SERIOUSLY now, if one carefully listens to what is coming out of the Deep State through the mouths of some former generals who have held senior positions in military governments, including former ‘spymasters’, and through the rants of known propagandists of the establishment one can only recoil in horror at the sheer brass of it.

Only the other evening three gents representing the stance of the establishment were waxing eloquent on a talk-show on which the ‘bloody civilians’ were represented by a lone politician. Erudite and intelligent though he was, making weighty points as he did, he was in a minority of one. The main drift of these gents’ assertions was that the blame for all that is going wrong in the country can be placed squarely at the doors of the political class and the foreign (hidden) hand.

What was asserted forcefully by the three gents was variously: the Meena Bazaar bombing in Peshawar where upwards of 100 women and children were killed and over 200 seriously injured of whom many died later in hospital, was the work of either the CIA or RAW or Mossad, that our own Taliban could not have done this to their own people; that we have America over a barrel and are now in a position to dictate the future of Afghanistan because the main supply route to coalition forces passes through Pakistan, et al; and that the Swat takeover by the Taliban was a CIA-inspired plot too, as proof citing the fact that Fazlullah (aka Mullah Radio because of the FM station he ran and which could not be traced for well on five years) the leader of the revolt, and Muslim Khan the chief spokesman and main instigator of the slaughter of innocent Swatis were nowhere to be seen or heard anymore.

(As if to say, of course, that the Americans had spirited them away to live a peaceful life in a safe-house in Boise, Idaho!).

Astounded, amazed, stunned are not strong enough words to describe how one felt when these pearls left the lips of the gents.

After the reams and reams that have been written about the workings of the Mother of All Agencies (or shall we say its ‘un’workings), they still persist in these calumnies?

Might one then immediately ask why, since we know who they are, the perpetrators of the Meena Bazaar outrage have not been apprehended in the one and half years that have elapsed since the bombing took place? For if people had been doing their jobs we should have had the CIA’s foot soldiers who were guilty of the bombing in jug by now.

The Taliban could not have done this, they say, because they would not kill their own people. Well then, was the Moon Market bombing in Lahore which also targeted women and children carried out by the CIA too? If so, how come no one has been apprehended for that horrific act either? The Taliban could not do this to their own people, they say: well what about Khalid Khwaja and Colonel Imam, their own teachers and trainers and handlers and spiritual fathers? The Taliban killed them in cold blood did they not?

The takeover of Swat was a CIA-inspired plot? Well then, if it was, why did we not hear of this when Swat was under the occupation of the CIA’s agents? We had America over the barrel then also, remember, for the supply route was going then too.

Why did we not at that time read the riot act to America and its CIA, as we are pretending to do now? (For if we had, the Afghan issue would have long hence been decided according to our wishes.)

Leave everything else aside: why was that destruction-spreading FM radio station not unearthed for five years? Unless the radio station and the murderous Mullah Radio and Muslim Khan were all ensconced aboard an American B-52 at 40,000 feet above Swat from where they beamed down their message of hate...!

One cannot talk sense to the Deep State, content as it is in its own infallibility, so why am I even trying? One last effort, however: gentlemen, please look over your ‘accomplishments’ over the past 31 years, and please be honest with yourselves if not with us. Pakistan simply can’t take much more.

Dr Saleem H. Ali a professor at the University of Vermont and author of Islam and Education: Conflict and Conformity in Pakistan’s Madressahs in an article in Foreign Policy magazine — (Feb 25) — has advocated the setting up of an Islamic Republic of Talibanistan somewhere in the ‘hinterland’ of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa/Fata to allow the ‘Islamists’ to try their hand at governing, and to spare the silent majority of moderate Afghans and Pakistanis the ‘intimidation’ of the Islamists.According to him, he bases his article on the inherent conservativeness and religiosity of the Pakhtuns.

While there has been a veritable firestorm of protest from our Pakhtun friends, I too could not disagree more.

For want of space: where exactly will this semi-autonomous region lie? Half in eastern and southern Afghanistan and half in Pakistan’s Pakhtun areas? Since Kandahar will surely be part of this region (being the ‘spiritual birthplace and headquarters’) of the Taliban, will the Pakhtun areas of Balochistan form part of it, and has anyone asked the Baloch who are already in rebellion? Will it then extend from Chaman to the hitherto peaceful Chitral, bordering on the already not-so-peaceful Gilgit?

And what would the quantum of ‘autonomy’ be? That the Taliban would be allowed to flog and decapitate people through Committees for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice but will not have a standing army? The example of the partition of the subcontinent has been given: once you ‘partition’ Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (i.e. Pakistan) do you divide the resources of the country equitably? How many of our over 120 bombs will go to the Taliban state? Far more than anything else, has anyone asked the Pakhtuns?

It is a preposterous idea.

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk