September 6, 1965 — senior army officers in Pakistan slept as Indian troops rolled towards the Lahore border. Fast-forward and we have senior Pakistani generals apparently asleep while American SEALs launch an operation in Abbottabad. This also happened when the US fired its Tomahawk missiles in the 1990s on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. This latest incident drives one lesson home: We cannot pretend to sleep peacefully at night since those whose job it is to guard us seem to be failing.

There are two concerns regarding what happened on May 1, both of which are not heartening. The first issue pertains to the ISPR’s claim that bin Laden’s presence was just a case of intelligence failure. This is extremely worrying, since Abu Farraj alLibbi was captured from Abbottabad in 2003 and Indonesian terrorist Umar Patek in early 2011. So how come the intelligence agencies lost sight of this garrison town? Surely any intelligence agency can make errors of judgement but then there is a process of the government auditing such military incompetence. In Pakistan’s case, there is little possibility of that. In fact, the military is engaged in creating a narrative which is biased in its favour. Three recent publications, Pakistan: Beyond the Crisis State, edited by Maleeha Lodhi, Javed Jabbar’s Pakistan — Unique origins; Unique destiny? and Anatol Lieven’s Pakistan: A Hard Country present the military as the only efficient institution of the state. Now we know that this is not the case.

The other concern is: What if this was not a case of failure but a result of the military’s overall bias for appeasing militant non-state actors? These concerns cannot be redressed through simple measures such as someone in the military resigning. This requires a serious audit of what happened. For those who will get jittery at the idea and imagine that this suggestion is some foreign conspiracy, the fact is that organisations only survive through accountability and transparency.

There is a need for questioning the manner in which intelligence agencies conduct their business, for instance. Although the army chief has ordered an inquiry, we know what usually is the outcome of such inquiries. A fair inquiry requires a neutral setting, which means that this is a time for another neutral report like the Hamoodur Rehman Commission report which should inquire into the matter and be bound to declare its results within a certain time frame, and do so publicly. Another necessary step is for the government to initiate another white paper on the working of the defence sector, with the objective of bringing about critical changes in the military. The last time any restructuring was done in the defence sector was during the 1970s when we saw the reaction of a fairly strong ministry of defence and the Joint Chiefs of Staffs Committee (JCSC). Unfortunately, the imposition of the third martial law by Ziaul Haq in 1977 nipped the institutional restructuring in the bud. The JCSC was created in 1976 but the Zia government turned it into a mere post office rather than a critical institution in the military hierarchy. The white paper on defence should be the work of practitioners and experts from the non-government sector.

Furthermore, the government should also think of instituting a performance audit of the military as is done by the American General Accounting Office or by the Canadian Audit department. It is important for the state to develop benchmarks against which to access the military’s performance. It is important to note that the military extracts huge amounts of national resources from the state in the form of the defence budget or perks and privileges for its personnel. We are told that the various housing schemes, grant of agriculture land and other businesses are to ensure quality of services by the armed forces. The May 1 incident raises doubts about the above claim.

It is the first time after 1972 that the civilian government has an opportunity to question the unlimited powers of the defence establishment. There is a need to partner with other political actors, especially the PML-N, which may be keen to reign in the armed forces, to create a mechanism for disciplining the institution. The fact is that if the political forces won’t do it now, they may never get another opportunity again.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2011.

Some relevant comments from ET website:

ehabs
Great piece.
Other countries have an army. The Pakistan army has a country.
I commend the writer in exposing the highly corrupt nature of this institution.

Wellwisher
CiviLian government is losing a good opportunity to bring Army and ISI under it’s command.if it changes both the heads business with US will not be Affected much and re look at the entire policy is possible.

Shock Horror
Excellent analysis of the scenario facing Pakistan. Pakistani Foreign Secretary has already declared Osama Bin Laden as history! He obviously thinks there is no need for any questioning or analysis of the situation. A pitiful situation for the country!

Abdur Rehman
1971- East Pakistan was surrendered.
1999- Kargil operation brought utter humiliation and shame to Pakistan.
However, the armed forces excel at rewarding themselves with zar and zameen, in urban and rural Pakistan and script the political actors to play the political games.
Maybe they should test fire a missile (of course capable of carrying a nuclear warhead) to divert public attention.

muhammad ashfaq ashfaq
Will military allow the politicians to intervene ? Are the politicians in pakistan daring enough to question the performance of military junta ?(If they do so, it is only lip service.) It is only possible when military decides to restructure itself and let politicians do everything necessary for restructuring and reshaping the military. The only way to discipline the army is to make them held answerable to the civilians .Efficient civilian control by the honest ,forthright and people having forward-looking approach can make the institution capable enough to safeguard the geographical boundaries of pakistan diligently.

Shoaib Mir
Fully endorse Ayesha Siddiqa’s recipe for reigning in the mindset that forced Jinnah to remind our Armed Forces their oath of office at the Staff College Quetta and to effectively counter what Bhutto so insightfully described as coup-gemony in his If I am Assassinated.
Ever since the hanging of ZAB the principle of civilian supremacy has been gang-raped by the defence establishment, fake civil society and the maadar pidar azad media. It’s high time we woke up to the menace of Bonapartism lurking behind rampant religious militancy both scratching one another’s back that strengthens a narrative against parliamentary democracy, civil rights and secular polity almost sub-consciously.
I would very strongly urge all well meaning bloggers, analysts and intellectuals to trigger off a national discourse that thoroughly discusses the following fateful events in our history:
Objectives Resolution vis a vis Jinnah’s famous address of 11 August 1947.
The role of judiciary in endorsing the Four military coup de tat’s.
Operation Gibralter.
The Fall of Dhaka and the Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report.
The assassination of Liaquat AK and BB.
Operation Black Horse
Operation Midnight Jackals
The Ojhri Camp disaster
The Strategic Depth paradigm vis a vis Pakistan’s role in the breakup of USSR and the ongoing War on Terror.
Kargil
The Balochistan and FATA issues

Abdur Rauf
one thing to clear that Abu Faraj was arrested in Mardan not at Abbotabad……….100% agree with the writer guards need to keep their eyes on the walls of the house not on resources and take over places……..but sorry there is no one to only talk with Army in explanation manners.

Imran Khan
Completely agree, our political leadership has to step up, or stop whining, no one is going to hand them things on a platter.

khawar
ZA Bhutto missed the opportunity. Zardari needs to avail this very narrow but a golden opportunity and stand tall as one who stood up for democracy & liberty, not to underscore the fact that all his sins (of commission & ommission) shall stand absolved.
President should fire the ISI Chief, demand resignation from COAS, dismiss the PM and announce free and fair elections.
— he may or may not succeed but will go down in history. OR be a scoundrel and take the easier route and tie the know with the devil and patch up with ISI & Military and let the country rot.

narayana murthy
Brilliant writer. I liked your article, which you published in Indian news paper a few days ago.
But, I feel extreme pity for people like you, because your intelligence, analysis are hardly ever used by your government. They might read you people, but never take any lessons. Too bad for Pakistan.

Comments

comments