Let’s accept some bitter facts

Would TV anchors concede that their anger at the government or the US misses the biggest link — the establishment?

SINGAPORE: The ISI-CIA deal that obviously led to Raymond Davis being released should highlight one thing to our TV channels and their anchors. The establishment and the ISI work very closely with America, more closely than the PPP government. And the judiciary works very closely with the establishment. If you are someone like Salmaan Taseer, who is not liked by the establishment, you risk losing your life and Islamic law would be cited in favour of the killer. But if one is really a CIA agent, ‘true Islamic law’ is observed and he is released after paying money from what must be a slush fund.

Would all TV anchors concede that all their anger at the government or the Americans misses the biggest link — the establishment? While politicians are rigorously questioned on television, why aren’t heads of the military establishment asked as well, for instance, to explain the nature and extent of the CIA’s operations in Pakistan and the billions of dollars in arms purchases, their rationale, the purchase mechanism, and so on? They should be asked that if they don’t approve of drone attacks, why don’t they shoot them down? But can they do that with the F-16s bought from Washington? It is about time we face a very bitter fact: The security establishment cannot protect national interests because it has compromised them by its old and huge dependence on American money and arms.

Will people like Kamran Khan, Talat Hussain, Kashif Abbasi, Shahid Masood and the rest of their colleagues ever muster their courage and acknowledge that?

Yousuf Nazar

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2011.