Cannon Should Be Towards Burning Issues

By: Jarri Mirza

Presently all non-serious politicians and so-called champion journalists are reporting or publishing baseless stories without research and giving one side picture to the public. This act is being done by some private TV Channels as well as political analysts in daily newspapers and electronic media.

They want to put pressure on the present government and the real party of the peole, which is the largest political party in the country. The ruling political party proved its popularity in the most recent Gilgit Baltistan elections that they have roots is the people of Pakistan who love democracy and rule of law in our beloved country.

For last few weeks our TV anchors are busy along with the so called political analysts discussing about corruption and anti President campaign only for the sake of point scoring and gaining sympathy from whom they are affiliated with and also for monetary payments from their lords involved in terrorism in South Waziristan and Afghanistan. They are unable to think that these hearsay stories are encouraging the wrong doers in the public; while some English TV Channels are telecasting accurate reporting, certain Urdu electronic media anchors telecast sensational conversations and scary stories spreading panic among innocent people, blocking the positive way to develop the country and making obstacles in the way of foreign investment.

They can now read the statement made for head of 2nd largest political party (PML-N) given to daily news; when he said he has never talked about the impeachment of the president nor has he demanded his resignation. The Chief Minister of Punjab also talked with journalist in Karachi that they don’t want to derail the democratic system in Pakistan. President should complete his tenure, who unanimously elected through democratic process.

Now political analysts and media persons should wait the decision from court of law, as judiciary is independent and impartial. Corruption will put before the court of law. Let us see the institutional mechanism for dealing with the corruption cases not emotional attacks against the corrupt.

My suggestion for media persons that burning issue should be taken up i.e. social, economic issue in the society, war on terrorism, health care, drinking water, education and other necessaries of people.

Cannon should not be toward one personal, latest gallop survey reports confirm that present government has ability to coop the crises and other problem faced by the people of Pakistan. Media should improve their image, so people could rely upon them.
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The ‘It-is-not-us’ syndrome - By Hajrah Mumtaz

A couple of months ago, I wrote a column in praise of certain Pakistani pop stars and bands, arguing that there are a fair number of songs that display political consciousness and a related sense of responsibility. I referred to such songs as Junoon’s ‘Talaash’, Shahzad Roy’s ‘Lagay Raho’ and ‘Kismet Apnay Haath Main’, Noori’s ‘Merey Log’ and Laal’s rendition of Habib Jalib’s ‘Main Nay Uss Say Yeh Kaha.’

I find now that that argument was all very well – as far as it went. Such is the manner in which we are bound by our long-cherished prejudices and mental chains that it took a report by the New York Times’ Adam B. Ellick to show me what I had completely failed to notice: the music acts’ total refusal to either touch upon the topic of the Taliban, or to even acknowledge them as a concern.

In a video report shot in Lahore, Ellick asks a few of Pakistan’s top musicians why they have spoken out against corruption, political wheeling-dealings, poverty and the manner in which the country has been done in by everyone from the politicians to the West to India – but never against the Taliban, who currently constitute the clearest and most present of dangers.

Here, verbatim, is what Ali Noor of Noori has to say:

‘We are not going to get up and say that we want to talk against the Taliban – simply because they are probably one of the smallest problems this country has. [...] It’s the West. It’s the West that is against the Taliban, because they are very heavily affected by it. We’re not.’

And here is what Ali Azmat – the man who once sang about ‘zehni ghulami’ – has to say: ‘We know for a fact that all this turbulence in Pakistan ... it’s not us. It’s the outside hands.’

What, really, can one say? The Taliban are one of the smallest problems this country has? When we’re having a bombing virtually every day, when parts of the south-west of the country were until very recently in serious danger of falling to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and its associated gang of goons?

Ellick comments, dryly, that this view – it’s not us, it’s ‘foreign hands’ – persists despite a spate of bombings in the country with the targets ranging from civilians and security forces’ installations to an Islamic university for women. ‘They’re [Pakistan’s pop musicians] angry about one fact: that the United States has interfered in Pakistan’s politics for decades.’

