Forty onions

Much as I wish to write a pleasant, nostalgic story, it is overtaken by something nasty every week. The news is coming in that NATO troops in Afghanistan are concentrating on the border with Pakistan. Hamid Karzai is accusing Pakistan of cross border terrorism in his country.
Barak Obama, the Democratic candidate for president in the US election this fall, says he might take action in Pakistan against Al-Qaeda. George Bush is "troubled" by news that terrorists come and go from Pakistan into Afghanistan. Sympathising with Karzai, he proposes to investigate the Afghan charges against Pakistan and get to the bottom of them. US aircraft and drones are flying threateningly over the tribal areas as rumours abound in Islamabad that they plan a precision attack there to take out some terrorist sites. There is no dearth of bad news!
This must confuse Musharraf who now reminds Karzai of Pakistan's help to Afghanistan in 2001. What is he referring to? All we remember is that he gave all the logistic help - landing strips, fuelling facility, medical and other supply line protection etc - to the US facilitating their attack on Afghanistan, our neighbour.
International Republican Institute (IRI) has just published results of a survey which is further depressing for Musharraf. The poll shows him at the rock bottom of public rating and Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry and Mian Nawaz Sharif, two of his obsessive hate objects, on top.
Approximately, 85 percent Pakistanis want Musharraf out, 83 percent want the judges restored and 82 percent regard Mian Nawaz Sharif as the most popular political leader in the country today. In character, the president is unlikely to oblige although he promised to leave if the people so wanted.
I say "unlikely" because if he had a sense of honour he would have resigned on February 18 when the Q League - for which he actively campaigned - was squarely defeated in the general election. As a footnote to Musharraf's plummeting reputation, he has also brought the army approval rating drastically down: from over 80 percent to 52 percent.
All this is disturbing, demoralising news for an average citizen as he goes about his daily chores of coping with inflation, street crime, bomb blasts, urban unrest, provincial disharmony, and restlessness in the rank and file of the army over prolonged action in the tribal belt - now in turmoil from Waziristan to Bajaur. As if the domestic scene was not worrying enough, we have threats on our borders.
Once again, drawing rooms are abuzz with discussions if the country will survive the tectonic shifts in the politics of the region.
As the situation worsens internally and externally, Pakistani leaders are abroad. Mian Nawaz Sharif is attending to his ailing wife in London; Asif Zardari is mostly in Dubai vacationing with the PPP chairman and other off springs, preparing to take off to London.
Mr Zardari held a kitchen cabinet meeting in Dubai last week to which he called the PM who was in Malaysia. Pronto the PM diverted the plane towards Dubai with the entire entourage of over fifty people, all putting up in Hyatt International, wined and dined, at official expense. Cost of the diversion to Dubai according to a press report: Rs 10 million. This for a country where prices are soaring beyond the means of the common man and six hour load shedding is standard in the capital.