Daily Times

The feeling of the roof being blown away over your head and the carpet being swept away from under your feet is everywhere in the country. The state of vulnerability to anything and everything has created such a strange feeling of being emotionally stranded that it goes far beyond the normal feeling of insecurity. It is a sad mixture of disbelief, betrayal and haplessness that has rarely been witnessed before in the political history of this country. Having hardly recovered from the Abbottabad ignominy, it was almost unreal to see a bunch of terrorists barge into the PNS Mehran naval base without much difficulty and it took all our security might to overpower some of them while others managed to escape despite the so-called complete encirclement of the base by our security forces. The fact that a dozen people could damage two Orion planes, which represent 80 percent of our naval security assets and cost millions and then walk merrily away is a horrifying reality of how irrelevant this government has become.

The government and the security agencies have been playing the cat and mouse game ever since the Abbottabad exposé. The prime minister travelled to China, the president to Russia, the army after a confession session with parliament are playing the mum game again. The public agitation of not being able to approach anybody and not being able to find a way out of this insane situation of being left high and dry at the mercy of mercenaries is reaching a hysterical stage. Even in the worst of autocracies, such institutional foul play calls for some accountability, but it seems that we have fashioned a unique democracy that gives the leaders the license to buy the silence of enough members of parliament to dispense with any need to be answerable to the general public.

The government has been consistent in its shameless behaviour of being openly incompetent and corrupt and turning a deaf ear to the dangers surrounding the country, both locally and internationally. However, it is our military institutions of which we have been so proud that have let us down. Their competence has never been in doubt but what has happened to them is very strangely similar to what has happened to many of our political leaders. The power the army has enjoyed as kingmakers in this country has messed up their role and responsibilities over a period of time. Since the Ayub Khan era, the military has become supremely aware of its role not only as an institution reserved for protection of our frontiers and borders but as a viable substitute for inept civilian governments. The rise of Ziaul Haq, an apparent diminutive political encroacher, started it all when he used his military position to get the White House to fund the mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan. His autocratic leadership style to carve an extreme brand of Islam through support to some fanatical outfits is the origin of this identity and security mess the country finds itself stuck in.

Thus this sad double-faced farce played by the armed forces game of jeopardy became a regular political subterfuge. Fortunately for the military, the masses in the country were ignorant enough to be sloganeered into believing that the Kakul Academy brainwashed individuals and the National Defence College-canned strategists were the only organised and credible institution who could give some method to the madness successive corrupt civilian governments had created. The macro indicators seemed to respond to this artificial stability military governments used to provide in their reign. However, with time it had become apparent that the apparent stability and economic boost was just an aid steroid that the Americans used to give to our leaders for services rendered across borders. In Zia’s time it was the war against the Soviets that we served and in Musharraf’s time it was the war against al Qaeda that we supported. Against this cheap labour being provided by the Pakistan Army, a few billion dollars were doled out to flesh out the foreign reserve accounts, which gave this veneer of financial health but contained a huge debt and sovereignty burden with it. The sham economic stability cracked the minute the army went out of power and the weaker and corrupt democratic leaders took over. These leaders have many skeletons in their cupboard on which the army has total evidence and thus none of these democratic leaders would dare take the armed forces to task. The classic example is the deal inked by the US through the NRO between Benazir and Musharraf. Since the army is directly involved with the White House, the political parties and the army are not working with each other but in competition to see who gets the bigger pie in US aid. The present government’s indifference to the abysmal negligence in national security is due to the army’s criminal ignorance of the wrongdoing of the politicians. This quid pro quo relationship between the army and the politicians has been fully exploited by the US to make trap both parties in a lopsided relationship.

However, the rift and division is not only between the political parties and the army but also within the army itself. The recent security failures are indicative of the dangerous trend that shows that the followers of Ziaul Haq’s extremist policies and Musharraf’s enlightened moderation view are causing divisions within the army ranks. The retaliation by the Taliban against army ranks and the disgust of the public on the terrible performance of our military forces has dipped the morale of those working in these institutions to its lowest ebb. For the first time in our history, it seems that the country is defenceless and helpless. Not a single incident of terrorism has ever been traced and tracked. The fact that a bunch of terrorists could take on the total force of our armed forces and escape to destination unknown depicts how paralysed the state and its institutions have become.

The problem with duplicity and dependence is that it makes a mockery of any attempts of denial of wrongdoing despite repeated admission of mistakes. The real face of the destroyers of this nation is not the US but our own inability to let these double-faced state actors continue with their charade of running the country. The time for meaningless condemnation is out and the time for concrete action is in.

The writer is a consultant and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com