Pakistan Today, Monday, 10 Oct 2011
Forming alliances is a tricky business. If you’re a politician, you have to be careful not to say anything unpleasant about anyone who has more seats in the National Assembly than your party. If you’re a law enforcement official, you cannot afford to say anything unpleasant about other officers with more stars on their shoulders than you; people with a lot of seats in the National Assembly are also untouchable. For civil servants, it is unheard of to say anything contrary to the interests of the bureaucracy, lest one incur the wrath of (cue Phantom of the Opera music score here) ‘The Permanent Secretary’. In short, everybody has a hierarchy that they must pledge loyalty to and obey strictly at the risk of unemployment.
But if there is one establishment (pun intended) in this country which does not have to worry about such insignificant details it is most definitely NOT the military. In a culture where merely-muttering-under-your-breath-somewhere-in-the-vicinity-of-the-commanding-officer’s-sleeping-quarters is grounds for trouble, discipline must be maintained at all cost. Abstract concepts such as honour, integrity and transparency are disallowed because they cause freethinking, which is kryptonite for the four-star big brothers wearing bigger army boots. Apparently, the first half of ‘A Few Good Men’ is compulsory viewing for everyone in GHQ and its branch offices.
However, if they had ever bothered watching the rest of the film, they would’ve noticed that Jack Nicholson’s character – obviously the role model for some in the top brass – had a great fall at the end and could not be put together by Humpty Dumpty, his king or all of the king’s men. Sadly, since watching said movie beyond the halfway point is still grounds for summary execution by firing squad under the Armed Services Act of 1895, no serving army man will ever be able to learn any lessons from said motion picture.
This is decidedly unfortunate, since most of our country’s problems with the US, Afghanistan and the Taliban are straight out of other, more popular Hollywood blockbusters. The current tug-of-war over the Haqqanis is a prime example. While the US and its friends are hell-bent on proving that Pakistan actually owns the Acme Ammunition Company – the notorious black-marketers who have, in the past, supplied arms to villains such as Colonel Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Wile E Coyote – Pakistan has tried its best to prove otherwise. Everyone, from the head of the Inter-Services Propaganda Repository to Haqqani’s spokesperson have issued denials and threatened libel suits against journalists and states who have insinuated that the ISI has any contacts with the Taliban, the Haqqanis (in DC or Tora Bora) or, indeed, Road Runner himself. But anyone who’s ever followed the news, here or abroad, knows that the word “denial” in press statement doublespeak should always be preceded “a state of…” in order for the whole context of the story to be established.
But let’s stop regurgitating semantics. The military has been for too long acting like a kid who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Their side of the story is simple. Any day now, the US is going to pack up its sprawling compounds and ship out of Afghanistan faster than you can say “Gulbuddin Hekmatyar”, and before you know it, the Taliban are going to stage yet another comeback. When this happens, and the military believes it will, they want to make sure that there is at least one actor in this ridiculous game of ‘Risk’ who is not out to skin them alive. Since the Karzai-led government has not proven itself the most reliable of allies, the Haqqanis and their franchises across the war-ravaged country are the most likely of friends.
But that’s the long term strategy. In the short term, they figure, the US is going to bomb the hummus out of Pakistan if the military keeps up its shenanigans. Their logic is simple: the enemy of our enemy is our friend. This is why it is important that we not be seen doing business with the ‘bad guys’ (the definition of which, in the US, changes as often as presidents do; we’ve all seen the photos of Haqqani dining with Reagan in the Oval Office). However, now that the jig is up, the best option we have is – and this is the clever bit – to shelve our plans of enjoying a nice honeymoon with the Haqqanis, at least until the US clears out of Afghanistan.
The military has a habit of putting things on hold. If only they could muster up enough grey matter to wrap their heads around this one: The US doesn’t like Haqqani. The US doesn’t like us having anything to do with Haqqani. The US also has us squirming by family jewels. If we, temporarily even, stop associating with the Haqqanis, we could save ourselves a lot of trouble. But the unfortunate truth is this: the Haqqanis are like a bad case of syphilis – we don’t want anyone to know we have them. But when we’re partnering up with so many actors, somebody’s bound to find out that we’re infected too. And that’s not nice honeymoon conversation.
