Playing little-boy games

Published December 13, 2010

THE shenanigans of our Deep State over the past week should have been illuminating for anyone who had the slightest doubt that it was not as blind and deaf and inept and juvenile and goofy and, indeed, downright hopeless as I have repeatedly tried to get across.

It was a double whammy: a very quick one-two landing on the chin of an already helpless, luckless and wretched country reeling under repeated blows.The first was the admission; at last, of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence's (MI) lawyer that the 11 disappeared prisoners who were allegedly taken away by 'agencies' personnel according to the chief secretary of the Punjab (no less), just before they were to be released from Adiyala jail, were indeed in the two agencies' hands.

(How do the ISI and the MI run their 'joint ventures' like this one? Out of the 11 prisoners does one hold and interrogate six, and the other five? Do they flip a coin to see who gets to hold the larger number?)

This admission is not the thing that surprised me, however, for I have the highest expectations of utter dastardliness from our spooks; what gobsmacked even me is the story that was spun out for the benefit of the honourable Supreme Court that took the steps that brought the spooks out of their hiding. (Thank you, My Lords.)

And that is that the 11 were 'taken away' to an 'operational area' (read Fata) by their fellow terrorists who were posing as ISI and MI personnel. I ask you! How pray, did these terrorists manage to pose as 'agencies' personnel? Do these two agencies wear pink and bright green uniforms respectively? Do they have horns on their heads? How did the terrorists who spirited them away to the 'operational area' pretend that they were 'agency' personnel, please, and why did the jail authorities fall for their ruse? in

Indeed, if they were as dangerous as we are told they are, why did the agencies not keep them under surveillance while they were Adiyala jail? Especially when they were to be tried under military law, as the Supreme Court is now being told?

Quite frankly, the story spun out defies any sense at all and seems to be a singularly poor attempt by the 'agencies' to now wriggle out of the labyrinth into which they have wandered, secure in the knowledge that no law could reach them in their secure headquarters; that no one would have the temerity to challenge them.

It is a measure of the agencies' arrogance that they did not take note of what the newly emboldened Supreme Court was doing in other matters that were placed before it.

They did not note that federal secretaries, chief secretaries of the provinces, inspectors general of police and directors general of the Federal Investigation Agency to name a few most senior officials, presented themselves before the court when ordered to do so. And that strictures were passed against some of them; and warnings issued to clean up their acts or else.

The second quite brazen and absolutely shameful happening was the foolish fake WikiLeaks released to the press by a Pakistani news agency. Guardian

The , one of the most respected newspapers in the world, and one of the three that WikiLeaks first leaked to, blew holes the size of a football pitch into the faked story, leaving us Pakistanis with more egg on our faces. By God, the amount of derisory emails I have received! Is this what we Pakistanis are? Fraudsters and con artists extraordinaire? Liars and cheats of the first order? No, no, not all Pakistanis, surely? The actual fraudsters and con artists who stay in the shadows and do their stupidities.

Nor is this all. Those who directed the faking of the so-called WikiLeaks on India, and those who actually faked them, have only shown that they are a puerile and foolish lot. Which is fine by me. What I object to most vociferously is the fact that all of us Pakistanis have been made to look bad because of the shenanigans of those few who do what they do. Guardian

And who are they? We do not have to look far beyond the story, and one in one of the English-language newspapers which printed the faked 'leaks'.

The fingers appear to point at the security establishment and its paid toadies and hangers-on who we know well from the unsolicited emails we receive by the dozen every single day: yarns spun on God knows what evidence; the most wild allegations and conspiracy theories even a fool would not believe.

We know too that the establishment keeps a veritable stable of what it thinks are whiz kids who not only write the height of nonsense, but also speak the height of nonsense on its behalf. The question we must ask, however, is whether those that run the establishment live in cloud cuckoo land? Do they have no measure of the damage their servants are doing to the country?

We must note that they, fake American accents and all, are not giving up even after the shame of the fake leaks being caught out. The newest spin is that if the real WikiLeaks can badmouth Pakistan why can they not badmouth India? I ask you. Are you listening, gentlemen?

I write this from Kabul where the Fourth Afghanistan-India-Pakistan Trialogue is being held. The loudest message our Afghan friends are sending out is that they be left alone ... for both Pakistan and India to stop using their country as a chessboard. That if Pakistan is such a friend why does it not allow freer trade between the three countries so Afghan fruit can find its way to Indian markets before it spoils? And, gentlemen, listen closely: Pakistan is the most hated country in Afghanistan today. So, go figure.

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk

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