Daily Times

Even though reporters were screaming at the top of their lungs and newscasters were bellowing in their hourly updates, the television screens still seemed mute to me last week. Do you know why? There was not a single word of strong criticism, as far as I know, directed at the intelligence agencies on their poor performance regarding the attack on Karachi airport. The brazen assault on the largest airport of the country was carried out after one year of a ‘successful’ joint operation by the Rangers — a paramilitary organisation lead by an active general — and the police against criminal gangs, drug cartels and terrorists in the city. Besides that, we were even led to believe that the cosmopolitan city had now been mapped out street by street for strict monitoring and accurate data collection. Within a few months, if the government stayed supportive, they reassured us that the city would be clear of all the major criminal elements. However, after the assault, their claim appears to be just another premature declaration of victory, way before war has even erupted.

During the hours long uninterrupted transmission, every channel was focused on the incompetence of civilian institutions and kept on criticising their failure to organise a professional response as if the analysts had suffered from a stroke and were unconsciously ignoring one half of the news. I heard people demanding the resignation of the chief minister of Sindh, Qaim Ali Shah, while some critics of the federal government recommended that the interior minster, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, should step down; there have been few who have insisted that Prime Minster Nawaz Sharif should leave office and, of course, a strong appeal to sack the director of the Airport Security Force (ASF) has been put forward. Nevertheless, to my knowledge, no one had the courage, after the incident following a private television channel butting heads with the country’s intelligence agency, to call for the departure of anyone in khaki uniform.

Our response, as usual, was the action replay of our previous response to the bomb blast in Islamabad, which was no different from our outrage on another attack just like a tape recorder playing the same song over and over again. Some even say it is our second nature to wage a war of words with condemnation, criticism and acknowledgement of failure after every attack. Yet, despite that, no one in power, whether it is the military through General Musharraf, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) or the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), takes any meaningful action: no one has ever been fired, no concrete steps have been taken within any institution from the police to the ASF to bring reforms, no policy has been reviewed or revised and no significant improvement in training or equipment has been made to prevent further assaults, although a lot of claims about them have been made.

Listening to these claims would make it seem that a revolution was on the verge: all parties are found to be on the same page, there is determination to coordinate intelligence information, there is the vision to improve the time of action, there is commitment to bring the perpetrators to justice, there is a new force, a new director, a new headquarter, a new law and a new resolution to defeat the menace once and for all. However, the untoward reality stays far from fantasy.

To be honest, we all know that whether it is suicide bombings in the cities, attacks on army installations or the ambush on the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi and the Karachi airport, all the strikes are connected to the war on terror, an enigmatic war that has always fallen under the military’s domain from day one. It has been their sole prerogative to define the friendly Taliban and to differentiate them from the enemy Taliban, to pacify the groups who need concessions and explore those who need to learn a lesson, those who have to be hidden as an asset and the ones with whom we should negotiate a deal for long term peace.

In addition, the powerful intelligence agencies, upon suspicion, arrest people with or without the help of local law enforcement agencies, anywhere and at anytime. They investigate them without legal cover in their safe houses with or without the information or approval of the police. The agencies have assumed these powers on their own we realise, as these matters belong to an arcane international war, the future of Afghanistan and our relationship with the US. However, whenever there is an attack or a failure in intelligence, be it at the airport or a suicide bombing in Islamabad, the blame falls upon the shoulders of the civilian government.

I think this is one of the major reasons for our inability to win the war on terror as those who run the show do not assume responsibility and those who are apparently responsible do not run the show. Following this trajectory, first, the problem can never be solved as we have witnessed and, second, it will always lead to fragmentation and divisions in society. That is exactly what happened this time too. I am not sure who was ultimately responsible — the chief minister is blaming the federal government and the federal government is looking at the ASF, the Rangers and the intelligence agencies. The agencies, after providing non-specific information, are accusing the city administration for not taking appropriate steps and the city administration is blaming the provincial government, thus completing the whole circle of allegations.

Who should we blame then, under these circumstances? The simple rule of thumb, in my opinion, is that with power comes responsibility. And those who enjoy the real power in Pakistan should also take responsibility for their failures. We cannot be treated as the sacrificial lambs of some esoteric policy anymore. After losing thousands of lives, we are also losing hope in our leadership, both civilian and military. However, under these circumstances, anyone who will steer our rocking boat back to the shore will earn the right to rule by realising that people sometimes prefer tyranny over chaos.

The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. He tweets at @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com