Stop pretending that you didnt know. Its not like syndicated columnists (such as myself) and armchair pundits (like your grandfather who served in the 1965 war) didnt tell you this before. Ansar Abbasi and his ilk didnt shirk their patriotic duty either and yelled themselves hoarse on the front pages of leading dailies and on Hamid Mirs show. But now that ABC News, The Guardian and Telegraph have printed the story, you believe it. Thats so unfair. I mean, cmon, even infants born on January 27 will say Day Vis is See Ayee Aay as their first words. Expect a couple of heart attacks when that starts happening.
So the cat is finally out of the bag, Ray is now a certified spook. What now, you may ask? Will he be sentenced by the Lahore High Court? Will he be whisked away by men repelling from Chinook helicopters onto Kot Lakhpat Jail in the middle of the night? Will he be neutralised by his handlers? Or will Senor Ozymandias Bin Laden (who, I still maintain, is just about as real as the Minotaur was) look to enlist this disgruntled killing machine? These are questions only God and a few people at Langley with top level clearance can answer. What I can tell you is this: spooks dont really qualify for immunity under the many Vienna Conventions, and the stubborn child that is the United States of Obama keeps insisting that he does. Is it just me or is it obvious that Ray means a lot to the USO (Google that, youll appreciate the irony), more than those two Asian birds that Bill The Tharki Clinton sprang from the harems of the presidential palace in Pyongyang. Or maybe Barack is just one of the millions of people who love Raymond.
Many were speculating that Ray was responsible for the drone infestation that farmers in the northwest of our country have been complaining about. But that theory was shot down on Sunday, when the Predator resumed operations in dramatic fashion. Now unless Ray has an XBOX wired to the flight computer of an unmanned aircraft firing Hellfire missiles (please forgive me military geeks, for I know not the difference), theres really no way he could be the one doing it. Or he got laid off and replaced, because he went AWOL, like what happens to women in corporate America who go on maternity leave.
But the most shocking (NOT!) thing to come out of this has been The Guardians claim that, A number of US media outlets knew the truth about Davis but have suppressed the news at the request of the Obama administration. Apparently, a station in Colorado called up Rays missus, who gave them the CIAs UAN number and asked the news crew to speak to Rays employers (we dont know if she knew, or that she knew that they knew). They ran the story, but then pulled it, because the government figured the truth will not set Ray free. Theres a lesson here, a very straightforward one: the media in Pakistan is a lot freer than in the US. I say this because if a government functionary from any of the sensitive abbreviated agencies called me up and asked me to pull the story, I would only flip them the bird and continue running it until my employers had their arms twisted and I was fired. But in the States, one phone call from a man with a deep throaty voice is enough for a network news channel to pull an exclusive story. How do you like them apples?
This also leads me to another very interesting point. Remember Ajmal Kasab, the man who made Charles Bronsans Deathwish character look like a kindergarten teacher? Remember how a particular TV channel, and then all the rest, began proclaiming his Pakistani-ness long before the government was able to confirm or deny said claim? I worked for that channel at the time, and I remember how one intrepid reporter broke the story from Kasabs hometown not more than a couple of days after 26/11. This channel, which is definitely not known for being the slowest in the business (that privilege sometimes lies with the people I work for), was so quick to get the story, in fact, that they had to go red-faced in the face of denials from all sides. It was only about a month later, when Kasabs first interview from the hospital was aired, that they were vindicated. That intrepid reporter subsequently left that TV channel (for a fat raise) and is now employed by a competitor of theirs. He was never picked up for questioning, or pressured by the government (maybe the ISI, but nothing official) over the unpatriotic story he filed.
I guess crime and crime reporting do pay. But only in Pakistan.
The writer is a broadcast journalist.
