Step back and just think. It had to happen. Sooner than later. How could the Americans, British and Saudis with the blessings of Benazir Bhutto, ISI chief General Kayani and Musharraf’s man Tariq Aziz ever condone corruption? And yet they did. In the summer of 2007 Washington was the watering hole where the group would meet to manufacture the National Reconciliation Ordinance or the NRO as it’s known.

Surely they must have taken into account that if Benazir Bhutto was killed her husband would be her natural successor. Or were they that naïve to assume that some feckless leader like Amin Fahim would be her heir? All knew Asif Zardari. The US intelligence agency like the CIA and British MI 6 also called SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) had enough evidence of his corruption as did our own ISI. Did they not think that it was a given that Asif Zardari would one day be sitting in the Prime Minister’s House or the presidency if his wife was assassinated? After all, everyone knew, including BB herself, that she was a marked woman by the Islamic jihadists.

Did they not think what would happen in case their reprehensible NRO was made null and void?

Surely they must have known that the Swiss courts money-laundering cases of Asif Zardari will crop up? Did they expect him, as the sitting head of government, to return the alleged billions ‘looted’ from Pakistan? Did they think that he would say sorry and admit to this alleged crime? How can a head of state ever remain in place after he’s admitted ’stealing’ millions from the national treasury his late wife as the prime minister was morally responsible for?

The NRO was a devilish instrument. It should never have been allowed to come to life. Never mind about democracy. This is no democracy where the president, his powerful ministers and envoys in important western capitals are alleged to have committed financial crime. The prime minister narrowly escaped the NRO net by having an out-of-court settlement with NAB. His wife, Fauzia Gilani, was a big bank-defaulter. We’re told the couple has paid up. How much of the money they ‘borrowed’ to set up businesses got returned by them will must be made public.

Prime Minister Gilani is another Shaukat Aziz. He follows the dictation given to him from Zardari. Aziz, as we know, was just a sidekick of Musharraf. We never thought that Gilani would follow Aziz’s way. He’s in full defiance of the December 16 judgment on the NRO by the 17-member bench of the Supreme Court. How long he can get away by pulling all kinds of rabbits out of the bag to protect Zardari’s billions and stop them from coming to Pakistan is not rocket science.

Corruption can never be condoned.

Notice all the old faces sitting in the presidency – with Syeda Abida Hussain, husband Fakhr Imam and Aitzaz Ahsan taking the front row to show their support for Zardari and his corruption. Aitzaz felt no discomfort seated with his former sworn enemies Babar Awan and Latif Khosa! We’re done with this kind of façade. We need new, honest, clean leaders to lead us.

Senator Kerry is in town. He’s back to do some fire-fighting. Either prop up or dump Asif Zardari. We’ll have to wait and see. As the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry owes it to Pakistan to rectify the damage the NRO has done. Other than doling out a few millions, which this corrupt government will gobble up, I don’t see the Americans really pushed about our long-term political stability. They couldn’t care less. All they want is to contain terrorists entering their space and Kayani making sure that they don’t cross the Atlantic to ‘attack’ America.

The battle against corruption that the people on the street should have waged against this government never happened. Once again the burden fell on the Supreme Court to challenge the corrupt. Why didn’t the people play their due role? All I can say is that they have been misinformed; misled and misguided. Aitzaz Ahsan, Ali Ahmed Kurd and human rights activist Asma Jehangir, the three legal luminaries, were our heroes. We expected them to lead us the way, not defend the corruption of Asif Ali Zardari. Fortunately stalwarts like Justice (r) Tariq Mahmud, Athar Minallah and Justice (r) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim have come out strongly in favour of the supremacy of the Supreme Court, though in the beginning they too were lost in the fog of words.

In a widely circulated email, Justice (r) F G Ebrahim (FGE) writes, “being of the view that more harm is done by ignoring seniority, which opens the door for exercise of discretion in principle, I am against seniority being ignored, particularly in (the) judiciary. My first reaction, therefore, was that the appointment of the chief justice Lahore High Court to the Supreme Court and elevation of the next senior-most judge as the Lahore High Court chief justice was justified. I had assumed that in accordance with Article 177 of the Constitution, these appointments were made by the president after consultation with the chief justice of Pakistan, and that the president was bound by such consultations.”

Was the chief justice of Pakistan even consulted? Asks FGE who is shocked that the two highest authorities in the land – the president and the chief justice of Pakistan — have conflicting statements to make.

“The president’s spokesperson asserts that the consultation took place and is denied vehemently by the honourable chief justice of Pakistan,” continues FGE. “There must be some documentary evidence to prove that such consultations took place. But much to our regret the people have been kept in the dark creating further controversy. With a poor credibility score of the government, the latter’s version will not be acceptable to the people. Without consultation, these appointments, in contradiction to the binding recommendations of the chief justice of Pakistan remain invalid, being in violation of Article 177 of the Constitution.”

Let the people decide. This is democracy, isn’t it? Why should a handful of self-appointed TV hosts and their guests be given the right to condone corruption? Why should editorial writers be given the right to declare that the court of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry is stabbing democracy by demanding that the corrupt cough up the money? Why should a bunch of columnists be defending President Zardari’s well of wealth by calling him the victim of judicial activism?

Why this is being done will not come to light until the matter comes to its logical end.

Beware too of the beards. They have all come out of the woodwork to support the judiciary. Some circles have expressed concern with the clique, once again, being formed by Nawaz Sharif and the fundos. God forbid should this happen, the Taliban-like leaders will be back in the saddle. In the end the battle is between the suited-booted PPP leaders, in their shiny suits with dandy ties and kerchiefs versus the shalwar kamiz wearing PML-N and their partners, the clergy.

Just for the sake of saving one man, Asif Zardari, today battle lines are being drawn. Is he worth the cost?

This is a two-part tale of family honour; domestic abuse; incompatibility; male dominance; misguided Islamic values; callousness of a Pakistani community towards a homeless mother and her infant son; a world-famous hospital’s refusal to get involved in family squabble; unfavourable immigration laws for the battered wife, a non-Muslim’s act of compassion; APPNA — Association of Physicians of Pakistani descent of North America’s disconnect and one Pakistani cosmetic surgeon’s solo search for justice.

In many ways the story has a similar thread that runs through a Bollywood movie Provoked in which Aishwarya Rai plays the role of a battered Indian wife. It’s a true story of a Punjabi woman named Kiranjit Ahluwalia who leaves India to marry a London-based guy, only to be badly abused. She ends up in prison for murdering her abusive husband. The story of ‘A’ that I unfold has an unfinished script. It has yet to reach an end, though in the words of the ‘Dr Good’ (the Pakistani cosmetic surgeon) who has come to her aid “the wheels of justice turn very slowly even here in the USA. The ACLU–(women’s abuse division) and every other human rights organization in America have been informed.”

Domestic violence among South Asians in America is endemic. In New Jersey alone (where I live) the police reported 75,651 cases of abuse in 2005. Muslim girls especially are a target of false Islamic values engendered by the community. Often the brutalization of the husband is encouraged by the community in the name of religion. While wives of visa holders are legal residents of the US, but they are not allowed by the law to work or to self-petition for legal permanent residency in the country. ‘A’ is a victim of this discriminatory law. “These policies violate basic human rights and must be changed for the US to demonstrate a commitment to eliminating policies that increase women’s risk for violence,” say Anita Raj, a professor at Boston University. Family law attorneys and social workers testify to the fact that an angry or demanding husband might threaten to “call immigration” and have the wife deported. Pamela Constable has profiled young Pakistani wives in a column in The Washington Post imprisoned in abusive marriages, unable to fight the gossip and shame that come with defying their culture and religion, isolated from help that is just a three-digit (911) phone number away.

“Many batterers manipulate Islamic law or use its perceived authority to control their wives. A man who has the power to divorce can really twist the knife,” says Mazna Hussain, an attorney for abused women at the Tahirih Justice Centre in Falls Church. “Muslim women want to be faithful to their religion, and the idea that you cannot disobey the word of God is very compelling, even if you are in an abusive relationship.”

In June this year, ‘Dr Good’ living in the Midwest gets a long-distance phone call late at night. The voice at the other end is sobbing and making no sense. He gets his wife to talk to the caller. Mrs Good recognizes the voice. It’s the young Pakistani wife ‘A’ living in an abusive relationship for two years. Her physician husband, who is in America on a ‘J’ visa, given to professionals, has kicked ‘A’ out of the house along with their son. Dr ‘S’ has also called the police with a concocted story about his wife’s attempt to kill him and the child. The police refuse to buy his story, seek out the abandoned wife sitting outside her home on a pavement and offer her shelter. She either goes to the official shelter for the abused or spends the night at the county jail. ‘A’ desperately calls the Pakistani community only to be told that they don’t want to get involved. Finally a Hindu friend of Dr Good living in the area agrees to take ‘A’ and her baby in.

Two days later, ‘A’ is invited for dinner by a Pakistani woman ‘Mrs Z’ with a promise to help. When ‘A’ arrives, she discovers a group of men from the local mosque along with the man of the house. ‘Mr Z’ does the talking. “To our mind you’re already divorced based on Islamic Law since your husband threw you out of the house, even though no papers have been served or legal briefs filed.”

The battered wife faces five hostile men who try intimidating her with statements like this: “All your husband has to do is to say that he divorces you three times. He can write what he has said in front of two witnesses and from a Shariah stand point you are divorced.” Has he done that? Asks ‘A.’ “He has told us that he has,” replies ‘Mr Z.’ If he’s already done that then why do you wish to talk to me? Asks ‘A.’ “Because we want to help you put your life together. We feel that you must not get involved with the local police and legal system. I think you made a mistake by calling 911 for police help. You should not have done that. But you can still help by withdrawing the abuse charge that you have placed against your husband. I do not think the abuse charge will help you at all. It will only hurt the good name of the Muslims in this town and I am sure you do not wish to do that. You and your son should go back to Pakistan immediately and live there with your parents. Your husband will then send you the Islamic divorce with the haq meher etc and the matter would be amicably settled. This will be a very decent act on your part and Allah will reward you.”

What about all the beatings, spitting on my face and profanities? Asks ‘A.’ “Sometimes people say and do things in anger, which they do not mean to do. I am sure your husband is very sorry for such behaviour. He has asked us to mediate on his behalf. His conditions are: you drop all charges against him; opt for an out-of-court settlement for separation; return to Pakistan and if you don’t he’ll withdraw your spousal visa and you will be declared ‘illegal’; your son will live half the time with his (her husband’s) parents in Pakistan; He will not provide you with any support of any kind.”

These so-called Muslims who denied shelter to a helpless woman from their country have the temerity to tell ‘A’ that she should not have gone to a Hindu’s house. “They are our enemies and they wish us bad.”

On the night when ‘A’ is thrown out, she’s working on her laptop. Being a computer expert, she knows her only weapon against her abusive husband is to record his beatings and abuses. She records the husband yelling, screaming, beating, slapping and spitting. In the background is the terrified cries of the child. ‘A’ is equally aggressive and argumentative. She’s demanding her visa that allows her to stay in the US as a dependant of her husband. He wants to divorce her and send her back to Pakistan.

The judge hearing the case issues an ‘order of protection’ against the husband and gives ‘A’ the custody of her son. The cosmetic surgeon and his wife, living 400 miles away from the scene of action, are the only Pakistanis coming to ‘A’s’ rescue. They drive back with her and offer to keep her until the matter is resolved.

(Next week: Before condemning Dr ‘S,’ we must hear his side of the story)

(To be continued)

What does it mean when a Pashtun throws down his cap? Let’s ask Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s point man for ‘Af-Pak.’ Not only did he get a mouthful from Hamid Karzai in Kabul but watched the enraged president “whip off his distinctive karakul sheepskin hat and slam it onto the table where the two men were having dinner, a day after the disputed August 20 election,” according to The Sunday Times. “For an Afghan man to do that,” the paper quoted a local, “it’s a big gesture. It’s like throwing down the gauntlet.”

Reining in Richard Holbrooke and others in the State Department to cool it may well have been the cause celebre for Admiral Mike Mullen’s widely publicised article in an official military journal recently. As the highest-ranking officer in the US military, Mullen was perhaps inspired by President Obama’s Glasnost of opening up to the Pakistanis convincing them that “the US is their friend.” Normally ‘International Relations 101′ is the realm of diplomacy. Hillary Clinton rather than Mike Mullen should have compiled a handbook on how to treat others with respect. Foggy Bottom rather than Pentagon should have been the recipient of this global wisdom.

A former State Department official James Glassman in his September 1 column for Foreign Policy titled “It’s Not About Us” snottily dismisses Mullen’s rules of engagement with Muslim nations. “For the war-of-ideas part of public diplomacy, the constant admonition to US policymakers should be that it’s not about us. Bite your tongue when you say ‘we’… The way to counter that narrative is not to protest that the United States has clean hands and that if you really knew us you would love us — but to change the subject entirely. The US is the scapegoat, the animal on which all cares and hatreds are loaded. We only contribute to that way of thinking when we defend ourselves, or talk about ourselves at all.”

Apart from scolding Mullen for taking the blame (for US’s bad behaviour) Glassman reviles “Miss Congeniality” Judith McHale who succeeded him as the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs in the Obama administration. Heading for Pakistan to befriend the media there, McHale recently got snubbed by ace investigative journalist Ansar Abbasi as salaciously reported by the New York Times. Glassman gloats that McHale’s and Mullen’s efforts are futile because “Pakistanis don’t like the United States… no matter how many bridge-building meetings we have with them.” The thrust of the article is to also pick apart Abbasi and debunk his views vis-a-vis the US. “This is their struggle, just as the American Revolution and the Civil War were ours. And what does Ansar Abbasi have to do with such a narrative? Nothing at all. Which is why he is exactly the kind of person not worth talking to.”

While Mullen advocates listening to other voices, Glassman’s article says just the opposite as reflected in his impolitic remarks against Ansar Abbasi. Such hubris only fuels the fires of hate.

Now for some good news: Obama’s Glasnost has finally reached the American embassy in Islamabad. Officials manning the mission have for the first time attempted to bring the national media on board. It doesn’t pay to jettison the Pakistani media is the lesson they have learnt rather belatedly. In the past, the American officials appeared concentrating all their time, energies and charm on politicians and some handpicked editors and media persons known to favour the US. They made the rest of the press, especially those openly critical of American foreign policy, to seem invisible. Frequently at social gatherings, the uppity American diplomats showed open disdain by keeping the hacks at arms length.

It badly backfired.

For those not curious how life was lived in the ’70s and the ’80s, this column is a damp squib. Maybe they were not born; or were too young to really build up a memory chest. But others may remember the woman who married the ‘Six million dollar man’ and became Farrah Fawcett Majors; Jacko the king of pop; KO the Star columnist who churned and churned readable stuff; and Arshad Sami Khan who turned his 10-year-old into a musical genius.

The four have one thing in common: death. Three died on the same day (Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Kaleem Omar) while Adnan Sami Khan’s father passed away three days earlier. Fawcett and Michael Jackson died in Los Angeles, KO died in Karachi (the city he loved) and Arshad S. Khan died in Mumbai.

The thread that runs through the four departed is art, creativity and entertainment. And it connects with every Pakistani and American whose lives the four touched in one way or another. ‘Call no man happy until he is dead’ said the ancient Greeks. For them a ‘life lived well was a life rounded off, consummated even, in a noble or appropriate death.’ Put more simply, it means that the dead who are glorified in stories, anecdotes, write-ups and fond references are the ‘happiest.’

Farrah Fawcett, 62, swept the world with her magic. ‘Sex symbol’. ‘Beauty’. ‘Pinup queen’. The titles describe a woman whose impact on ‘our culture crossed media and demographics, tantalising men and giving women a daring, ultra-feminine role model’ said one TV commentator as he announced her death due to cancer. The New York Times in its obituary wrote of her ‘good looks and signature flowing hairstyle’ which ‘influenced a generation of women and, beginning with a celebrated pinup poster, bewitched a generation of men.’

It was the early ’70s when her husband Lee Majors starred in the ‘Six million dollar man’ that PTV broadcast each week to the thrill of thousands who loved to watch Majors perform feats of a superman. He became a pop culture icon of the 70s like his wife Fawcett. A spin-off series of the show called ‘The Bionic Woman’ was also a big hit in Pakistan. Anyone coming to America was asked to bring back posters of the power couple – Fawcett and Majors. But more importantly, women like myself would turn up at the hairdressers carting a photo of Fawcett, asking for a layered cut and blow dry exactly like the windswept tousled Charlie’s Angel.

Four hours into the death of Fawcett, we hear the ‘King of Pop’ being declared dead in LA. He was to turn 51 in August and was training for a mega concert in London to celebrate his birthday. His death is being probed as I write. The family refuses to accept that he died due to an overuse of prescription drugs. But sources close to him reveal that he was in poor shape, barely 100 lbs and looked very fragile. The world adored this waif-looking genius whose songs and dancing rocked the eighties as never before. I remember interviewing many Jackson look-alikes in Karachi who aped every dance movement of the singer and succeeded in looking like him.

For party animals in the 80s, nothing was more popular than Michael Jackson’s pop songs. The private parties, discos, beach parties and private homes played his music non-stop. We were delighted when a smart aleck in either Benazir Bhutto’s government or Nawaz Sharif’s (I forget, was it Sheikh Rashid?) who announced one fine day that Jackson and Madonna were to perform a concert in Pakistan! The news hit the headlines and the minister (whoever the guy was) became the most quoted in the media, until it turned out that the whole thing was a joke, a set up.

Jackson’s death caused chaos on the Internet. Google thought it was under attack as millions searched for the latest information on his demise. ‘Very soon after his death, search volumes were so high that our systems suspected a coordinated spam attack,’ a spokesman told the media. He said that during the last 24 hours, an astonishing half of all searches in the US were related to Jackson. ‘Farrah Fawcett-Majors picked the wrong day to expire: she only got five percent of searches.’ Fawcett and her long-time companion and father of her son Ryan O’Neal were to marry before she succumbed to cancer. But that never could materialise. Their son was not present at her deathbed. He is in jail for drugs.

That same evening one read the Dawn to discover that Kaleem Omar, 72, had suffered a fatal heart attack. KO as we called him during the Star days was too serious for the rowdy lot that surrounded him in the newsroom. He would simply be pounding away at his typewriter, only looking up to light yet another cigarette or ask of the umpteenth cup of tea. Within hours he’d roll out his sheets of paper from the typewriter, giving one fleeting look at the numerous pages and march off to the editor’s room looking smug (or so we thought then). KO was educated, sophisticated and bordering on brilliance. He didn’t have a mean bone in him. Today, were you to scan old copies of the Star, now sadly put out of publication, you’d notice Kaleem Omar’s byline on almost all the pages! When Benazir became the PM for the first time, she gave an exclusive to KO. He was a great fan of BB’s. Soon the staff at Star said goodbye to KO who was invited by the PM to become her media advisor and move to Islamabad. KO, always dressed in black or grey shalwar kamiz with a black waistcoat, looked real happy for once in his life. But his happiness was short-lived. He was back in our midst soon. We never did find why his new assignment didn’t work out. KO had moved to The News years ago and died with his last column hot off the press.

Arshad Sami Khan too is dead. He was suffering from pancreatic cancer and was under treatment in a hospital in Mumbai where his son Adnan Sami Khan lives. ‘I am not afraid’ said Adnan when I asked him last January how he was coping with death threats after the Mumbai attacks. ‘I’m the son of a war hero.’ Adnan moved to Mumbai 10 years ago but never lost touch with his parents whom he adores. His father was his life. The musical talent that the son possesses was passed down by his dad who not only encouraged his son early in life to experiment with different genres but was himself a composer of jazz and classical music. He leaves behind a wonderful first-person memoir Three presidents and an aide launched last year.

Did you know that there’s a list of ‘suckers’ who fall for scams? The list has your phone number, email and credit card details. This list is sold to all other scammers out in the whole wide world who want to make a quick buck by making you a sucker. I’ve been a victim.

Years ago, while in the US, I was told via e-mail that I had won a million-dollar lottery. To get hold of the money, I was asked to contact Mr So & So at the earliest in Spain. When I called that number the man on the other side of the line questioned me about confidential information.

Like a fool I laid myself bare. My ID was now in this stranger’s hands. When I put down the phone, I felt a shiver of fear run through. He had my phone number, mailing address, passport details, Social Security number and my bank account details.

‘The money should be in your bank in a week’s time,’ said the smoothie when he called a couple of days later. He must have checked out the bank information I had given him. ‘But you need to transmit $7,000 to our bank before we can wire you your winnings. You have to pay this sum as tax. If we don’t receive your money in 48 hours, I’m afraid you’ll lose all the money.’

Okay! Enough. I’ve been fooled, I scolded myself. Greed got the better of me. I swore never to fall for a ‘goldbrick’ again. Meanwhile, my ‘contact’ pestered me with phone calls and emails. He refused to give up. I ignored him. But I had hallucinations of the thug turning up at my front door in the dark of the night. Thank heavens for 911. I could dial the number for police knowing my call would get a cop to help in five minutes. That’s one of the many advantages of living in America, I soothed my frayed nerves.

In months to come I got myself a new life, as the Americans say. This morning I deleted two emails telling me I had won another lottery. I continue to get notices regularly. I simply hit the delete and move on. But I suspect my personal information is still out in the cyber world because I form the core of the ‘sucker list’ compiled a decade ago. Another family member continues to be short-changed. Yesterday he was on the phone with someone for 90 minutes who was selling him a package on work from home. I was horrified to hear him rattle off his credit card details and other relevant information.

‘It’s a one-time payment,’ he reassured me when I told him he had been made a sucker. ‘That’s what they told you when they were selling you the coffee and that crappy piece of jewellery,’ I reminded him. ‘Yet your credit card was being debited for $50 on a monthly basis until you got wise’ I said. Our kitchen is swamped with coffee beans. A package arrives every month. I’m expecting the ‘jewels’, those plastic baubles to show up any day.

