Every news has a story; hence, the pros call it a News Story instead of merely calling it “news”. In Pakistan, we show the world new paths in this domain too. For us, every news has not only a story, it also has a few theories. And the news theories leave the associated news far behind in popularity, following and convincing power.
Seven years ago, when on 2nd May the White House broke the news that in an operation it had taken out OBL from Pakistan, this news gave birth to a million stories, and each story had about a million theories.
Two days ago, as the anniversary of the OBL Story was approaching, a relatively smaller story emerged from Russia – that a jailbreak by CIA to help release Dr. Afridi, the man who as per one theory, led the Americans to OBL, was foiled by ISI. The jailbreak foiling news seemed more like a video game contest, where one player can remotely intercept another remote player.
Another paper gave another, different story where the mention of jail was common though. It said Dr. Afridi was transferred to Adiala jail from his previous den.
The truth is the first casualty of a news, and associated stories make sure it is dead and done. The subsequent news theories are passionate attempts to revive it, though it’s already deceased.
OBL was OBL and this poor Dr. Afridi is no OBL, so his story generated only a few theories. Such as, Americans have offered his exchange with Dr. Afia; which sounded more like a professional or cultural exchange, on the lines of international youth exchange, i.e., aik doctor do, aik doctor lo.
The other theory (mine) is that, since it is difficult for the CIA operatives to carry out a successful jailbreak so far away from the ISI HQ, the latter who owes a lot to the former, decided to give CIA a softer ball to hit and facilitate a better attempt at jailbreak. The other theory (my friends) is that once it is decided to hand over Dr. Afridi to the US, Islamabad airport is closer to Adiala and before anyone can get the news, let alone its story, the dear Dr. would have left the Pak airspace.
The sub-theory of exchange story implies that Dr. Afia will only leave the US (and perhaps for Yemen if not Saudi Arabia) once Dr. Afridi has had a lunch or dinner with her and exchanged professional notes on their medical reflective research which both carried out during their respective incarcerations.
Since it’s still a story in development, the associated theories are also like buds, not full-blown roses. So, we can get back to the OBL story and theories for the rest of this piece, and follow up on Dr. vs. Dr. after the exchange.
OBL’s reported capture and killing, which of course was fake news, had two main stories and four theories. The first, that he had died of kidney failure much before this fake encounter. Two, he was already in the US, and this fake operation was done with a fake OBL.
The contesting theories around OBL were: a) The Pak Army Brigadier who was responsible for his upkeep divulged to the CIA that OBL was keeping well, and thenceforth the operation (it’s a stronger theory with weaker following); b) Dr Afridi ran a fake vaccination campaign which led the CIA to OBL (weaker theory with wider following); c) the CIA worked hard (a contradiction in terms, if CIA had ever worked hard and right, will the US be in the mess it is in!) in tracking the messenger and thus found OBL (weak theory with weaker following); and, d) notwithstanding it’s being every man’s active fantasy, its not easy to live with two wives, and it was OBL who himself planned and executed his ‘social jail’ break.
Khuda maghfrat kre ajab azaad murd tha (No translation as it’s for Pakistanis, not for CIA) !!
