Vying to Serve as Mercenaries, again?
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
Wonder, what metaphor, or simile, would best encapsulate the mood of Pakistan’s ruling elite at this juncture: a drowning man clutching at every straw, or, a child praying for the pie in the sky to fall in his lap?
The Pakistani ruling elite, for decades, has looked to Washington’s patronage as a veritable seal of approval for its being in power. This has been a maxim truth especially for Pakistani Bonapartes—pompous characters arrogating to themselves the ‘God-given right’ to rule over Pakistan and lord over its state craft as demi-gods.
But even political actors, on cue from Bonapartes, have sought Uncle Sam’s blessings, in varying degrees, mostly unabashedly. Those who dared to challenge that norm, nay the load-bearing pillar of Pakistani politics, didn’t quite fare well in their maverick pursuit.
The country’s roller-coaster history bears testimony to this, yet another, Gospel truth of politics in Pakistan. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hauled up the gallows for his daring to break the shackles. Imran Khan (IK) is the latest example of a Pakistani leader seeking to break loose from the noose and has been languishing behind the bars for his daring.
No wonder, therefore, that Pakistan’s incumbent ruling elite—a hodge-podge, motley, crowd of Bonapartes and their political minions ruling Pakistan for the last three years, since toppling IK from his pedestal—is agog over what praise for ‘their Pakistan’ President Trump lavished in his recent address to Congress.
There’s no end of excitement in Islamabad’s corridors of power that the US President praised Pakistan’s role in the two countries’ joint campaign against ‘terrorism’ and thanked its government for helping nab what he termed as a key character of the gory incident at Kabul’s airport, in September 2021, on the heels of America’s exit from Afghanistan.
The Pakistani ruling elite is gloating with pride that sleuths of its Intelligence outfit joined hands with CIA to nab one Sharifullah, an Afghan ‘terrorist’, said to be the master mind of the massacre at Kabul’s airport. However, the joint version of that tragedy was shredded to bits by independent news sources, literally within hours. According to investigative journalists, the mastermind of that ghastly scenario had been killed, in 2023, in a CIA-led drone attack.
But who cares for accuracy of facts. There was no dearth of ‘captive’ audience in that joint sitting of the two Houses of Congress who stood up and cheered at the drop of a hat, at every two- or three-minute interval.
As for the Pakistani Bonapartes—and their obliging political stooges—what matters is a pat on their back from Uncle Sam. That’s the pie in the sky falling in their lap. In its wake, Pakistan’s top brass is expecting that Washington would, once again, enlist their support in its renewed fight against terrorism from Afghanistan, and, with it, US dollars will, once again, start filling the coffers.
What has, obviously, whetted their insatiable appetite for US patronage and dollars is Trump mentioning, in his Congressional address, another of his puerile plans to retrieve from Kabul the stockpile of weaponry left behind by the fleeing American forces.
However, the plan appears undoable, considering the fact that much of that weaponry has already been sold on the black market. Whatever may have been left over, must have been reduced to junk.
But to serve their purpose, the Pakistani brass has come up with its own narrative, an alibi, which says that much of that American weaponry has fallen into the hands of TTP terrorists operating in Pakistan from their Afghan sanctuaries. That would be justification enough for Pakistan to be roped in, in any American campaign against the Afghan-based terrorists.
Never mind what fallout on Pakistan would be in offing from any campaign targeting Afghanistan. The Pakistani Bonapartes are eager to offer their services to their masters, a norm and profitable undertaking for them for decades.
Never mind that history’s lesson teaches otherwise.
An added attraction for the clique –an icing on their cake—is that if they became a party to any new adventure on the US watch, it would, in all probability, obviate any chance of Trump interceding on IK’s behalf.
Keeping IK behind bars is a sine qua non for the junta. They know they are safe in their ‘occupation’ of Pakistan as long as IK doesn’t come out of his prison. They have been manipulating all levers of power to keep him there. They seem to have no worries on account of people of Pakistan who, with their docility, have given them a sort of blank cheque to do whatever they wanted with their (the people’s) idol. The people of Pakistan are game when it comes to sloganeering; but in translating those slogans into action they are, most of the time, at sea. And that’s as good as an insurance policy for Bonapartes to persevere and persist in their favorite sport of keeping the people’s democratic rights hostage to their insatiable lust for power. - K_K_ghori@hotmail.com |