Recently the Wall Street Journal carried a piece on fraudsters who scam 30.2 million Americans each year, out of which three million fall prey to bogus lottery schemes.

A 70-something relative of the writer wired all his retirement savings to a stranger, believing he was paying taxes on huge lottery winnings. This Ivy League-educated professional kept sending money because the scammers had effectively and efficiently won his trust. It was impossible to stop him. His children and stepchildren counseled him, cajoled him and took him to task. Experts, lawyers and his doctor were consulted.

Law-enforcement agencies, from the local police to state officials to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were called. ‘He agreed to give power of attorney to a son to help with financial matters. Yet he continued to send away money he couldn’t afford to lose, fully expecting to see a huge reward in a matter of days.’ The writer’s ‘cautionary tale’ describes how con artists diddle people in these tough economic times with Internet, telemarketing and direct-mail orders because people of all ages are especially in need of a financial victory.

’Foreign lottery and sweepstakes scams are particularly effective with the elderly, especially those who have lost some mental capacity. The unemployed are susceptible to work-at-home schemes that call for upfront payments, but produce no jobs, while confident, highly educated professionals in their prime years regularly fall prey to investment frauds.’

Some lottery crooks have ‘added a new weapon in their rip-off arsenal,’ says the writer. The victims are sent cheques — fake, of course — as advance payments on purported winnings to come. They are guided to deposit the cheque and then to wire the tax money to the person who has sent the cheque. The counterfeit cheque bounces some days later but it’s too late because the victim has already wired several thousand dollars in anticipation of receiving his millions!

The WSJ story is instructive. The writer’s relative got so desperate to send money to scammers that he attempted cashing out his life-insurance policy. He failed. So he sold his car instead and wired $4,000 to Costa Rica. Finally, the family got court orders restraining him from managing his finances. ‘The family went to lunch with him, then dismantled his cellphone and redirected his mail to another state. A few hours later, he demanded his phone back. He wanted to call some ‘friends’ who had some money waiting for him.’

As I end my column a ‘Hello Dear’ email peers out of my mailbox. It’s from Fluzzy Adams, 22. She writes that her father got killed in Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) West Africa. I’m told that before the death of Adam’s her father had a sum of US$4,500,000 kept in a bank in my name as the next of kin. It then asked to provide a bank account and personal details so that the money could be transferred after deduction of taxes which I’d have to pay up front to claim the huge sum.

This indeed is news for me! I really didn’t know that I was Fluzzy Adams’s ‘next of kin.’ Tomorrow I may end up being the daughter of the corrupt Nigerian dictator General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida who, upon his death, makes me the heir to his financial empire! Serves me right for being on the ‘sucker list’.

When the October 2005 earthquake shook our world, the then American ambassador Ryan Crocker planned taking charge of relief efforts. He convinced the Musharraf government that the Americans were the best thing that could happen to Pakistan at their time of need! ‘We can do a better job than the Pakistanis’ was his loud message. Crocker and his team of army men landed at the PM Secretariat to set up their disaster management headquarters. “Big beefy colonels toting their cell phones and walkie-talkies roamed the corridors barking orders at us,” an eyewitness tells me. “We were running like scared chickens trying not to get trampled.” Fortunately, saner voices prevailed and the Americans were finally told to vacate the premises.

When army action began in Swat recently, the American embassy in Islamabad again approached Prime Minister Gilani. Ambassador Anne Patterson offered to help with the logistics. What the prime minister told her is not public knowledge. But if conspiracy theories are to be believed why did he give the NWFP government a carte blanche to deal with the issues of the IDPs (internally displaced persons). With much ado, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), a Geneva-based mediation organisation, hosted “Representatives of the government of Pakistan, politicians and non-governmental organisations from NWFP and FATA,” to meet with senior officials of UN Agencies and International Committee of the Red Cross.

The HD paid for the ten Pakistani participants, including their air fares and luxury hotel stay in Geneva. The weeklong workshop was arranged with the blessings of our ambassador, Zamir Akram, in Geneva. The Foreign Office, it appears, was bypassed. Whether Akram received censure from Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir is not known. But what is known is that the role of the foreign secretary in the present political dispensation has considerably lessened. President Asif Ali Zardari is signing all kinds of agreements with his foreign hosts without the babus at the Foreign Office whetting them. On this subject another time…

The Frontier lawmakers going to Geneva were Sitara Ayaz, minister for social welfare, who ran an NGO before becoming a minister, and Senator Saleh Shah of FATA. Others in the group were Habibullah Khan, additional chief secretary of FATA; Jamil Amjad, relief commissioner; Jamaluddin Shah, commissioner for IDPs; Begum Jan of tribal women’s association; ambassador Rustam Shah Mohmand; Mussarat Bibi Ahmadzeb and Shaukat Nawaz Tahir of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). The press release from Geneva said: “The HD Centre was able to provide a unique environment for participants to discuss the safe delivery of humanitarian assistance and the security of humanitarian personnel. Participants were able to reach a consensus that effective humanitarian delivery depends on a transparent and structured dialogue with militant actors by humanitarian agencies with the full knowledge, support and agreement of the government.”

Just hold it right here! The government of NWFP in other words has signed away its sovereign rights to the UN agencies, allowing them unhindered access to the militants. The above line in italics was slyly slipped in the press release thereby authorising the UN to infiltrate and penetrate into the sensitive security issues which currently are no-go areas for even the media. A handful of civilians from NWFP went to Geneva, courtesy the HD with the help of ambassador Zamir Akram and some would see this as a slight on Pakistan’s sovereignty.

“It is clear that in situations such as this, when civilians are caught in conflict, there is a need for humanitarian dialogue with all the armed actors if safe humanitarian access and delivery is to be possible,” said Dennis McNamara, the HD Centre’s Humanitarian Adviser and organiser of the workshop. Let’s parse his words. McNamara is opening the door for the international donors working in Pakistan to enter into a “humanitarian dialogue” with the militants. If this is not surrendering the state’s sovereignty to foreigners, pray tell me what is it then? At the Geneva workshop participating were the UN agencies headed by Rashid Khalikov of OCHA (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs); Louis-Georges Arsenault of UNICEF; Janet Lim of UNHCR; Miguel Bermeo of UNDP; Charles Vincent of the WFP and Sandra Wirth of the ICRC.

Which country in the world would allow the above-named agencies to meddle in its security issues? Which country would like to share its classified information with Rashid Khalikov of OCHA only meant for our security agencies? And more importantly, how on earth can these foreigners of civilian UN agencies have a face-to-face ‘dialogue’ with cut-throats and hardcore terrorists?

It’s crystal clear that the sole purpose of this so-called workshop was to remove the barriers for the foreigners, letting them scout anywhere on the pretext of providing humanitarian aid while hunting for terrorists (actually our nukes) under America’s watch. Think about it soberly. The UN, if allowed free access across the countryside, may even hire helicopters from a private security firm. This is a scenario which falls fairly and squarely in the realm of possibilities.

Our government has already allowed air attacks by American drones, one now fears that the Zardari government in collusion with the NFWP government may allow foreign boots on the ground under the garb of UN humanitarian aid workers. Before the Pakistani public gets cuckolded by its leaders by selling Pakistan’s sovereignty, the 176 million citizens must wake up. “Pakistanis have no shame; nor do they care for their national interest,” says a government servant holding his head in utter frustration. He names the lawmakers, local NGOs and people in donor agencies clandestinely forming a troika.

