“BY golly some of our great anchors are something to behold after the springing of Master Raymond Davis from jail … foaming at the mouth; trembling with white rage …” — yours truly in this same space in March, writing about the reaction of our mindlessly jingoistic and very loud talk-show hosts.

Our revered anchors are once again a sight to behold in the wake of the helicopter-borne commando raid in Abbottabad Cantonment in which the Americans killed Osama bin Laden and took away his body. This time around it seemed that the earth had opened up under their very feet: pale, their sarcasm falling flat, these commanders of the Ghairat Brigades seemed completely out of their depth.

I will not stick my tongue out at our Rommels and Guderians, and say ‘I told you so’, but I will say, ‘They didn’t listen, did they?’

So wrapped up in their own arrogance; so comfortable in their mansions and made-to-order top-of-the-line Mercedes and 7-series BMWs, and secure in the knowledge that they had at least four plots of land in choice housing colonies carved out of military lands were they that the warning sounded by fellow Pakistanis who have also seen some of the world mattered not a whit to them. No, they knew it all. They were the protectors of the country, we the traitors.

This was bound to happen. What have I been saying for the last seven years? Let me repeat: they cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds; they simply do not have the wherewithal to arm-wrestle the US; the forces of darkness, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, can never be this country’s ‘assets’; and the war on terror must be fought with sincerity because it is our war too.

And by God the fall has been so hard that they don’t know whether to turn right or left; whether to say this or that. Which is why, with every passing day, they are making the situation ever more difficult for the country by their infantile reactions, increasingly putting the country in further danger.

Indeed, with a brass and an effrontery that is only their own, the highest ranks of the Deep State are briefing their handmaidens in the press and leaking like there was no tomorrow.

We were astounded to hear and see the talk shows begin to ask, quite bizarrely, why parliament was silent (!); why parliamentary committees were not becoming active in the matter of the American action in Abbottabad. I ask you.

What should parliament do? Senators and MNAs should get military training and mount guard on the army’s sensitive locations? What poppycock is this? Indeed, when has the army allowed ‘bloody civilians’ to interfere in matters of security and foreign affairs?

Then, trotting out old allegations to hide its own incompetence suggestions are being planted by the Deep State’s propagandists: various retired officers and the bright young things run by the Mother of All Agencies that what happened in Abbottabad happened because the Pakistan embassy in Washington issued too many unauthorised visas, the alleged number jumping from 3,000 to 7,000! I ask you!

One should have thought the visa question was long settled. Numerous arguments were advanced, some in this space, of how the Mother of All Agencies which now finds its face caked with layers of egg, always knew just who had been issued visas and when.

It is also said by the Ghairat Brigades that Pakistan’s sovereignty was violated because of these visas. Might one ask who issued visas to the thousands of Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Chechens, Uighurs and Arabs who are fighting our own troops in Fata? Might one ask who issued visas (and ‘permission to remain’ in Pakistan!) to Osama bin Laden?

This is not all … a picture is being painted of poor Osama being a broken, down-at-heel, harmless old man living out his last days in Abbottabad! This is such heartbreaking tripe. Indeed, some would say an indicator that there are some in the Deep State who hold Osama in deep affection.

I am absolutely livid! Once again the Deep State has painted my country, and by inference us Pakistanis, in a bad light before the whole world. Once again it has proved that we are an unreliable, inept, stupid, and lackadaisical people who only know how to preen ourselves and strike attitudes which ill-serve us. Once again we have shown ourselves to be harbourers of terrorists and bad people.

But it isn’t over, not by a long shot. Far more pressure is going to be put on our country to do more. The Americans are saying out loud that whilst they have no proof, they will find out just who in the Deep State sheltered Osama. (I would suggest that those who had any hand in helping the terrorist should pray their names are not found on the computer taken from Osama’s safe-house).

According to news in our Ghairatmand press, they are even asking for the names of officers of ISI’s feared ‘S’ Directorate. (I can only hope that the Sahib Bahadurs know the implications of this demand!).

Could our Guderians and Rommels get off their sickly nags and see the world from ground level? They will find that the perspective changes when the head is not permanently stuck in the clouds.

And, sirs, be properly grateful that President (whether you like it or not) Asif Zardari, just one day after the disgrace of the discovery of Osama from one of your biggest garrison towns, and despite the sticks and the stones you and your hirelings have been chucking at him, defended you in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post. Many, I included, thought you should be left to slowly twist in the wind just so you know the costs of misplaced arrogance.

Incidentally, Pasha and Kayani should not resign; they should just clean up the mess promptly.

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk