QaiserMirza
Chief Minister (5k+ posts)
More Loyal Than The King
The idiom More loyal than the king means someone who unnecessarily behaves more concerned about matters that concern someone else and ought not to have been of such concern to him. Generally it is spoken about sycophants or those subservient to the concerned, for their undue zeal and interest in matters owed directly to someone else.
An example of the above is todays editorial in Daily Times, titled An Unfriendly Act by the Daily Times Op-Ed Editor Mehmal Sarfaraz, about CIAs Pakistan station chief Jonathan Banks who had to flee the country after a case was filed against him by a resident of North Waziristan. The resident, Kareem Khan, was said to have filed the case against the CIA and Mr. Banks for their role in organising drone strikes that killed his son and brother.
This was followed by allegations from sections of the US Media that it was Pakistans ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) that had leaked the name of the CIA station chief, in apparent retaliation for a civil lawsuit filed in Brooklyn last month implicating the ISI chief Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha in the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008.
We absolutely deny this accusation, which is totally unsubstantiated and based on nothing but conjecture, a senior ISI official said in a background briefing at the headquarters of the spy organization in Islamabad. If this is a concern that the CIA has, it should come through official channels rather than leaks to the media, he added.
Now lets look at what the Op-Ed Editor of the Daily Times, which considers itself a leading English language daily has to say about these developments:
Pakistan is in the midst of yet another controversy. Jonathan Banks, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief in Pakistan, had to flee the country last week after reportedly receiving serious threats to his life. An application against the CIA chief was submitted by a resident of North Waziristan, Karim Khan, to the Secretariat Police Station in Islamabad whereby Mr Khan has alleged that his son and brother were killed in a drone strike and since Mr Banks oversees the drone attacks, he should be held responsible for their deaths. It is now being reported that because of the polices hesitation to take action against Mr Banks, he was able to leave the country.
So far so good. She seems genuinely concerned about the safety and wellbeing of the station chief of the worlds leading and intelligence and covert operations agencies. She reports that Mr Banks received serious threats to his life after Karim Khans alleged that his son and brother were killed in a drone strike.
The allegation from Karim Khan is in two parts one being that his family members were killed by a drone strike, which is verifiable. The other being that the CIA station chief in Pakistan oversees the drone programme which he does. Therefore Mr Karim Khans allegation is based on undeniable facts. Good for him. But lets not have that get in the way of some ISI-bashing shall we? Mehmal continues:
What remains a mystery though is who could have leaked the name of the CIA chief to the drone victims family. According to the New York Times, The American officials said they strongly suspected that operatives of Pakistans powerful spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI], had a hand in revealing the CIA officers identity possibly in retaliation for a civil lawsuit filed in Brooklyn last month implicating the ISI chief [Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha] in the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008.
Mr Banks was reportedly here on a business visa, meaning thereby that he was operating undercover. To find out his identity is no mean task and could not have been done without the help of our intelligence agencies, who are the only ones to have access to such sensitive information.
Mehmal quotes the New York Times in pointing the finger at the ISI and swallows the NYT report hook line and sinker. She even goes as far as agreeing that it must have been the ISI since they are the only ones who had access to such sensitive information.
Is this information really that sensitive? Philip Geraldi, who is a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the CIA, disagrees.
I would rather suggest that the Station Chiefs name was widely known and the leak could have come from just about anywhere and for any reason. A Chief of Station is declared to the local government so he can share information openly, which means that his identity and affiliation are not secret. There were probably hundreds of Pakistani officials who knew who he was and probably also a large number of journalists. Also, the CIA station in the Embassy compound is reportedly located in an isolated and secure group of buildings, making it easy to identify those people going in and out. There are hundreds of locals who work in the US Embassy and many of them regularly report to their own government on the activity there. Some might also be reporting to journalists and even to the Taliban. The identity of the Chief of Station might easily be deduced by any of the local employees within the Embassy based on Embassy records, behavior, and other factors. So the theory that it had to be ISI has to be just speculation unless there is some documentary or other evidence, such as a phone intercept or something similar. says Philip Geraldi in his article titled Friends Needed in Islamabad (Link)
Ofcourse there are no phone intercepts or anything similar that implicates the ISI. But that wont stop Mehmal:
Blowing the cover of the CIA chief and his subsequent departure from Pakistan is not a small matter. The Americans will not take it kindly and this would be seen as an unfriendly act by the USs frontline ally in the war against terror if the ISI did out Mr Banks name.
The US is not very happy with Pakistans double game vis--vis the Taliban in the first place; outing the CIA chief under such circumstances is akin to provocation of a serious nature. There is already immense pressure on Pakistan to launch a military offensive in North Waziristan to take out the Taliban safe havens. Drone attacks have also increased in recent months and the message from the US is loud and clear: if you are not willing to take action against the Taliban, we will.
Mehmal happens to be part of the minority but quite vocal liberal extremist crowd that holds Pakistans English language print media hostage; always apologetic to their imperial masters and trying to stand out from the crowd by going overboard in pleasing Uncle Sam by writing that what she thinks those in the west would like to hear. And ISI-bashing is always a winner.
The US is not very happy with us, she warns us. Dearest Mehmal, Pakistans intelligence agencies and its armed forces exist to defend the countrys borders and its geopolitical interests, NOT to keep Uncle Sam happy, which has its own interests in the region, often conflicting with ours. Pakistan has every right to secure its own interests first in Afghanistan something that is translated in the American press frustrated with the perpetual bad news coming out of Afghanistan, as playing a double-game.
If outing the CIA chief (assuming the ISI did do it) is such a big provocation in her view, where was her outrage when Lieutenant-General Shuja Pasha was named in the Mumbai Attacks lawsuit? Where is her outrage at the civilian deaths from drone strikes authorised by her very own Jonathan Banks? Where was her outrage when US choppers crossed into Pakistan airspace and engaged and killed our soldiers?
Expressing outrage when Pakistan and Pakistanis are under attack by Uncle Sam or even India for that matter, is something that eludes this crowd. They dedicated column inches, blogs and tweets asking Pakistani authorities to take action against Hafiz Saeed, whom India accuses of masterminding the Mumbai attacks despite no evidence to prove the Indian claims, yet they ignore the deaths of Pakistani citizens on Indian soil in the Samjhota Express bombing in which Hindu Extremists in collusion with serving Indian Army officers have been implicated. And she has more warnings for us towards the end of her piece:
After the CIA chief debacle, the US might be forced to take some even more drastic action. Given our military establishments track record, the possibility of the ISIs role in this incident cannot be overlooked. If this is true, did the ISI not realise the implications of angering the Americans to an extent that could lead to a stand-off between the superpower and Pakistan? If the ISI is indeed responsible for blowing Mr Banks cover, we could be in for a lot of trouble in coming days.
Dear Mehmal. The US, a superpower in decline and on its knees in Afghanistan, will not and cannot take any drastic action that Pakistan cannot deal with, despite being in bad shape. Every drop of water that the US and NATO soldiers drink and every pancake they have for breakfast passes through Pakistani ports and territory with the blessing of Pakistans Army. The two weeks that Pakistan closed part of its border for US and NATO supplies had sent shockwaves from Washington to Langley and had senior US officials begging and pleading.
The Americans have been made aware in recent months that there cannot be a solution to the Afghan mess unless Pakistans legitimate regional security and geo-political concerns with regards to Indias presence in Afghanistan are addressed. They have also been made aware that whether it is hunting down the elusive Taliban leadership or wanting to negotiate a safe exit with the Taliban, the Americans cannot do it alone.
Pakistan holds the key to the resolution of the Afghan conflict, and you can thank the ISI for that.
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