2008: A year of Doublespeak and Doublethought

The year 2008 was a mixed bag but personally i would view it as a bad one considering the increased number of terror attacks, and political upheavels across countries and continents and the uh-so depressing global economy slowdown. In that sense my following post is in many ways different from what i have posted before. Here is a transcript of a conversation that me and my muse in the context of the Mumbai terror attack and its fallout.

Me: Apparently, an FBI team has visited the village of captured terrorist Ajmal Kasab in Pakistan.

Muse : Wait a second! Hasn't Pakistan said that Kasab is not a Pakistani?

Me : Well, all that Pakistan has said is that India has not provided them "credible evidence" to prove that this terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, son of Amir Kasab of village Faridkot, in the Okara district of Punjab, Pakistan, as reported by Pakistani newspaper Dawn, is indeed a Pakistani national!

Muse: But didn't former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif say that Kasab's village had been cordoned off and his parents were not being allowed to speak to reporters?
Me: Actually, Nawaz Sharif has been misquoted and his statements have been taken out of context. What Sharif had said on the camera that all of us saw was that Kasab's village had been cordoned off and his parents had not been allowed to talk to the media. Sharif never said that Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistani!!! In fact, when he made those statements, being a politician, he was only taking a shot at the current government and his political opponents.But thats ridiculous! haven't many news agencies including Pakistan's own Geo TV and Dawn already proved Kasab's identity ? Even the government of Pakistan has in a manner accepted the fact but technically it lives in denial.

Muse: Isn't that paradoxical and perverted?
Me : It is actually doublespeak or implementation of the Orwellian concept of "doublethink". This concept was popularized by George Orwell in his dystopian novel "1984". Doublethink is described by Orwell as "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then,when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of the objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies-all this is indispensably necessary". In the current scenario Pakistan is using doublespeak in both disowning Kasab and accepting him at the same time.Pakistan itself is no stranger to terror attack, its very existence is under threat but why is it still unwilling to co-operate?There could be many reasons including the possibility of certain individuals and groups of being unpersons. However, the only thing that is clear is the fact that Pakistan is unwilling to act and despite what the US says, it is not doing enough to make Pakistan see sense. I doubt if Pakistan and the US view anti-India terror group in the same light as they do with their "own terrorists".

Muse : So how does one deal with nation-states that run with the hare and hunt with the hound, especially when the self-appointed global cop extends tacit support to it. Do we go back to our daily lives, sweat and toil for our secure future and wait for the next attack ???


Update
Here is the evidence that Pakistan has been hankering for! and the dossier that India gave to it