WHY in God`s name is the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee `angry` about `insinuations` about the ISI, pray? Why, also, is it so condescending about the elected government`s “efforts to forge a consensus on counter-terror strategy”?
In the first place it does not behove a military organisation to talk so big after the debacle of the last eight years during which an army dictator did as he pleased, waited upon hand and foot by the military brass, unquestioned, and brought the country to its present pass. It is that same military brass that today sits in the JCSC. So let`s get off that one, sirs.
In the second, the JCSC, rather than getting hot under the collar about mere `insinuations`, should do something about the direct allegations of a key ally, the US government who else, about the ISI`s `overt` actions abroad. And, indeed, about the `disappeared` in our own country.
But enough of this; much more next week on our own devils. This week an exhortation to the American administration to exorcise its devils too, and help both itself and us to go to a better place than where we are at present.
I am going to look at Aafia Siddiqui`s strange case in the light of increased publicity in recent days to do with the Senate`s so-called fact-finding mission`s visit to the US, but will restrict myself to the American ambassador`s letter to the press.
On Aug 16, 2008, the American ambassador to the Land of the Pure said, inter alia, that Aafia Siddiqui was not sold to the Americans; that she was never in US custody prior to being detained by the Afghan police on July 17, 2008, and that she is charged with “seizing a weapon and firing — unprovoked — on US personnel during questioning”.
Defies description, your letter, Excellency. I have read and re-read the account of Siddiqui`s alleged “firing — unprovoked” over the months since you wrote that letter. Of how Siddiqui came out screaming from behind a curtain where she was being held “unrestrained”, and, picking up an M4 US army service rifle, aimed and fired at an American (warrant) officer. She is said to have missed her target because an Afghan translator who was sitting at arm`s length from her leapt at her and deflected the rifle.
Excellency, for someone who has handled small arms as a soldier in the infantry; has taught them, and therefore has fired thousands of rounds from all types of small arms, I can`t for the life of me imagine even a first-class shooter pick up a rifle he/she did not know, cock it, find the safety catch and flip it, and fire it in under the three seconds that it probably took the alleged Afghan translator to allegedly lunge at Siddiqui and allegedly deflect her alleged shot.
Unless, that is, a handbook on the use of the M4 and a certificate from a weapons training school somewhere in America that she was a trained M4 shooter were also found in Siddiqui`s handbag when she was caught by the Afghan police loitering outside the Ghazni governor`s compound!
You also do not tell us that if it is true that Siddiqui was prevented from hitting her target by the Afghan translator (and had probably been well and truly subdued for she is no Samson), why it was necessary for the American warrant officer to shoot her in the abdomen “at least once”. What was the point? Neither do you tell us what “at least once” means.
Are we to think that the authorities who first held her in Afghanistan after the shooting, those that held her in New York City, and those who now hold her in Houston are still baffled as to how many times the woman was shot? Also, you have nowhere in your letter mentioned the 13-year-old boy who was seen in a photograph taken soon after she was shot “at least once” sitting by her side.
Indeed, you said in your published letter to the press “The United States has no definitive knowledge as to the whereabouts of Ms Siddiqui`s children”. Then who was the teenager who was repatriated by the Afghan government and is now reunited with his mother`s family?
By the way Excellency, if you care to notice, Aafia Siddiqui is about your build and dimensions. May I suggest you get one of your Marines at the embassy to bring you a US army-issue M4 rifle. Now ask him to clear the chamber, affix the magazine, put the rifle on `safe`, and place it on the ground which would be the exact position in which Aafia Siddiqui found hers and with which she is alleged to have fired upon the US officer. You may very well fail to even cock it in 10 seconds, let alone find the safety catch, lift the rifle to your shoulder and fire it.
Would that you had recalled the disgrace his handlers brought your former boss, the good Gen Colin Powell, when they made him tell fibs on live TV about Iraq`s so-called weapons of mass destruction, before you sent your letter to the press. And yes, you are right Excellency, Pakistani readers are “fair-minded and critical thinkers”. And yes, you are right again, they “deserve betterthan your letter.
As for commending “the majority of Pakistani journalists for their accurate and balanced reporting and overall professionalism” how right you are. Only the vast majority who write in the Pakistani press do not believe you, sadly.
And as for “Unfortunately, there are some who have an interest in simply distorting the facts in an effort to manipulate and inflame public opinion” I must tell you that I have no interest in any of the above.Simply because I happen to be one of those who love America to bits, one of the most beautiful countries in the world and which is home to some of the kindest-hearted and generous and warm and disarmingly simple people anywhere on this planet.
You do have your Sarah `Barracuda` Palins also, of course, who can shoot and skin (and eat?) a moose in under 17 minutes. What we Pakistanis must do, Excellency, is to pray with all our might that Barack Obama and Joe Biden beat the living daylights out of McCain and the Barracuda.
And that we are rid of the neocon madmen and women who not only hold America the Beautiful by the jugular, they hold the rest of the world by the throat too. More on this too, next week.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk