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ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan — ABC's Nick Schifrin reports: On every street in this mountainous, military town, in every chai shop, even in the barbershops – Pakistanis are furious.
Some of their fury is directed at the United States, which sent three dozen Navy SEALs and four helicopters hundreds of miles into their country to kill Osama bin Laden.
But most of their fury is saved for their own leaders, in the government and the military, who they feel have let them down.
The government here is widely considered corrupt and ineffective, so perhaps it's no surprise to hear Pakistanis calling for heads to roll within the Pakistan People's Party, one week after President Obama decided not to inform them before the raid.
"They're all liars. They knew everything. If they didn't, they're answerable to 180 million people," Sardar Saeed told me as he got his beard trimmed in the bazaar. "They're pocketing the hard-earned income of the people while they live in palaces."
But what's more worrying for this country is widespread criticism of the military, which has been the most popular institution in the country. Its admission that it didn't know the U.S. helicopters even entered its airspace reveals it is not as invincible as it wants Pakistanis to believe.
Since President Pervez Musharraf took off his uniform in 2007, the Pakistani Army has painstakingly tried to rebuild a shaky reputation damaged by Musharraf's sinking poll numbers. Army leadership portrayed two major battles – in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan –as sweeping victories. It withdrew all military staff serving in positions earmarked for civilians. It delivered massive amounts of relief to victims of the 2010 flood. And publicly — privately, less so — Army General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani kept his mouth shut about politics.
The steps worked. The confidence in the military grew to 82 percent last October, according to a White House review that cited State Department polling. Confidence in the government, meanwhile, dropped to 31 percent. And when Pakistanis are asked about the spies who work for Inter-Services Intelligence, they will alternatively express fear and respect for the agency's reputed reach.
But then the helicopters arrived, the special forces breached the compound, bin Laden was found a few thousand feet from Pakistan's West Point – and all the Americans got away before the Pakistanis could get their American-made fighter jets in position to shoot them down.
Three years of positive coverage and meticulous PR work was, perhaps, gone in an instant.
People are now openly making fun of the military and the intelligence services. Consider the text messages floating around Pakistan right now:
"Don't honk: the army is asleep."
"Public service message from the army: stay alert. Don't rely on us."
"Pakistani radar system for sale: buy one, get one free."
Or, as Saeed put it, "If they can't defend the borders of the country, what are they there for?"
And therein lies a problem: if Pakistanis don't trust their government, and they don't trust their military, then who can they turn to for leadership and inspiration? Who will they rally behind to help make the changes that are so necessary to fix Pakistan once and for all: to make the economy grow, to improve their children's education, to confront the militants who live here?
If the U.S. raid further alienates Pakistan's leaders from their own people, it will have inadvertently made the country less stable.