By lex, on May 9th, 2011
The morning after the bin Laden raid brought red faces to go with the red skyline in Pakistan:
The killing of bin Laden marked an epic victory for U.S. forces. But for Pakistan’s military and intelligence network, it has meant national humiliation.
The military, which has ruled Pakistan off and on for decades, is perhaps the nation’s most respected institution. Yet its failure to find bin Laden in a town full of military retirees has exposed the limits of its intelligence capabilities. Its inability to detect the presence of foreign forces during the course of the raid has uncovered a singular lack of preparedness. And its response in the past week suggests it is struggling to come to grips with being in the unflattering spotlight put on it by its ally and biggest donor. U.S. officials have said they didn’t think Pakistan could be trusted with advanced word of the raid.
“Terrorists strike across the country with impunity; now it seems that external forces can also enter undetected,” said a scathing editorial in Sunday’s edition of Dawn, a respected newspaper. “Are Pakistanis getting what they’re paying for?”
It’s a fair question. Fairer still would have been to pose it this way: “Terrorists strike across the country with impunity, and terrorist masterminds can hide in plain sight for years; now it seems that external forces can also enter undetected. Are Pakistanis paying for the right things?”
There, I fixed it.
