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VIEW: God’s in His heaven ...
By Kamran Shafi
Thursday, March 30,
2006
The question to ask is how long Dubya will remain on side, a destabilised
Dubya mark, one who has just yesterday forced his chief of staff out of
office in order to attempt to halt the quite frightening, for him, slide
in his popularity and to try and salvage something of his party’s fast
sinking fortunes
“God’s in His heaven and all’s well with the world” are the words that
come to Bertie Wooster, the hero of PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves series as he
walks jauntily and with a “spring in his step and a song on his lips” to
his club for aperitifs and lunch after a leisurely late breakfast and an
even more leisurely bath drawn by his butler. He can afford such luxuries
for he has been left a veritable fortune. All he does, apart from
attending his club, is to float around the great country houses in his
two-seater getting into trouble and out of it, courtesy Jeeves.
Likewise seems to be the case with our Big General who goes about as if he
hadn’t a care in the world — which he doesn’t as long as Dubya remains on
side, of course. The question to ask is how long Dubya will remain on
side, a destabilised Dubya mark, one who has just yesterday forced his
chief of staff out of office in order to attempt to halt the quite
frightening, for him, slide in his popularity and to try and salvage
something of his party’s fast sinking fortunes.
So far, however, truth be told, Dubya has been a great friend to
Musharraf. His government has literally thrown caution to the winds in its
blind support of Musharraf. Whatever Musharraf wants, Musharraf gets,
everybody and Charlie’s Aunt go to hell. From HE the American ambassador
openly, and most unadvisedly, criticising all past civilian governments in
no uncertain terms in a meeting with journalists a few months ago, to
Dubya himself refusing to meet any politician not approved by Musharraf
during his visit to the Islamic Republic, the American government has
pulled out all the stops in propping up Pakistan’s military ruler.
So intent is it on fighting on Musharraf’s side that it has even revoked
on flimsy grounds the visa of Senator Sanaullah Baloch of the BNP, who was
scheduled to go to Washington this week at the invitation of the US
government to take part in a programme on government accountability. The
senator was told that his visa had been revoked because of “a recent
withdrawal in funding which made it necessary for us to scale back the
programme”; the very next day Nancy Beck, a State Department spokeswoman
said the problem was not funding but rather that new information was
received after Baloch had been “approved” that “led us to believe he was
not eligible for a visa”! Of course, she “declined to elaborate”.
Wonder what new information the US State Department has “received” on a
member of the Upper House of Pakistan’s Parliament that made it take the
extreme measure of cancelling his visa. Whilst it is a measure of the
extent to which official America will go to support the present rulers in
Pakistan, it is also a measure of the polarisation in Pakistani politics
that the Senate chairman’s office has not asked the Americans what that
information could be. Surely, it is the Senate’s right to know: I mean, is
Senator Baloch accused of being a suicide bomber? What is the
“information” please? We must remember that the senator was in America
only last year for several weeks interacting with American scholars at
Stanford, scholars who have roundly criticised their own government for
treating him in the shoddy manner it has this time around. Everybody and
Charlie’s Aunt, it must be said, believes that the rug was pulled from
under Sanaullah Baloch’s feet by none other than the government of the
Land of the Pure.
The American government’s arrogance when it comes to people such as us
Pakistanis is mind numbingly stupid if you ask me, dear reader. What in
the world will it gain by cancelling Baloch’s visa? What was the danger in
him going to America at this time? Mayhap that he would tell his
interlocutors his perspective of what was going on in Balochistan? Does
the American government want no friend other than those the government of
the Citadel of Islam approves and certifies as kosher? What in heaven’s
name are Dubya and Handlers doing to America the Beautiful?
Which reminds me. I am in receipt of an email or two accusing me of
anti-Americanism. I have said this before, I will say it again: I am a
great admirer of the great country that is the United States: of its
institutions, its beauty, its diversity; I am greatly fond of the American
people among whom I count many treasured friends. America is my
second-favourite country in the West after Great Britain and Italy and
France, all three of which take first place. But if anyone thinks that I
will therefore not criticise the disastrous policies of Dubya and his
lunatics then he has another thing coming. I don’t think any statement
could be clearer than this one.
Now then, whilst the American government molly-coddles our General, things
in the Islamic Republic are on the downward spiral. Despite the brave, and
fast and furious, statements emanating from the ‘leadership’ like tons of
hot air, the Taliban seem to be securing their hold on large parts of
Waziristan. Just the other day they executed another person on the charge
of stealing cars. Their influence extends beyond the Tribal Areas too:
they have banned the annual spring fete in Shah Alam village in Dera
Ismail Khan, replacing sports such as archery and kabbadi (a form of
wrestling in which a member of one team attempts to enter the territory of
the other team and get back unchallenged) with lectures on jihad to be
delivered by leaders of a banned extremist organisation.
Sourec: DailyTimes
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