End of the tunnel

The US's intelligence inputs being what they are, the world needs a change of guard.

Not even a leaf can move in any part of the world without US intelligence agencies being able to detect it. Or so we thought. So you can imagine our shock when we learnt that Taliban militants had carved out a 1,000-foot tunnel through which they whisked out 480 inmates of a Kandahar jail. We can imagine the scene. Halt, who goes there? the American soldier would say on spotting Ahmed with a large sack on his back. "It is just poor Ahmed, oh liberator of our land, taking a few medicines for my sick mother." "But this looks like sand, have you been digging up something?" Ahmed would reply, "These are ground herbs, you should try them sometime, very soothing for the nerves." And the US soldier sends Ahmed off even as the tunnel gets longer.

HT Image

Did no one, but no one, cotton on to the fact that such a humongous tunnel was in progress? Can we then rely on the Americans to be our global policemen? We are even more alarmed when we learn that Uncle Sam has just discovered that the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is a terrorist organisation. We could have told that for free years ago. And to make matters worse, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attack, now claims that he and his buddies have hidden a nuclear bomb in Europe. If the US cannot be trusted to keep a lookout for ticking and glowing parcels, we need a change of guard.

At this rate, the Taliban, helped by the ISI, could tunnel all the way to Manhattan and take a tour of the Empire State building. Or scarily for us, they could pop up in Connaught Place and take a swing around on the metro. Or perhaps you think we are being too alarmist. But we assure you that at the rate things are going, we are not the only ones with tunnel vision.