We know, Mr Boucher sir, we know

We know, Mr Boucher sir, we know

By Kamran Shafi

YES, we know; we know exactly what our problems are, thank you very much indeed sir.

We know we have an acute electricity shortage in the country, and who better than those of us who live in the area of Wah (no, not the cantonment which has virtually NO load-shedding at all) and Hasan Abdal where we have load-shedding every hour on the hour? (I am told there are areas in the country that have 18 to 20 hours of it but how should that concern you?)

Note, Mr Boucher sir, that when we do have electricity we have all 150 volts of it, instead of the 220-240 volts that we should have. This too fluctuates violently, up and down, up and down, veering from 120 to 180 and sometimes surging to 270. So don’t tell us we have an electricity shortage problem.

Don’t tell us either, that we have a wheat shortage that has sent its price sky-rocketing. Boy, don’t we know? We know too that because the wheat is smuggled out of the country — to Afghanistan primarily — it is sometimes simply not available to the poor in our village.

And, Mr Boucher sir, we know too that we have a huge problem of terrorism stalking our country. Like the instant bombing in Islamabad that killed upwards of twenty (and growing) poor policemen on duty, to give security to a memorial public meeting at the Lal Masjid to remember the kids who were killed there last year only because your favoured government led so ably by your favourite Commando allowed the matter to fester for so long — six years to be exact.

And then, of course did entirely the wrong thing by making an all-out assault when a siege that allowed everything and everybody out and let nothing in, would have sufficed. This was not a first either, Mr Boucher… give army governments in Pakistan two ways of doing something — one good and the other most ham-handed and they will always choose the latter.

So don’t you lecture us please, sir, on what our problems are. Also, will you kindly desist from telling us to go easy on Musharraf because we have “OTHER” problems to deal with too, and leave to us Pakistanis to decide which of our problems are to be sorted out first?

I mean, if you can dismiss the restoration of the judiciary that was sacked by your ‘tight buddy’ on Nov 3 through an order issued by himself, wearing the hat of the chief of army staff, as a matter “for the Pakistanis to decide”, why can you not leave the matter of your buddy’s sacking to “Pakistanis” too? Why does Musharraf’s future incense you so much that you throw caution to the winds and so brazenly lecture our political leaders to, say, “go easy” on the man? Do you really think you are making more friends in this country by your loud behaviour?

Let me ask you a question, Mr Boucher, sir. How would you like it if Admiral Mike Mullen, disagrees as he does with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on whether to hit Pakistan in an attempt to get Osama bin Laden, were to suddenly get it into his head to kick Dubya and his government, including (sadly) yourself, out of office?

You have some gall to lecture us on how to deal with Musharraf when you should jolly well know that he is the main architect of the travails we face today. By the by, are you up to the blame game going on between him and your other surrogate, the smarmy Shaukat Aziz with the smarmy smile? How much do you really know, Mr Boucher; how much do your representatives in Islamabad the Beautiful tell you? Are you up to speed on the judges issue, sir? Has your mission told you that Shaukat Aziz’s law minister who was supposed to have formed the charge sheet that was the basis of the reference against My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry says he had nothing in the world to do with it?!

And that when Shaukat Aziz is asked, on television, he says ‘someone’ sent it to him so he assumed it was sent by the ministry of law! Do you know any of this, sir? Do you know the half of it, Mr Boucher? Do you understand that by entering the fray on the side of this or that party in a purely domestic matter you are making the great country of the United States of America no friends at all?

Should America, the great democracy that it is, not come down on the side of democrats and politicians and political parties rather than on the side of has-been army dictators and wannabe (again) army dictators, Mr Boucher? Think about it.

A little about the ongoing A.Q. Khan embarrassment. I have over the years written much about how the ‘pardon’, shown so stupidly on television with Musharraf looking stern, class monitor-like, and AQ Khan sitting hands folded looking bad-boy contrite, will simply not help. And that the issue will haunt us for decades because we did not take it head-on. By head-on I mean take it on as a nation, and not make a scapegoat of just one man. I mean can you even begin to believe the following paragraph taken from page 287 of Musharraf’s ludicrous ‘book’ In the Line of Fire: “We were once informed that a chartered aircraft going to North Korea for conventional missiles were (sic) also going to carry some ‘irregular’ cargo on his behalf. The source could not tell us exactly what the cargo was, but we were suspicious. We organised a discreet raid and searched the aircraft before its departure but unfortunately found nothing. Later, we were told that AQ’s people had been tipped off and the suspected cargo had not been loaded.”

I mean, really!! What was Musharraf then? A scout-master instead of the emperor himself, wearing three hats at the time: COAS; CJSC and Chief Executive? And what was AQ Khan? The President of the United States, that Musharraf “organised a discreet raid”, so the sole superpower would not find out?

Humayun Gauhar, STAND UP!

Bushism of the Week: “One of the things important about history is to remember the true history” — President George W Bush; Washington, D.C., June 6, 2008.

PS: It’s been 19 hours since the bombing in Islamabad and no one has hosed down the site. Somebody tripping up somewhere?

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk