The youth speaks
To many Pakistanis the unimaginable happened on May 2. After years of mystery regarding his whereabouts, Osama bin Laden was not found in some cave in Afghanistan but in a cozy home within a military cantonment in Abbottabad.
Twenty-four-year-old Anwar Naseem ventured out into his neighbourhood in Lahore to get some reactions on camera. Denial was a common theme.
Haqani, an accounting student from Islamabad writes, “When I heard the whole story from both my national media and the west’s media, one thing was clear, Osama bin Laden’s death is a false flag operation. Killing the most wanted man and then disposing his body in the blink of an eye with no evidence of his death other than Obama’s speech, was very hard to believe to be true.”
Wajiha Saqib, a senior at LUMS, went through the corridors of her university in search of her own answers with a camera.
Muhammad Anwar-ul-Haq, also from Lahore, rewinds back to September 11th, the London 7/7 bombings, and the 2008 Mumbai attacks and writes,
“I wonder why no one was worried about the lapse in security when a few men took on these security establishments, but everyone's suddenly worried when the USA, the sole military super-power in the world, jams our radars along an already minimally monitored border (with respect to air-defense). This in my opinion is not the issue to worry about. The real point to ponder and raise questions about is, what was Osama doing smack in the middle of the Army's hub and that too in a compound that had already been under surveillance some time back with regard to Al-Qaeda? The important question to ask right now is whether there was a certain degree of complicity on part of certain elements within our security establishment. If there was, then how does the Army plan to counter such people within its ranks? If not, then who will teach our intelligence agencies to focus on something worthwhile (as opposed to tapping phones from the parliament or funding right wing proxy parties to subvert the will of the people).”
Shahid Saeed a blogger originally from Rawalpindi, who is currently finishing is bachelors in electrical engineering from the US writes,
“What goes on in the corridors of military power is a mystery to us. What guides their actions remains a complex web of calculations, strategic they say, often immoral, disgusting, irrational and suicidal in our eyes. They value their assets, they hedge their bets and they play both sides of the game and try to bluff the single most powerful country in the world, to which they have played as a near mercenary force for a fair time.
There are too many questions. Did we protect him? Did we give him refuge? Why would we do that? If not, did we ignore his presence? Are we this incompetent? Did the FIU never ask a question about a mysterious 7 kanal house with a three story building, built by settlers supposedly from Waziristan? Is the holy mother of all agencies so inept and useless that in the sweeps done around areas visited regularly by the Army Chief and the upper hierarchy, they never got suspicious of the house and its residents? How did he come to Abbottabad in the first place? Did he take a Rs. 70, 13-seater Hiace ride from Mansehra and stop off at the Baloch Regimental Center?
If not, then why did they allow a foreign power to come in and hunt him down? Did our forces coordinate and collaborate with the US on the raid? Why are they not speaking? It’s not as if it would not want to take credit for it. The logic of avoiding local terrorists’ wrath is just too pathetic, they already target us. Mullah Omar’s, Hekmatyar’s and Haqqani’s anger be damned, this is their protector we are talking about. It is stupid, nay imaginable, that our forces collaborated extensively and do not want to take credit for it. They would not risk inviting the wrath of the international media that they have called upon themselves today.”
Shahid Saeed, Wajiha Saqib, Anwar Naseem, Muhammad Anwar-ul-Haq and Ibtihaj Haqani contributed to this report produced by Hosh media, a volunteer organisation that aims to bring youth voices onto the mainstream media.
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.