Forming alliances is a tricky business. If you’re a politician, you have to be careful not to say anything unpleasant about anyone who has more seats in the National Assembly than your party. If you’re a law enforcement official, you cannot afford to say anything unpleasant about other officers with more stars on their shoulders than you; people with a lot of seats in the National Assembly are also untouchable. For civil servants, it is unheard of to say anything contrary to the interests of the bureaucracy, lest one incur the wrath of (cue Phantom of the Opera music score here) ‘The Permanent Secretary’. In short, everybody has a hierarchy that they must pledge loyalty to and obey strictly at the risk of unemployment.
But if there is one establishment (pun intended) in this country which does not have to worry about such insignificant details it is most definitely NOT the military. In a culture where merely-muttering-under-your-breath-somewhere-in-the-vicinity-of-the-commanding-officer’s-sleeping-quarters is grounds for trouble, discipline must be maintained at all cost. Abstract concepts such as honour, integrity and transparency are disallowed because they cause freethinking, which is kryptonite for the four-star big brothers wearing bigger army boots. Apparently, the first half of ‘A Few Good Men’ is compulsory viewing for everyone in GHQ and its branch offices.
However, if they had ever bothered watching the rest of the film, they would’ve noticed that Jack Nicholson’s character – obviously the role model for some in the top brass – had a great fall at the end and could not be put together by Humpty Dumpty, his king or all of the king’s men. Sadly, since watching said movie beyond the halfway point is still grounds for summary execution by firing squad under the Armed Services Act of 1895, no serving army man will ever be able to learn any lessons from said motion picture.
This is decidedly unfortunate, since most of our country’s problems with the US, Afghanistan and the Taliban are straight out of other, more popular Hollywood blockbusters. The current tug-of-war over the Haqqanis is a prime example. While the US and its friends are hell-bent on proving that Pakistan actually owns the Acme Ammunition Company – the notorious black-marketers who have, in the past, supplied arms to villains such as Colonel Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Wile E Coyote – Pakistan has tried its best to prove otherwise. Everyone, from the head of the Inter-Services Propaganda Repository to Haqqani’s spokesperson have issued denials and threatened libel suits against journalists and states who have insinuated that the ISI has any contacts with the Taliban, the Haqqanis (in DC or Tora Bora) or, indeed, Road Runner himself. But anyone who’s ever followed the news, here or abroad, knows that the word “denial” in press statement doublespeak should always be preceded “a state of…” in order for the whole context of the story to be established.
But let’s stop regurgitating semantics. The military has been for too long acting like a kid who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Their side of the story is simple. Any day now, the US is going to pack up its sprawling compounds and ship out of Afghanistan faster than you can say “Gulbuddin Hekmatyar”, and before you know it, the Taliban are going to stage yet another comeback. When this happens, and the military believes it will, they want to make sure that there is at least one actor in this ridiculous game of ‘Risk’ who is not out to skin them alive. Since the Karzai-led government has not proven itself the most reliable of allies, the Haqqanis and their franchises across the war-ravaged country are the most likely of friends.
But that’s the long term strategy. In the short term, they figure, the US is going to bomb the hummus out of Pakistan if the military keeps up its shenanigans. Their logic is simple: the enemy of our enemy is our friend. This is why it is important that we not be seen doing business with the ‘bad guys’ (the definition of which, in the US, changes as often as presidents do; we’ve all seen the photos of Haqqani dining with Reagan in the Oval Office). However, now that the jig is up, the best option we have is – and this is the clever bit – to shelve our plans of enjoying a nice honeymoon with the Haqqanis, at least until the US clears out of Afghanistan.
The military has a habit of putting things on hold. If only they could muster up enough grey matter to wrap their heads around this one: The US doesn’t like Haqqani. The US doesn’t like us having anything to do with Haqqani. The US also has us squirming by family jewels. If we, temporarily even, stop associating with the Haqqanis, we could save ourselves a lot of trouble. But the unfortunate truth is this: the Haqqanis are like a bad case of syphilis – we don’t want anyone to know we have them. But when we’re partnering up with so many actors, somebody’s bound to find out that we’re infected too. And that’s not nice honeymoon conversation.
No comments:
Post a Comment