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The Abbottabad Operation not only ended the American quest for the most wanted fugitive in the world, it also exposed the 'incompetence' of Pakistan's military establishment.
For us Pakistanis, the impotency of our security establishment for being unable to intercept the raid within one of the most sensitive military zones is a major shock. Many now seriously doubt the 'sincerity' and 'sanity’ of those holding us hostage in the name of our security and national interest.
Initially, some media outlets tried to highlight a tribute to Pakistan in US president Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speeches which was simply not there – isolated lines that may have been inserted by the speechwriters, perhaps to lessen the feeling of humiliation back home in Pakistan.
Do people in our country consider Osama Bin Laden a hero? Most definitely not. Rather, he was a cause of many deaths and pain amongst Pakistanis. I still remember the day in 1996 when the inauguration for Shaheed-e-Millat Flyover was planned by then PM Benazir Bhutto. The Intelligence Bureau informed us that bin Laden had issued the fatwa for BB's death.
Did people of Pakistan consider Osama someone who rightly or wrongly dared to challenge the writ of the greedy western powers bent upon sucking us dry? I am sure that not only most Pakistanis - but even many among our next door neighbours - share that view. However none of this can bring any solace to the grieving nation – grieving not for bin Laden, but rather for its own state of affairs.
During that night when the operation was carried out, US helicopters may have flown below tree-top level using what is known as the "map of the earth" flying techniques to evade detection. Even if the radars were pointed in their direction, low flying choppers could simply have been confused for fast moving vehicles. As far as the lack of challenge by the military is concerned, remember September 11? The US Forces couldn’t react and stop the airplanes from flying into those buildings. Even at Pearl Harbour where Americans lost a complete fleet they failed to detect the attack. One must remember that there is always a lag period for military response during peacetime.
Similarly, the Pakistani and Indian aircrafts can penetrate into each other’s space and get away with murder if the mad military high commands were to so desire. In November 2008 seafaring infiltrators from Pakistan found their way into Mumbai and caused mayhem in a coastal city not much different from Karachi. What could Indians do to stop them? Or the Kargil madness that brought the two sides at the brink of war; it was the fear of military response that gave the two sides sleepless nights and finally helped the grudging peace. The only deterrence to such infiltrations may be the possible reaction in form of a military onslaught, and that must count.
Yet, imagine what would have happened had the Pak military learnt of the raid in time and had scrambled its own F-16s, JF-17s and Mirages’ to take down those lightly defended US choppers over Abbotabad. There must be scores of US fighter aircraft flying just inside Afghanistan waiting to dash in and provide cover to their choppers while their ground operation was taking place. The pilots of these US aircrafts must be itching for an indication from their satellites looking at hangers at Chaklala, Kamra and Peshawar for any fighter push backs onto the tarmacs.
Imagine the uncertainty and confusion in our military chain of command. How could they fashion an adequate response if our poorly equipped fighter aircrafts were blown out of skies while the Chinooks and Black Hawks extricated bin Laden’s dead body amidst the falling debris? Think again even if they could be stopped, does anyone in their right mind in our country would believe that a Pakistani commander would dare to stop them.
Our image is tarnished, and the discovery of bin Laden here is the cherry on top for our critics. In her article published in the New York Review of Books, Elizabeth Rubin, quoted Richard Holbrook’s advisor as saying, “We used see Pakistan as a flawed ally and the Afghan Taliban as their enemy. Now we see the truth as the reverse”.
All said and done, the American raid may have exposed that Pakistan is militarily helpless and ineffective before a world of powers amassed against it, kicking up some very serious questions about the country’s security establishment and its future.
For over 63 years we have been repeatedly told that Pakistan is passing through its most sensitive period of existence. We may have been the only nation in the world where the majority of its population divorced the minority and changed its name. During all this time, there seems to be only two common elements in our country: a powerful establishment and a consistently oppressed lot of people.
Today the world probably views Pakistan, its security establishment, as well as its political leadership, as flawed or even as the enemy. In case another attack comes from the west or the east, what is the response Pakistan is expected to dish-out? If Osama - who connected with rest of the world through only one messenger - could be hunted at the cost of just one chopper, we may end-up losing our nukes that have cost us so much in terms of money, sanctions, and human misery.
In the year of the lord 1945, Japan and Germany were both bombed back to the stone-ages thanks to their mad military designs. They took more than 50 years to regain their legitimate position in the comity of nations only after they got rid of their martial dead weights.
We have a president who is seen trying to rewrite ‘The Prince’, a prime minister who would rather play his flute in Paris than in Multan, an opposition chief who is a bull without horns, and a bunch of generals all looking for Marc Antony's famous sword.
Yet in the wake of the raid over scenic Abbotabad, what devastates the people of Pakistan is that they increasingly have nowhere to go or anyone to lead them out of this certain death. The question is, does Pakistan have to make a quick trip to the stone age for sanity to prevail?
