BUT the denial goes on to confound the hapless people of this hapless country, in the hope that in all the noise and confusion of conspiracy theory upon conspiracy theory, the enormity of the catastrophe this country has just faced will lessen in the public’s memory.

The Deep State probably learnt well from Adolf Hitler who says in Mein Kampf: “Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively … and present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side … the receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble … they [also] quickly forget … effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas … slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward….”

Some conspiracy theorists and Deep State propagandists continue to question America’s claim that Osama was killed in Abbottabad on the night of May 1-May 2. They say the US SEALs killed someone else and carried his body away; Osama was actually killed in 2001 and his body frozen to be brought out at an opportune time which was now when it was thawed, flown to Abbottabad and shot again in the chest and eye; that this was all a drama staged to help Obama win the presidential election, etc.

This despite the chief of the Mother of All Agencies admitting before parliament that Osama’s unnoticed presence in Abbottabad for six years was an intelligence failure for which he was ready to resign should parliament ask him and if ISI is found guilty of incompetence. He has also come up with a defence that many other agencies should also be investigated for their part in this fiasco, he is reported to have told (word chosen advisedly) parliament: the local police, the police CID, IB and so on.

I guess he forgot that the Pakistan Army and its agencies the ISI and MI rule the roost when it comes to ‘strategic assets’ (all 57 varieties), and that these agencies do not let, as we say in the vernacular, ‘the fly sit on their noses’ when it comes to this lot. I can see the local police official sauntering up to that quite frightening house festooned with surveillance cameras, and ringing the bell!

So then, the Deep State bludgeoned parliament into meeting in camera, in a joint session, at a time of its choosing, what. And ran the session according to its wishes, talking down to members of parliament.

It is as if, once again, the establishment has had its way, transferring the egg from its face on to parliament’s. Instead of bringing gravity to the proceedings, the government brought a certain lightness to it, as if the Osama affair was nothing much to be agitated about; that it was a very small matter for him to be found in that peculiar house in Abbottabad Cantonment.

Which, be as it may, it is a matter for parliamentarians to sort out; if they want to be treated with contempt who am I to object? So, let us go to more substantive matters; where we are, and where we are to go from here, the crossroads at which we have been stuck for the last 64 years, sometimes with our axle broken, sometimes with both tyres punctured —this is the oxcart of the Pakistani state we talk about — and at others with the poor oxen lame and ill and unable to pull the cart any further.

How many times does one have to say that Pakistan is exposing itself to disaster by thinking it can run with the hare and hunt with the hounds? For 10 years I have been beseeching the powers to please take honest stock of the state of the country, to please stop using its so-called strategic location as a means towards first milking and then defying the rest of the world, to honestly draw up a balance sheet to see whether the so-called Taliban are assets or liabilities?

How many times does one have to caution the players of the Great Game, our Rommels and Guderians, that Barack Obama is not Dubya, that this is an intelligent and a thoughtful man, who would bring sense to the fight against terror; that it would be impossible to fool him? How many times does one have to beg, yes beg, those that run the security policies of the country to please, please come clean, and fight the war with purpose?

Well, crunch time is here: from all reports, the US is up to here with Pakistan’s shenanigans. Senator Kerry is in Islamabad carrying the big stick and some few carrots and I think it will be foolishness of a very high order if we do not disgorge the rest of the baddies who are most likely to be hiding in the Citadel of Islam. But we do have rather high levels of plain idiocy coupled with brass, a most lethal mixture so the Lord alone knows what we will do.

Out of the gloom, however, there comes a faint ray of hope: Mr Nawaz Sharif’s clear and unambiguous stand against GHQ and its intelligence agencies playing a policymaking part in the political life and the foreign relations of our country. And for the defence and intelligence budgets to be presented in full before parliament.

In the end, let me once again beseech President Zardari and Mr Sharif: only you two can ensure the supremacy of parliament and therefore of an elected government, gentlemen. The lotas of the PML-Q and its several parts are unreliable and when push comes to shove will always scurry into the warm (and gainful) embrace of the Deep State.

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk