Thread by @_AhmedQuraishi

For history, let me set the record straight on this interview I did in 2012 for a news website with ex-#ISI chief late LtGen Retd Hameed Gul. He personally liked me but also knew that I supported many of the political ideas of former President Gen. #Musharraf. /1 @MAbdullahGul

https://twitter.com/miqazi/status/1447180271535722500

When LtGen. Gul in this clip said to me, "Why don't you understand?", I stopped recording a couple of minutes later and asked him bluntly, "Was Gen. Musharraf a traitor?" based on what LtGen. Hameed Gul was saying here. He took a long few seconds, gazing at the floor. /2

LtGen Hameed Gul took his time thinking, expressionless. It was a long silence. Then he raised his head and firmly said, "No." Calmer now, he then went on to explain, off-record, that he disagreed politically with President Musharraf but that Gen. Musharraf was not a traitor. /3

It took tremendous courage for LtGen Hameed Gul to rise above partisanship and speak as a professional soldier off-camera and say something about @P_Musharraf that was somewhat different from what he was saying publicly. /4

At the time, LtGen Hameed Gul was eyeing a political career and was in talks with several political parties to formally join one of them [including talks with @ImranKhanPTI to join @PTIofficial]. His statements in this video are in line with the usual Pakistani politics. /5

LtGen Hameed Gul was part of one of the largest projects of #US-#Pakistan strategic and intelligence cooperation (and rightly so; never considered that wrong). The statements in this clip [] should be taken more as politics than a strategic assessment. /6

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