Of course Ellick focuses in his report on the anti-American angle apparent in many Pakistani pop songs, using stills from the ‘Klashinfolk’, ‘Kismet Apnay Haath Main Lay Li Hai’ and a CoVen video to press his point home. And he ignores other work such as that by Laal. Nevertheless, his point is made well enough to make me cringe: amongst the people interviewed in his report, there seems to be an utter refusal to acknowledge that the Taliban are in any way a threat, or that this is a local, home-grown problem that affects Pakistan first and most deeply.

To be sure, other comments may have been made in the interviews that were edited out when the report was compiled. And, as Nadeem Farooq Paracha tells Ellick, a musician is not necessarily the best person to come up with insights into the situation of Pakistan, since his view would tend to reflect the dominant one. But, he asks, ‘at least address the schools’ issue. Why are you [the Taliban] destroying schools? What has that got to do with America or Zionism? Nobody’s even talked about it.’

So in the next shot, Ellick puts the question to Ali Azmat. Off-camera, he asks, ‘Would you ever sing a song about how two hundred girls’ schools were blown up?’ Azmat’s reply? ‘Well you know, you cannot blame the Taliban for that. Where do you think those fundings are coming from? It’s the agenda of the neo-cons to de-Islamise Pakistan... religion must be killed.’

One could be forgiven, at this point, to want to shoot oneself in despair. We’re all tempted to defend Pakistan in the face of criticism, sure. But in this manner and in such ill-chosen words?

But why blame Ali Azmat or Ali Noor? The sad fact is that this is a nation of delusional people, and the views these two men have expressed are shared by a great many people – I’d go as far as to say the majority. It took years of beheadings, bombings, whippings and extortion by the Taliban to turn the tide of public opinion against them. It took the infamous ‘flogging video’, the imminent fall of Swat and parts of Malakand into the militants hands, and an active threat posed to the government’s writ over Peshawar to set people saying finally that the Taliban-led militants had to be countered. Until then, if you remember, the public discourse had mainly been along the lines of ‘but all they want to do is enforce an Islamic system – and that, after all, is what we all want.’

What will it take for us to recognise that Pakistan’s problems, from the Taliban to poverty, under-development and corruption, are home-grown? Even where we reject them, we try to blame others. ‘It’s the foreign influences; a conspiracy against Pakistan and Islam; it’s India; it’s America; it’s Israel.’ Like pre-schoolers, we whine on and on: ‘It’s not us; we aren’t like this.’

Ellick also shows in his report portions from that highly popular song ‘Yeh Hum Nahin’, the collaborative effort against terrorism by some of the country’s biggest pop icons. Here are the lyrics he picks up on:

‘This is not us; not us. The story that is being spread in our names is a lie. These stamps of death on our foreheads are the signs of others.’

(To be fair, Ellick also refers to Shahzad Roy of taking on religion in his ‘Laga Raho’ song. But that doesn’t alter the fact that no one refers to the Taliban-led militants. And it is true, as Ali Hamza says, that ‘If we start talking about the Taliban, it’s very easy for them to get rid of us.’ But that doesn’t alter the fact that others, from theatre groups such as Ajoka and Tehrik-e-Niswan, to filmmakers and journalists, are speaking up.)

Pakistan is a nation in denial, unwilling to mature and accept responsibility for mistakes past and future – unwilling to shoulder the weight of responsibility for improving its own future. Certainly, other countries have meddled in our politics. But we’re the ones taking the decision to let them, and then finding ways of shooting ourselves in the foot. The Taliban are a case in point, thanks to Pakistan’s notions of strategic depth in Afghanistan. Like ostriches, we always have and perhaps always will keep our heads stuck in the sand. One can argue that it is the state and the government that ought to be tasked with steering the course of the country’s future away from its currently suicidal direction: but until individuals who constitute society change their minds, a mere government can achieve little of long-term impact.

So much for zehni ghulami!

– hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com Sunday, 15 Nov, 2009 (Dawn)

Link to Documentary by ' Adam B. Ellick'

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/11/11/world/1247465633296/tuning-out-the-taliban.html?scp=2&sq=Adam%20B.%20Ellick%20&st=cse
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Story of a 14-year-old suicide bomber brainwashed by the Friends of Taliban

It has been learnt that Taliban use the anti-Pakistan (i.e. anti-democracy, anti-Pakistan Army and anti-west) hate propaganda spread by their friends in Pakistani media (e.g., Hamid Mir, Shahid Masood, Ansar Abbasi, Javed Chaudhry and others), in order to brainwash the ill-educated and ill-informed Pakistani youth. Here is a detailed account of a 14-year-old suicide bomber by BBC correspondent Orla Guerin.

