Mosharraf Zaidi

When Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton pulled the Al Qaeda card on Pakistanis during her visit to the Islamic Republic, many thought it was classic Clintonian rage unfettered. Last week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown first congratulated President Zardari on his country’s successful jihad against terrorists and then hung up the phone and told the BBC that Pakistan needs to do more against Al Qaeda. That was chalked up immediately by followers of British politics to Brown’s now legendary incompetence. Perhaps, he read the briefing notes all wrong, or forgot to take his medication, we all thought. After all, this is the man that has single-handedly brought the greatest era of Labour politics and its dominance in Britain to a pathetic end.

But of course, Secretary Clinton (being the Obama administration’s sharp-toothed diplomatic supremo) and PM Brown (continuing Tony Blair’s legacy of being the US government’s poodle) were just setting up the ball for Obama to smash. Unlike what we’ve come to expect from President Obama, however, this was no smash. A less thunderous or less effective Obama speech is hard to conceive of.

Raju Jamil

That cloudy day of June-1961 gave a weary look due to a mild heat spell which was telling on the faces of the scores of Government officials and diplomats lined up along side President of Pakistan General Mohammad Ayub Khan at Karachi International Airport.

All these people were there to receive Lyndon Baines Johnson, Vice President of the United States Of America who was due to land any moment in Pakistan. LBJ was on a good will tour and his itinerary included a tour of our then capital city, Karachi followed by Lahore and Peshawar.

The Pan American Clipper Jet Boeing 707 landed smoothly and the well decorated tarmac of Karachi Airport saw VP LBJ and MAK take slaute as National Anthems of both countries were played by a band of Pakistan Navy. There were 12 cars in the motorcade that left the airport later. There was a black cadillac driven by Presidential driver Ishaq. It had LBJ and MAK in it with front seat next to the driver occupied by Brig. Nawazish Ali Khan, the Millitary Secreatry to MAK and the American Ambassador in Pakistan followed by a convertible Chevrolet Impala-1959 with DIG-Police Mian Bashir Ahmed. This was followed by an Austin-of-England re-shaped into a Rolls Royce car in which my father Jamiluddin Aali, the then Personal Staff Officer to Ayub Khan and Shaikh Habibur Rahman the Protocol Officer were sitting.

Deeda-e-Beena

There goes another much touted institution – the pride of Islamabad. The letter T for Traffic regulation and smooth flow are disappearing with the replacement of their founder boss-T for Officer Taimuri. Initial M for its new boss and for collection of Money in Fines appears to be its credo now.

When the people started to observe speed limits, fine collection with a hefty % cut for ITP dwindled and the appearance of tracking cameras became infrequent. In any case, with the Steeple-chase style anti-terrorism barriers and check points mushrooming, who could be speeding any way? The Seat belts compliance discriminated against the Islamabad-ites who alone paid such fines. The all and sundry out-of-towners, including the invading MNAs, MPAs, countless Ministers of all hues and descriptions and the older model vehicles visiting the nation’s capital had never heard or seen a seat-belt and were wasting a lot of ITPs time away from their pursuit of the all important, money collecting tasks at hand. These outsiders were either conveniently ignored or were politely reprimanded.