Pakistan's Wounded Pride

"In view of the record and evidence placed before the commission in relation to Dr. Shakeel Afridi, the commission is of the view that prima facie, a case of conspiracy against the state of Pakistan and high treason is made out against him. Therefore, a case under relevant law should be registered against Dr. Shakeel Afridi and he should be proceeded in accordance with law."

Pakistan continues to be rabid with rage over accusations from the United States and Afghanistan that it remains complicit with terrorism, rather than usefully assisting in its eradication, as it likes to claim. It has no explanation for the fact that Osama bin Laden was comfortably ensconced and had been for years, in a compound in Abbottabad, in hand-shaking distance to a premier military academy, living in a community where senior military personnel also had their villas.

That U.S. Navy SEALs stealthily and successfully entered Pakistan's airspace and conducted a formidably well-planned raid into the bin Laden compound. Dispatching and abducting the al-Qaeda head represents an unsupportable insult to Pakistan. Not an embarrassment for which they feel the need to excuse themselves in perplexed shame at their own inexplicably unprofessional conduct and lack of sufficient intelligence to be aware of what was happening under their noses.

Not even some shambling excuses to lead thought away from the more probable complicity in shielding Osama bin Laden's presence from public knowledge, linking the Pakistan Military and the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But near-speechless, inchoate rage that Pakistan's autonomy has been breached. That Pakistani authorities were not briefed and brought into the covert plans for the raid. Despite that previous similar plans had been betrayed.

And since Pakistan cannot lynch any Americans representing the U.S. military or the CIA, or any other U.S. operatives, it seeks instead to wreak out its vengeance by other means. Using the Haqqani network to attack the U.S. Embassy in Kabul one such plan. And isolating, arresting and holding to ransom of treason for which the death penalty will apply, the very man who resided as a close neighbour to the bin Laden compound. Dr. Afridi made contact with the U.S., passed car license numbers to investigators.

He evidently agreed to assist in launching a bogus inoculation program, as a government surgeon, in the hopes of obtaining DNA identification of bin Laden. Since the launch of the SEALs raid in May Dr. Afridi has been a guest of the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. His prosecution and allied persecution, identify him as a dead man walking. Osama bin Laden's trio of wives has been released from questioning, and are free to leave should they wish to, with their ten children.

The unfortunate Dr. Shakeel Afridi, who may have taken seriously his country's avowals of partnership in the war against terror, thinking that by aiding and assisting the United States, his country's ally in that 'war', was simply the right thing to do, has become a sacrificial lamb preparing to assuage his country's wounded pride.