The Abbottabad Incident
Most Pakistanis are incredulously surprised that America, an ally of the country, penetrated their national air-space and violated its sovereignty. Of course, that happens with most drone bombings though no one can prove it.
Even more surprising was the assassination, an extra judicial killing, in a city hardly fifty miles from the national capital. America is said to be a nation under law, with liberty and justice for all. But was justice done?
The US commandos were meticulously trained for the task and spent less than one hour in accomplishing their mission. They flew out the moment they were done. None of the generals or the ISI agents fast asleep in that town heard the shots fired in a firefight at one o’clock at night.
The mission of the special forces has acquired a cult-like following in America, as well as in much of the West, and their heroics are described as having supermanic quality. Of course, they had lots of time to prepare for their special mission in the mountains of Afghanistan, and perhaps even in Pakistan, chasing and slaughtering the Taliban right under the eyes of the bewildered mullahs.
The public in Pakistan remains dazzled almost one month later, and could not believe that this could be done by mere humans. Of course, they were not just plain old humans, but whites, just like the colonial masters in the former times. A century earlier the British, under Colonel James Abbott, had also performed a similar heroic deed in exactly the same region.
Poor General Ashfaq Kayani is almost out of his mind because he could not believe that this type of undertaking is even possible. And it took place under his watch. Even though he had a close working relationship with the US military nothing slipped out of the Americans, not even an unusual eye movement.
One of the most bizarre aspects of this feat was that the body of the victim was carted away, later to be dumped in the Arabian Sea, ostensibly with Islamic burial ceremonies.
One day after the raid the Prime Minister of the country, Yusuf Raza Gilani in statement to the press blamed the incident on “an intelligence failure of the whole world, not just Pakistan alone” and refused to take responsibility for the disaster.
Some weeks later, he repeated that statement on the floor of the parliament, and read a longer speech said to be written by the army, in what proved to be a rambling diatribe. At that session the parliament voted to condemn the US for the raid.
The Gilani speech must have given the members of the National Security Council in Washington a collective laugh. The parliamentary statement was a hollow gesture.
The US admitted penetrating the Pakistani air space at least four other times previously. They were never intercepted. Pentagon acknowledged four times though one can never tell.
The Pakistani government’s talk of its “sovereignty” is an empty rhetoric unless it can defend it. To this point the United States has refused to give a commitment to Pakistan to not do so again. No country can give such a blanket promise.
At this rate perhaps someday either the Americans or the Indians, or even the Israelis, might be able to sneak-in in the dead of the night and carry away the nuclear bombs. The politicians’ frequent talk of the bombs indicates that there is real concern that the nest-egg of bombs may not be secure enough.
The Israeli raids into Uganda many years ago and into Iraq ought not to be forgotten. Unfortunately, Pakistanis prefer conspiracy theories to explain everything, rather than reading derring-do adventure narratives about military campaigns of others, or ones own.
