The bin Laden aftermath: Osama was the least of Pakistan's problems

By Madiha Sattar, May 2, 2011 Monday, May 2, 2011 - 6:56 PM Share

The streets of Karachi are deserted tonight. Earlier today, five people were killed and over 20 vehicles and a bank were torched. Businesses were shut down and the city's streets were choked with panicked traffic as residents rushed home from work.

This chaos had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden. It had to do with Karachi's on-going ethnic and political violence, which flares up repeatedly and claimed hundreds of lives last year. It is a reminder that, despite the symbolic victory of bin Laden's defeat, Pakistan faces severe problems beyond militancy that will not go away with his death. In the hours leading up to the fatal raid Pakistan's president was busy cobbling together an unnatural political alliance to enable his government to pass legislation now that previous allies have parted ways with the ruling party. Meanwhile, and in response, a leader of the main opposition party was meeting with army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, pointing to the role the military still plays in politics. Gas shortages have shut down industry in Punjab province and protests against power cuts are getting violent. The fiscal deficit is ballooning as the government fails to put in place an effective tax net. Recovery from last year's floods remains slow for those who have lost their homes and livelihoods. Gujranwala saw protests this weekend against the alleged burning of the Quran by local Christians, a development that could easily lead to their trial for blasphemy. Literacy remains shockingly low, and is even falling in some areas.

Yet despite these on-going crises that are arguably more relevant to the country's fate than the death of bin Laden, whose ideological heirs can continue to wreak havoc in Pakistan without him, his defeat gripped the airwaves here just as it did in the U.S. - but for entirely different reasons. Ignoring or underplaying the fact that thousands of Pakistanis have died over the last few years in violence inspired by his ideology, conversations and television coverage have been obsessed with the level of Pakistani involvement in the operation. News anchors trying to piece together the sequence of events asked experts throughout the day if America had violated Pakistani sovereignty. Later in the evening two political talk show hosts on one of the most popular news channels asked their guests if the operation meant the U.S. will invade Pakistan now that ground troops had come into Abbottabad. On another station the host wondered if bin Laden hadn't actually been killed earlier and whether yesterday's operation was staged.

Nor were these the only examples; the general mood on the widely watched nightly political talk shows was one of righteous indignation and, sometimes, of scepticism. Forwarded text messages did the rounds claiming definitively that Pakistani radars had been jammed so that the U.S. helicopters could enter Pakistani air space. Through word of mouth a rumour spread that bin Laden had been killed somewhere else and flown in by helicopter to embarrass Pakistan. A number of conspiracy theories emerged in the space of a day, spawned by the gaping holes both the American and Pakistani administrations have left in the story of what really happened last night. Examined much less closely was the question of how bin Laden managed to hang out in a large house enclosed in tall walls and barbed wire within walking and visual distance of a military academy in the garrison town of Abbottabad.

Meanwhile, over the weekend four policemen were killed and a NATO fuel convoy torched. Just this morning a bomb attack intended to hit police took place in Charsadda, a town close to Peshawar that has seen numerous attacks by the Pakistani Taliban. According to some reports, a woman and three children died. Not every problem Pakistan has can be traced to bin Laden and his ideological legacy, but plenty of them can. Either way, conspiracy theorists and the Pakistani right wing - including much of the electronic media - have been too busy railing about violated sovereignty to care. Pakistan's real problems, it appears, can wait another day.

Madiha Sattar is a senior assistant editor at the Karachi-based monthly The Herald.

ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images

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BADASSKICKER

10:47 PM ET

May 2, 2011

Osama is DEAD

Bin Laden was just a part of Al-Qaeda which is just a part of the Islamic terrorist effort which is just a part of the Islamist movement, so the announcement of his death today by the U.S. government makes little operational difference. The war on terror has not fundamentally changed, much less been won. https://www.facebook.com/osamaisdeadonmayday

MARTY MARTEL

11:59 PM ET

May 2, 2011

Osama was Pakistan’s ‘golden goose’

Contrary to what Madiha Sattar claims, Osama bin Laden was a ’golden goose’ for Pakistan.

Pakistan was sheltering and protecting him precisely because he was such a bonanza in the form of US and international aid to Pakistan beginning in 2001 after 9/11 attacks.

Let us not forget that nobody forced Pakistani government to facilitate relocation of Osama bin Laden from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996. Democratic government of Pakistan chose to do so if its own free will at that time.

Afterall previous US ambassador Anne Patterson to Pakistan clearly pointed finger at Pakistani Army and ISI for supporting Osama bin Laden‘s Al Qaeda when she wrote in a secret review in 2009 that ‘Pakistan's Army and ISI are covertly SPONSORING four militant groups - Haqqani‘s HQN, Mullah Omar‘s QST, Al Qaeda and LeT - and will not abandon them for any amount of US money‘, as diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show.

Ambassador Patterson had NO reason to mislead her own State Department and U. S. government.

BHARAT14

11:07 AM ET

May 3, 2011

Deliberate confusion

Its about time evry non-muslim starts to see through the charade and accepts that ISI is Alqaida/Taliban. they are both one and the same thing the distinction is there only to get the monies off the gullible west to fund their war/s.