Now connect the dots: IDPs figures are daily being hyped up by the NWFP government and the UN agencies. The former has doubled its earlier estimates, warning of an influx of 2.5 million IDPs, while the UNHCR puts it at a million plus. What both have done in their calculations is to include the old number of 553,929 IDPs who had already left their homes long before May 1 army action. These folks are regularly receiving their relief package as per the information put up by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) website. According to this website, the total number of new IDPs is just 56,298 individuals (living in camps) and 428,789 individuals (living outside the camps on their own).

Can all the three organisations please stand up and tell us which figure is correct? Why is there such a big gap between the NDMA and the other two? We need answers before we jump to the conclusion that someone, somewhere is making mega-bucks by presenting dummy IDPs who only exist on paper. Someone is skimming off their hefty relief package! Imran Khan where are you? Can you nail the culprits?

Its name is IDP. It was reborn ten days ago. Baptized by Barack Obama while Asif Ali Zardari held it, the American president showered the newborn with a $1.9 billion cheque. Fearing that Pakistan may throw the baby out with the bathwater, the US Congress vowed to honour the cheque once the sum reached the recipient. With Musharraf government swiping over 12 billion dollars, the whole world knows, including Pakistanis, that our effete elite pocket the money meant for the poor. Flush times are here again. Paisa dey do is the signature tune played by the information minister of NWFP. Daily he begs for money. It doesn’t look nice. What would look nice are footage of his chief minister, governor and a cabal of cabinet colleagues and party loudmouths spreading out in the field.

Let all the fat cats sweat it out in the sweltering sun to visit IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons). Show us first your humane handling of the crisis, even though it’s gargantuan. Take us each night with a candid camera to a camp. Randomly ask the IDPs how they fare. Demonstrate to us that you’ve resolved their complaints on the spot. You are then worthy of our worship and donations. But according to an Al Jazeera reporter, the grousing has already set in: “We went to an IDP camp today … there were no signs of officials from the provincial government. There has been a lot of talk, but they have not done anything. There is, understandably, reasonable justification for [the civilians'] anger at the government.”

The ANP leader Asfandyar Wali is missing from action. Is he in the cooler climes of London?

Morally, the onus falls on Asif Ali Zardari. But he’s somewhere abroad doing business – personal or official, that we don’t know. Staying in a Washington hotel at a prodigious $5,000 suite per night with 62 camp followers in tow, he repeated “my democracy” and “our democracy” almost 20 times in a three-minute statement (didn’t Ambassador Husain Haqqani give him talking points to sound more presidential?). What he forgot to mention was the plight of the IDPs and how he intended handling the crisis. The president should have been back turning into a control freak screaming at the slothful and purging the corrupt caught stealing IDP funds. That is democracy – serving your people.

Prime Minister Gilani is not doing a heck of a good job either while minding the store. His national address on television the other day claiming to call the shots in Swat appeared mawkish. Not only did it co-occur with Zardari’s visit to US but it seemed as if the script came from across the Atlantic, emailed perhaps by our ambassador to appease the Americans. Gilani like his boss has not cared to venture out to the IDP camps. His decorous prose out of his air conditioned fortress in Islamabad sounds hypocritical. Presently he seems seized with his flirtatious forays with the Sharif brothers. Maybe he fears the elder Sharif replacing him as the Americans would like, according to Mushahid Hussain of Q League.

Whatever, Gilani needs to fiercely jolt his cabinet of 100 spiritless and open up a daily log to assign each and every man and woman to reach out to the IDPs. Let these parasitical creatures blood sucking the economy awash with their opulent lifestyles and junkets abroad take their task seriously. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), sitting pretty in Prime Minister’s secretariat can rev up matters by being the great facilitator. Its mandate covers the “coordination and management of the whole spectrum of disaster risk management, providing technical guidance to national and provincial stakeholders about formulation of plans, strategies and programmes.”

Question: has the PM or his cabinet bothered to come down from their high horse and ask for an in depth briefing? The only thing posted on the 0NDMA’s web site is an April 23 ’suited booted’ pretty picture of the PM and Gen (r ) Farooq Ahmad Khan, the authority chairman. Both the gents cut a dashingly dapper figure. The write-up, typically ‘babuish’ is old hat. I called up a high-up at NDMA asking if he would answer some of my questions. “You need to come down to see us,” said the good man. I just need a quick response to the current disaster and how it’s being handled, not the archival data. He still was not convinced. “You need to be familiar with our structure and its background before writing,” he said. I gave up, not wanting to argue that I was not planning on writing a PR piece on the wonderful work these gentlemen were doing. I’m sure they are all wondrous folks up at the PM secretariat, but I needed to know what they have done so far on the ground regarding the 10-day old IDPs.

The international donors based in Pakistan are a sharp bunch. They are swooping in with a lot of face time on TV channels abroad. Just over a month ago, I met a young man recently landed from abroad, to work for the Red Cross here. He didn’t know a thing about this country. Recently I watched him on BBC holding forth about the current IDPs crisis, I was stunned. The young man knew his facts and figures like the back of his hand. What he talked was real stuff, not fluff, contrary to Pakistani officialdom. “The numbers are soaring at an alarming rate. By late afternoon 102,000 displaced people had registered for assistance, up from 45,000 a day earlier,” said Killian Kleinschmidt, a senior UNHCR official in Islamabad. And this is just one day’s counting. Imagine what the groundswell is as we speak. The agency needs $180 million and the good news is that the UN is willing to pour in the money.

Ultimately, the bureaucracy holds the key to the IDPs fate. The chief secretary NWFP has made the right noises; the rest of his tribe – from the lowest to the highest seems invisible. Where are these angels of mercy? Should one assume that all of them are God’s soldiers, with their hearts beating in unison for the millions of miserable men, women and children who are rotting in the camps under a burning sun? All that these unfortunate souls ask for are fans and clean drinking water. Is that too tall an order? The much-awaited $1.9 billion will soon be on its way from the US. Provided there’s no pilferage, the policy makers should have readied their action plan and hit the ground running. Have they? There’s still time for them to do their homework if they want the US Congress to continue to dole out the tranche every three months.

Warns an e-mailer, “I wander how many of your fellow columnists, gave a thought to these issue when advocating the current round of the elimination of the Taliban? The new IDPs left at the mercy of our corrupt officials/politicians will join the rest of the squalid and God-forsaken former IDPs, some of them turning to militancy.” The media indeed is accountable. “Opinions, however insightful or provocative… are cheap. Reporting the news can be expensive.” Writes Frank Rich of New York Times “We can’t have serious opinions about America’s role in combating the Taliban in Pakistan unless brave and knowledgeable correspondents (with security to protect them) tell us in real time what is actually going on there.”

To be more intrusive, the press needs to physically enter the IDP story as it unfolds. Columnists like me are merely opinion slinging. Reporters bring the news at our doorsteps.

“The drones don’t fly out of Pakistan,” grandly declares President Asif Zardari. It makes headline news. On the same day our army chief expresses similar sentiments. Earlier Prime Minister Gilani and Nawaz Sharif make brave declarations against the drones. Are Pakistanis meant to jump up with joy when our leaders – civilian and military make such statements? Listen, the drones are a red herring. Don’t get embroiled in them. It’s mere public posturing. We have mixed up our priorities. Outsiders think this country is in its death throes. Pakistan is lurching towards chaos. Our rulers are numbed into inaction. Meanwhile the Don Quixotes of our media are tilting at windmills, riding with their lances to kill the giant who is their perceived enemy. Little do they know that this giant whose other name is the United States of America has our rulers’ license to kill. Al Qaeda is their target. If the drones fail to eliminate these foreign thugs, America will hunt them down with boots on the ground.

