The writer is a senior anchor at Capital TV and a fellow at Harvard University Asia Centre. She tweets @NasimZehra
Piling up of unacknowledged blunders, especially in security matters, has been Pakistan’s hallmark. In most cases, official efforts made to study the causes of these debacles never actually served the principal purpose of revisiting a blunder and avoiding similar future blunders. For the sake of political expediency so as not to ruffle the feathers of those in Pakistan’s power institutions, most inquiries were never made public. Hence, the debate on root causes of security blunders, without officially certified evidence, was always bracketed as one conducted by anti-Pakistan, anti-army, etc. individuals and groups.
By contrast, blunders committed by elected leaders are all openly discussed. The consequence of the perpetual accountability of civilian blundering is that today, on the political front, Pakistan is on an irreversible democratic path. Pakistan, now a textbook case of how to transition from military dictatorships and blundering elected governments to more accountable democratic ones, is past the point of systemic structural crisis on the political front.
At this hopeful political juncture, the report is a very positive development because it provides an opportunity to address the systemic and chronic problems that exist in Pakistan’s security institutions as well as the weaknesses that exist within the civilian set-up that contribute to accentuating these problems. The primary mandate of the Commission was to honestly reconstruct the events of May 2, 2011 and to detail the weaknesses of our institutions that led to a situation in which key state institutions were found in a “resting” mode when Pakistan’s territory was invaded. In the Commission’s words “it has sought the fullest and most accurate possible account of the events surrounding May 2, 2011, to draw lessons and make recommendations to ensure that May 2, 2011 like incidents do not recur”. Accordingly, of the 36 questions raised by the Commission, more than 27 dealt with issues related to security. Also, equally important were the two questions related to the responsibility of the country’s highest elected offices to hold those institutions accountable on the OBL issue. As the report concludes, clearly the civilian leadership had abdicated its responsibility as well.
The conclusion of the Commission is that “finally no honest assessment of this situation can escape the conclusion that those individuals who wielded primary authority and influence in national decision making bear the primary responsibility for creating the national circumstances and environment in which the May 2, 2011 incident occurred. It is unnecessary to specifically name them because it is obvious who they are.” The report has now become an incontrovertible part of Pakistan’s history, outlining the gross incompetence of key security institutions and the elected political leadership in handling the OBL case. Pakistan’s involvement in it was not only by virtue of having agreed to help the US in hunting down key al Qaeda men, but also because of the killing fields Pakistan was fast becoming with the growing nexus between al Qaeda, the Taliban, the TTP and the sectarian militants. It is now time to reform Pakistan’s security system, the responsibility of which rests with the elected prime minister of Pakistan.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 15th, 2013.
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COMMENTS (9)
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On the lighter side, nobody is to be blamed as it was a collective and systematic efforts almost done to perfection by both military and civil agencies which saved OBL for nine long years. One is reminded of epic war movie 'Saving Private Ryan' which made a record 450 million dollars profit. This report too can be made into another epic movie 'Saving Osama Bin Laden' whose profit would even cross one billion mark.
Brave, bold and credible? Author is either naive or sarcastic.
@Imran: Please learn to detect sarcasm in prose
The Judicial _ Media nexus to put more than its share of blame on the armed Forces is due to: 1. Lack of knowledge of these institutions about their victim institution. 2. Vendetta 3.. Foreign funding as amply revealed in the commission report. Some TV channels were running campaign against the Armed Forces of Pakistan and no one dared to stop them as they did not want to come under the wrath of superior Judiciary. When one is at war, damages are part of the game. When Briton was bomber by Luftwaffe was the British Air Forces disbanded Pakistan is a country where terrorists are welcomed from Mosques to Courts. So it is the failure of mindset and not an institution.
@Nadir: are you kidding me?!?!?! army has to take blame. they need to stop dabbling in the property business and focus on what their primary role is i.e. protecting our borders.
What is your definition of "Brave"?
We must insure that as a result of this report Army is not blamed as it will be demotivated. We must insure that civilians take the blame.
It would be brave and bold, if the report held the military and its ISI wing responsible directly. They have usurped decision making and authority in all matters of security and defense. They bear primary responsibility for OBL and then the US. Blaming the police, media and civilians underscores business as usual.
A case in point for all the ho-hum about violation of sovereignty by the US, the drone attacks have continued since the raid on OBL Prople are being killed inside Pakistani territory. Stop them! Pakistani military can't and won't. The security establishment is in cahoots with the US. So all this drama about a commission and a report is phoney. It seeks to calm an angry public but nothing more.