Alternate government press release

A lot of people have said that either we hid him, or we were incomp­etent, that’s just mean and hurts our feelin­gs.

Look, it’s not like we didn’t know where he was, we were just getting around to doing something about it. After all, if America, with all its technological and military advancements, can take eight months to prep for the attack on Osama, you can understand that it would have taken us a little bit more time. Like a decade or so. We wanted to be absolutely sure that when we killed him, he would die, leaving nothing to chance. That’s why we kept him so close in Abbottabad. Every day for almost five years, our elitest commandos, fed nothing but horse tranquilisers and Fauji Cereal, would go over to Osama’s house and practice shooting him in the head. That’s how dedicated we were to the task.

A lot of people have been saying that either we were hiding him ourselves, or we are so incompetent that we didn’t know he was hiding right next door. That’s just mean and hurts our feelings. The truth is we were hiding him, yes, but we forgot where. You know how sometimes you lose your car keys and look everywhere? Behind the cushions, under the chairs, in your baby’s diaper. And then it turns out they were in your pocket all that time! It’s kind of like that. We knew we put him some place safe so we could hand him over to America right away, but then we got distracted and lost track.

We want to reassure the Pakistani public that despite what looks like a massive intelligence failure, we still have their best interests at heart. It’s why we are wasting no time or effort in providing comfort to our population by putting brain relaxants like Ansar Abbasi and Zaid Hamid on TV. Listening to them defend Osama will force your brain to collapse in on itself and lull you into a deep stupor.

Maybe you will also take the time to consider that if Osama bin Laden can be described as ‘shaheed’ by some of our ‘news personalities’, then every one of you deserve the title of ‘shaheed plus’ or maybe even ‘super shaheed.’ Just keep looking at Zaid Hamid’s distractingly stupid red beret and feel the pain of global humiliation ebb away.

That way you won’t even notice how, yet again, our continued insistence on aiding and abetting terrorists and terrorist organisations, has damaged the country and wounded the populace. If only they understood that not all religious extremist terrorist organisations are the same. There are those that want to kill us now and those that want to kill us at a later date, once we are done trying to control them and they turn against us. It’s a clear distinction that even a child could make. A particularly stupid child intent on letting his own personal agenda borne of paranoia and a lack of understanding of the shifting geopolitical landscape condemn his parents and the house he lives in to external judgement and internal chaos. But now you’re just being nitpicky.

Just last week, you must have heard from someone very important in this country that the nation’s honour and integrity will not be traded in exchange for prosperity. We are proud to say we exchanged them for much less. Besides, infamy tends to last longer. What you need to understand is that it is all part of our grand strategy. To prevent our enemies from ever attacking us, we are attacking ourselves first. See it all makes sense now doesn’t it? Don’t worry. It was Osama’s idea.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2011.