Some sanity, but the shenanigans go on

At last some sanity! After four weeks of mounting, and scathing comment in the domestic as well as foreign media, which all of us: politicians; Askari Qiadat particularly the Sipah Salaar-i-Azam and the Spymaster; honourable Justices, and us poor luckless citizens of this wretched country could well have done without, some little sanity. The shenanigans go on, however.

Witness: whilst Mamo/Meemogate is taking its last breaths on a ventilator provided to it by the extension by two months in the term of the Commission, Master Mansoor Ijaz who has had the mightiest in the land dancing to his tuneless tune for the past three months and more, has written a ‘secret’ letter' to My Lord the Chief Justice, which has been sealed and locked away in a safe.

Now if this isn’t a red herring I don’t know what is. From making the preposterous demand that the Commission, be-robed Chief Justices; lawyers; clerks; office staff; the protagonists; witnesses and all, travel abroad to hear His Highness, Mansoor Ijaz has left no stone unturned in trying to make monkeys of us all.

Whilst some of us did not fall prey to his shenanigans, some ‘powerful’ TV anchors and certain has-been politicians seemingly in the pay of some ‘institutions’(!) preferred to take what he said as the gospel truth, and said so loudly and garrulously too, simply because it might have caused difficulties for the present federal government. To say that they have egg all over their faces is to understate. But about this, later.

To the ‘secret’ letter. Obviously it contains no new revelations regarding the Murky Memo? Surely Ijaz had revealed all to the Spymaster when he visited him in London and which convinced him and his chief, the Sipah Salaar-e-Azam, that Ijaz was telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth? So much so that they insisted that Ambassador Haqqani be asked to resign despite the fact that the envoy had already offered to do so two weeks prior to his arrival in the Land of the Pure?

So, what was in the letter? Mayhap something against the Pakistan army? Mayhap something against the ISI? What made the honourable Supreme Court seal the letter after Their Lordships had read it? Has Ijaz carried out his threat that even if the Supreme Court should not take cognizance of his revelation that the Spymaster was trolling the Middle East Shiekhdoms for approval if the army removed President Zardari: “You’re damn right they ought to ask that question. If the Supreme Court is not willing to, you can be sure [I will].”  Not for us to say, let us wait for it will out one day, the truth about the letter.

And now about the shrieking red-faced-with-anger, choking-on-their-own-bile anchors and their guests. Their visages are the same today as when the lout Raymond Davis was sprung from jail and winged his way out of Pakistan, helped by all the ‘institutions’ (word used here in the context of the PM’s usage of it!): not only politicians, but even those who lead the Ghairat Brigades. By golly were they bohut ghussa then, just as they are now! They will never learn will they?

That when their xenophobic and ultra ‘patriotic’ rants force their friends in the ‘institutions’ into corners they can’t get out from, everyone loses? How many times will they use bombastic speech and false braggadocio in egging their friends on towards the usual pitfalls into which they have fallen before, embarrassing the country as a whole? I have said it before: if it only shamed them I would not give a toss; it is only when all Pakistanis are tarred and feathered because of ‘their’ stupidities that I care.

As for the ‘spokesmen’ of the ‘institutions’, Shiekh Rashid ‘Tulli’, the most unpleasant of them all, is a sight to behold. For some reason(?!) appearing on at least one channel in a one-on-one interview every night for many nights now, he goes on, sickeningly in the same vein. ‘Muk Mukka’ is a term often used these days, taking over from ‘Bigal Bajnay Wala Hay’, to suggest that the government has caved in to the Deep State by making concessions to it.

A while ago he was advocating an army take-over prompting one to question if he was testing the waters on behalf of his friends. And if so, what was the real intent of the Deep State? Most recently on December 16, ’11, he suggested that the next 72 hours were significant during which anything could happen! He has been wrong on every count since he began pontificating on the political situation in the country from the day he lost repeatedly, both in the general and the bye-elections. It doesn’t take much to deduce just why he is still a favourite of talk-show hosts!

Incidentally, a seminal question remains to be asked and answered fully on Mamo/Meemogate before I inter this quite disgraceful matter: why did the Spymaster, who took it upon himself to investigate the Murky Memo by flying off to London to meet Ijaz himself (despite the fact that Ijaz had said the most horrid things about the Pakistan army and the ISI), not go on to Washington DC to ask what Husain Haqqani had to say for himself? Why did he take the word of a Pakistan/Pakistan army/ISI hater at face value and not even give a chance to a senior functionary of the Pakistan government to explain himself?

It was always the case that the Deep State wanted Haqqani’s scalp for his pro-elected, civilian government stand, isn’t it? And through him, if possible, the President’s scalp too? Can we face the facts for once please?

Fresh in: The Prime Minister is again summoned to the SC on charges of contempt of court. By golly, the majesty of the Honourable Court when it comes to ‘bloody civilian’, elected leaders! When will those who disappear people, or those who imprisoned the judges in their homes also appear in court?

P.S.: Just watch the ‘anchors’ choke on themselves again!

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2012.