There was never any serious risk that a cartoon, published in a newspaper owned by a certifiable lunatic, would in any way jeopardise the cosy relationship that has developed between the regimes in Islamabad and Washington over the past four years. What's intriguing is why that particular image occasioned such an unusual degree of umbrage among Pakistanis.

           It had to do with the dog. The Washington Times cartoon depicted Pakistan as a hound clutching in its jaws the alleged Al-Qaeda linchpin, Abu Farraj al Libbi, being patted by a US soldier, who says: "Good boy! Now let's go find bin Laden."

            Give or take a bit of artistic licence, that seems like a reasonably accurate encapsulation of the US-Pakistan relationship in the context of the so-called war on terror. There are, of course, several other countries that could be substituted for Pakistan in that cartoon without compromising its relevance - but, perhaps, none equally deserving of a pat on the back.

          Then wherefore all the fuss? Well, you see, there was that dog. "We are disgusted with the insensitivity of the editors of the Washington Times," screamed the embassy in Washington. "They have insulted the 150 million people of Pakistan."

          That outburst appears to suggest that every single Pakistani was somehow engaged in tracking down al Libbi - an achievement that won us fulsome accolades from the likes of George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice.

            Not true, and what are we to deduce from that? Was the four-legged creature meant to represent the army? Or perhaps the ISI?

          Perhaps it doesn't matter. Cartoonist Bill Garner, shocked by a reaction he never could have imagined, has apologised, saying no insult was intended. He pointed out that dogs don't carry a negative connotation in the culture he belongs to, saying: "The symbol to me was one of friendship ... There has always been a great friendship with animals, particularly dogs, in America."

           So far, so good. There is indeed a cultural divide in this context, as in so many others. But Garner went a little too far in saying his intention was to depict "the spirit of goodwill and friendship that exists between the two countries." After all, however chummy and mutually dependent man and dog may be, their relationship will always be an unequal one.

          The same goes for the US and Pakistan.

          It is highly unlikely that Sun Myung Moon's profoundly pro-Republican Washington Times set out to cast aspersions of any sort on Pakistan. It is hard to say whether the cartoon was primarily intended as an illustration of how the US is able to trick or persuade subservient allies into doing its dirty work. The point is, that fairly innocuous sketch ought not to have received the attention it did. And it wouldn't have, had not a handful of Pakistanis taken it upon themselves to feel slighted.

            If there is a reason to feel slighted, surely that lies in Pakistan's status as a satrap of the imperial superpower. And the Washington Times cannot be held responsible for that.

         Opinionated cartoons are de rigueur in most English-language newspapers across the world - and they don't always provoke mirth, particularly in cases where the cartoonists' views are sharply at variance with the ideological thrust of the publications their work appears in.

          Britain's The Guardian is fortunate in being able to avail itself of the services of two exceptionally talented caricaturists, Steve Bell and David Rowson, whose artistic efforts are somewhat to the left of the liberal newspaper's editorial policy. In contrast, the anarchist drawings of the equally talented Bill Leak appear in Rupert Murdoch's deeply conservative Sydney-based newspaper, The Australian, guaranteeing him a steady stream of hate mail from readers whose right-wing sensibilities have been offended.

          Needless to say, Leak doesn't always get his own way; however, even the cartoons that do make it into print, often toned down from considerably more vigorous first drafts, offer a refreshing contrast to the reactionary editorials and columns that surround it. Australia's obsequiousness towards the US in the wake of 9/11 has been a particular target of Leak's, and a couple of years ago his sketch of Prime Minister John Howard fellating George Dubya (obviously not intended for the newspaper) was surreptitiously circulated in parliament, causing much merriment on the opposition benches - and reportedly prompting a livid Howard to remonstrate with the paper's editor-in-chief, "That c-t Bill Leak is out of control!"

          In comparison, being cast as a canine doesn't seem like a big deal. Steve Bell often draws Tony Blair as an ugly poodle, and Bush as a chimpanzee. The victims of his artistic invective couldn't be thrilled, but no one has threatened legal action.

          As far as cultural sensitivity is concerned, it's got to be a reciprocal affair: if Bill Garner is expected to understand that doggie depictions are liable to be construed as a pretty serious insult in some parts of the world, it is also necessary for Pakistanis to appreciate the fact that different standards apply in the west.

          The curious incident of the dog was overshadowed early last month by another media-related incident, which produced far more dire consequences. The supposed culprit this time was Newsweek, which carried a small news item saying that an internal US military inquiry was investigating reports of copies of the Quran being flushed down toilets at the American detention centre in Guantanamo Bay as a means of tormenting the prisoners.

