Origin, authenticity, purpose?

It is really & truly more than ridiculous that a piece of paper delivered to Admiral Mullen has stirred up a nation.

The mystery memo matter continues, keeping itself going at a fairly high peak in our fancy-free media in which apparently anything goes.

The Supreme Court even got into the act (a matter of contention) courtesy the Mian of Raiwind and his political purposes whatever they may be — devious for sure, as is all and everything to do with politics in this benighted land. The commission formed on the Court’s directions has to ‘ascertain the origin, authenticity and purpose of creating/drafting’ the mystery memo which actually does exist.

Now, to the average layman, or apolitical observer, the very thought that a member of the administration or government of the mighty US would pay any attention to an anonymous memo — or piece of paper or what have you, unsigned and undated — is ludicrous. What does any sensible person do with all the anonymous messages that float around? Well, sanity prevailing, they are junked. So it is really and truly more than ridiculous that a piece of paper delivered to Admiral Mike Mullen, which he himself admitted he took not the slightest notice of, even forgot about, has stirred up a nation and caused what it has caused.

The whole kerfuffle is reminiscent of Donald Rumsfeld and his great ‘knowns and unknowns’. Firstly, its origins? The man, Mansoor Ijaz may well have put it on paper — a possibility that has cropped up, but then at whose behest? What about authenticity — in what respect? We know that the wretched things exists so once its origins are established — though it is doubtful they ever will be — that takes care of authenticity.

Intriguing solely is the purpose. Well, Mansoor Ijaz, when interviewed by Fareed Zakaria on CNN on December 4, held forth on his interaction with the Pakistani political scenario and his familiarity with the boys who direct and play our spook games. According to him, “during these various interventions that I tried to effect in Pakistan, what we found out in almost every single case was that there was a political motivation and a political interference by the ISI.

And specifically on the S Branch: “It’s an organ of the state that nobody can control. And it is essentially the organ of the state that the army and the intelligence wings are using to, shall we say, coordinate or obstruct what it is that the political side of government, the civilian side of the governments do in Pakistan”.

The spook boys obviously ‘wanted’ Husain Haqqani’s head, after all, by doing what he was doing in Washington, he was obstructing the things that they did not want the civilian side of this government of Pakistan to do in Pakistan. They managed to get his head, fairly easily, with HH being the fall guy. Now, if it is also the head of Asif Zardari that they wish for, it’s still a bit murky as to how they are doing on that score — though time and the Supreme Court of Pakistan will doubtlessly sort that one out one way or another.

Then we have the final rub that came at the closing of the CNN interview when Zakaria asked Ijaz how come he has effectively rogered the democratic elected branch of government and ‘empowered’ those he claims to be opposed to.

“There will never be a time, in my view,” said Ijaz, “where the military is subservient to the civilians in our lifetime. It may take 30 to 40 years for that transformation to come; at least what we did was to make sure the civilian government has an equal shoulder to the military and judiciary”.

“Equal”? “What we did”? Who is or was “we”?

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2012.