By Junaid S. Ahmad
There are few spectacles as grotesque as Gaza under bombardment. But if anything can compete with it in sheer offensiveness, it is the sight of Pakistani generals dusting off their medals, tightening their waistlines, and flying off to Riyadh like underpaid mall cops called in to protect a billionaire’s parking lot. One is a tragedy. The other is a parody. And together they form the sick theater of our time: genocide on one side, and groveling cowardice on the other.
From 1947 onward, Pakistan’s generals have never actually wanted independence. Independence is messy, it requires responsibility, it forces you to govern. Much easier, they decided, to subcontract themselves to whoever offered the best deal: Washington, Riyadh, or Abu Dhabi. The Non-Aligned Movement of the Cold War at least pretended to resist empire. Its rebirth today is pure mockery: the Non-Aligned Monarchies, where Gulf kings and Pakistani brass clasp hands, not in solidarity with the oppressed, but in joint servitude to empire.
Mercenaries in Uniform
Pakistan’s army is often described as the country’s most powerful institution. This is misleading. It is not a national army at all. It is a mercenary enterprise that just happens to have a state attached to it as an afterthought. Think of it as Blackwater with nukes and better uniforms.
When King Hussein needed Palestinians butchered in Jordan during Black September, who appeared on the scene? A certain Zia-ul-Haq, eager to prove his loyalty by directing the massacre. Zia’s career trajectory tells you everything you need to know: murder Palestinians abroad, then return home to enforce clerical fascism domestically, and voilà—ten years of dictatorship. The Pakistani military high command is like a dog that bites whoever its master points to, then wags its tail waiting for scraps.
Zionism in Khaki
Pakistan’s generals like to pose as Israel’s eternal enemies. But if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the brass in Rawalpindi are Zionism’s biggest fans. They have copied the Israeli model of a military aristocracy that runs politics, economy, and ideology with ruthless efficiency. The problem is that Israel, for all its moral bankruptcy, has competence. Pakistan’s generals, by contrast, are masters of neither strategy nor governance—they are masters only of housing schemes, Swiss bank accounts, and the fine art of losing wars to India.
Publicly they scream about Palestinian suffering; privately, they admire Israel’s ability to get away with anything. They long for that kind of impunity. They’ll never admit it, but their only successful operation against Palestinians was in Jordan, when they killed them.
The Gulf Monarchies: Oil, Glitter, and Handcuffs
If Pakistan’s generals are for rent, the Gulf monarchs are the clients from hell. These are rulers who lecture the world about Islam while treating their migrant labor force—mostly South Asian—as subhuman cargo. They buy football clubs and skyscrapers while workers die building them. They host Islamic conferences where the main agenda item is who gets to sit closest to the Americans.
Their relationship with Pakistan is transactional, not brotherly. The Gulf supplies money and oil; Pakistan supplies troops and false dignity. In exchange, both sides get to pretend they matter on the world stage. The truth is they are glorified middle managers of empire, trying to prove to Washington that they are not slaves but well-trained butlers.
Gaza: Where Cowardice is Policy
When Gaza is reduced to rubble, Pakistan issues grandiloquent speeches and holds rallies for the cameras. But deploy even a single soldier? Impossible. Risk a diplomatic scolding from Washington? Unthinkable. Displease Riyadh or Tel Aviv? Out of the question.
The same generals who leap into action when a Saudi prince sneezes suddenly develop severe arthritis when Palestinian children are massacred. Their courage is selective. They are like firefighters who rush to save luxury penthouses but let the slums burn.
And the excuse is always the same: “We must protect national interests.” Translation: villas in Dubai, scholarships for their kids in London, and new golf courses in Islamabad.
America’s Lunatics and Pakistan’s Opportunists
This whole farce is sustained by the empire’s own madness. Washington bankrolls Israel’s massacres while lecturing the world on democracy. It condemns Iranian “terrorism” while arming an apartheid state. It is a psychotic policy machine, run on lobby money and delusions of eternal supremacy.
Pakistan’s generals thrive on this madness. They know that as long as they play obedient mercenaries, their betrayals will be overlooked. Occasionally they’ll issue a statement of “solidarity” with Iran or Gaza, just to remind the Americans that they are capable of independent thought. But the moment Tel Aviv or Riyadh frowns, the generals scurry back into line like naughty schoolboys terrified of detention.
The People vs. The Brass
The irony is that Pakistanis themselves are not indifferent. On the streets, people chant for Gaza, raise funds, and weep for Palestinian martyrs. In the barracks, their so-called guardians are calculating the resale value of a new DHA housing plot. The gap between the people and the military (and political) elites is so vast that one wonders if they even inhabit the same country.
This is why the generals fear their own people more than any external enemy. They know the day Pakistanis realize the military establishment is not their protector but their pimp, the whole edifice could crack. Until then, the brass hides behind empty slogans of “defense of the ummah,” while actually defending the bank accounts of the elite.
Conclusion: The Prostitutes of Empire
And so we arrive at the punchline of this grim comedy. The Non-Aligned Movement, once a project of dignity, has been reborn as the Non-Aligned Monarchies: a grotesque alliance of oil barons, rented soldiers, and imperial enablers. Gaza burns, Israel celebrates, America bankrolls, and the Muslim world’s “leaders” either applaud or yawn.
Pakistan’s generals deserve special mention in this theater of shame. They are not guardians of Islam, not defenders of Pakistan, not protectors of the oppressed. They are mercenaries in medals, glorified security guards for Gulf monarchs, and willing subcontractors of empire. Their true genius lies not in war but in real estate, not in strategy but in servility.
They have long since fulfilled their lifelong ambition: to graduate from slaves to indentured servants. Their loyalty is not to Pakistan, not to Islam, not to Gaza, but to whoever signs their checks in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, or Washington.
History will not remember them as warriors. It will remember them as prostitutes of empire—men who rented out their guns, their uniforms, and their dignity, and called it patriotism.
Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Law, Religion, and Global Politics and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decolonization (CSID), Islamabad, Pakistan. He is a member of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST – https://just-international.org/), Movement for Liberation from Nakba (MLN – https://nakbaliberation.com/), and Saving Humanity and Planet Earth (SHAPE – https://www.theshapeproject.com/).
21 September 2025