The gods must really hate us. There is no other explanation for the tough few days Pakistan and Pakistanis have suffered.

Floods, rains, plane crash, another indispensable in uniform, Wikileaks, Americans wondering yet again whether we are friend or foe, Cameron suggesting we are foe after all — and all the while the usual tamasha continuing in the background, what with fake degrees still doing the rounds and judges still hung up over a system of appointment. Oh, and Karachi and Balochistan are in the throes of mysterious and not-so-mysterious violence.

What are Pakistanis to do? If life imitated art and this were the Big Lebowski, we could say, “Dude, let’s go bowling.”

But this is Pakistan and there’s probably a zealous mullah or two out there who thinks bowling is a pastime invented by infidels to conquer Muslims, and that mullah or two probably has a few young boys handy who may or may not be tempted by the thought of eliminating all bowlers. So no bowling for us either.

Which, I guess, leaves us with no choice other than to try and make sense of all that defies sense.

Regrettably, we have to start with WikiLeaks. Double-game! Canoodling with the enemy! They are the enemy! The generals here have been walloped by the international media.

Honesty demands acknowledging the documents alleging Pakistani perfidy aren’t much to hang your hat on, a fact only the Guardian appears to have realised, choosing as it did to focus on civilian casualties and cover-ups in Afghanistan instead.

Even so, the response here has been predictable and knee-jerk: either dismissing outright even the theory of possible linkages continuing to this day or lashing out at the Americans for their sins.

But hang on a second. Haven’t the generals here lately been whispering about wooing the Haqqanis, the ferocious thorn in the side of the Americans, in preparation for a post-American Afghanistan? And haven’t the generals always quietly accepted they have intel links with the Haqqanis, because that’s what all good spy agencies the world over do, keep a tab on the ‘enemy’?

Square the difference between Wikileaks suggestions of a double-game and what the generals here claim, and that’s probably a whole lot closer to what the truth in the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan is.

The real truth, specific, correct in individual cases and possible to corroborate, will never be known to us, you and me, the ordinary Joes.

There’s a couple of reasons for this. The current chief (let’s hope not another chief-in-perpetuity), as all chiefs in the army are referred to, is a secretive guy. He doesn’t share much with those around him, even, most recently, the decision about his tenure extension. That leaked out from the presidency.

The second reason is often grabbed by its hind legs and trumpeted to the world as the ISI being a ‘state within a state’. Not really. The ISI is about as autonomous as a village girl wanting to choose a mate for herself.

It is, though, definitely cut off from the army proper, the regular uniformed lot who would fight a war with India, if it were ever to come to that. There is one particular line in one of the many The New York Times pieces on the Wikileaks saga that is telling:

“But Pakistani military officials give the spy service’s ‘S Wing’ — which runs external operations against the Afghan government and India — broad autonomy, a buffer that allows top military officials deniability.” Forget about the ‘S Wing’ stuff, the fact is, regular generals in the army know as much about the doings of the ISI than you and I do, sometimes even less. (It’s relatively OK for curious civilians to sniff around a bit; not so much for a soldier in a rigidly hierarchical institution where a single semi-negative comment can wreck a career.)

So for all the pundits here beside themselves with rage, angered that Pakistan could be accused of playing a double-game when it has suffered a ‘hundred Mumbais’ and lost thousands of lives and billions in treasure: some perspective, please. Acknowledge the possibility of the non-sequitur.

Frankly, the Wikileaks saga had me reaching for that prolific sage on military matters, John Keegan. The very first lines in his book, Intelligence in War, should give us all pause:

“I have tried to steer clear of the intelligence world all my working life…. (As) Defence Correspondent, then Defence Editor of The Daily Telegraph, I decided that entanglement with intelligence organisations was unwise, having, by that stage of my life, concluded, through reading, conversation and a little personal observation, that anyone who mingled in the intelligence world, in the belief that he could make use of contacts thus made, would more probably be made use of, to his disadvantage.”

Wise words. Let the warriors, uniformed and civilian and quasi-civilian, fight it out. God knows, you and I won’t have an iota of influence in the final result.

The real tragedy is that all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, this invisible war, has very real effects. The region is infinitely more complex as a result, a reality poignantly brought out by the editors of Mullah Zaeef’s memoirs:

“One of the most serious problems is the invisibility of the people who pose a threat to ordinary Kandaharis. This is the major difference between Kandahar in 2009 and early 1994: in 1994 you knew — at least to some extent — where the danger was coming from. In 2009, hazards can emerge and disappear out of nowhere without explanation. Assassinations, beheadings, suicide bombers, IED attacks, aerial bombing, large-scale infantry attacks, or just crime-with-a-gun remain actual and present threats to ordinary residents of Kandahar province….

“Ordinary Kandaharis believe a bewildering array of conspiracy theories about foreign forces and Nato. Some of these are almost touchingly naïve rumours; in February 2009, for instance, people sent each other frantic text messages not to answer any phones because Nato forces were testing out a new type of laser ray that would instantly kill them if they picked up. Very few calls were answered in the south that day.”

Strategic depth. National security. Thwarting the enemy. Protecting the national interest. Territorial integrity. Sovereignty. It all sounds and looks good from above.

From the ground up, the view isn’t quite so pretty, is it?

cyril.a@gmail.com