At first their dress does stand out from the crowd of pakistani army personnel. The SSG do look like a smart third world bunch but on closer inspection reveals that despite some good shows against militants etc. and their involvement in the "Black Hawk Down" incident, they came croppers against neighbouring India. Sample these:
They try to infiltrate in kashmir along with other militants to instigate a reovlution in 1965 (codenamed gibraltar) and bungle the job and are caught and mostly shot leading to initial gains for india. many too criticized (mainly inp ak) for these blunders as it started the war. the comedy of errors not being through they were sent in India for sabotage missions to india and destroy the air bases. every one of the 200 commandos is caught and either killed or driven to POW camps. so much for the covert missions
of course they tried their best in 1971 to no avail with even musharraf being a commando leader then. then in 1987 they tried again with musharraf leading, err bleading the way in siachen glacier in a vain attempt to "drive" out the infidels perched on top. they got a bloody nose and were beaten back immediately. of course not one to learn from past, they try the same thing in 1999 in kargil and the results by now are known to anyone without even reading history.
So friends, tell me, is this the "elite" SSG commandos that pakistan boasts of? that these nincompoops get the "respect" from their fellow citizens just because they have some snazzy shirts with matching trousers and a stupid looking beard? It's laughable at best considering the history of this tribe who have been involved in almost all the fiascos imaginable (some repetitive ones too). |