Tuesday, 10 May 2011

Intolerable utterances

We are fed up with intolerable utterances. It wasn’t a rosy picture before, but after al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s death, it has become worse. In fact, it has become chaotic. The latest of such has come from the prime minister. Speaking to the parliament, he rejected allegations that government authorities were either hiding the al Qaeda chief or simply too incompetent to locate him and said that he has ordered a joint investigation into how bin Laden was able to live undetected in Abbottabad for such a long time. Army and civilian investigation officers will be used for this probe. Even more hurtful to the ears was Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar’s response that the prime minister has failed to satisfy the nation and he is to blame for the failure of the intelligence agencies.
Does the probe into how bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan for so long stand any chance of success if we are to think that the our intelligence agencies, which we have come to believe have knowledge of almost everything under the sky in the country, were so incapable that they couldn’t locate him for years even though he lived right under their nose.
The investigation is nothing but a move to satisfy the US, which, by the way, has given a clean chit to the Pakistani government just a day earlier. The US national security adviser said that the Obama administration has seen no evidence that Pakistan’s leadership knew bin Laden was living in that country before his killing last week. However, the US president called upon the Pakistani government to probe the “support network” for the al Qaeda leader in the country.
So it can be imagined where the probe would be headed. As for Mr Nisar’s criticism just for the sake of criticism, it makes no sense to begin with. Why should the prime minister be blamed for the intelligence agencies’ failure? If Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif can be kept in dark before the Kargil mess was started, why is it different in Mr Gilani’s case. All this nonsensical noise is maddening, but the masses still have to put up with it.

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