Oscar
Moderator
You would be surprised. Do you know the top leadership in West Pakistan when apprised of Operation Searchlight's actual interpretation were a little aghast at how heavy handed local battalion commanders had been? Many of the top military and civilian leadership gave forbearing to Yahya on how bad the result would be - that he didn't care is another situationDon't you think it's extremely far-fetched? I mean someone superinterpreting the order that could have killed a popular leader in Pakistan? Unbelievable.
Heck, if you want another example - RK Yadav, in his memoir, admits running freelance arms smuggling and propaganda networks in Pakistan and Bangladesh without Delhi clearance, including funding Sikh militants in Lahore to stoke unrest. When he was finally caught by ISI it dismantled years of actual efforts RAW made to create channels.
So to dismiss the idea that somehow junior officers or others in the establishment or even PML(N) and others cannot run their own show or be influenced to run their own ideals is a little "doesn't suit my narrative".
I'll repeat - never assume malice when plain incompetence will suffice.
You assume Pakistani military to be some perfectly tight omnipresence organization while in reality you have very powerful core commanders and in turn many empowered area and base commanders. Heck, you can have heads of CMHs running their entire side hustles and "commissions" while they are in their garden's in their undies getting massages from Batmen.




