Peak of yookayistani intelligence.
It's no longer about political principles but critique for the sake of critique for these cultists.
The establishment and by extension the Army is response for grave disasters in Pakistani history - there is no way around it. But it is also part of the national fabric, shaped by the same political and social forces that define the country. It is not a monolith. It is a collection of individuals, institutions, and decisions that reflect the broader reality of a nation grappling with corruption, elitism, and instability. At the same time, it has protected the country from external threats which includes responding to Afghan terrorism from groups like the TTP and Afghan Taliban, even as Pakistan's past role in fostering jihadist networks during the Soviet era created blowback.
The Army's response to this threat drew broad public consensus for its operations, despite residual sympathies for jihad rooted in that historical external support. Yet it confronts entrenched Afghan hostility toward Pakistan, a mindset tracing back to early Afghan invasions of India from a place of Pashtun racial superiority, persisting through the Khilafat movement and escalating into post-partition Pashtunistan claims that sought to carve up Pakistani territory.
Even earnest peace talks, including those reportedly encouraged by Imran Khan, collapsed due to the irreconcilable mindset of the TTP, Afghan Taliban, and broader Afghan attitudes.
Now, consider the political system: a deeply flawed, elitist structure that the establishment and military have long helped perpetuate through interventions that weakened civilian institutions, fostering corruption, cronyism, and zero accountability across Pakistan's journey. Imran Khan ultimately failed to deliver anything beyond hollow rhetoric and piecemeal changes, wasting time on pointless poetry instead of building real legitimacy to govern and reform Pakistan as it actually is. Rather, he chased fantasies of stolen mandates, alienated every Pakistani ally with his self-aggrandizing principles even as those crumbled around his wife and her disciples and left his cult, who were already grumbling about his lack of results, to redirect their fury at everything else through context-free outrage and endless goalpost shifts.
There has been no more vociferous critique of the military's excesses, corruption, and incompetence since the days of the old forums and I dare the entire DNA of this party's supporters to find even a sliver of such in their history on those forums prior to their messiah.
But, The military stands as Pakistan's only functioning institution as a fait accompli born of the national character that favors impatience and shortcuts over patient institution-building. In moments of crisis, they have acted as a stabilizing force, even when those crises were in part of its own making. When no one else steps up to bear that burden, whether by design or simply because Pakistanis are who they are and built the system they built, the institution fills the vacuum. To vilify the entire army for the actions of a few is to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Unfortunately, these critics aren't interested in reform or justice. They're interested in feeling superior. They want to see the military fail, even when its actions were, at least in part, a response to a broken system that predates the very people now running it.