Well done, fellas!

Paying homage to all levels of government, following revelations in the Abbottabad Commission Report

What happened on 2 May, 2011, shall forever be etched in the history of this great country. And now the Abbottabad Commission Report has further sealed that glory in its 336-page tribute that underscored and extolled an astounding achievement of this proud nation, the government, the intelligence agencies and the forces. To successfully shield a man the entire world was vying to hunt down, for almost a decade, ranks up there with Napoleon’s trouncing of the Third Coalition, Hannibal’s march across the Alps and Alexander’s defeat of Persia as one of the greatest military campaigns of all time.

It is expected of the Pakistani media to malign this great nation at every glimmer of an opportunity. However, the reaction following the Osama din Laden raid report has taken the proverbial cake by beating all previous records, and tracing the nadir of glumness. Bin Laden, a true Muslim and a proud Pakistani – whose patriotism can be gauged by the cowboy hat that he wore as a tribute to Pakistan’s first Texan President George W Bush – was valiantly safeguarded against all odds. And yet, all we seem to be doing is highlighting the ‘negligence’ and ‘incompetence’ at all levels of government.

It’s not as if peddling the government and the establishment as negligent and incompetent is a groundbreaking revelation, to begin with. But to follow up the blatantly obvious, by paying no heed to the strategic masterstroke conceived in the tail-end of 2001, we’re downplaying the greatest achievement of the forces since circa 1971.

Do you have any idea how hard it must have been for the intelligence agencies to ignore the phone numbers that the CIA had provided it, which eventually led to OBL being tracked down in the American raid? Can one fathom how difficult it must’ve been to watch the treasonous media reach OBL’s headquarter before the military men did, as the US threw down its spear from Neptune? Is it possible to gauge the deftness of the establishment to miss out on Bin Laden when it successfully nabbed Khalid Shaikh Mohammad in 2003? Could one possibly comprehend how challenging it is to ensure that the world’s most wanted man doesn’t become conspicuous, especially when he’s hell bent on wearing cowboy hats as if it’s Austin and not Abbottabad?

Completely missing the size of Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, its unusual shape, the barbed wires, the dearth of cars and people in and around it, for nearly six years is no small accomplishment. Pakistan’s achievement, thus, has been nothing short of miraculous.

The popularity of OBL – a national hero of Pakistan – can be gauged by the fact that it took the combination of Peter Siddle, Ramadan moon and a suicide attack on the president’s personal security officer to knock it off the summit as the most happening trend on Twitter. And hence, by protecting Bin Laden from the Western imperialistic gazes in its own backyard in Abbottabad, the establishment did this nation a massive service. It also protected Pakistan’s cultural heritage by shielding a world-renowned ‘terrorist’, the creed of whom is becoming ubiquitous in the country. These terrorists aren’t only the saviours of our diminishing tourism industry, they also tend to protect the citizens from any bomb blasts and attacks that their brethren might be planning on conjuring. Case in point: you can count the number of suicide blasts in Abbottabad in the recent past on the fingers of one hand, even if you don’t have any fingers or hands.

OBL, whose acronym might sound like a tribute to Pakistan’s recent banking crisis, banked on the flag-bearers, and sponsors of Islamist militancy in the region to provide shelter to the abba huzoor of international jihadists, who duly complied by concealing global superstar of terrorism in a shroud of deceit and pretension. If there was a Nobel Prize for pretentiousness, it would’ve been renamed ‘Aabpara Award’ a few decades ago.

The simplicity of the great man bin Laden can be showcased by the number of pairs of shalwar kameez he carried along and the veggie games that he played with the hordes of kids he had, despite the fact that it must’ve been difficult to travel about carrying along a huge similar-DNA tribe all those years. And his down to earth nature can be seen by the fact that despite being stopped for over-speeding during his early days in Pakistan, the traffic policeman failed to recognise him. Bin Laden never sought the limelight.

Another man not too fond of limelight is Justice Javed Iqbal, who along with three other literary maestros, forms the Four Horsemen of patriotic eulogies in our neck of the woods. Their espionage thriller cum judicial report, which gradually evolved into a salute for the Pakistani government, beats the only other composition of the same genre that has been scribed in Pakistan: Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report. This is primarily because that report was never read when it should’ve been read, even though the homage paid to our national heroes in that scripture is top-drawer as well.

Reading such invigorating literature only helps one acknowledge the amount of effort the government, the forces and the intelligence agencies are putting in to ensure Pakistan’s global prominence. So well done, fellas! Well done for resoundingly reminding everyone of the safe haven that our country is for Islamist militants. Well done for making this country a laughing stock, for the comic pleasure of the rest of the world. Well done for such a pathetically childish attempt at a double game at the expense of the miniscule remnants of integrity that this country had. And well done for reinstating Pakistani patriotism in all its pointlessness and hollowness. I’m sure if you cut our skins right now, we’d all bleed green – although that might be owing to the level of sickness in our blood. Well done, fellas!

I shall raise a toast for you later tonight, for being a true Muslim I don’t consume alcohol when I’m fasting. Till then take a bow and get a bear hug, along with a slow-clapping standing ovation. Also, maybe buy yourself a couple of tennis balls as emblems of national gratitude.

The writer is a financial journalist and a cultural critic. Email: [email protected], Twitter: @khuldune