'I agreed to become a suicide bomber'

A 14-year-old boy in the tribal region of Bajaur, in north-west Pakistan, says he was detained by Taliban forces who tried to turn him into a suicide bomber. The boy is now in army hands. He provided a detailed account to BBC correspondent Orla Guerin. His story cannot be independently verified. The boy says he was beaten until he agreed to become a suicide bomber There were five people who came after me from a place in Bajaur. They tricked me. They told me they were going to behead my father. I went with them but my father wasn't there. They tied me up. They said: 'You have two choices. We will behead you, or you will become a suicide bomber.' I refused. There were two more guys of my age. They were also training to be suicide bombers. If we refused they would tie our hands behind our backs, blindfold us and start beating us. They brainwashed us and told us we would go to heaven. They said 'there will be honey and juice and God will appear in front of you. You will have a beautiful house in Heaven'. We used to ask them to let us out to pray. They would reply 'you are already on your way to heaven. You don't need to pray.' They beat me hard for five days. I wasn't given any food. While they were beating me I agreed to become a suicide bomber. They separated me from the other boys. Mosque mission They took me to a dark room and started giving me pills. I was handed over to Maulvi Fakir [the Bajaur Taliban commander]. After all this preparation they said I was to go and do the job in a mosque. Before the Taliban came we used to enjoy freedom. We used to play, and go to our schools 'Haunting' Taliban problem It was an ordinary mosque but the cleric there used to talk against the Taliban, and they declared him their enemy. They told me the cleric was a non-believer, a non-Muslim. They took off my shirt and put the jacket on my shoulders. There were two hooks on my chest. They told me that when you go there you say 'Allahu Akbar' [God is Great] and then you pull apart these two hooks. Then they took me there, showed me the mosque and went off. I was drugged and I couldn't feel anything. I only came to my senses when I arrived in the mosque. I saw the peaceful kind face of the cleric, and I saw the mosque was full of holy books. I saw the people praying. And I thought, they are all Muslims. How can I do this? I decided not to and I came out. I sat under a tree outside the mosque and waited for prayers to be over. After that I made my way back to the Taliban. Then they called me 'a son of a bitch' and asked why I had come back without doing it. I told them I could not do it because they were carrying out body searches of all the people entering the mosque. They took off my vest and handed me over to Maulvi Fakir. They tied me up but I told them to give me another chance and I would do it. They trusted me. I was roaming around with them for a couple of days. I got to the road, found transport and came home. They followed me to my house. They wanted to know if I was still there or had run somewhere else. Watch Orla Guerin's TV report from Bajaur The Taliban had beaten me so harshly my back was scarred. When my parents saw that my mother started to cry, and told me not to go back to them. My father asked them why they were after his son. One day he took his weapon and went after them. But they wanted to kill him so he came back home and closed the door. Before the Taliban came we used to enjoy freedom. We used to play, and go to our schools. There were no restrictions on us. Morning and evening we used to play games, and sit and chat with friends. We used to listen to music on our mobile phones. They banned that. They stopped us doing anything. They stopped us playing cricket and going to school. We felt like prisoners. I want to join the army because they are the defenders of the land. They are fighting for the right cause. I want to fight against the Taliban. I have no other intention except to defend my country. The Taliban should be eliminated. I want to tell the Taliban that they are cruel, and what they did to me was unjust. I can't kill innocent Muslims. I am not afraid of them. I am only afraid of God. I am answerable only to Him. Source

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Don't malign Taliban. It's foreign agents who are responsible for terrorism in the guise of Taliban.

The threat within
Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 13 Nov, 2009 (Dawn)

A few days ago I came across a letter to the editor in Dawn in which the writer had protested against the use of the word ‘Taliban’ to describe the brutal killers currently terrorising the nation.

In the writer’s view, such people should be termed ‘zaliman’. I thought I would advise the writer to watch more television and read newspapers to get rid of his anger against the Taliban.

