When on December 18 leaders from more than a dozen radical religious parties, certain down-and-out politicians, one very verbose former ISI chief and the son of a bygone and dead dictator graced the 'Defend Pakistan' rally organised by the controversial Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), I wondered, was the military touched by this gesture? Were the military's top cats elated by the sight of some very loud and angry beings saluting the country's army, all the while spitting venom at the government and, of course, a Hindu India along with the US crusaders? Or was the military embarrassed?

I mean, the cat has certainly not popped out of the bag so openly before. In other words, there has always been talk of how the military — ever since Yahya Khan's misadventures in the former East Pakistan, and especially ever since the reactionary Ziaul Haq dictatorship — has been playing footsie with radical Islamist parties to undermine any force supposedly threatening the country’s sovereignty. Of course, sovereignty in this specific context usually means safeguarding the political and institutional hegemony and influence of the establishment and of 'Pakistan ideology', manufactured by the establishment (with the help of the once anti-Jinnah ulema and their urbane ideologues) from the 1970s onwards.

It reached its propagated peak during Zia’s time and now is a mindless populist slogan that actually means nothing, really. Ever since Pakistan's entry in the global 'war on terror' (post-9/11), its armed forces have been at pains to explain to the concerned world that the country's military and especially its intelligence agencies have nothing to do with the violent psychos who've been blowing up mosques, shrines and markets and slaughtering civilians in the name of jihad; and nor is the military in league with hate-spouting sectarian organisations.

Yet there they were on December 18, eulogising the military, these political faces and the overt apologists and sympathisers of precisely the kind of barbarity and the barbarians the military says it has no links to and is at war with. Catch-22, indeed. Because if such are the forces that the military has used much of our tax money, US military aid and common frontline soldiers to fight against, then prey tell, why on December 18, were men who glorify terrorists seen polishing medals of an army that has fought a prolonged counter-insurgency with those whom these men consider a collective reincarnation of Muhammad Bin Qasim?

In the aftermath of the humiliation that the military had to face in the event of the Raymond Davis issue, the Osama discovery, the Mehran Base attack (by Islamist terrorists) and finally the Nato attack on Pakistani soldiers, has the establishment finally let go of its pretence about being an institution that (after 9/11) had discarded its baggage of being a much radicalised and reactionary outfit? According to some observers of military politics, such as Najam Sethi, Hasan Askari, Ahmed Rashid and Ayesha Siddiqa, both conventional and clandestine Islamist outfits usually pour out onto the streets with given a tactical wink by the establishment as and when required.

The reasons behind this have usually to do with the establishment wishing to whip up emotions against a democratic regime that it is not happy with or to brew widespread sentiment against either India or the US. If so, then this sudden unity and pouring out of both mainstream as well as shady Islamist groups, pro-establishment politicians, ex-ISI men and even some media personnel praising the military whilst sounding like Islamised Kim Il Sungs, is a cause for concern.

Are these the only kind of men that the military, ever since Yahya's initial patronage of the Jamat-i-Islami in 1970-71, been able to attract as a constituency? Forget about the US concerns (a country which, till the 1980s, was actually an encouraging partner in Pakistani military's growing infatuation with Islamists), and also forget about Indian pangs as well. The concern should be ours first.

Any rational Pakistani should be worried. Worried that today a lethal battery of nuclear warheads lies surrounded by an enigmatic military now being carried on the shoulders of men who applaud murderers of men accused of 'blasphemy', spit obscenities at actresses visiting India but refuse to condemn those who have mercilessly slaughtered over 36,000 soldiers, civilians and women and children.