Was Pakistan Complicit Or Incompetent?

In the aftermath Bin Laden's dramatic death
in Pakistan, several critical questions beg for
answers. First, was Pakistan contumaciously
complicit in harboring Bin Laden? Second,
is the Pakistani government really that incompetent?

A unqualified answer to the above is elusive.
Definitive answers presuppose incontrovertible
evidence. Pointedly, accurate assessments in
geopolitical matters -most decidedly in
Pakistan- are shrouded in complexities, befogged
by irreconcilable contradictions and distorted
by disinformation.

But it is essential to recognize that covert
agencies deliberately obfuscate how they get
intelligence. Of necessity, they beshroud
operational specifics. They distort and camouflage
facts. This misdirects and misleads attentive
enemies. This approach confuses arm-chair
strategists and beclouds their understanding.
This accounts for the proliferation of conflicting
information surrounding the Bin Laden escapade in Pakistan.

That said, even absent smoking-gun evidence,
circumstantial considerations can provide abundant
illumination. It is not rocket science to extrapolate
from known facts to reach compelling conclusions.
Assuredly, there is a great deal that is abundantly
clear about a wide range of illuminating
circumstances in Pakistan.

Let's begin at the beginning. Pakistan was
created in 1947. It was carved out of India
with the express intent of creating a Moslem
nation. In fact, Pakistan is the only such
nation ever created with that express international
intent. At the same time, Pakistan was to become a
democratic republic.

Some sixty-four years later, Pakistan is a
decidedly Moslem nation which seems to be
drifting to an assertive Islamic nationalism.
As for Pakistani democracy, never in its six
decades of existence has a civilian Pakistani
government successfully served out its full
term in office. These two facts form and
inform the crux of existential life in
Pakistan. Indeed, a proper understanding
of Pakistan must discern what daily life in
Pakistan truly is all about.

Pakistan, a nation twice the size of California,
is divided by region, segregated by ethnicity,
fractured by languages, beset by religious
dissension and muddied by political dysfunction.
It is a nation whose 180 million citizens number
four times those who were there when Pakistan
was created. More importantly, Pakistan’s
population is exploding. By 2050 it will host
335 million people. As such, the realities
besetting Pakistan’s population are a
prime source for insight into that nation.
Pakistan’s realities illuminate the basis for
widespread incompetence, but also suggest
considerations that argue for complicity.

Initially, 42% of Pakistanis are under age
fourteen. That makes for a massive populace that
is impressionable, malleable and volatile. Add to
this the fact that one of every two Pakistanis is
illiterate. But why is this so since the Pakistani
Constitution promises free elementary education to all?

The short answer is that free education in Pakistan
is constitutionally subject to available resources.
Indeed, less than one percent of Pakistani GDP is
allocated to education. As a result, 78% of
Pakistani schools have no electricity, 60% have
no toilets, 40% have no running water, one of
four teachers simply do not show up for work
each day, only one of five citizens ever attended
secondary school and half of the people in
Pakistan over age ten have never attended any
school. Such deplorable educational circumstances
predispose Pakistan to ineptitude.

That state of affairs is compounded by a
linguistically fractured society that speaks sixty
different languages. And yet, Urdu, Pakistan’s
national language, is the mother tongue of only
8% of Pakistanis. Urdu is the second language
of the literate few, but Urdu is quite unspoken by
most Pakistanis. How does one competently run
such a country?

How Pakistan is run presents yet another insight
into whether Pakistan was complicit or simply
incompetent. Pakistan has seventeen political
parties. But Pakistan has only 34 million voters
(less than one fifth of the population).
Moreover, Pakistan’s civilian government is
widely regarded as unusually incapable, widely
incompetent, generally dysfunctional and
pervasively corrupt. Understanding these
operational liabilities, after Pakistan’s
disastrous flooding last year, the government
felt compelled to issue humiliating assurances
that donations for flood relief would not
be stolen. Utter incompetence abounds.

Add to the foregoing the fact that Pakistan
was one of only three governments that formally
recognized the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan.
The other two were Myanmar and Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan’s Sunni soul-mate. Given that
redoubtable association, complicity was
almost predictable.

That said, two final matters directly relate
to considerations of complicity in the Bin Laden
affair. These are the role of Islam in Pakistan
and the status of the Pakistani military.

Islam is the state religion in Pakistan.
Ninety-five percent of Pakistanis are Moslem.
Pakistan should be a homogenous and harmonious
society, but it is not. Why? Theoretically,
every Pakistani is free to practice, profess
and propagate his/her own religion. But that
theory is trumped by a Constitutional provision
that allows reasonable restrictions on free
speech for “the glory of Islam.” In practice,
the masthead of Pakistan’s Ministry Of
Religious Affairs instructively asserts:
“Islam is the only religion acceptable to God.”

But Islam is not monolithic. Seventy-five
percent of Pakistanis are Sunni. Many Sunnis
consider their Shiite co-religionists to be
apostates and/or idolators. The festering
Sunni dislike of Pakistan’s Shia populace
periodically erupts into murderous violence.
But both the Sunni and the Shia spurn
Pakistan’s Ahmadi Moslems.

In fact, virulent legislative antipathy to
Pakistan’s Ahmadis precludes them from even
calling themselves Moslems, from quoting the
Quran or from using the traditional Moslem
call to prayer. On the other hand, Pakistan’s
government is predisposed to favor almost
anything that is Sunni. However simplistic,
it must be remembered that Bin Laden’s
ideology arose from his passionate Sunni
beliefs. Here again, Pakistan’s propensity
to complicity raises its ugly head.

Which leads us to the Pakistani military.
Pakistan’s army is the world’s sixth largest
fighting force. It has directly ruled Pakistan
for half of that nation’s history. Pakistan’s
military receives one-third of Pakistan’s
budget. Indeed, it is said that whereas nation
states have armies, the Pakistani army has a
state. But the Pakistani army also has nukes.
In fact,it has a quite substantial nuclear
arsenal. That argues for competence.

Furthermore, it is widely accepted that the
most powerful man in Pakistan is not President
Zadari, but rather the head of Pakistan’s
military, General Asfaq Kayani. He is known
to be contemptuous of India, contentious and
quitecompetent. If something is going on in
Pakistan, he and/or the ISI (Pakistani
intelligence) presumably know about it.
From this perspective, Pakistani complicity
seems totrump its widespread incompetence.

One final thought. For years it was assumed
that Bin Laden was holed up in Pakistan’s
untamed tribal areas which are adjacent to
Afghanistan. No government has ever exerted
substantial control there. But Bin Laden was
not reduced to a cave-like existence in
North or South Waziristan. He was hiding
in plain sight virtually next door to a
Pakistani military installation. How could
that be? Was Pakistan complicit or simply
that incompetent?

In response, an aphorism from Pakistan’s
wild Waziristan may be illuminating. It
recounts what would happen if a Mesud
tribesman were to enter a room where
he saw a Wazir tribesman and a venomous
snake. The aphorism asserts that the Mesud
would first kill the Waziri and only then
would he slay the snake. Bin Laden was
neither a Mesud nor a Waziri. He was a Saudi
and a Sunni. Until two weeks ago, he was
an unmolested viper ensconced in a
substantially more-than-modest Pakistani
country house. Absent Pakistani action, U.S.
Seals entered the house and killed the snake.

So, was Pakistan complicit, incompetent or both?
You now have the facts. You be the judge.