The bin Laden aftermath: In Pakistan, many questions and few answers

By Shaheryar Mirza, May 4, 2011 Wednesday, May 4, 2011 - 2:24 PM Share

The extraordinary and dramatic killing of America's Most Wanted Man has brought confusion, embarrassment, triumph, regret and a resounding cold shoulder to the Pakistani people from the international community. A senior Pakistani diplomat told me, "Maybe it's time to accept that, in great power games, we don't matter." This comment could be a public relations exercise to wash Pakistan's hands of any responsibility for Osama bin Laden's death and the ensuing militant backlash. But it's clear that a solo operation on Pakistani soil by U.S. Navy SEALs is a reality check for unassuming citizens who have let the Pakistani Army's budget fuel theirs and the army's delusions of grandeur.

It's hard to blame Pakistanis for the utter bewilderment they are experiencing after the death of bin Laden. Pakistan's leaders seem dumbfounded by the whole operation, and a lack of a coherent public message from the government, the military, and the intelligence service the ISI has only hindered the average Pakistani's desire to find a defensible position on the issue. Pakistanis are left with many questions and few answers.

How could the world's most wanted man be hiding around the corner from a Pakistani military academy? If Osama bin Laden had been living in Abbottabad, a mere two hours' drive from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, without the ISI's knowledge, it was a criminal stroke of genius on his part. Hide where the drones don't fall and where they'll never think to look. The bigger the house the fewer questions asked. Wealth in Pakistan serves as its own boundary wall between the privileged and the law.

How could the Army not have known and/or engaged foreign forces conducting combat operations within Pakistan's borders? The same senior Pakistani diplomat told me, "Pakistanis are just unaware of the U.S. military's capabilities." If this is the case, then the American military machine has immeasurable might, or the Pakistan Army has short arms and deep pockets.

Why wouldn't America share the information about the upcoming raid with the Pakistani Army so that the U.S.'s own fairly high-risk operation was not compromised by Pakistani forces? Would the Pakistan Army refuse an operation against bin Laden? Probably not, but Pakistan could conceivably request to mount their own operation to take him out. One reason the Americans did not take Pakistan into confidence was concern that the Pakistani Army could not be trusted with this information. The Pakistani Army would have had too much to answer for to the U.S. if members of it were irresponsible with details about the raid, and bin Laden escaped.

How could bin Laden have been located without Pakistani intelligence? Common sense tells us that he couldn't have been. Even if Pakistan's government pleads ignorance on all counts, it is inconceivable that the United States could have located this target without some prior form of help from the ISI. And if this is indeed the case, then one has to concede that the ISI would not share intelligence on a terrorist they are secretly trying to harbor.

Every retired Pakistani military man I have spoken with thinks that ISI/Army members must have been clued in to the operation or bin Laden's location, but likely at the most five to ten people were in the know. If the Army knew anything, it was likely only at the highest levels -- Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, ISI chief Major General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, and their closest lieutenants -- and in that case the suggestion that Pakistan's government as a whole was somehow "sheltering" bin Laden does not make much sense because Pakistan would have sold bin Laden if they had him to begin with, in exchange for some national respect from the U.S. A possible Pakistani pitch to the U.S. could have been: we have bin Laden in our sights; you take him out, absolve us of responsibility, you get the victory, and we don't have to deal with the militant blowback at home. The continued campaign of drone strikes in the tribal areas compromises Pakistani sovereignty, but a one-time raid may be easier to sell and forget. The issue here is the concern that Pakistan's double game will leave it with nothing but a backlash from both the international community and the militants. But if you find Osama bin Laden in your own front yard, you don't really have much room for negotiation.

In the off chance that the ISI did not play a part in locating bin Laden in Abbottabad, but had some intelligence on him, what would the Pakistani military establishment gain from harboring a man like Osama bin Laden? Is he a "strategic asset" the way the Haqqani network or the Quetta Shura is believed to be? No.

