After all, ‘as you sow, so shall you reap’ was not said in vain. The unraveling in all the principal pillars of the state that we are now witnessing was to a significant degree our own doing – a consequence of the flawed policies pursued by the establishment for three decades on the trot.
In the afterglow of success against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, unleashing jihadists was the stratagem devised by that evil-spirited Cromwell in the mid 1980s to bleed India on the cheap in Kashmir and elsewhere. There have been reminders all along of how terribly tarnished this policy of ‘proxy war’ was, nothing putting it in sharper relief than the weekend’s devastation at Karachi’s Mehran Naval Air Base. Our chickens have finally come home to roost.
A further two deadly suicide attacks in the North, the first killing 98 FC recruits and injuring well over a hundred, the second demolishing the CID police building at Peshawar three days after the one at Karachi, were other demonstrations of the reach and the frequency with which the terrorists can torment us.
The Frankenstein that our bright strategists had created and let loose in the neighbourhood, ironically destroyed a brace of the Orion P-3C air craft – our navy’s premier possessions meant to be used to counter Indian aggression from the sea.
Coming close on the heels of the Abbottabad fiasco, this blow has left our forces with so much egg on their face that hosing it down would take some doing. Well and truly hoisted by their own petard, the guardians of our security would be so insecure in their own lair that half a dozen terrorists could wreak such havoc and for so long, is so contrary to the image of our forces that it has left the whole nation despondent.
Amid all this, the chief of naval staff had the cheek to come in front of the cameras and claim that there was no security breach, which reflects the world of make-believe and absolute lack of accountability that permeates our forces.
Quite contrary to the naval chief’s assertions in the news conference, the security at the base was so sloppy that even the retired army officers could pull rank and take a short cut through the base on their way to Hawke’s Bay or Sand Spit. No guard towers, no floodlights all along the perimeter of the base in these days when our forces have been under relentless attack by a cunning foe, was inexcusable. That there were no defences inside the base in case someone slipped through the easily accessible perimeter when some of our most valuable naval assets were parked there – an inviting target for the terrorists – also points to carelessness.
Another issue that the attack brought to the fore is whether this was an inside job. The ease with which they could make it to the base, from the spot most vulnerable, to heading towards the naval part of the base while giving a wide berth to the area under the air force’s control too makes one infer that insider information was available to the assailants. One news report suggests that everyone at the base is a suspect at the moment.
Horrifying as it seems, this by no means would be the first instance when members of the security establishment were found to be in cahoots with the militants. But then how could one imagine that our armed forces would remain immune to the division of the society, say on sectarian lines– a division carefully created by our master spooks, with the help of entities that apart from their continued patronage also draw sustenance from a number of Arab countries and the more pious from our trading and mercantile class.
For the second time this month, further accentuating public despondency and cynicism was the apparent rudderlessness of state institutions. The political class, including the president and the prime minister, either went into hiding and the federal defence minister proceeded on a foreign tour. And when someone did speak out, such as that eternal optimist and blithe spirit, the interior minister, he only managed to add to the existing confusion. Was this perhaps the revenge of the politicians, who are otherwise browbeaten into toeing the military’s line in all matters under the sun – especially on defence, foreign affairs and now increasingly finance, but at the same time are also expected to bail out the forces when there is a disaster like the Abbottabad raid?
A paradigm shift is therefore urgently needed in order to put the tottering house in order, both as regards the internal balance of power, which implies civilian ascendancy over the military and not the other way round, in rooting out the extremist elements that may have penetrated the armed forces over the years and in reducing radicalism in the society.
The writer is Sports and Magazines Editor, Pakistan Today.
