The US and Pakistan

Pakistanis are being constantly told that the Raymond Davis episode and the Osama bin Laden event soured relations between the US and Pakistan and that these are the issues that have brought the bilateral relationship to a new low. They are not being told what it was about these events that made them so significant. Could it be that a CIA operative under the cover of being a diplomat was where he should not have been and that he killed two Pakistanis in broad daylight and then a US Consulate vehicle sent to retrieve him crushed another Pakistani dead? How do you get over something like that? The raid into Pakistan that led to the killing of OBL and was carried out without taking Pakistan into confidence left its Army and Intelligence to face the humiliation of being publicly accused of complicity or incompetence or both. This was indeed a watershed event and has had led to consequences that such events inevitably lead to. Perhaps it is relevant to consider that these events were the result of a perception on the US side that Pakistan was not cooperating as an ally should and a perception on the Pakistani side that the US had gained covert access into Pakistan through devious means and their intentions were not clear. If so, then several months later not much has been done to clear the air — in fact it is more fogged up than before. There is a crying need for clarity over divergences and perceptions.

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Core Issues

The word ‘corps’ meaning an army formation is sometimes used interchangeably by some with the word ‘core’--- so what should be the Corps Commander’s Conference gets reported as the ‘Core Commanders’ Conference—not really significant except that in our environment ‘core commanders’ could take on the connotation of some kind of inner body of what is called the ‘deep state’! Better to stick to the Corps Commanders-- who held their 139th Conference at General Headquarters on Thursday June 9th, 2011 and subsequently the Inter Services Public Relations Directorate issued a carefully worded and detailed statement. This statement is important and deserves analysis. 

The statement mentions a ‘perceptual bias’ that is driving the virulent outbursts against the Armed Forces thereby drawing a distinction between constructive criticism of the acknowledged lapses and the attacks intended to weaken the institution and drive wedges between institutions—something that is specifically mentioned as being undesirable and not in the interest of the country. The military’s support to democracy that has been a constant since the present government was elected but never before stated has now been spelt out and that too as support for democracy and not a political party. This implies that the military wants no part in politics and accepts the democratic structure without reservations—as it should. 

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