A main difference between Osama bin Laden and the Quetta Shura or the Haqqani network was that bin Laden did not possess a network of fighters, was not indigenous to the land despite ties cultivated possibly through marriages, and above everything else was more of a symbol of jihad than an operational influence. Pakistani military officials have told me before that the reason why the Haqqanis and the Quetta Shura may serve as assets is because they possess vast networks and will still be around long after the Americans leave Afghanistan. If Pakistan wants to exercise ‘strategic depth' in what they may assume will be a protracted battle for power in Afghanistan after the U.S. leaves, then they want to back the men whose main interest is power in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden's goals were megalomaniacal, stretched over continents, and completely incompatible with the idea of negotiations. The Haqqani network and the Quetta Shura are insurgent groups, or bands of terrorists by most accounts, but potentially both could get their feet in the door for negotiations in Afghanistan. Taking all this into consideration, it is hard to see how Pakistan could have considered Osama bin Laden a strategic asset the way the Haqqani network or Quetta Shura are presumed to be for the Pakistani military establishment.

What if Pakistan really didn't know anything? If that's the case, then that is a bitter pill for Pakistanis to swallow and heads should roll in the establishment. The Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani has already stated that an inquiry is to take place. If the Army and ISI are found to be completely ignorant they can and should be held accountable. Worldwide attention on such an inquiry bears the possibility that a government usually impotent in front of the military could actually hold the military accountable for once.

At the moment, nobody in the Pakistani security establishment is willing to provide answers to Pakistanis. Pakistanis want to know if the ISI tipped the Americans off; they want to know if the ISI harbored a terrorist; they want to say that Pakistanis helped in the operation, either operationally or with prior intelligence, or that some kind of deal was struck with the United States. What they don't want to hear is that their country knew nothing. That leaves them without a position to defend, although if there are any people that can defend the indefensible, it's the Pakistanis. Many Pakistanis just want to be able to have a national stance on the issue and say, "These are the facts and these are our opinions on the matter." But, alas, it is likely we won't get any of the inside facts soon, if we ever do.

Shaheryar Mirza has a masters in journalism and public affairs from American University in Washington D.C. and works as a reporter for Express 24/7 in Karachi, Pakistan. Follow him on twitter @mirza9.

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images

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MARTY MARTEL

6:06 PM ET

May 4, 2011

Pakistani malarkey with U. S. connivance

The biggest malarkey that Pakistan has spread with U. S. connivance is that ’nuclear weapons are in danger of falling in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists if Pakistani government collapses’ when ‘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 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 according to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show.

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

How can Pakistan be in danger of falling to the Islamic fundamentalists if Pakistani Army and ISI are SPONSORING those very Islamic fundamentalists led by Osama bin Laden, Haqqani, Mullah Omar and Hafiz Saeed as reported by ambassador Patterson?

Evidence kept popping up again and again that Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgency is fueled from across the border in Pakistan but U. S. administrations, congress and military kept accepting Pakistan’s alibis that it did not do no such thing.

Afghan officials from Karzai to Spanta kept asking that ‘the war against terrorism is not in Afghanistan’s homes and villages. But rather this war is in the sanctuaries, funding centers and training places of terrorism which are in Pakistan. Our international allies have the ability to destroy these Pakistani sanctuaries, but the question is why they are not doing it?“ But nobody listened to the cries of poor Afghans.

US just kept deliberately ignoring Taliban’s Pakistani connections in fueling and sustaining Afghan insurgency as reported by Matt Waldman in ‘The sun in the sky‘ on 6/13/2010, corroborated by WikiLeaks leaks on 7/25/2010 and then further corroborated by Chris Alexander, Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan from 2005 until 2009 in his article on 7/30/2010 titled ‘The huge scale of Pakistan‘s complicity‘.

Let us see if U. S. once again allows Pakistan to get away with a whitewash and a wink and a nod with few more billions in aid to boot.

