So now we have it. The gloves are back on. The cat is once more in the bag. Having been duly plucked from amongst the pigeons. The latter after all, are not known for tweeting in Pakistan — even if they thought they saw a pussycat. Rather, that seems to be a niche the military establishment is successfully carving out for itself. The ongoing mil-civil standoff playing against the backdrop of the Dawn Leaks saga that first came to a cinema near you towards the end of last year has suddenly now been ‘settled’. And it is the men-who-can that did the settling, as opposed to the men-who-have-been-elected to do so. And the former achieved this by taking back — not the tech — but the tweet. All the while stressing the extent to which they support democracy.
To be fair, from here it doesn’t much look like either side holds much stock by the d-word. For a start, the security establishment has refused to get up from the driving seat. This has happened before, notably when it tweeted a rejection of the Prime Minister’s notification on fixing responsibility for the so-called national security breach over the now infamous Dawn report. This time the military set-up has done the dirty on the civvies, known for their pussyfooting around important issues, by way of retraction. In short, the security establishment has had the last word and has once again ensured that the subject remains changed. Meaning that in all this settling and fixing it has not had to answer as to whether there is any truth in the reported civilian charges: its alleged reluctance in wholeheartedly going after banned or ‘seemingly’ untouchable home-grown militant groups. Game. Set. Match.
We can’t blame the men in khaki too much, however. Not when we are faced with a civilian regime that veers towards incompetence when it is not, that is, secreting away vast fortunes overseas. For what has the Nawaz Sharif government actually done regarding twitter gate? It has reissued a notification at the behest of the military. Never mind that this is virtually identical to the original — the only addition being endorsement of the Information minister’s sacking. The point is that if our democratically elected government were truly empowered it would have shown its mettle by sacking the head of the military public relations wing for insubordination. That it didn’t tells us everything we need to know. Anything else is a moot point.
