Since the last few days, the great Mr.Musharraf suddenly seems to say and do things that I never expected of him-- first it was the firm rebuttal of the great Bush's admission that he was prepared to send troops into pakistan to find the terrorists, then he had something to reveal for CBS 60 minutes (RIP, Dan Rather!) that the then deputy secy. of state Richard Armitage said something about bombing Pakistan back to stone age and finally, the deferral of the F-16 deal by Pakistan.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you wish, but I do smell something. I think that Musharraf is onto something here. By reacting angrily to Bush's remark (rather harmless if you consider that it amounts only to violating the sovereignty of a country whose president fawns on the US) and defering the F-16 deal, a strong message is sent to the world and the Pakistanis (well, especially the latter) that they are not slaves of the US and they have an independent existence and their leaders will not allow that to change at any cost. Also, Musharraf is playing the victim to perfection when he talks about Armitage and Bombing Pakistan to stone-age-- Look! Here is a leader who is prepared to accept the insulting proposition of helping the west in the fight against the fellow muslim in order to save his country. He is a true leader! May God bless him!
And he will lap up all the sympathy he can get from the gullible public.
Why?
Because two assassination attempts have already been made on him, and the Islamic hardliners are gaining good ground in Pak. More importantly, he is losing control over the Islamists. Not that he cares a lot about the countries affected by them, but they no longer listen to him. So.... he needs to crack-down on them-- neither to make an honest attempt at securing world-peace, not to please the US by doing his part in the fight against Terror-- he just wants to consolidate his position in his country. Having the common man's support in such a mission is of utmost importance. Playing victim of circumstances dissuades the common man from letting himself carried away by the imflamatory speeches of the extremist clerics! And makes him follow his leader, and president with more faith. And the US is ok with it-- of course they will be happy if their 'stand-up guy' gets stronger in his own country! They want him to be so!
God knows where he is leading Pakistan to... but I sincerely hope what Barkha Dutt says is true!
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2 comments:
Obviously Musharraf is neither Gabbar Singh nor Mogambo, he is the clever architect of Kargil Conflict. Forget the fact that we managed to root them out, but in the process we suffered severe casualities.
More often than not, Musharraf has been playing the "Ignorance is bliss" card. No wonder the so called covered truths came out. And I think he has been ignorant of the Indian nuclear purview. I was amazed at one of the allegation of Indian nuclear reactors being modelled after the Pak centrifuge.
Maybe his fav song is " I m a liar, I am a victim of desire" by Bryan Adams
The ignorance is bliss is more on the lines of "your ignorance is my bliss" or "neighbour's ignorance, owner's bliss"
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