Sunday, December 07, 2008
A copycat prankster almost starts a war
First, a couple of French Canadian comedians persuaded Sarah Palin that she was talking to Sarko. Then, a Florida congresswoman -- not wanting to be Palined -- incorrectly thought it was a prank when Barack Obama actually called her.
Suddenly, it is hard to know whether calls from world leaders are legitimate or not.
All good fun, right? What could possibly go wrong?
A hoax telephone call almost sparked another war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan at the height of last month's terror attacks on Mumbai, officials and Western diplomats on both sides of the border said today.
Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani President, took a telephone call from a man pretending to be Pranab Mukherjee, India's Foreign Minister, on Friday, November 28, apparently without following the usual verification procedures, they said.
The hoax caller threatened to take military action against Pakistan in response to the then ongoing Mumbai attacks, which India has since blamed on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), they said.
Mr Zardari responded by placing Pakistan's air force on high alert and telephoning Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, to ask her to intervene.
Oops.
"It's unbelievable, but true," said a Western diplomat familiar with the frantic diplomatic exchanges that eventually resolved the misunderstanding.
"It was a little alarming, to say the least."
To say the least.
If the Pakistanis and the Indians are going to have nukes, somebody needs to hook them up with special dedicated phones so they can talk to each other. You know, as were used in this conversation.
MORE: Hmmm. Perhaps Pakistan's president, Benazir Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari, is easily fooled:
The assassination brought a wave of sympathy for Zardari, who had long been derided as "Mr. 10%" for kickbacks he allegedly demanded on government contracts when his wife was prime minister in the 1990s. But many Pakistanis, particularly among the elite, fear Zardari is simply not up to the task of governance.
" 'Naive' is the word I would use," said Zafarullah Khan, director of the Center for Civic Education in Islamabad. "He really became president only by accident."
Many believe that Zardari falls far short intellectually of his late wife. At a recent luncheon in Islamabad of former lawmakers and diplomats, an elegant woman delivered what was taken as a devastating verdict: "His English is worse than George Bush's!"
A lot could go wrong here.
3 Comments:
By 
Viking Kaj, at
Sun Dec 07, 11:44:00 PM:
I'd like to hear Bob Newhart's version of this phone call...
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Dec 08, 10:16:00 AM:
The wife poked her head out of the bubble she is usually content to live in after the Mumbai attack. Her eventual conclusion was that India should simply utterly destroy Pakistan and be done with it, that decades of cross-border murders and terrorist support was enough, and we ought to sell them enough anti-missile systems to prevent an atomic Holocaust so they can get busy as soon as possible.
Sometimes, solutions seem so simple...
By Mojo, at
Tue Dec 09, 05:22:00 AM:
How about the phone call between the President (Peter Sellers) and the Russian Premier in Dr. Strangelove.....
Classic!