Will then our armchair jihadis, mushrooming in our television sets, go out and fight the Americans man-to-man?

“More than 70 United States military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the country’s lawless tribal areas,” according to American military officials quoted in the New York Times. The paper claims that they are training Pakistani Army and paramilitary troops, “providing them with intelligence and advising on combat tactics.” This “secret task force” is being overseen by the “United States Central Command and Special Operations Command” according to the paper. The Times further goes on to claim citing an unnamed senior Pakistani military official that a “new Pakistani commando unit within the Frontier Corps paramilitary force has used information from the CIA and other sources to kill or capture as many as 60 militants in the past seven months, including at least five high-ranking commanders, a senior Pakistani military official said.”

So what’s the brouhaha about?

Holbrooke, 67 is the brouhaha. “Admiral Mullen, cerebral and soft-spoken, often seemed more the diplomat, and Mr. Holbrooke, brash and overbearing, the one with four stars,” is how the New York Times describes the duo’s engagement in the region recently. It’s being said Holbrooke is badly shaken hearing the people in this region support the Taliban. He’s flummoxed.

Who can deny that the militants have infiltrated all across Pakistan. They are threatening Islamabad. But our blinkered media continues to drone on about drone attacks not questioning their rulers why they speak with forked tongues. Why are they not taking the citizenry into confidence? Vigilantism is our only survival. The initiated must move beyond the drones and fight to save Pakistan. A nuclear country of 170 million does not “disintegrate” or does it? We’re being reminded that we are on artificial respiration and the plug can be pulled out any minute. The Americans and the British have their finger on the hot button. It will be a three-way war, between the US, Taliban and our military guarding our nuclear assets. “The Americans will take out the nuclear arsenal, throw us to the Taliban and calmly walk away,” is the common perception among people whose hearts and heads are in the right place.

Red lines, cyber trenches, surveillance satellites, predator reapers, boots on ground, arm-twisting, carrot and stick stories, backchannel negotiations and media leaks dominate our days and nights. Global recession has taken a back seat. Individual bankruptcies are passé. Who cares if families have lost their savings and homes? Who cares if the world is throwing up starving people by the second? Instead all eyes are on Pakistan. The word “disintegration” is pandered across the Atlantic. Pakistan has become the “sick man of the world” just as the Ottoman Empire had become the “sick man of Europe” in the 19th century because it had fallen into a state of decrepitude. Eventually it collapsed.

Will Pakistan also collapse?

When the American administration plans action against a country, it first tests the waters in its own media. “The year 2009 is the year of delivery by Pakistan. If that doesn’t happen, the Americans have their own plan of action,” Shaheen Sehbai reports from Washington. The countdown has begun. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmud Qureshi can holler down Holbrooke at the press conference or Geneal Kayani can be best friends with his counterpart Admiral Mike Mullen, but Godzilla is getting ready to trample all over our sovereignty.

Today, the Taliban and the Americans appear in charge of Pakistan’s future. Not the bulky finance adviser Shaukat Tareen who should be exercised, as the Americans call it, about the impending budget. Should he not be sweating over his figures unless he plans to duck the budget speech next month? Or like Zardari, does he await the largesse promised by the Friends of Pakistan later this month in Tokyo. Those ‘friendly’ billions will put food on our tables, so to say. And if they don’t come in time, will the poor eat grass? Or will Zardari government sign on the dotted line as ordered by America to get that promised $1.5 billion?

War rooms have been erected across Pakistan and the world. We are in the eye of the storm. Life plays out moment to moment. The media has the best war rooms. In Pakistan their guns are aimed at America. And in America, the US media’s guns are aimed at Pakistan Army and its ISI. In Britain, Pakistani youth of Pushtun origin are being watched. They are accused of being Taliban supporters. A popular TV host of a late night show in Islamabad insists that we go to war against America. It’s the Americans we should fight, not the Taliban, he insists. Many of his callers agree with the jihadis. General (r) Hamid Gul cites the RAW, MI 5, Mossad and CIA working in tandem to destroy Pakistan. He continues to push his plan of forming a lashkar and attack India (the source of all our ills including insurgency in Balochistan). Baitullah Mehsud has offered to command the lashkar.

“It’s looking increasingly difficult to save ourselves from the mess we have created,” writes a Pakistani from abroad. “The Israelis are professionals at what they do. I remember how we Muslims used to defend the suicide bombings in Israel and now we are getting the taste of the same medicine. How times have changed! We need to reflect on our society and the hatred that we breed for each other in the name of God.”

Gen Petraeus, commander for Iraq and Afghanistan, has told a Senate panel recently that militants in Pakistan “could literally take down their state” if left unchallenged. “How does this end?” asks a weary senator. Michele Flournoy, the under-secretary of defence for policy, replies: “a key point of defining success is when both the Afghans and the Pakistanis have both the capability and the will to deal with the remaining threat themselves.” Gen Petraeus “echoes” Ms Flournoy. “The task will be for them to shoulder the responsibilities of their own security.”

The latest impression leaking out from Washington DC is that neither President Zardari nor General Kayani are willing to embrace serious counterinsurgency measures being forwarded by the Americans. The army chief meanwhile is in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates holding important meetings.

Will our General bring back a blank cheque from the Saudis and the wealthy Gulf States or will he bring back a tacit agreement from them that US drone attacks must only target the Taliban/Al-Qaeda insurgents? If we get real lucky, the army chief may bring back borrowed drones to shake off America. Let us kill the militants ourselves.

Email: aniaz@fas.harvard.edu

Pakistan needs big ideas like Einstein’s to fight terror; not a kindergarten of little Einsteins who whizz around the presidency, the PM House and parliament pretending to stall the march of the Taliban.

Last week, the 170 million Pakistanis were handed down their death sentence. We were told that twice a week we would be in the line of fire by the Tehrik-e-Taliban. This was our punishment, said Hakimullah Mehsud, for the drone attacks conducted by the Americans. Pat came the presidential response: “I will not let the Taliban win,” vowed Zardari who prefers first-person pronoun. In these murderous times the singular ‘I, me and myself’ hardly comfort. His predecessor was equally lackadaisical. The cigar-toting Musharraf secured his own space so that no suicide bomber could get to him. He lived and enjoyed life. For the rest of his citizens – well they could go take a hike.

Even Benazir Bhutto was left unprotected and allowed to die.

Prime Minister Gilani in his latest designer suit with matching tie and hanky assembled his Spartan warriors. Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar (the man who said that drones land here but don’t take off from Pakistan); Information Minister Kaira; Interior Adviser Rehman Malik, the four chief ministers, chief secretaries, police chiefs and FIA and IB heads: together they ‘brainstormed’ on how to lick terrorism. A light bulb came on! The geniuses in the parliamentary committee on national security were tasked with terror fight. The Mian, Maulana, Sardar, Professor and Khattak are commissioned to bring forth an encyclopaedia on terrorism covering all its aspects – from A to Z. These men are our last defence against the Taliban. And the most important decision of all is that they will meet ‘every month’. Wow! Gilani and his little Einsteins then retired for a hearty meal, I guess.

The president meanwhile waited anxiously at the presidency on the outcome of this momentous moot. The prime minister gallantly charged off to tell his boss the great plan.

