Selling Cock & Bull Stories

Musharraf has been selling his cock and bull stories ever since he has appeared in Pakistan's public life.

It is not something about the subject matter of his stories that separates him from his lot. All dictators and tyrants reach and stay in power by selling stories. It is the brazenness with which he promotes them.

In 1999 he sold his Kargil stroy. He first tried his shtick on his then Prime Minister. When he failed to sell it to him he went ahead any way and started his ill-conceived and half-baked adventure and pushed Pakistan and Pakistanis to the brink of what could have been the first nuclear war. He did it just to create optimum circumstances for his military coup.

Then his fertile and kinky mind fabricated and tried to sell the story of plane highjacking to cover his guilt for toppling the elected Prime Minister. He promoted the story by using newspappers and other media outlets when he issued photos showing only 3 minutes' jet fuel left in the tank to create suspense in the story.

Now he has taken his shop to the American airwaves and the white house and has recruited the services of another salesman adept at selling his own Dick and Bush stories.

But this time around he is not only selling a single story but a whole book of stories. Simon & Schuster has already paid him quite a big chunk of lucre. Now he wants to make some more in royalties by using every trick, stratagem and maneuver he has the ability to conceive.

To sell his book, first, he created some shockwaves by undiplomatically announcing on a CBS television programme to be broadcast tomorrow, that after the September 2001 attacks the then deputy secretary of state, his friend, Richard Armitage, had threatened him through Pakistan's intelligence director to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age" if he did not throw his lot with Washington in its war of Terror.

(This is the same friend who has been writing ed-op columns in New York Times to urge US leaders to keep Musharraf on their side.)

Musharraf says the language used was rude and he felt insulted so decided to cooperate. Five years back when he was joining what Bush then called the "crusade" he had denied that he was doing so because he was cowed into it by threats, insults and hoodwinking. It turns out to be another story he had sold then.

Whatever suits him.

Now at the White House yesterday, he declined to elaborate his earlier startling statement, citing an agreement with the publishers of his book that is due out next week. This is what he said sheepishly, "I am launching my book on the 25th and I am honor-bound with Simon & Schuster not to say anything about the book before that date". This was another baldfaced way of saying what his partner in trade, Bush said: "In other words,'buy the book', that is waht he is saying".
Watch the video clip.

I wonder how low he can stoop and how much he can degrade himself and his country to get what he wants for himself. Does he pay any attention to what happens to the image of Pakistan while he is hawking and peddling his literary wares in what he has made into a book promotion tour? Does he even bother to think how many "long woes are to succeed his short pleasures"?