The Whiz Kid Anchors

With the surfacing of the Abbottabad Commission report there has been once again a revitalization of the TV anchors - the so called & self proclaimed all knowing experts dolling out their pearls of wisdom on defence matters of whom the most of them do not have the foggiest idea!  To some of them anything anti military (read army) is music to their ears and anything pro military (read army) gives them a visible constipated look with cramps in their stomach.

Allow me to put them wise on two accounts only for the time being:

Kakul and Osama:  OBL staying undetected in a house about mile and half away from the PMA Kakul is the most unpardonable security lapse for them on the part of the PMA.  If they had even an iota of knowledge about the academy and its working they would have never accused PMA of it. Do they know that the PMA is just a training institution like any other, say Cadet College Hassan Abdal, Acheson College, Lahore or the Lawrence College – Ghora Gali?  It is not at all a fighting unit, has no FIU (Field Intelligence Unit), Military Police etc. of its own.  There are no serviceable weapons in the academy, the rifles are for drill only and the ammunition issued to the cadets for training purposes comprises of  Blank Rounds. Their entire activities are just confined to the limits of the academy and they are least bothered about the ‘outside’ world. It is only on Sundays that a cadet might go to Abbottabad city for some shopp ing or a cup of tea in a café  otherwise he is not even permitted to go out of the academy gate on ordinary days. Who is living 10 yards or 10 miles away from the PMA is NONE of his or that of the staff’s concern.  So my dear knowledgeable anchors, it is not PMA’s job, task or duty to spy upon the local populace of the surrounding areas.  It is the job of the local police (SHO), civil administration (patwari upwards), the utility services providers – Electricity, Telephone, Gas, Water, Post & Telegraph  etc. who should know who is living and where?

Musharraf and Bugti:  One is amazed to see the confidence and knowledge with  which each one of the anchors quotes Musharraf’s warning to Bugti,”You will be hit from where you would not even know”. Thus implying childishly that Musharraf killed him or got him killed.  Dear Socrateses and Plutos please use your head and try to recollect the context in which Musharraf had said so.  He had warned Bugti that he could not go on defying the state sitting on the hills with the ancient weapons which were no match to the modern technology which could detect him anywhere and hit him with the weapon (missile) that he wouldn’t even know where it came from !!  These whiz kids, if they knew how a small time military operation is conducted would never accuse Musharraf – the Chief of the Army Staff of the Pakistan Army and the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan of personally killing or even ordering to be eli minated an insignificant teeny weenie of a rebel and law breaker!!  He (Musharraf ) was too  big for him!! It was the task of the local administration and law enforcing agencies  to subdue the insurgent and that’s what the Colonel with three other officers and men had gone into the cave to negotiate with Bugti – his surrender, who sensing the inevitable end to his rebelliousness chose to commit suicide by blowing himself up and taking the lives of these brave officers and men also.

Getting again some cramps? Use a laxative.

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)