ROMAN GIL

6:30 PM ET

May 4, 2011

The "Osama Bin Laden Is Dead Story" Has Many Questions.

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
http://roman-gil1.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/roman.gil1
http://twitter.com/RomanGil1

ZATHRAS

7:19 PM ET

May 4, 2011

The bin Laden Aftermath

Overall, Mirza's strikes me as a very perceptive analysis.

Well, it would...since I believe the Pakistani Army and ISI identify themselves with the nation, and so are able to talk themselves into doing things that serve their institutional interests only, in a spirit of fervent nationalism. "Delusions of grandeur" is right. Uruguayans don't pursue an armed geopolitical rivalry with Brazil; Mongolia's government does not orient its thinking toward preparation for the next war with China. Yet the people who matter in Pakistan's government see as their first priority preserving the notion of Pakistan as a geopolitical rival to a much richer neighbor nearly seven times its size. It's great for the army, not so great for Pakistan.

What was bin Laden to the Pakistani security services? Maybe he was a means to access cash from sympathetic Islamists in the Gulf Arab states. Perhaps he had the ability to mediate disputes among the various terrorist groups sponsored by Pakistan's men in uniform. Or maybe bin Laden merely represented a way for a select few among Pakistan's powerful to thumb their noses, in private, at the indispensable yet deeply resented United States. Just because people have reasons for what they do doesn't mean the reasons have to make sense.

In any case, it would be difficult to overstate the damage this episode has done to Pakistan's image in America. Three days ago, Americans in Congress and elsewhere regarded Pakistan with a mixture of sympathy, wariness and vague suspicion. Today, the prevailing opinion in Washington is that Pakistani leaders are either lying through their teeth to our government or recklessly sponsoring terrorists. Or both. Ignorance is not the thing Americans will expect accountability for.

I don't wonder that Pakistanis outside the circles of power and political influence -- which means the vast majority -- are bewildered at their government's discomfiture, but they should understand that American attitudes harden in cases like this, in profound and lasting ways, unless decisive action is taken early. Don't think of this as either good or bad. It is what it is. Americans saw scant reason to adjust official hostility to the Cuban government decades after the Cuban Missile Crisis; Palestinian Arabs became firmly identified with terrorism in the United States no later than the 1972 Olympic Games; everyone knows how well established are American attitudes toward the Iranian government, and how they got that way.

Sheltering Osama bin Laden....do I really need to complete that thought? The corrupting and malevolent dominance of the security services over Pakistan's government and society is something Pakistanis will have to overcome -- for their own sakes, not ours -- but in the near term the important thing is to realize the damage this episode has done, and is still doing, to the way Americans think about Pakistan's government. Silence, prevarication, playing the victim, professing ignorance: none of these will address the damage. They will probably make it worse. There is a window during which Pakistan's government can respond to the cancer of terrorism on its territory and have Americans take the response seriously, but that window won't stay open for long.

AHSON HASAN

9:47 PM ET

May 4, 2011

Re-emphasize, re-configure and re-direct Pakistan policy

Now that the greatest symbol of terrorism is out of the way, it seems that the world has gotten down to performing a threadbare analysis of the monster killer we all knew as Osama bin Laden, his life, his hiding spot that he found in Pakistan ( courtesy the Pakistani authorities, of course ) and how he met his end.

Let me, at the very outset, submit that, as a proud American, I feel humbled and am deeply grateful to our President, and the courage of those who made it possible to strategize and execute a plan that was flawless and precise enough to get rid a man who changed our world for the worst and perhaps forever.

Also, I do not care if they show us the pictures related to the operation or not. All I'm concerned about is our safety and security and I fully trust our government and our leadership to take the right steps to ensure that the United States of America keeps the talibans and al-qaedas away from our borders.

