ODDLY, the two institutions that bang the accountability drum the loudest are the very ones that won’t submit to oversight themselves.

The higher judiciary has used the threat of contempt of court laws to pre-empt any criticism. The security establishment relies on its muscle and its close connections with sections of the media to win immunity from public criticism.

Doubters only have to glance through the report produced by the commission set up to investigate Saleem Shahzad’s murder. Even though the crime corresponded to the pattern of earlier allegedly officially inspired kidnappings and beatings suffered by journalists, the commission hardly noticed the parallel. The report effectively let our notorious intelligence agencies off the hook.

And when the defence establishment was clearly responsible for the entire Osama bin Laden fiasco last May, the media promptly zeroed in on the civilian government, even though it had nothing to do with the matter. Imran Khan went so far as to demand Asif Zardari’s resignation.

Accountability is not just about corruption: those in positions of authority also need to accept responsibility — and possible punishment — for acts of omission and commission which have resulted in setbacks to the country. For example, every war with India was initiated — and lost — by our army. Which general has ever resigned or been punished for his incompetence?

It does not take a military historian to conclude that while our junior officers and jawans fought valiantly, they have invariably been let down by their high command. These same generals have been pampered more than any other officer corps, and yet have lost battle after battle with monotonous regularity. Needless to say, no uniformed head has ever rolled.

Or take our entire defence policy and posture: dictated entirely by the military establishment, it was never debated; and our occasional and powerless civilian leaders have hardly any input in it.

Nevertheless, we are forced to contribute to strategies that have dragged us ever deeper into insecurity rather than making us safer. Our Afghan and Kashmir policies are examples of repeated failure to evaluate threats intelligently. And yet we continue to plod along on the course chosen by GHQ, bleeding lives and treasure as a result. Who has even been questioned for these repeated failures?

The Supreme Court, for its part, has validated military coups time and again, thereby distorting the course of Pakistan’s political development. Which judge has ever been pilloried for any of these self-serving judgments?

Now we have the ‘memogate’ scandal. For weeks, the country was gripped by a drama scripted by mysterious agencies, and propelled by the judiciary, the military and the media.

The civilian government was destabilised. One ambassador resigned, while the defence secretary was sacked.

But when the audience was getting impatient, and the curtain about to open, one of the two principal actors got cold feet and refused to emerge on the stage. The fact that somebody with the kind of shady reputation Mansoor Ijaz has acquired was allowed to shake the foundations of the state, thanks to the patronage and support he is perceived to have received from the establishment, shows what a banana republic we really are.

Here’s a character who has consistently lambasted the military and the ISI in the foreign media. That he is apparently being used as a pawn against an elected government is an indication of the immaturity and cynicism of those involved in this entire murky episode. But who actually used who is something we will probably never learn.

Meanwhile, spare a thought for the commission set up by the Supreme Court to look into ‘memogate’. The American businessman, having had his moment in the limelight, no longer has the time to come to Pakistan. Presumably, the honourable members of the commission can now return to their main job of dispensing justice to a hard-pressed people. Maybe they will even find the time to clean up the mess in the lower courts under them.

But who has accepted responsibility for causing this needless furore in the first place? Who among the media, the judiciary or the military has raised his hand to say he was wrong? On the contrary, the farce grinds on, long after the bored audience has left.

Nobody has ever accused the security establishment of being over-endowed in terms of IQ. But surely even our generals must realise that a country destabilised by their shenanigans is bound to suffer in a variety of ways. At the end of the day, a sound economy is essential to support our bloated armed forces. A government that is under constant threat of being toppled unconstitutionally simply cannot provide good governance, even if it had the political will and the competence to do so.

Now that the prime minister has been summoned to face contempt of court proceedings, lesser mortals are well advised to keep their opinions about our higher judiciary to themselves. Leaving the court premises after a recent hearing, the PM’s lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, asked rhetorically: “Why are only civilian prime ministers always being cited for contempt of court? Why not army generals?”

Foreigners are amazed at the endless stresses and strains our bewigged and uniformed chieftains put the system through. In the US, the UK and in Sri Lanka, I was constantly asked to explain why Pakistan is in such a constant state of turmoil.

I cannot repeat my response to these well-meaning friends here for fear that it might fall under the purview of our wide-ranging and freely interpreted contempt of court laws.

The writer is the author of Fatal Faultlines: Pakistan, Islam and the West.

irfan.husain@gmail.com