ROMAN GIL

7:12 PM ET

May 4, 2011

The 'Osama Is Dead Story" Question For Investigation

The “Osama Bin Laden Is Dead Story” Has Many Questions That Need To Be Investigated.

Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist and deserved the death penalty. This is why the media must investigate this story instead of merely parroting the information that was provided by the government.

Based on my experience as a decorated US Army combat veteran, this story has credibility problems. I tried to post these questions in the comments section of several mass media publications and they did not get posted. A free press is essential in a free society because it has a duty to investigate what the government is doing and it must educate citizens. A free media must publish all responsible questions from the public and be open to debate. Thomas Jefferson said that given the choice between government and a printing press, he would take the printing press.

1. Why they did not show Osama’s body publicly? In 1967, Che Guevara the Communist guerrilla was captured alive wounded in Bolivia, interrogated, killed and his body was displayed to the world media. A responsible government would display Osama’s body to the media and to a panel of international physicians to prove without a doubt the death of the most wanted terrorist in the world. The government version that Osama’s head was too damaged to show the public is not credible. Morticians can prepare a body for public display. Media and international physicians would be welcome to take DNA samples from the body as total proof of Osama’s demise.

2. Osama was unarmed when they shot him? Osama was a terrorist veteran of the Afghan Soviet war that was waged in the 1980s between Islamist guerrillas and the Soviet Union. Anybody with his background would have alarmed, mined and booby trapped his house. Weapons would be in his possession at all times and in every room of the house, including hand grenades. He had plenty of time to install command detonated mines everywhere outside and inside the compound. I have problems believing that the most wanted terrorist in the world was killed while unarmed. When I was in a war zone, my weapon was with me at all times and I slept with it and lots of ammo and hand grenades, could Osama be so foolish that he did not have weapons in his room?

3. There were no American casualties? This is simply not credible because attacking a compound that is occupied by dangerous men that had plenty of time to prepare for defense, makes it certain that the attackers must sustain casualties. Osama’s terrorist group specializes in suicide bombers of both sexes. They could not spare even one of them to protect their leader?

4. Why did we spend $1.5 Trillion dollars occupying and "nation building" Iraq and Afghanistan instead of targeting Osama's less than 1,000 terrorists?. We could have got Osama 10 years ago at a reasonable cost. When American troops landed in Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attack, the Afghan Northern Alliance had already overthrown the Taliban government that harbored Osama. It was not necessary to occupy the country. A war using Special Forces would have been sufficient

5. Why are we still involved in the Israeli-Muslim conflict? This is the cause of the war on terror. We inherited Israel’s enemies and they struck us on 9/11. The effects of our involvement will continue until we divorce from the Muslim world and focus on killing the actual terrorists until they are finished. Our absence from the Muslim world will make Muslims eventually stop provoking us with terrorism because they will want to keep us out. It is common sense that it would be in the Muslim interest to stop terrorism against America to keep America from coming back to their lands. With America out of the Israeli-Muslim conflict, the Muslims will be free to focus on their affairs and their problem with Israel. Israel has nuclear weapons and a strong military that assures it that it can survive any war without America. The only beneficiaries of the present war on terror are the war contractors and the special interest groups.

Some possible explanations for this unusual story;

a) The government killed Osama Bin Laden but it believes that it is not necessary to provide conclusive proof of their actions because they are universally loved and trusted. This means that they are incompetent because they did not prove their story.

b) Osama Bin Laden was hooked on opium and developed a false sense of security. His followers shared this drug problem and failed to fortify and provide guards for the Osama compound.
c) The masses are so stupid that they will accept without question anything that the government and media tells them, so why bother with proof?

d) Osama Bin Laden died years ago, and now it is a convenient time to bring him back to distract the masses and continue the hugely profitable war on terror and gain mass support for a government that cannot exist without debt and financial dependency on special interest groups.

e) This story is a case that simply shows the irresponsibility and incompetence of the American government.

The $1.5 Trillion spent on the war on terror continues to pile additional debt and there is no end in sight. The money that was wasted on fighting this war with a wrong strategy could have been wisely invested by loaning it to private enterprise companies that would be protected from cheap imports. A new industrial policy like South Korea’s would reconstruct and protect a new American industrial base that would replace the industry and technology that global corporations exported to China and other Third World countries under the globalization false ideology that has ruined America and Europe and created millions of permanently unemployed people. America would be able to replace imports with nationally produced products and services. The trade losses would end and careers in science, engineering, chemistry and skilled jobs would be abundant in an industrial economy.

With a new industrial base, America would be independent of imports and global debt financing. Presently, the Federal government needs to annually beg and borrow $1.65 Trillion a year from international capital and US investors because the industrial base of the American economy is only 9%. There are not enough corporate or individual taxpayers to support the huge Federal, State and local governments, plus their armies of government contractors. In any case, the American governments must reduce their size and expenses by 40% to balance their budgets and avoid digging America deeper into debt and dependency on the kindness of creditors.

The present economic and political dependency of the American economy on debt, special interest groups and imports makes a continuation of the present globalist war on terror fatal for America. It’s a choice of nation building America before it becomes a terminal case of financial and social cancer, or continue to dig the debt and dependency grave deeper until we end like other failed world powers, including the British Empire, the French Empire and Soviet Union.

Roman Gil
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