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Weekly Briefing

By Nadir Hassan 30 October 2009 2 Comments
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Woody Allen: With his son coming to Pakistan as a US liaison to the NGO community, will NGOs here take on Allen family traits?

Oh, what a week it was.

The next time Fatima Bhutto rails against nepotism someone might want to ask her how she got a regular column at The Daily Beast. It certainly wasn’t because of her command of the facts. The second paragraph of her latest screed is a doozy:

One week ago, the Pakistan army—aided by U.S. drone technology, no less — launched its offensive against the South Waziristan region, the new home of our fabled local Taliban. The Taliban moved there after last summer’s Swat offensive, which was declared a resounding success. So successful, apparently, that the militants were able to pack up and shuffle right into a new region of the country.

Just for the record, South Waziristan has been the home of our decidedly non-fabled Taliban since at least 2002. They didn’t just pack up and shuffle there; they have fought the army in South Waziristan thrice before.

Hillary Clinton may have had some harsh words for Pakistan during her trip but she certainly charmed the shalwar kameez off Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton termed Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani the magician of politics when she heard that he was unanimously elected as the leader of the house in parliament last year and was running the house with consensus since then with the confidence of the establishment and the masses alike.

Jane Mayer has a must-read on the (mis)use of drones in this week’s New Yorker, not least because Interior Minister Rehman Malik seems to be as excited by drones as 15-year-olds are by iPods.

“We used to see James Bond movies where he talked into his shoe or his watch. We thought it was a fairy tale. But this was fact!”

If you have about three hours to kill, check out every link on the Ministry of Culture’s website where it helpfully decodes Pakistan’s perplexing cultural customs. Did you know that kababs could be served solo and that Xinger is a type of Pakistani burger? The Ministry of Culture doesn’t reveal if they were paid by KFC to do this or if the money was refunded because of the typo.

The Pakistan government is finally taking the terrorist threat seriously by checking on houses that might be rented by terrorists. They are going to do this by collecting funny stories and incidents that involve renters:

“Owners of the rented houses in all the seven police stations of the district have already been instructed to submit to the police details about the anecdotes of their tenants,” the DPO added.

Is Pervez Musharraf secretly meeting with US officials? If you read the headline and first paragraph of this Dawn story you would certainly think so. If you read the third paragraph, you might change your mind.

George W. Bush just redefined irony:

He left office with the US embroiled in two wars, a Great Recession and with his approval rating a toxic 22 per cent. So the next stage in his career is obvious. George W Bush — who last year inspired millions of people to vote Democrat — is about to become a highly-paid motivational speaker.

And finally, Richard Hoolbroke has appointed a liaison to handle all the aid being given to Pakistani NGOs – the son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen. Within a year, our NGO’s will be neurotic and guilt-ridden with a strange fondness for Groucho Marx.

Nadir Hassan is a Pakistan-based journalist who worked as a senior assistant editor at Newsline.


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The opinions expressed in this article and the views shared by readers in the comment forum below do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance or policies of Newsline.

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2 Comments »

  • Tazeen said:

    Woodey’s son is a babe, all the aunties in Pakistani NGOs will soon be salivating over the latest boy toy …

    # 30 October 2009 at 12:43 pm
  • Hamza said:

    Great links on this post. I think you’re spot on about Fatima Bhutto on both counts. She makes a very big deal about nepotism, but she owes her entire journalistic career to her last name. If her name was Fatima Hasan, nobody would give a fig about what she has to say. And now, it seems, she has a book on the way as well. Great.

    Also, not only are her facts wrong vis a vis Waziristan, her argument reminds me of Imran Khan’s polemics. A lot of “let’s blame america for everything” and not enough of introspection about our own policies of the last 20+ years that have landed us in this situation.

    # 1 November 2009 at 6:54 pm