The abyss stares into you. If the army brigadier who was arrested for his alleged links with an Islamist organisation was actually up to something very tangible, then we could say prompt action has been taken. But if he merely espoused similar views and associated with them, then the army has a tall order on its hands. Because such officers are here, there and everywhere. Civilians will learn, on those odd occasions they are let inside an officers’ mess, that these are no Noor Jehan brigades that trot about our cantonments but Hijazi battalions.
Feigned surprises wouldn’t do one any good. Least of all the military high command. The creeping radicalisation of society, from which military officers are culled, is a result of the incessant march of folly that our military establishment has indulged in since the eighties.
Cracking down against Hizb-ut-Tahrir agents might be all well and good, but those aren’t the only players in the game. In fact, barring the fact that they are one of the most modern groups in terms of organisation, only in the middle-east is their presence large enough to be a cause of concern. Organisations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Jaish-e-Muhammad, to name only two, are the ones that should be red rags.
The late Saleem Shehzad’s last story was about the presence of Al-Qaeda operatives in the navy. There is speculation that the daring attack on the Mehran base was based on insider information. Could any of the other attacks, the unreported ones in the Fata war zones, also be a result of such collusion? What is the level of their infiltration in the air force? And, lest the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room is forgotten, what is the status of the men who occupy critical positions in the command and control structure of our nuclear arsenal?
The churlish might brush away such questions, especially the last one, as part of some grand plan to denude us of our national dignity. But everyone: the people, the world and, finally, the military itself, is beginning to get nervous.
