What’s the deal with Pakistan?

Reactions to the Pakistani role in Osama’s residence near the heart of the country have varied from “what the heck?!?” to “so what?” and the jury is still out.

It’s true that Bin Laden was reportedly killed in an attack in the city of Abbottabad, only few kilometers from Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad and only few hundred meters from a Military Academy in a somewhat large residence. What is questionable, however, is whether the Pakistani authorities knew anything about him, especially if he was there for several years, and according to most recent released videos, he was well connected with the world. What I want to suggest, albeit unfortunately, is that despite being the year 2011, we will NOT know the truth as we have yet to know the truth about many other significant events, simply because our world is getting ever more complicated and the first victim of this complexity complex is often the truth.

It is true, as some have counter argued that a large and barb-wired house, is not uncommon in that region. So that can’t be a good argument for why the Pakistani authorities should have known about his residence. Nor is the proximity to a military academy a good enough reason. But regardless of finding a “good enough,” it is simply highly unlikely for a country like Pakistan (with its “anti-terror” mandate and nuclear possession) to not know about this fact. Their not knowing would reveal, as a Pakistani civilian was quoted to have said, that "at best it's incompetence, at worst it's complicity." Doubts about their role were recently reflected by Obama’s saying that Bin Laden must have had some sort of support network there.

It is this “some sort of” part that I want to draw some attention to. Arguing whether Pakistani officials, the government, the ISI, the army or the people knew something or not about Bin Laden’s whereabouts poses the question as binary, and is thus misleading. It assumes unanimity and paints all actors within the country as one. The truth is that there are significant and deep rooted divides and cleavages within the country, even within each unit. But given that we watch the events from a distance, we do not see the underlying tensions and frictions within. Were all the Pakistanis unanimous in allying with the US during their invasion of Afghanistan? Obviously not. Are they unanimous in their reactions to the recent events? Far from it.

But at least on the surface, these events allow for some blame shifting and finger pointing, e.g. the ISI initially called their lack of knowledge “an embarrassment.” Others point to Pakistan’s “double game” and Hamid Karzai proudly said at a news conference “we have always said that terrorists must be targeted in their sanctuaries and in the place where they are fueled, not in Afghan villages where there is no terrorism."

In a recent article, Elizabeth Rubin discusses the Pakistani double game in more details. Yet many important questions have been left unaddressed. Is Pakistan truly able to outsmart the US as argued by many?!? If Pakistan does play a double game, which obviously hurts many people, especially civilians in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, who does this game really benefit? After all, it is true that Pakistan has lost about 30,000 civilians, 5,000 military personnel and suffered other financial losses (as echoed in a recent speech by Pakistani PM, Gilani). But it can’t hurt everyone! Other important questions to pose are, if this event had happened in a country other than Pakistan, what would have been the American reaction? What would have been the domestic reaction from that country? Would they have also responded with anger, seeing it as a violation of their sovereignty? Could they?