April 17, 2010 ☼ Foreign Affairs ☼ ISI ☼ Kayani ☼ military-jihadi complex ☼ Pakistan ☼ United Nations
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
The UN investigative commission enquiring into the Benazir Bhutto assassination has—given the context—shown some cojones. Not only did it put into writing what the United States likes to hide under a rug of diplomatese, it also refused the allow the Pakistani government to bury the report under one pretext or the other. Note how the UN commission organised a press conference and made the report public after it appeared that the Pakistani government might not.
The commissioners don’t explicitly say who ordered the assassination—which is fair, given the lack of evidence—but leave the reader with the unmistakable impression that the military establishment is culpable. You don’t need to be an Erast Fandorin to conclude this, but precisely because the Pakistani government (of President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani) can’t even complete an investigation into the killing of one of Pakistan’s most popular leaders, it is pointless to expect it to deliver anything in terms of arresting the perpetrators of the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai.
That silly game of dossiers-and-lawsuits is pointless and ought to stop. Other than making the Indian government look stupid, powerless and incompetent in front of its own people, this absurd routine achieves nothing.
Back to the UN commissions report: you should read it for its decent attempt to describe what the Pakistani ‘Establishment’ is, for its bald assessment that the ISI covered up its tracks and for a good account of the methods it used. The UN commission squarely puts the military establishment in the dock. But because General Kayani has masterfully turned public opinion around in favour of the army, it’s unlikely that the report will amount to anything.
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