The brief // by Ben FrankelPakistan: duplicitous and impotent
While most of the attention in the past week was paid to who in the Pakistani government was protecting bin Laden, there is another question that the raid by the SEALs exposed: the impotence of the Pakistani military; since 9/11, the United States has given Pakistan more than $10 billion in military aid; the United States wanted these funds to go to counter-terrorism efforts; the Pakistanis used this money toward conventional equipment geared toward a war with India; the raid exposed the fact that the Pakistanis have not done a very good job at that
Here are two comments of things that caught our eye this week.
1. Impotent Pakistan
Most of the attention paid to Pakistan this past week had to do with the obvious: powerful elements in the Pakistani national security establishment protected bin Laden and helped him evade the massive U.S. search for him. There is only one question left open: was this protection campaign conducted with the knowledge and approval of all the political, military, and intelligence leaders, or of only some of them? We will learn the answer to this question in time.
Less obvious, but equally important, is another reality which the brilliant Navy SEALs operation exposed: the incompetence — the impotence — of the vaunted Pakistani military. That seventy-nine soldiers of a foreign country could be ferried into Pakistan on several helicopters, take over a compound in the middle of a mid-size city, kill a few people, and leave — and do so unnoticed and uninterrupted — tells us something important about the capabilities of the Pakistani military.
The Unite States has given Pakistan billions and billions of dollars in military aid over the years. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, that aid was increased sharply, and depending on what we count in, has reached more than $10 billion over the past decade.
There were two points of contention between the United States and Pakistan regarding this massive military aid. The United States wanted Pakistan to invest this money in augmenting its anti-terror capabilities: more and better equipped ground troops; more emphasis on small commando-type units; better gear for domestic surveillance; and more. The Pakistanis, on the other hand, wanted to use the money to augment their military capabilities against what they consider to be their arch-enemy — India. To do that, the Pakistanis wanted to use the money to buy fighter planes, radar installations, missiles, ships, and submarines.
The second point of contention: the Pakistanis cheated the United States in two ways. First, as is the practice in Pakistan, much of that military aid ended up in the personal bank accounts of the country’s top political and military leaders. Second, using false accounting and forged reports, the Pakistani military, while telling the United States it was using (what was left of) the money to buy terrorism-related gear, was in fact using the money to acquire equipment more suitable for an India-Pakistan conflict.
Which brings us back to last Sunday raid. It is now clear
