Pakistan media grades Gilani speech a flop

Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani might just have the world’s most thankless job. His much awaited speech to the Pakistani parliament about the Abbottabad debacle was a perfect example of that. It pleased no one. The verdict from Pakistan’s English language  media – too little, too late. Before Gilani gave the speech, everyone had their opinions about what the Prime Minister needed to say. [caption id=“attachment_7304” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani failed to impress his country’s media in his address to the National Assembly after US killed Osama bin Laden in a daring operation recently. Photo courtesy dawn.com”]  [/caption] “The army and the civil leadership should avoid flimsy explanations and tell the truth to the Pakistani nation, about its helplessness or pragmatism,” wrote Imtiaz Gul, the head of the Centre for Research and Security Studies, in the Friday Times. Imran Khan told The News, Gilani should “have announced the closure of all the US bases across Pakistan and demanded the pullout of its forces from the region as well.” The Nation newspaper spelled out its questions for Gilani. What happened on May 2? Why could the defense system not detect the entry of the American choppers? Why did the intelligence agencies not know Osama bin Laden was living that close to its own military academy? What did bin Laden’s family members tell the investigators? Why did the U.S. spend $3 trillion to trace bin Laden and then dump him in the sea? “Our ‘journalist prime minister’ did not answer a single question in his written speech in English,” it complained after the speech. He just indirectly reminded the US it too had played a role in the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda. (For a history lesson about that messy history and the unintended consequences of American funding in Pakistan check out Lawrence Wright’s recent piece in the New Yorker.) That tap on the wrist was obviously too little for The News which headlined its op-ed “Gilani disappoints nation, pleases US." If Gilani had hoped that by sticking to his guns, describing the ISI as “a national asset” he could have at least given his battered nation a shot of pride, he flopped on that count as well. Liaquat Baloch, the Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General said it reflected “a defeated mindset” and that by speaking in English he obviously wanted to keep the majority of his  people in the dark. “Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani sees no wrong, feels no shame, wishes no change and gives no hope,” wrote The News. “Business is as usual for him as he tries to assure us that even today we are a proud nation.” Pakistan is anything but a proud nation these days, The News went on to say. It described the May 2 debacle “as the most serious after the fall of Dhaka in 1971 and hung the nation’s head in shame.” However it’s unclear whether the head is hung in shame because the US could so willfully violate Pakistan’s sovereignty or because Osama bin Laden was hiding brazenly under the noses of Pakistan’s military elite. “At a time when Pakistan is being accused of either incompetence or complicity, his denial of both as ‘absurd’ does not ring true,” editorialized The Dawn newspaper. Gilani offered no explanation for the intelligence failure, just tried to spread it around to “all intelligence agencies of the world”. As if borrowing a plotline from the British comedy Yes Prime Minister, he announced a commission of enquiry. The Dawn did not put much stock in that. Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani stated on Sunday that “heads will roll” once incompetence or complicity had been traced to anyone.  But the Dawn asked “when did the last truly independent investigation take place in Pakistan, and when was a senior officer, civilian or military, fired for a security lapse.” “Blame game serves no purpose,” Gilani told Parliament. It’s not clear why he bothered to set  up a commission of enquiry in that case.