LeT's role

kgoan on BRF posted this about the Lashkar-e-Taiba that I want to preserve:

Folks, Re: The LeT:

As you all know, every jihadi group has some sort of relationship to the Pak Army - formal or informal. Of all these groups the LeT (I'll keep calling them LeT) is unique. Unlike every other group, the LeT *is* the pak Army.

Folks need to grok this point: For example, in the media we frequently hear of the "rogue" ISI. This is, as I hope you all know, rubbish. The ISI is made up of officers on deputations from the Pak Army, it is no more "independent" than the pak artillery corps. It's part and parcel of the Pak Army. The ISI isn't a "state within a state", the Pak Army has that role.

A similar thing holds with the LeT.

The role the LeT plays is crucial. Everyone here should know the importance the officers mess plays within any armies structure in "bonding" officers together. In a rigorously hierarchical organisation, the officers mess is where every officer gets to be "one of us". The hierarchy still exists, but the officers mess "socialises" officers together.

A similar function holds in, say, police canteens. Ask any police officer and he'll tell you the importance of such places.

This is where the LeT comes in: It plays two crucial roles in the Pak system: One is to socialise the Pak army folk, across *all* ranks, into the "islamist" aspect. Note: Islam-ist, NOT Islam-ic. It acts as an outlet where some low ranker can speak on equal terms with a higher rank on "islam-ist warriorhood". It acts just as the officers mess does, but aimed at reinforcing the "jihadi" (in its army meaning) culture of the Pak Army.

It's other role is eqully crucial: there are a lot of non-army folk that are crucial to the pak Army (the engineers, scientists, plain civvies etc) tht have no formal entry to the "officers mess" culture. These folks entry into the Pak Army culture is via the LeT. i.e. the Islam-ist aspect.

The LeT is as much a part of the Pak Army as their various welfare organisations. The LeT is as important a glue in the Pak Army as the Agricultural Department. (For those of you folks who don't understand why that's important, and may seem amusing or unimportant, note that the pak army Agriculture Dept is more important for the average Pak Officer in his daily life, than the Pak nuclear command auhority. See it's the Agriculture Dept that plays a *crucial* role in thngs like plots being given to officers. It is *the* heart of the material reward system within the Pak Army).

The ISI can't act outside it's Pak Army authority - but the LeT can because of it's "across all ranks" and "islamist" nature. A bearded havaldar is equal to a clean shaven colonel in a LeT social gathering. Note, this is not a contradiction. The ISI acts on Pak Army instructions from a top-down hierarchy. The LeT ensures the Pak Army has a bottom up feedback from it's Islam-ist rank and file.