Top Story Drone attacks: govt emerges as main suspect
Ansar Abbasi
Saturday, May 14, 2011
ISLAMABAD: The khakis extraordinary briefing to parliamentarians on Friday made the Gilani government conspicuous as the prime suspect for the continuation of US drone attacks as well as the post-9/11 Washington-centric policy on the so-called war on terror.
On the issue of drone attacks as raised by the parliamentarians, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) top bosses candidly told parliament that they were capable of shooting down the US Predators, but they explained that for this they required an order from the government. Give us the order, we would shoot them down, was the clear message from the PAF chief, but Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and almost all his cabinet ministers, who were present there, kept mum.
For a review in the post 9/11 controversial policy on the war on terror, the ISI chief and the DGMO said they would simply do what parliament would decide. But parliament had already given its policy in 2008 to the government through a unanimous resolution but it remained unimplemented as it is the executives responsibility to get the policies, as evolved by parliament, implemented through its different arms, including the military and ISI. The khakis subtly conveyed that the 2008 parliamentary resolution was never referred to them for execution.
The 2008 parliamentary resolution, which was adopted by the joint sitting of the two houses after several days of their in-camera deliberations and briefings, not only asked for immediate halt of drone attacks, but also sought review of Musharrafs post 9/11 policies to evolve an independent foreign policy reflecting the will of the people and in the best interest of Pakistan. The resolution also sought for a paradigm shift in the war on terror policy by resolving the issue through dialogue with the extremists.
However, despite the clear mandate given by the top representative body of the people of Pakistan, neither the government directed the defence forces to shoot down the US Predators nor did it pursue the option of dialogue with extremists etc to bring about peace. On the contrary, military operations were launched one after the other. In the case of drone attacks, the WikiLeaks had exposed the double speak of the rulers. One of these leaks showed Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani as having told the Americans that they should continue with the drone attacks. He was even quoted as telling them that for the sake of internal public pressure, hue and cry would be raised within parliament against such drone attacks. President Zardari was also quoted to have not only allowed the drone attacks, but also the May 2-like US special forces strike to hit any high profile target.
According to a lawmaker, the DG ISI though did talk of the Raymond Davis issue, he did not explain how and on whose orders the CIA contractor was handed over to the Americans in a manner that had really hung the nations head in shame.