Wait… more is on its way. We are told that Rehman Malik ‘informed’ PM Gilani about forming a ’special anti-terrorism force’ because the police are ‘ineffective’. This bit of good news should make citizens sleep easy at night and walk the roads like lions in the day. Twenty thousand strong will be around to protect us when a suicide bomber strikes. That evening the TV titans – the same pinheads you hear nightly – debated vacuously on the efficacy of the force. A retired general in charge of interior during the caretaker government is in hot demand by the channels. He holds forth as if he’s addressing a corner meeting at Mochi Gate, Lahore. But he talks sense often.

Did you notice the body language of Holbrooke and Mullen at the press conference? They were the archetypical ugly American wanting to ramrod their plan. Pakistan said no. Drones once again took centre stage. Why can’t the US look for alternative routes to eliminate the ‘foreigners’ in FATA without killing innocent women and children? Can we move beyond the ‘drone’ dragnet that’s stifling solutions to save us from the Taliban?

Otherwise, let’s drone on!

What we need is a war room at the PM House, open 24/7 to the anti-terrorist experts manning it. I know most of you will scream out if I dare suggest that we follow the formula Israel has adopted to stop suicide bombings. Yes, they have the latest weaponry and the most sophisticated intelligence systems, but they have trained their people to fight terrorism like professionals. We can train our special force that Rehman Malik promises to raise with 21st century warfare. America will be happy to host the training and provide us the wherewithal. It doesn’t hurt to ask. Will it compromise our sovereignty? No way!

Meanwhile, the seating plan at the presidency needs a makeover. It doesn’t look proper for the president of a starving nation to be on the throne like Emperor Haile Selassie holding audience with guests crammed on leather loveseats on either side. Flanking the president are two portraits of his wife along with giant flags of Pakistan and the presidential emblem. All know he’s the president; he doesn’t have to remind himself.

Enough! Bring Baitullah Mehsood to justice. If you can’t, ask America to do it. And silence! All you handwringing hypocrites accusing Pakistan of killing its own people. Shame on you for being two-faced. These tribal thugs are destroying us and you say we should let them?

Our military and the civilian spy agencies in tandem with their counter-terrorism outfit can drive a giant crater in the Taliban and Al-Qaeda ranks. The Lahore operation is a shining example of how success can be had if everyone comes together. Why then is there disharmony between the civilian government and the army to meld our spy agencies under a single entity? Are they suspicious of each other? Is there a power struggle? Or is there something else that we don’t know? Whatever the reasons, the Americans are fast losing patience with our infantile tactics. Until last week, the ISI or Inter-Services Intelligence agency was the elephant in the drawing room that every patriotic Pakistani assiduously avoided discussing. Finally, one powerhouse after another in the Obama administration blew the lid off the Masonic-like institution in a widely orchestrated attack alleging that ISI had links with the militants.

This is slander. So why just shuck it off? There’s no smoke without fire. So let’s look for that fire if flagged up by some rogue elements in the ISI. But while an in-house investigation is in process, silence please!

The foolish Rip Van Winkles of our power elites and naysayers must wake up and fall in sync with what the west is saying. We have it from the lady’s mouth that her government has scrapped the term “war on terror” from its lexicon. “The (Obama) administration has stopped using the phrase and I think that speaks for itself,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on her way to Hague for a conference on Afghanistan recently. It’s now in public domain that Ambassadors Hussain Haqqani and Richard Holbrooke conferred with President Zardari in Dubai last week to talk on “war on terror” oops, I mean “war on Al Qaeda.” Today both our president and the army chief are in Turkey for a trilateral summit. They may meet Americans on the side, who knows? The US has stepped up to the plate and taken charge of our economy (remember $1.5 billion a year for the next 5 years?) and security.

Did America ever tell us to reform our battle-fatigued interior ministry, making it like their Department of Homeland Security? Their tutorial on how to entomb a brain trust spawning the finest and the best counter-terrorism and intelligence minds that Pakistan can find may work. We need every single man, woman and agency working against terrorism to come under one command. But we’re on a slippery wicket here when we say “every.” Rehman Malik tried unsuccessfully to get the ISI, the premier spy agency of the army, under his belt. He even faxed out a notification ordering ISI to report to him while flying to the US with PM Gilani last July. The takeover lasted a couple of hours before Malik was made to retract his order.

Pakistan Army was not amused.

But the Americans, who after 9/11 have learnt a bitter lesson on super-egos, must now want the Pakistan’s army, its paramilitary, and civilian elite forces to morph into a monolith that can rid the world of terrorists. What Islamabad needs is a hybrid between a Department of Homeland Security and a National Security Agency. A task force of experts from every profession and field must be set up. Let chastisers like Imran Khan and Qazi Hussain Ahmad or his successor advise us how to handle the murderers who have sprouted all over.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has scored her first international hat-trick. She delivered googlies that sent the three back to the pavilion. The lady walked off with the ‘man of the match’ award from President Obama. The three batting were President Asif Ali Zardari; Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Mian Nawaz Sharif. Zardari was clean bowled; Gilani was caught behind the wicket; and Sharif was run out. The ball used in the match was no ordinary made-in-Sialkot glob. It was a multi-million-dollar musket ball made-in-USA. Her words, not exact, were: “Now you listen to me Mr President” hectored Hillary “either you yield to Mr Sharif’s demands or we cancel your next aid instalment.” The threat worked. Next to be bowled out was our prime minister. “Mr Prime Minister, get before the TV camera pronto and make the announcement or else…” Gilani straightaway went to work on the speech dictated from DC. With three dry runs on the teleprompter – cut, paste and edit – several hours later when the muezzin had already called the faithful for morning prayers and daylight had arrived, the PM made his ‘historic’ speech stumblingly to millions of bleary eyed Pakistanis. Last but not the least was the phone call to Nawaz Sharif. “Mr Sharif, call off the long march” said madam secretary. “President Zardari has accepted all your demands.”

Are women better negotiators? Where Ambassador Holbrooke and COAS General Kayani failed to rope in Zardari, Hillary Clinton succeeded. She played her trump card last. Nawaz Sharif’s breaking through the police pickets to come out and lead the march in Lahore bound for Islamabad was a defining moment. He could have been killed. One heard of sharpshooters sent to Punjab to bump him off. Amidst a sea of thousands, Nawaz Sharif would have gone the way of Benazir Bhutto and embraced martyrdom. His heroic defiance in the face of death drew the fury of Lahore out on the streets. Hillary Clinton too must have held her breath as did millions glued to their TV sets. It was then that she decided to pick up the phone and threaten the president with halting all American aid if he did not restore Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

Only one problem: shouldn’t our rulers now ban the word ’sovereignty?’ Not only will we be spared its mispronunciation by many; we’ll stop pretending we are sovereign. Our masters won’t have to make nutty excuses about drone attacks anymore.

More urgently, we need to purge the judiciary of jiyala judges, some of them reprehensible creatures while others not worth calling ‘My Lords.’ They are sinister and must go. Only then can the lower courts be rescued from blood-sucking judges. And let’s please bury the ‘Naek Formula’ forever! Justice (r) Wajhiuddin rightly calls it a “bundle of stupidity.” Attorney General Sardar Latif Khosa must now work for Pakistan; not the president and the PPP. Naek and Khosa must never be allowed to finger the self-destruct button ever again. Had the fear of Hillary Clinton not entered the spheres of influence, there would have been martial law. Some heads have to be lopped off. Senator sober Raza Rabbani would make a competent law minister. Also Senator Babar Awan needs a reality check. “I don’t want to live in the past,” he continued insisting when asked about the fate of the PCO and jiyala judges. “You’re making an unfortunate statement,” he chortled at his interviewer. “Tell me the names of these judges whom you accuse of having party (PPP) affiliations?” This kind of chalaki is passé Senator! Your boss tried it and it didn’t work. “Mr Zardari seems to have this time outsmarted himself!” said one foreign newspaper.

