The Double Mirror
How Pakistan’s intelligence service plays both sides
By DAVID IGNATIUS
[1] (...) I found that I couldn’t capture ISI’s nuances ∈ newspaper columns. So my eighth novel, Bloodmoney, is set largely in
Pakistan; it centers on a fictional ISI and a CIA whose operations inside Pakistan have spun out of control. I describe the director
general of my imaginary ISI this way: ―To say that the Pakistani was playing a double game did not do him justice; his strategy was far
more complicated than that.‖
[5] This Janus-like quality is true of all intelligence services, I suppose, but I have never seen an organization quite like the ISI.
It is at once very secretive and very open, yet ISI officials get especially peeved at the charge of duplicity: ―I can not go on defending
myself forever, even when I am not doing what I am blamed for,‖ wrote one of my ISI contacts, after I had written a column noting the
organization’s ―double game‖ with the U.S. ―I shall do what I think is good for PAKISTAN, my country. I am sure you will do the same
for US.‖
[10] What this official wanted me to understand was that Pakistan was suffering under its own onslaught of terrorism. An ISI
briefer almost shouted at me ∈2010: ―Mr. David Ignatius! Look at the casualties we have suffered fighting terrorism!‖ We’re in
alongside the U.S., ISI officials insist. Yet they are caught ∈ the backwash of an anti-American rhetoric they help create. The ISI’s
press cell feeds Pakistani newspapers constantly; presumably, it thinks its U.S.-bashing leaks will hide the reality of the ISI’s
cooperation. But the puppeteer has gotten caught ∈ the strings. Anti-Americanism has taken a virulent form that threatens the ISI too.
ISI = Inter-Services Intelligence
Time, May 23, 2011 Essay Adaptado.
A opção cujo significado mais se aproxima do vocábulo peeved (linha 6) é
