This affair ain’t going anywhere

It is difficult for Pakistanis to accept how holding the top brass accountable amounts to abandoning the armed forces.

In all mature democracies, it is the elected government that takes state institutions into confidence and not, the other way around. But let us not be sidetracked by this obvious anomaly, when trying to understand what came out of the military’s briefing of the parliamentarians over the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2, in Abbottabad.

Pakistan’s information minister told the media, after the briefing, that the parliament was aware of the tough times that the military was facing and had agreed that the nation should stand united behind its armed forces. In subsequent reports, we also heard that the chief of the ISI had told parliamentarians that, immediately, after Osama bin Laden’s killing in Abbottabad, he had accepted responsibility for the intelligence failure and offered his resignation to the army chief — which was rejected.

Interestingly, the army chief had said shortly before the briefing that the government’s failure to come up with an unambiguous explanation of the events of May 2, had led to misgivings and resentment within the public. The briefing, as such, was part of the efforts to defuse the resentment. The obvious question then is: Has the combined civil and military leadership been able to do that?

Despite the ever present Pakistani wrath against the Americans, there cannot be too many Pakistanis who seriously believe that the US can be punished by Pakistan for violating its territorial integrity. However, the fact that the question of public anger remains unresolved is clear evidence of the nation’s desire to see someone punished for the failure that has made Pakistan, and its powerful army, the butt of jokes the world over.

What seems to be puzzling millions of Pakistanis, is the inexplicable difficulty in affixing responsibility. If everyone accepts that it was an intelligence failure, and the ISI chief has accepted responsibility, then what is it that prevents the person responsible from being punished?

We are told that Osama bin Laden was in Abbottabad for about five years. That takes us to back to the current army chief’s tenure as the head of the ISI. That’s two people who have never said they are not responsible for the failure. Add the air chief, whose radars remained blank and who couldn’t scramble his jets in time, and we have the entire lot.

It is therefore understandably difficult for Pakistanis to accept how holding these three people responsible, amounts to abandoning the armed forces in their hour of need. The military is an institution that operates way above individuals. In fact, its integrity requires that individuals not up to safeguarding it, should not be asked to do so. And not being vigilant on this front is tantamount to abandoning the entire institution.

What is it, then, that makes it so difficult for an elected government to do the needful? And if public resentment over the manner in which the world’s most wanted man was hunted refuses to die down, is it because of what the Americans did on May 2, or because of what their own leadership has continued to do since?

For the outside world, it may be more important to know if Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad was Pakistan’s intelligence failure or wilful deception. But for Pakistanis, the more urgent question may centre upon the primacy of individuals over institutions. It may make political sense for the government to go easy on our current military leadership to ensure that the apple cart stays upright, but does it make institutional sense?

Pakistan’s civil and military leaders can come up with a million explanations but unless this question is answered honestly, the public’s resentment ain’t going anywhere.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2011.