Mr Zardari and his ’savants’ claim all the credit for restoring the pre-November 2, 2007, judiciary. Notice their faces on TV. They belie the truth. The people of Pakistan have wizened and matured in a matter of one year. But the PPP bunch are men and women of yesterday from whom the masses have already wrested the promise Zardari never intended to fulfil. Remember, it was the people’s groundswell on that Sunday afternoon that got Hillary to make the final three phone calls.

Next time, Hillary may not call. She may just let the army take over.

If only President Zardari had not walked into the dangerous trap set up by his aides, Sherry Rehman and Raza Rabbani would still be in the cabinet. We lost the best and brightest to intrigue, envy and machination. The stage of fools needs to be packed up; while the crocodiles and snakes in the grass breeding all over the country need to be killed. These ’strategists’ have damaged the president and Pakistan. Get a new brain trust, Mr President! Break out of the bubble of self-hood and absolute power. The people’s backlash in future will be extreme.

All these years Asif Ali Zardari was openhanded with the media despite being portrayed negatively. As the First Gentleman he got billed as ‘Mr Ten Percent.’ He didn’t turn ballistic nor did he threaten vendetta. Instead, he would flash a menacing smile, make a wisecrack to properly trash the person daring to accuse him of corruption and then airily move away with his rah-rah crowd in tow. I speak from first-hand experience. He didn’t nurse a grudge towards a journalist nor did he get anyone beaten up black and blue as happened in the time of Nawaz Sharif. His wife, the prime minister, may have treated the Pakistani press with arrogance, but never with malice. When Zardari became the president, the press was on his side. It even looked the other way when he appointed corrupt and discredited men to positions of power. It avoided reporting instances of blatant nepotism, favouritism and cronyism. The criticism by the columnists was cravenly muted. Those who stuck out their necks were gently reminded to go easy on the man and give him a chance to succeed.

Last week, as mass rebellion rose and the press reported it, the president hit the roof. The pygmies in the presidency proffered wrong advice. “Control the media” they cried. “The terrible two (print and electronic) need to be taught a lesson” they advised. Whiffs floating out of the corridors of power were not Sherry-friendly. The claque of ladies known for presidential henpecking – from Speaker Fehmida Mirza down to MNA Farahnaz Ispahani, Fauzia Wahab and Farzana Raja (the 4 Fs) wanted Sherry gone. Earlier tales against her were roundly planted in the presidential eardrum. But Zardari had a special relationship with his information minister. This relationship finally ruptured when he had Geo TV knocked off the air. Sherry walked away in a huff. “Sack the PEMRA chief,” Zardari had ordered, blaming Mushtaq Malik for giving a freehand to the TV channels. Malik is an exemplary bureaucrat who is a professional to his toenails. He keeps away from politics. Sherry rose to his defence. “Dr Qayyum Soomro, Zardari’s chief adviser, and a grade-17 doctor who attended on Zardari when he was in Central Jail, Karachi, along with Qamaruzaman Kaira pumped up the president that PEMRA should be put under interior adviser Rehman Malik.

Again Sherry resisted.

Kaira’s role in upstaging Sherry is obvious. With Sherry gone, the new information minister and his cohorts have drawn up a grotesque action plan to tame the ‘terrible two.’ Their role model, if you please, is Sheikh Rashid! That empty vessel who enters our TV sets each night. Rashid picks apart Zardari, Nawaz Sharif and Chaudhry Shujaat in one sentence. As Musharraf’s information minister and later his railway minister, Sheikh Rashid is seen by the Zardari circle as the macho man who could control the media by just flexing his muscles. Even before Sherry Rehman quit, the common view being pushed by the wonks at the presidency was that their chief should appoint a man in place of Sherry who would be more ‘adept’ at dealing with the media. The reasoning was that the present rulers think that the men in the media are purchasable perverts whose support is easy to buy with money and bootlegged vices in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It’s an affront to the media. Have we really plummeted to such depths of depravity? I am not claiming that all our brothers in the media are angels. There are a few geckos in the trade. They change loyalties and like to be buddies with whoever is in power. For example, some well-known columnists (men and women) were close to Nawaz Sharif when he was the prime minister. They went on foreign junkets with him. When General Musharraf took over, the same lot transferred their dedication to the dictator and Q League and went on junkets as before. Now they are trying to climb atop Zardari’s gravy train.

Since Sherry herself was a journalist of repute for 20 years, she tried separating the incendiary and the ugly from the good ones in the press corps when she became the information minister last year. She was polite to everyone but unlike her successor Kaira had no plan to entice the whole media into enslavement. She knew the worth of an independent journalist and respected it. For this, she deserves our highest appreciation.

Sherry Rehman is still a big ticket item in Islamabad. I have it from reliable sources that she got offered the foreign affairs portfolio, ah, oh, even the defence… She can have anything, offered Prime Minister Gilani. Had she said ‘yes’ to his various proposals, we would have had one more resignation or even two – from Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Ahmad Mukhtar. An insider confirmed to me that even the American ambassador, Anne W Patterson, called Sherry to persuade her to continue and not resign. Earlier the presidential factotum Farhatullah Babar phoned Sherry up and chastised her for leaving the ship at a time when it was floundering. The white-haired gentleman was merely doing what his boss had asked him to say: Lady, don’t go! Babar is the solo spin doctor left to defend the president. It is an unenviable job that must weigh heavy on his conscience for Babar is an honourable man. But his over-heated rhetoric and strong denials sound hollow.

We in the media will miss Sherry Rehman. Her eloquent Urdu, her designer wardrobe with matching jewels, produced an eclectic mix on the mini-screen. With a hairstylist and makeup artist to do her up daily, Sherry radiated confidence and maturity of thought that was an asset to the PPP government. She naturally invited envy, scorn and intrigue among the PPP women pretending to be close to the late Benazir Bhutto. Actually the only two people always invited to stay with Benazir Bhutto in Dubai were Bashir Riaz (Bash), who was her “eyes and ears” and Sherry Rehman. Bash has always stood by Sherry. He fears that Zardari is surrounded by phonies who are out to hurt the president and the PPP. “You are the only target,” Bash sent an urgent message to Zardari recently. Even Muzzafar aka Tuppi who is the president’s adopted brother and handles his affairs in Dubai was working the phones to save his brother from wrong advice.

Independent analysts speak of cyclical corruption by the ruling party and its coalition. “Looting is going through the roof because the government’s days are numbered.” Huge tranches of money are reportedly being whisked out of the country. The prime minister and the president are living in parallel universes. The former is glamourized by the glitz of the mini-screen personalities who turn up to interview him while the latter is a prisoner at the presidency and occupies himself with playing mind games that he himself invents.

Senator Waqar who goes around threatening newspapers for ‘defaming’ him was Zardari’s choice as the new information minister. “But Gilani turned it down,” say insiders. In the coming days, truth will spill out slowly but surely from the corridors of power to stun the people about the games being played inside the presidential palace. President Zardari must in future judge people honestly, openly, and on the basis of their performance.

Pakistan deserves no less. But first, let’s celebrate the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Welcome back, My Lord.