Perhaps the writer would have benefited tremendously by watching a programme aired recently on a TV channel in which three distinguished maulanas — including Jamaat-i-Islami leader Fareed Paracha — argued that the Taliban were being needlessly maligned since there was no evidence available to prove that the attacks were being carried out by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.


Furthermore, it was said that the TTP’s claiming responsibility for terrorist attacks inside Pakistan did not add up to much since anyone could make those calls just to malign the organisation of non-state militants.

The above interview came a couple of days after the army claimed to have found evidence of India’s involvement in the conflict in Waziristan. Islamabad should take the evidence to the International Court of Justice since it does not hope to get a fair hearing from anyone else in the world, certainly not the US. Since India and America are viewed as being ‘hand-in-glove’, Pakistan cannot afford to share the above information with Washington as New Delhi did in the case of the Mumbai attacks.

The evidence of India’s involvement should be sufficient to put the aforementioned letter writer’s mind at rest. Now we no longer need to search for internal sources of violence.

Since the responsibility of the conflict in the region is now the responsibility of the US followed by India, we need not even look at the fact that Pakistan witnessed about 45 terrorist attacks before 9/11 which many in this country view as the sole cause of strife and bloodshed in the entire region. We can no longer argue that 9/11 just expedited the process of bringing to the surface all those elements or networks that later caused violence in the region.

I would go further and apprise the writer of another crucial fact that technically, there are no home-grown terrorists in Pakistan since there has never been any conviction in a major case of terrorism. The significant names that are associated with extremist terrorist activities such as Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, Riaz Basra and Malik Ishaq of the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP)/Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ), Qari Saifullah Akhtar of Harkat-ul-Jihad-ul-Islami (HuJI) or Masood Azhar of Jaish-i-Mohammad (JM) and many others are foreign concoctions.

The country’s legal system is such that the onus of proving an individual or organisation’s responsibility in an act of terror lies on the state. So, if the police are unable to bring concrete evidence before the court it is difficult to convict those accused of terrorism by the law-enforcers. Moreover, the legal procedures take so long that the prosecution (being the state) is unable to hold on to witnesses. They either die, are killed or are too scared to give evidence against organisations and individuals with a particular reputation.

Technically, it is but fair to let people go if nothing can be proven against them. This was essentially the position which Pervez Musharraf took for not pursuing action against those who were swapped for the hostages of Indian Airlines flight IC 184 which was hijacked to Kandahar in 1999. Why arrest someone if even the enemy had failed to convict the people after keeping them in jail for so many years?

Hence, it is not surprising that there are hardly any convictions. In a couple of cases where this has happened, as in the case of American journalist Daniel Pearl’s murder, the death sentence has not been carried out.

We now know that Khaled Sheikh Mohammad of Al Qaeda and not Omar Saeed Sheikh committed the murder. Probably, it was in appreciation of Sheikh’s innocence that his jailers in Hyderabad allowed him access to several SIMs and mobile phones that he then used for very naughty activities, which we will not report here as acts of potential terrorism.

One might just wonder about the killings of Shias in the country, which have been going on since the mid-1980s when the SSP was reportedly established to fight the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Fiqh-i-Jafria by the state. We hardly notice that last year there were systematic killings of Shias in Dera Ismail Khan and before that of Shia doctors in Karachi. The killing of Shias in Balochistan by the Taliban also goes unnoticed by the media and the authorities.

Surely one cannot discuss Balochistan at all where there is much more serious evidence of India’s involvement. The maulanas might argue again that sectarian violence in Balochistan is an Indian/American conspiracy.

The person who wrote the letter might decide to respond to this piece and might argue that the behaviour pattern of the Pakistani establishment and the bulk of the people remains the same. We accused the East Pakistanis of being Indian agents and said the civil war was caused by Hindu teachers in collusion with the Indian state. Any signs of India’s involvement very naturally mar our ability to look at other possibilities or threats.

In East Pakistan’s case, for instance, the internal crisis had nothing to do with the unfair treatment of the Bengalis by the West Pakistani civil and military establishment. The only truth about that era was that the Mukti Bahini was trained by Indian intelligence.

We in Pakistan are coming close to a point where we can comfortably forget that we have elements within that want to take over (perhaps not physically) the state in pursuance of their pan-Islamic agenda. The war being fought by Pakistan due to international pressure is what has caused all the violence.

