Will
this Shamelessness Stop? Will We Stand Up
By
Kamran Shafi
WHERE
DOES the government think its whingeing and wailing re: the attempted
(?) bugging of our High Commission in London will get it with
Her Majesty’s Government?
And
begging it to please, oh please, confirm if it authorized the
bugging? Specially since the Brits have not once but several times
slapped us across the face, AND spat on us too. "This is
an intelligence matter, the government does not comment on intelligence
matters," is the cold and arrogant answer every time we get
on our knees and go begging yet again.
I
might add that I address this question to the GOP itself i.e.,
the real GOP run by the General himself; not to the Post Office
poor Mr Jamali heads (or thinks he does); certainly not to the
‘core-professionals’ of our FO, for resoluteness in
keeping the country’s interests supreme has to come from
the top, not from some bureaucrat just trying to get on with life
and looking out for his/her career.
So,
when will the shamelessness stop? When will we stand up, look
the Brits in the eye and say we are reducing the level of our
diplomatic presence in the UK until this matter is sorted out,
and would they reduce theirs in this country too, please? Or at
the very least, just in case we quake in our boots at the mere
thought of standing up to a country whose leadership has the honor
of being the sole super-power’s leading poodle, summon our
High Commissioner for ‘consultations’, a known method
of showing diplomatic displeasure to the offending country?
And, yes, what about our "tight" buddies the Americans
who first started the ball rolling by urging MI-5 to get on with
bugging our High Commission? Do we not deserve an explanation
from the US State Department too? Really, we do act most shamefully
for people who think the sun shines out of their eyes only!
Who
is surprised at this whole sorry mess, anyway? Not I. I am not
one little bit surprised either at the brazen attempt (?) to bug
our mission by a ‘friendly power’ (‘har de har’
as Brer Bear would chuckle); or at the fact that we did not find
out for almost a whole year despite the much-vaunted efficiency
of our various ‘agencies’ (and probably wouldn’t
have found out even now if the wannabe spy hadn’t ‘outed’
himself); or at the laxity of the ‘core-professionals’
of the FO who even left cipher codes written on Post-it memos
stuck to the wall of the cipher room, and even of Services attache’s
who left their filing cabinets open.
In the first matter who else but yours truly has repeatedly warned
the government ever since 9/11 that we were in the cross-hairs
too, and would we please get our act together? Who else but I
suggested to the then military government, time and time again,
to clean up our act as re: the granting of visas to all and sundry,
come one come all: no-good bums; drifters; petty crooks —
as if Pakistan was the softest touch for all manner of Yahoos
and louts on their loopy (and loony) missions? Who else but I
begged the government to investigate fully who granted visas to
visit Pakistan repeatedly to, say, the beauty Reid and other beauties
like him? Who is so surprised, please, that the Americans and
the Brits wanted to bug one of our important missions? Not I.
For
the second, why should anyone be surprised that not one of our
agencies could smell out the (quite stupid, mark) plot, when all
their time is taken up with spying on their own colleagues and
making silly little babu-like reports to their superiors in Islamabad
the Beautiful? Or at the rank incompetence and the ruinously lackadaisical
attitude towards their jobs of the Little Sahibs of the FO, when
all their time is taken up with jealously guarding their sorry
little empires, trying to throw their puny weight about, and scheming
for their next posting?
Really,
any other country would have got to the bottom of this type of
tamasha three times over by now; improving their SOPs;
revamping their procedures, sacking those responsible out of hand.
Here we are, trying to coax the Brits to tell us if the "attempted"
(?) bugging was "authorized" by the government or not,
and putting together a ‘fact-finding inquiry committee’.
Really, what bloody sorry chumps we are.
Those
who think the chattering classes, particularly of Islamabad the
Beautiful, talk nonsense ALL of the time should put the following
in their pipes or hookahs or chillums and smoke it: No
more than five weeks ago, a rumor swept through the luscious drawing
rooms and parlors of that great city that our General’s
"buddies" were egging him on to enter active politics
at the head of the ‘unified’ (whatever that means)
Muslim League (or whatever is the conglomeration of odds and sods
that calls itself the ‘Muslim League’ today) as its
President.
And
then for this motley crew (sorry for repeatedly using this word,
readers, but is there any word in the dictionary to describe the
disparate elements riding the General’s band-wagon under
the able command of poor Mr Jamali, just because THAT band-wagon
seems to be the least rickety at the present time) to go into
an election sometime next year with the full support of the Establishment
and its various ‘agencies’, in the hope of comprehensively
seeing the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League
(N) out of Pakistani politics once and for all. Boy, talk of pipe
dreams; talk of wishful thinking.
Precisely
why even I, a great believer in Pakistani "leaders"
doing exactly the wrong thing most of the time, found it hard
to believe this particular rumor‘The present crew couldn’t
be THAT stupid’, I said to myself; ‘His "buddies"
couldn’t be THAT insincere to General Musharraf’,
I thought to myself.
Well,
how wrong I was, for none other than the anointed spokesman for
the Government of Pakistan, God bless her and all who sail in
her; the front-runner of all the Prime Ministers-in-Waiting (!);
and the man who loudly proclaims his "closeness" to
our General, Sheikh Rashid, has made the clarion call to Musharraf
to do his duty. A clarion call, may I immediately add, which while
it was reported in the press on Monday, November 10th, has not
been rebutted/clarified till the time of this writing.
Now
then, given the absurdities that we are inured to seeing; given
the complete insanity that is everyday life in the Fatherland;
given the fact that the rules of the game, the goal posts, the
size of the field et al are changed depending on the mood of the
Establishment at a particular time, even hourly; even given the
great propensity of our leaders of shooting themselves in the
foot, whoever heard of a more daft idea than this one? Whilst
there are many reasons why it is a silly idea, just take two for
the time being: the ever-rising cost of living; and the ever-deteriorating
law and order situation, the twin-headed monsters that have made
the lives of ordinary people so very unbearable.
Mayhap,
of course, the Establishment is hell-bent on this, what they think
is an "exit strategy", since it feels it can influence
the result of any election as heretofore because the people seem
to be so acquiescent to everything the government does (or does
NOT) do. Well, sirs, never underestimate, indeed second-guess,
the people, any people. This will be the gravest mistake for a
government that has made more than its share of grave mistakes,
just as its ‘tight’ buddy, the sole super-power in
the whole wide world (shiver, shiver), the US has made to it’s
grave cost in Iraq.
The
writer is a retired army officer and a freelance columnist
