Pakistan Today, Monday, 21 Nov 2011
Apart from unsavoury bodily functions, the term generally refers to the unwanted discharge of something from a channel otherwise thought secure. Obviously, leaks differ in magnitude based on their proximity to you. Therefore, a leaky faucet in your kitchen is bound to be far more troubling to you than, say, a Wikileak. Unless you’re name is mentioned in a Wikileak, whereby you become an overnight celebrity. Similarly, a leak in the undersea oil pipeline is not as big a deal as the discovery of a leak in the White House. This is because nobody is going to check the oil pipeline (until it is too late), but everyone checks the morning papers.
It should be obvious by now that leaks of a political nature are far more sensitive than those that are apolitical. However, both forms are job-threatening for those who drop the ball. Radiation leaks are a grey area, since they are job and life threatening as well, and their effects are far more wide-reaching than those of a standard leak. This is also why there is no real punishment for people who let such leaks slide, because poetic justice will be served anyway.
However, the current ‘Memogate’ episode is more than just your average case of bad plumbing. Here, there has been a deliberate effort to release noxious gases, ostensibly to relieve the pressure from the bowels of our highly constipated leadership. But while the world is preoccupied with finding out who did what and why, everyone seems to be missing out on the real story i.e., why now.
Let’s put things in perspective. The memo was allegedly crafted and delivered in the wake of the OBL incident. While the contents of the memo suggest that those who crafted it were apprehensive of a backlash from the military, many analysts have pointed out that at the time, the foot was on the other boot and the civilian government was actually in a better position than the army, given the scale of the embarrassment which had been inflicted upon it. Another key aspect of debate has been the choice of channels: why would Zardari (if he was the one that sanctioned the memo) employ Mansur Ijaz, when there were other, more credible channels available to both, Zardari and Haqqani.
The revelation of former National Security Adviser James Jones as the actual go-between is also significant, but so is the candour with which senior US officials are volunteering information regarding this incendiary memo. Why would a senior official like Admiral Mike Mullen go to the trouble of digging up a piece of correspondence which he (allegedly) did not treat as credible and had already said he did not remember receiving? His spokesperson took pains to clarify last week that the admiral did not act or even think of acting on the memo he had confirmed receiving. Saying this about a document that was delivered by a former member of the president’s kitchen cabinet is like saying that human rights groups such as Amnesty International are not credible sources of information on war crimes committed in, say Rwanda. You have to be pretty cracked, or pretty confident, to be saying such things. And I don’t think Admiral Mullen is a crackpot. At least I hope not.
Another major problem when dealing with such cases is the burden of proof. While Mansoor Ijaz has done his worst and supplied each and everything, from BBM conversations to emails to credit card statements and his kitchen sink, in order to help incriminate the incumbent envoy to Washington; it is still a case of “your word against mine”. BBM conversations, to the best of my knowledge, are not really kosher evidence as they can be tampered, as are email records. The lack of a proper paper trail makes substantiation of any claims very difficult on both sides. What it does is that it damns the honourable envoy in every possible way and improves his chances of returning to his tenured professorship at a Boston varsity.
This is a game of strategic interests. The players involved are some of the most skillful proponents of underhandedness that you will find anywhere. However, all is not as it seems. Those who stand to benefit from this may end up with nothing at all, while those with nothing to lose may end up losing everything. This is not just about sovereignty anymore, it’s about survival: of the state, its citizens and its institutions. If the paranoia-brigade is allowed to overtake us, we will be pushed back another couple of hundred years in terms of political development. Our systems will be crushed and adhocism shall prevail once again. Such a non-system is beneficial only for people in army boots. But people in army boots are not beneficial to any system, and that’s the awful truth.
Apart from unsavoury bodily functions, the term generally refers to the unwanted discharge of something from a channel otherwise thought secure. Obviously, leaks differ in magnitude based on their proximity to you. Therefore, a leaky faucet in your kitchen is bound to be far more troubling to you than, say, a Wikileak. Unless you’re name is mentioned in a Wikileak, whereby you become an overnight celebrity. Similarly, a leak in the undersea oil pipeline is not as big a deal as the discovery of a leak in the White House. This is because nobody is going to check the oil pipeline (until it is too late), but everyone checks the morning papers.
It should be obvious by now that leaks of a political nature are far more sensitive than those that are apolitical. However, both forms are job-threatening for those who drop the ball. Radiation leaks are a grey area, since they are job and life threatening as well, and their effects are far more wide-reaching than those of a standard leak. This is also why there is no real punishment for people who let such leaks slide, because poetic justice will be served anyway.
However, the current ‘Memogate’ episode is more than just your average case of bad plumbing. Here, there has been a deliberate effort to release noxious gases, ostensibly to relieve the pressure from the bowels of our highly constipated leadership. But while the world is preoccupied with finding out who did what and why, everyone seems to be missing out on the real story i.e., why now.
Let’s put things in perspective. The memo was allegedly crafted and delivered in the wake of the OBL incident. While the contents of the memo suggest that those who crafted it were apprehensive of a backlash from the military, many analysts have pointed out that at the time, the foot was on the other boot and the civilian government was actually in a better position than the army, given the scale of the embarrassment which had been inflicted upon it. Another key aspect of debate has been the choice of channels: why would Zardari (if he was the one that sanctioned the memo) employ Mansur Ijaz, when there were other, more credible channels available to both, Zardari and Haqqani.
The revelation of former National Security Adviser James Jones as the actual go-between is also significant, but so is the candour with which senior US officials are volunteering information regarding this incendiary memo. Why would a senior official like Admiral Mike Mullen go to the trouble of digging up a piece of correspondence which he (allegedly) did not treat as credible and had already said he did not remember receiving? His spokesperson took pains to clarify last week that the admiral did not act or even think of acting on the memo he had confirmed receiving. Saying this about a document that was delivered by a former member of the president’s kitchen cabinet is like saying that human rights groups such as Amnesty International are not credible sources of information on war crimes committed in, say Rwanda. You have to be pretty cracked, or pretty confident, to be saying such things. And I don’t think Admiral Mullen is a crackpot. At least I hope not.
Another major problem when dealing with such cases is the burden of proof. While Mansoor Ijaz has done his worst and supplied each and everything, from BBM conversations to emails to credit card statements and his kitchen sink, in order to help incriminate the incumbent envoy to Washington; it is still a case of “your word against mine”. BBM conversations, to the best of my knowledge, are not really kosher evidence as they can be tampered, as are email records. The lack of a proper paper trail makes substantiation of any claims very difficult on both sides. What it does is that it damns the honourable envoy in every possible way and improves his chances of returning to his tenured professorship at a Boston varsity.
This is a game of strategic interests. The players involved are some of the most skillful proponents of underhandedness that you will find anywhere. However, all is not as it seems. Those who stand to benefit from this may end up with nothing at all, while those with nothing to lose may end up losing everything. This is not just about sovereignty anymore, it’s about survival: of the state, its citizens and its institutions. If the paranoia-brigade is allowed to overtake us, we will be pushed back another couple of hundred years in terms of political development. Our systems will be crushed and adhocism shall prevail once again. Such a non-system is beneficial only for people in army boots. But people in army boots are not beneficial to any system, and that’s the awful truth.
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