Jams123
MPA (400+ posts)
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Treason or good reason? Lekin – on the other side
Sana Bucha
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[TD="class: small_txt"]Dr Shakeel Afridi. Ever heard of him? Let me rephrase: did you ever hear of him, pre May 2, 2011? That fateful night when Osama bin Laden was killed in a covert and controversial operation conducted by special US forces. If Bin Laden being found in Pakistan was the cake itself, convicting Dr Shakeel Afridi is the cherry on top. And our security establishment – pardon my analogy – are the worst bakers in town.
Consider, Osama bin Laden was living in Pakistan for years – unbeknownst to our powerful military – tucked away in a not-so humble abode, just a stone’s throw from a military academy in Abbottabad. It was this compound which remained hidden to the outer world, but within its boundaries Bin Laden’s wives continued to bear him children while he proceeded to plot and plan the destruction of the ‘infidels’. A courier and a certain SIM card that was used by him, and intercepted by Pakistani intelligence led to the great giveaway. Dr Shakeel Afridi came in much later.
If the Pakistani intelligence officials give away vital information to the Americans voluntarily, that wouldn’t be treason. That’s called being good allies. Being the arrogant superpower that the US is, it obviously did not reciprocate the same. It took the initial intelligence from Pakistan, mulled over it, used its own resources to gather on-ground information and just when the Osama radar hit red, they called in Dr Afridi to satiate their doubts. Or confirm.
Unfortunately, there’s no doctor available to help the ISI. One Abbottabad judicial commission, numerous sessions of parliament’s standing committee on defence and one in-camera briefing of the military before parliament later, our intelligence agencies still have no clue how Osama bin Laden ended up living in Pakistan uninterrupted and undiscovered. Forget Osama, we have no clue as to when Obama discovered that his ticket to standing even the slightest of chance for a second year in office was hiding in Abbottabad. What we do know, however, is that he sent his stealth helicopters and navy seals to capture him, all the while monitoring the hunt from his operation room in the White House.
Pakistan’s intelligence may not respond to stealth capability, but it reacts very strongly to scathing criticism. The Abbottabad raid made Pakistan look vulnerable (not to mention disloyal for housing the world’s most wanted man). So, it decided to muster some strength by sentencing Dr Afridi to 33 years in prison. How that explains the multi-pronged failure of the military, intelligence and the government, is seriously bizarre. Dr Afridi is merely the pawn in a medieval game being played by the Pakistani and the US forces. Let me remind you that Pakistan proudly admitted to giving the initial tip-off which actually led the US forces to Osama, not Shakeel Afridi. Just because we can’t answer difficult questions, it doesn’t mean we can make living men question marks in their own country. Apologies. Not that we can’t, but that we shouldn’t.
Till a few days ago, we knew Shakeel Afridi had abetted foreign forces and therefore committed treason. You traitor, you! If that wasn’t bad enough we now have documents to reveal that Dr Afridi is actually serving 33 years in prison, not for aiding the US intelligence, but for conniving with Mangal Bagh, leader of the banned Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI). Please! Are we running a delusion-inducing fever or suffering from short-term amnesia? Don’t we know of Mangal Bagh’s rocky relationship with the military establishment? Has the Fata tribunal suddenly had a change of heart? From treason, it’s gone down (or moved up) to supporting militants? Since when did it become illegal to financially support militants in Pakistan? If we are on some sort of militant detox diet, may I suggest a few names of militants gallivanting all over the country, helping bigger militants. Or would that be considered treason, too? Mangal Bagh is a bad guy and Osama bin Laden is the proverbial good-bad guy. Are you serious?
Obviously the Fata tribunal convicting the doc has been nudged. Is it because the government refused to take ownership of Afridi’s conviction? Good for the government to finally realise it has a backbone, and that always taking ownership of the mistakes committed by the security establishment is not the smartest thing to do. Perhaps the change of heart comes amid the disdain of some relevant figures within the US government who have openly condemned the conviction of a ‘hero,’ and called for a 33 million-dollar cut to Pakistan’s aid – one million dollars lost for a year that Afridi serves in prison.
Guess who is giving Pakistan a lesson on morality. A country marred by prisons like Guantanamo, horrendous treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Afghanistan, and no-holds-barred practice of water-boarding. Pakistan, however, has thrown the US a counterpunch. Turns out, the Pakistani doctor who assisted the CIA in tracking down Bin Laden, had close links to an Islamist militant commander. It will no longer be easy for the US to advocate Dr Afridi’s release, or argue his case. Take that, Uncle Sam!
Even better; maybe Pakistan has realised that convicting someone who helps track down the world’s most wanted terrorist, may just add to the embarrassment of actually housing them. What is even more unnerving is that there was no official denial from the government and the ISPR when the media was reporting of Shakeel Afridi being tried and convicted of treason. For days, the media was reporting Afridi’s treasonous conviction, the HRCP was issuing statements demanding a fair trial for him and many analysts were giving their opinion of what they considered treason. Why were they not stopped mid-sentence? Was PEMRA sleeping, or had it not been briefed beforehand? The Baloch separatists and the Lyari boys obviously take precedence over false news.
As usual, criticism has been buried under the latest confusion created by the masters
of the state. The previous verdict of Dr Shakeel Afridi raised a relevant question. How can a man who helps kill a sworn enemy of the state be accused of working against it? With the ‘amended’ verdict, not only has that question been avoided, but the attached criticism has been deflected too.
Meanwhile, Afridi faces a serious threat to his life at the central jail in Peshawar. There are commanders within the LeI who have denied links with Afridi; in turn, threatening to ‘chew him alive.’ The same banned organisation has also issued a fatwa that Dr Shakeel Afridi deserves to be killed. Even though there were initial reports of a thousand police personnel being sent to guard the doctor, it seems that the new verdict has lessened that to just two unarmed security guards. Please note that Dr Afridi is sharing a prison with inmates belonging to banned organisations. Forget that Dr Afridi may never make it to a free and fair trial; I doubt he will live for 33 months, let alone the 33 years of his awarded sentence. And we will never really know whose side he was on. We were never meant to.
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Jiska dil chahta hay army kay khilaf jo marzi likh daita hay
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