THIS refers to the op-ed ‘A treasure trove of history,’ by Mr. Abbas Nasir Oct7. Midway, he implies “Gens Asif Nawaz, Abdul Waheed Kakar and Jehangir Karamat-reflected the lack of their personal political ambitions and focused largely on professional issues.”

Out of the three, Gen. Asif Nawaz Janjua was OK till his appointment as chief by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Javed Hashmi is struck dumb when at a dinner, Asif asks Hashmi to “tell your man to mend his ways!” Hashmi says no matter who the army chief is, there is always this thing.

The reason behind Asif’s swagger was his visit to Washington where Ambassador Abida Hussein took him to meet the then defence secretry Dick Cheney who, throwing protocol to the wind, asks to see the general alone. Abida walks out in disgust. Coming out all smiles Asif wants Abida to hazard what the defence secretry asked him. He was taken aback when Abida tells him he must have told him to topple the government and roll back the nuclear programme. “How did you know?” is his awed response.

Back in Islamabad at a dinner he tells Fakhar and Abida, “since Fakhar doesn’t agree, Balkh Sher Mazari will be the next prime minister”. Fakhar tells Abida to keep a lid over it. Everyone knows when Nawaz Sharif was dismissed; Balkh was made the interim prime minister. Asif’s brother Shujaat in Crossed Swords conveniently glossed over the political ambitions of his brother.

An old religious lady once told Sir Bertrand Russell that planet earth stood on a turtle. On prodding where that turtle stood on, she kept on saying, “it stood on another turtle”. Exasperated finally she blurted out, “No use asking, it’s turtles all the way”.

Aslam Minhas

Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2017