[Dawn] "What I can say is there is a 98 per cent chance he is dead," Interior Minister Rehman MalikPak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Näwaz Shärif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men.
said in an official statement confirming Illyas Kashmiri's death.
Kashmiri, seen as one of the world's most wanted beturbanned goon, was reportedly killed in a drone strike earlier this week. Has nobody asked Mr. Malik the method of deducing such a percentage? Apparently the corpse and DNA report amount for the remaining 2 per cent. (Since there are way too many perils of wisdom frequently coming in from Mr Interior Minister, let's just call them "malikisms")
"The Corps Commanders were informed about the decision to reduce the strength of US military personnel in Pakistain to the minimum essential," stated a blurb by the ISPR three days after Bin laden was bumped off less than two kilometers away from the premier military academy.
Strength of US military personals in ... Pakistain? You read that right. After years of condemnations of the drones, hue and cry over illusory sovereignty, ISPR tells us, that too in a blurb after al Qaeda's chief gets bumped off right under their noses, that there are in fact American boots on the ground. Shock? Horror? Cries of illusory sovereignty?
"The drones are given out as an instrument to fight terror. Yet, as we have repeatedly said these attacks constitute a violation of Pakistain's illusory sovereignty and are counter-productive," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ...
remarked during his speech in the Parliament, on the death of the late Osama bin Laden.
... who knows that it's like to live in the belly of a whale only he's not living...
Not to forget that the speech focusing on taking the Parliament and the nation in confidence on speculations surrounding bin Laden's death was in English. I'm not quite sure who the Prime Minster's target audience was.
Wait..What's that about drones and illusory sovereignty when the ISPR just informed us that there are in fact American troops on ground in Pakistain?
"They were wearing black clothes like in Star Wars movies, one with a boom jacket...." You guessed that one. Malikism again. Interior minister Rehman Malik, in an official statement after 17-hours of shootout at PNS Mehran, that killed 10 security personnels and destroyed two highly expensive P-3C Orion aircraft.
"The unfortunate and tragic death of Syed Saleem Shahzad is a source of concern for the entire nation but the incident should not be used to target and malign the country's security agencies," said an ISI official on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the job. An anonymous statement, when they should have been making public announcements condemning the allegations and disassociating themselves from the severe criticism and blame for the killing of a journalist. This statement however, is neither a condemnation nor an obituary -- I assume we are just supposed to take their word for it.
"Yes, there has been an intelligence failure. It is not only ours but of all the intelligence agencies of the world," unanimous statement, echoed from the Prime Minister to the Foreign office to the ISPR -- possibly the only statement that could have made more sense had it not been spoken from a defensive fence.
The fact that American forces attacked Afghanistan and still continue to rage war while Osama rested comfortably in a compound in Abbottabad reflects inexcusable failure of intelligence on CIA's part, but that doesn't and shouldn't absolve us from our own failures.
'The whole world' as the statement puts it, isn't reeling from this global war on terror like we are, 180 million people suffering the consequences of decisions they had no control over. Fighting a war they had never opted for; and still being mulled over as living time bombs waiting to explode. We are but invisible victims, such are our woes.
Amid all the chaos, the shame, the grief, irresponsible, inaccurate and dubious official statements cause inconsiderable damage to global percep