Having said that, I am actually terrified right now, but not surprised, about Pakistan's role in this entire scenario. From my years as a policy analyst, I warned and warned time and again that Pakistan cannot be trusted. I have even extensively written about the issue in this particular space on several occasions about a well-known fact that Pakistan harbors terrorists. I used to and still question as to why every Tom, Dick and Harry related to terrorism is associated with Pakistan?

For any country, having Pakistan on its side is akin to dancing with the devil. And this is nothing against the people of Pakistan - they are poor, suppressed folks who are powerless and clueless as much as anyone who was ever unfortunate enough to know Pakistan. This is actually about the Inter-Services Intelligence ( ISI ), the Pakistan Army and the Establishment screwing around with that country's credibility and its inability to grapple with the changing needs of time.

Pakistan is a dark country, a people that still live in primitive times. A huge majority of its population still lives in villages, under-privileged conditions - this is as much as 60 percent of the population that we are talking about. That segment of population is tremendously impacted and dominated by the ignorance that is channelized to them through the mullahs in the madrasas and the mosques. The mullahs brainwash the desperate folks, teach them outdated concepts of Sharia and encourage the young to go to jihad - a notorious idea that perhaps has lost its importance anyway in modern times.

I understand that the Western world is afraid to give up on Pakistan for the simple reason that if they do so the country, its nuclear program and all the resources will be taken over by the jihadis. Well, guess what? The jihadis already reign supreme in Pakistan! If that was not the case, how in the world did Osama bin Laden afford to live in a military town, his mansion situated just a few yards away from a major military academy?

It’s really interesting that way the US has been literally pouring aid on Pakistan - 18 billion dollars of taxpayer’s hard-earned money going to that country in the past 9 years. Recently I read somewhere that the US has given 20 million dollars to the Pakistan government for recreating 'Sesame Street' in Urdu language! The amount of corruption within the bureaucracy and governmental setup that is found in Pakistan, one doesn't know really how and why the US will rely or expect cooperation from that side.

Understood that Islamabad is integral to US interests in South Asia and its war on terrorism but does that mean that Pakistan and its leadership will keep blackmailing Washington forever. It would be advisable that the US opts for long-term and cheaper ways and means to ‘connect’ with Pakistan. For instance, how about educating that 60 percent of population that lives in abject poverty and is mentally enslaved by the mullahs? The 20 million dollars given to recreate Sesame Street could have been instead used for building around 20 decent schools of high school level.

The US needs to take on the Pakistani leadership head on. Forget about the courtesies, forget about diplomacy – it does not work on folks who are insincere and dishonest to the core. They kept fooling around with the entire world for years together, denying that bin Laden was living under their protection and blatantly played a double-faced game.

Pakistan needs to answer some tough questions. Pakistan needs to stop kidding itself. Yes, we’ve been listening to this for the past few days. The billion dollar question is: Will Pakistan be really asked those tough questions? Or, will those crooks once again escape accountability?

In this sensitive time, I urge our policy makers to change their course of action. Re-emphasize, re-configure and re-direct ASAP! It appears that we need to learn a lot more about Pakistan, a lot that we have ignored to pay attention to since we’ve been too busy trusting the Pakistani leadership! President Obama and his team of advisors have a massive amount of work to do. Pakistan is almost an impossible country to work it; Washington needs to stop appeasing Pakistan and get on with the job of smoking the terrorists out of their holes!

Well done, President Obama! Keep up the good work!

SGT

6:53 PM ET

May 6, 2011

Time for the US to get another supply route to Afghanistan

The Pakistanis has a vested interest in continuing the "War on Terrorism" and will everything they can to support its continuation. They are getting billions in aid and strategic relevance that they crave versus India.
Only way to stop this is to start dealing with the Iranians for an alternative route to Afghanistan. The Iranians have never been as dangerous and two faced as the Pakistanis. Also, all the reasons that the Bush Administration used to justify the war in Iraq, actually only exists in Pakistan.