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Muckraking can be two-way street
Muckraking can be two-way street - Indian Punchline
By M K Bhadrakumar – July 24, 2011
By now, it’s clear that the morning’s papers are incomplete without one good ‘plant’ by the Americans about their one-time pals, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI]. When the marriage sours, acrimony begins. Even the affable, fun-loving Arnold Schwarzenegger’s defensiveness has limits. And if WaPo columnist and author David Ignatius is right, CIA can never ever quite get rid of the ISI from beneath its skin. Ignatius thinks the reason why that is so is because they are so very much alike. The NYT story today on the ISI’s shenanigans in the US could have all the elements of universality, as the report might as well have been about the ISI’s Turkish or Central Asian counterparts, for instance.
The diaspora is always a favourite hunting ground for spooks. Using expats for nefarious activities comes very easy; it is economical and cost-effective and far less professionally challenging. Spooks actually enjoy ‘cultivating’ the diaspora as work usually mixes with a lot of ethnic food and booze thrown in. It usually comes free of cost — although if the spook is clever, he can siphon off government funds by making false claims of having incurred expense in ‘cultivating’ the expat. The expat is generally a voluntary worker motivated by lofty thoughts of patriotism. Again, the expat simply likes to know someone in the Embassy. Except if one were on a self-imposed exile like Oscar Wilde or Lord Byron, an emergency can always arise for some consular service to be rendered by the Embassy. Put simply, it is good to know the guy in the visa section, who of course can be a spook posing as diplomat.
An intelligent expat almost always can make out a spook from a great distance and should steer himself clear, but then, there are also weird expats who feel thrilled that away from the humdrum existence as hotel receptionist or car mechanic or professor or medic, they could double up on the dangerous side of life as a spook’s sidekick. All said, therefore, there is nothing terribly original in the NYT story on the ISI guys tapping into the Pak expatriate community in the US. The real issue is why the Americans are doing this to the ISI. A secret service can stand a lot of nonsense but one thing that hurts its professional pride is to be lampooned as a bunch of commonplace jokers. The Americans are evidently caricaturing the ISI with a purpose and seem to have convinced themselves that there isn’t going to be any real prospect of the CIA and ISI patching up anytime soon anyway. (Ignatius thinks otherwise.)
Now comes the big question: Will the ISI will retaliate and at what point? Its patience must be wearing thin already what with the daily dose of muck thrown at its face from Langley. If and when the ISI decides to ‘retaliate’, that will be a golden day — especially if the ISI orchestrates a series of media leaks on the CIA activities in India. Without doubt, spooks spy on other spooks. The ISI must be knowing a great deal about all those American spooks active on the fertile Indian soil. The bonus for the ISI could be that a serial on the CIA will raise a lot of dust in the “defining partnership” between US and India — and, that too, just when Washington is exhorting the Delhiwallah to go against his DNA and act like a virile ‘Chaudhry’ in the Asian pack.
Muckraking can be two-way street - Indian Punchline
By M K Bhadrakumar – July 24, 2011
By now, it’s clear that the morning’s papers are incomplete without one good ‘plant’ by the Americans about their one-time pals, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI]. When the marriage sours, acrimony begins. Even the affable, fun-loving Arnold Schwarzenegger’s defensiveness has limits. And if WaPo columnist and author David Ignatius is right, CIA can never ever quite get rid of the ISI from beneath its skin. Ignatius thinks the reason why that is so is because they are so very much alike. The NYT story today on the ISI’s shenanigans in the US could have all the elements of universality, as the report might as well have been about the ISI’s Turkish or Central Asian counterparts, for instance.
The diaspora is always a favourite hunting ground for spooks. Using expats for nefarious activities comes very easy; it is economical and cost-effective and far less professionally challenging. Spooks actually enjoy ‘cultivating’ the diaspora as work usually mixes with a lot of ethnic food and booze thrown in. It usually comes free of cost — although if the spook is clever, he can siphon off government funds by making false claims of having incurred expense in ‘cultivating’ the expat. The expat is generally a voluntary worker motivated by lofty thoughts of patriotism. Again, the expat simply likes to know someone in the Embassy. Except if one were on a self-imposed exile like Oscar Wilde or Lord Byron, an emergency can always arise for some consular service to be rendered by the Embassy. Put simply, it is good to know the guy in the visa section, who of course can be a spook posing as diplomat.
An intelligent expat almost always can make out a spook from a great distance and should steer himself clear, but then, there are also weird expats who feel thrilled that away from the humdrum existence as hotel receptionist or car mechanic or professor or medic, they could double up on the dangerous side of life as a spook’s sidekick. All said, therefore, there is nothing terribly original in the NYT story on the ISI guys tapping into the Pak expatriate community in the US. The real issue is why the Americans are doing this to the ISI. A secret service can stand a lot of nonsense but one thing that hurts its professional pride is to be lampooned as a bunch of commonplace jokers. The Americans are evidently caricaturing the ISI with a purpose and seem to have convinced themselves that there isn’t going to be any real prospect of the CIA and ISI patching up anytime soon anyway. (Ignatius thinks otherwise.)
Now comes the big question: Will the ISI will retaliate and at what point? Its patience must be wearing thin already what with the daily dose of muck thrown at its face from Langley. If and when the ISI decides to ‘retaliate’, that will be a golden day — especially if the ISI orchestrates a series of media leaks on the CIA activities in India. Without doubt, spooks spy on other spooks. The ISI must be knowing a great deal about all those American spooks active on the fertile Indian soil. The bonus for the ISI could be that a serial on the CIA will raise a lot of dust in the “defining partnership” between US and India — and, that too, just when Washington is exhorting the Delhiwallah to go against his DNA and act like a virile ‘Chaudhry’ in the Asian pack.