          Predictably, there was an uproar in parts of the Muslim world - after Imran Khan sought to reap political capital by publicising the report. His opportunism is forgivable; chances are that the crucial half-sentence would anyhow have been spotted. In Pakistan, protesters demanded not only punishment for the offenders but a rupture in diplomatic relations with the US. Matters went a lot further in Afghanistan, where rioters went on a rampage, torching the Pakistan Consulate in Jalalabad, among other buildings.

          Retaliatory violence by the security forces is reported to have cost 17 lives. The Pentagon and the White House used these unfortunate and quite possibly unnecessary deaths as a means of hitting Newsweek over the head. Under pressure, the newsmagazine's unnamed (but usually reliable) source suddenly was no longer sure where he had come across any mention of the Quran incident. Newsweek apologised for the harm its report had caused, offering first a semi-retraction, then a less ambiguous one.

            Almost no one in the US or anywhere else put much store by the retraction. After all, this wasn't the first time that reports of the Quran's desecration had appeared in the press: British as well as American newspapers have in the past quoted claims by detainees released from Guantanamo that extreme disrespect towards the Book was a part of the intimidatory tactics adopted by interrogators. And the Pentagon's insistence that no such incident had ever been brought to its attention was contradicted by a statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which said it had reported incidents of this nature "multiple times" to the US, which took corrective measures.

            One of the more extraordinary reactions to the Newsweek affair came from US presidential spokesman Scott McClellan, who described its retraction as "a good first step," before going on to suggest that the magazine could continue to making amends by talking "about the policies and practices of the United States military," which "goes out of its way to treat the Holy Quran with great care and respect."

            That sounds ominously like an invitation to Newsweek - hardly a voice of dissent - to become more of a propaganda organ for the Bush administration.

            It has meanwhile been pointed out that whereas in countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan disrespect towards the Quran is considered a sacrilege punishable by death, destruction of any religious text is a constitutional right in the US. That seems somewhat besides the point in the present case: if pages from the Quran were torn up and thrown into the toilet, the action wasn't intended to underline the right to free speech.

            At the same time, it is worth remembering that no matter what anyone does to a printed page, for believers the Quran is surely indestructible, and no degree of disrespect can conceivably diminish its value or undermine its status.

            There is, after all, a great deal else to get angry about. Such as the US military's treatment of human beings - who are not indestructible. For instance, a detailed and confronting report in The New York Times on May 20, based on leaked documents from a military investigation, explains how two Afghan prisoners were tortured to death at a detention centre in Bagram. Dilawar and Habibullah were routinely humiliated and gratuitously beaten by a bunch of psychopaths. Habibullah was believed to be the brother of a local Taliban commander. Dilawar, aged 22, was a taxi driver guilty only of driving past a US military base on a day when it had come under attack. Even his interrogators didn't suspect him of having participated in any activity that could be deemed subversive. But innocence wasn't enough to keep him alive.

            The NYT describes the Bagram file as "a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib." It says: "The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths.

            "In some instances ... it was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information. In others, it was punishment meted out by military police guards. Sometimes, the torment seems to have been driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both.

            "...soldiers describe one female interrogator with a taste for humiliation stepping on the neck of one prostrate detainee and kicking another in the genitals. They tell of a shackled prisoner being forced to roll back and forth on the floor of a cell, kissing the boots of his two interrogators as he went. Yet another prisoner is made to pick plastic bottle caps out of a drum, mixed with excrement and water, as part of a strategy to soften him up for questioning."

            It adds that many of the Bagram interrogators were redeployed to Iraq after the invasion and took charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib.

            In both cases, charges have been pressed against a handful of junior personnel. That's where the buck stops. Those who condoned, encouraged and in some cases even ordered the torture, in a chain of command that stretches to the very top, will face no consequences.

            Even Hamid Karzai, who didn't have much to say about the desecration riots, beyond that the demonstrations offered proof of flourishing democracy, felt compelled to promise, before leaving on a visit to the US, that he would confront Bush about the abuse of prisoners. He also intended to seek the return of Afghan prisoners and control over US military operations.

            Karzai couldn't be completely unaware that if he tries too hard to disavow his status as a puppet, the US will feel obliged to find a replacement.

            Intriguingly, while the White House barely stopped short of branding Newsweek's editorial staff and its source as murderers, the US military in Afghanistan said the riots in that country had little to do with the reported desecration of the Quran.

            Of all the conclusions that could be drawn from the foregoing, there is one that stands out: The "war on terror" has been a disaster, not least because the US lost no time in compromising the moral advantage it initially appeared to enjoy in the world's eyes. It cannot be regained in the short term. The war, one might say, has gone to the dogs; and the canine quadrupeds concerned are mostly of the American variety.

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