlike Musharraf he seems to have been well read in Urdu and comfortable with using it.
While his own politics are firmly in the IslamistPTIPMA category, he is also a huge fan of the MarxistLeninist poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz and quotes him unironically throughout the book.
Whether this reflects positively on Shahid Aziz or negatively on Faiz Ahmed Faiz is up to the reader, In any case, points to General sahib for writing in Urdu, and that too, in good Urdu, Not that he did not know enough English he even wrote poetry in English a poem called “The Naked Deceiver” is in the book, It is not a great poem, but the vocabulary is extensive, which may be one reason he had such a great career in the Pakistani military: he could write good idiomatic English.


He describes his own motivation for writing the book in these words: “I did nothing in my military service over which I should feel eternal shame, but what I did in the last few years and where we brought the country in those years, the weight of those actions has been crushing me for the lastyears.
. what use are regrets now you may ask, . but I wanted to write this book so that maybe some young person can learn something from my experience”, This feeling is his main motivation for writing this book, A few years ago one may have dismissed this as the usual grandstanding where retired army officers transform into warriors of the Ummah on TV after retirement, but continue to hold on to green cards and foreign bank accounts.
But if the story of General Shahid Aziz joining the mujahideen and dying in that effort is correct as it appears to be then in this case at least, the conversion was sincere.


What were these actions that he regrets to much He was a participant in Musharrafs coup and as he makes clear in the book, it was no spontaneous response to Nawaz Sharifs firing of the army chief, it was a preplanned coup and then in his martial law regime.
Under this regime, Pakistan joined the American war on terror as a “nonNATO ally” and fought against the mujahideen in Afghanistan and beyond, It is this betrayal of Islamic solidarity that Shahid Aziz regretted, and it is this regret that eventually drove him to write this book and it seems, to join the mujahideen in his old age.


A military brat, Shahid Aziz grew up in cantonments all across the country, was an average to below average student and was madly in love with his cousin who later became his wife.
He joined the army, was an outstanding cadet he got the sword of honor at PMA and was posted as a young officer in the Chamb sector in Kashmir in the.
His memories of the war give an interesting window into the war as it looks to fresh young officers complete with the fog of war and minor atrocities like an Indian prisoner who was shot dead by someone the day after Shahid Aziz happened to see him bound and helpless.
Shahid Aziz comes across as idealistic and honorable e, g. he refused to vote in Gen Zias fake referendum, and he claims a George Washington moment when Zia came to inspect his unit during a major exercise and asked about their training and Aziz answered that there was no training and this was all a fake show a piece of information that Zia did not appreciate but then again, he is writing the book.
Whether there was another more calculating side to him is not revealed in this book, but it is hard to believe that he made Lt General in the army by always telling the truth.
Some awareness of when to keep your mouth shut must have been there even in idealistic young Shahid Aziz,

He went on a course to the US and got a chance to travel through Europe, and was impressed by the honesty and friendliness of the common people in both places.
He was also approached by an American officer with what Shahid Aziz took to be an effort to recruit him, though his claim that he was offered a position in the US army seems ridiculous.
Byhe had risen to become the director general of the analysis wing in the ISI and was at this post when Musharrafs Kargil adventure exploded into the news.
He claims that he had no idea this was in the works and was as surprised as Vajpayee when the news broke and given the fact that Musharraf had not told other senior generals or the chiefs of the navy and the air force about his adventure, he is likely telling the truth.
He is very critical of the whole operation and makes it clear that it was a tactical AND strategic disaster of epic proportions, though it appears that he did not share this opinion with Musharraf until after his retirement.


He has shared interesting details of the coup preparations and the day of the coup itself, Like most army officers, he had a low opinion of politicians and civilians in general and believed that a strong man with a “sincere” team was needed to clean up Pakistan and put it on the road to modernIslamist prosperity.
Unsurprisingly, he saw himself and his fellow generals as exactly the sincere people who were needed, By the end of the book he concedes that their scheme did more harm than good, but as usual he blames faulty execution, not the idea of a military coup in itself.
After the coup the generals made lists of qualified people to run the country and conducted formal interviews in GHQ, but at the same time other outsiders such as Shaukat Aziz were mysteriously parachuted into top positions without this vetting and interviewing process.
He claims to have no idea how and why this happened and seems to have been remarkably incurious about these matters, which suggests that he was either extremely naive or has conveniently forgotten some details.
Readers can be forgiven for thinking the latter is more likely,

Byhe had been promoted to Lt General and posted as CGS chief of general staff at GHQ, He was there when Musharraf got the famous call from Colin Powell and joined the American war on terror, In hindsight, Shahid Aziz is very critical of this decision and its aftermath, but even in his own book he does not report that he ever dissented from this policy while in office.
Musharraf, who was now related to him by marriage, seems to have trusted him and promoted him regularly, After serving as corps commander in Lahore, Shahid Aziz retired and was made head of the National Accountability Bureau, He claims he tried to go after big fish, but was stymied by Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz and their political calculations, Eventually he resigned from this post and went home to contemplate all he had done with life, If we take his book at face value and in this matter, I see no reason not to then Shahid Aziz comes across as a mostly honest man with a rather simple Islamic faith, a VERY simplistic view of society and history Naseem Hijazi comes to mind and a strong desire to live in a “modern country” a combination common among educated middle class Pakistanis, and especially in army officers what we may label “Mehran Man“, the sort of person who is a PTI supporter.
As long as he was in service he managed to stay upright with just enough compromises to get ahead, but once retired he seems to have taken his Islam more seriously than the average realestate tycoon/retired general.
From within his worldview, the fact that Pakistan had sided with an infidel power against fellow Muslims was an unforgivable sin and this weighed on his conscience he says as much.
Finally it caused him so much heartache that he decided to write this book and get it off his chest, Given that a few years later he went ahead and joined some Islamic warriors and got killed, it seems that writing this book did not assuage his conscience to the extent desired.


The book is worth reading for its picture of army life in thes, its anecdotes about the Zia era and the insider critical view of Kargil and the Musharraf era.
While one can imagine that the reallife Shahid Aziz must have been a shade more calculating and shrewd than the book implies, my impression is that the book is generally sincere and honest, and therefore is a good window into the mind of a typical “good Muslim, sincere Pakistani” officer.
His anecdotes and impressions of Kargil, thecoup and the Musharraf era are revealing not just because of what they tell us about these events but also because they show what pygmies are making these decisions on our behalf and what level of analysis and historical understanding they are working with.
The downside is that the book is repetitive and could do with some aggressive editing,

All in all, worth a read, .