I would like to refer to the golden words of Punjab’s Law Minister Rana Sanaullah in response to the allegation of south Punjab turning into a hub of extremism and terrorism.

The minister felt there was no training taking place in the region and if people were getting recruited to fight in Afghanistan or other places, how could the government stop this. After all, we live in a free country.

Under the circumstances, my only advice to the writer of the letter is that if he begins to feel unsafe vis-à-vis the presence of the ‘zaliman’ within, he/she should build additional bunkers outside the house.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com
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Imran Khan's Shireen Mazari and her shoddy journalism

Shireen Mazari, the General Secretary of Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, was disgracefully dismissed from the editorship of The News in the recent past. She was also reprimanded by the GHQ (Pakistan Army) for misquoting and misinterpreting Pakistan Army and the ISI on a number of occasions.

However, it appears that Shireen Mazari (also known as Lady Taliban) has maintained her standards in her capacity as the Resident Editor of The Nation.

Here is what has been observed in The News (Editorial) today:

Shoddy journalism

Thursday, November 12, 2009 (The News)

Journalists lead dangerous lives in Pakistan. They are targeted by the terrorists whose actions they report and by politicians and bureaucrats whose failings and indiscretions they expose. All this is to be expected. What a working journalist may not expect, however, is to be stabbed in the back by one of his own, as has recently happened to Matthew Rosenberg, a journalist working for the Wall Street Journal. Mr Rosenberg has been accused in a local newspaper of having links to the CIA and Mossad and of acting in some undefined way as an agent of Blackwater. As if this were not enough to blight his life and career, he is further accused of having 'secret' meetings with Secretary Law and Order FATA Secretariat, Tariq Hayat Khan, and Additional Chief Secretary FATA, Habib Khan. Both are said to have 'fed' documents to Mr Rosenberg, thereby implicating them in his alleged espionage activities. The story is based upon information from a nameless source and has no supporting evidence. Mr Rosenberg has had to leave the country and is unlikely to be working here in the foreseeable future.

The editor of the Wall Street Journal has rightly and robustly sprung to the defence of his journalist and written to the editor of the newspaper that printed the story. The opening paragraph of his letter reads … "As a fellow editor I am writing to convey in the strongest possible terms our dismay and disgust over the slanderous falsehoods published on the front page of your newspaper on November 5th regarding our reporter Matthew Rosenberg." We might add 'grossly irresponsible' and 'unprofessional' to the list of printable adjectives that may be applied to this dangerous travesty of journalism. Accusations such as this, based on information from a single unnamed source are life-threatening in their gravity. At the very least there should one other corroborating source and preferably more than one where accusations as grave as this are made. The electronic media has recently reached a voluntary agreement to 'clean up its act'; and perhaps some sections of the print media need to do the same. (Source)

Condemnation by The Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned The Nation for publishing “a reckless and unsubstantiated story”. Last week, Pakistan Media Watch wrote about the incident – in which The Nation published an article with no facts calling an American journalist a spy. Here is what the CPJ wrote today:

Last Thursday, Pakistan’s The Nation newspaper published a reckless and unsubstantiated story accusing Wall Street Journal South Asia correspondent Matthew Rosenberg of being a spy. It’s an accusation that gravely endangers Rosenberg’s safety. Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson responded with a scathing letter to The Nation’s editor, Shireen Mazari, expressing his disgust at the publication of the story, which he called baseless and false. He demanded an immediate retraction.

It’s of course deeply disturbing to us at CPJ that a newspaper would publish a story like this that clearly puts the life of a fellow reporter in danger. But we are also concerned about the source for this scurrilous information, someone the reporter identified as “an official of law enforcement agency, who requested anonymity.” Could this be a deliberate government attempt to intimidate Rosenberg and other foreign correspondents working in Pakistan? That’s a deeply chilling possibility that must be investigated.

In addition, the Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal, Robert Thomson, wrote a scathing letter to Shireen Mazari conveying his “disgust” over “the slanderous and dangerous falsehoods published on the front page” of The Nation.

Dear Ms. Mazari,

As a fellow Editor, I am writing to convey in the strongest possible terms our dismay and disgust over the slanderous and dangerous falsehoods published on the front page of your newspaper on November 5 regarding our reporter, Mathhew Rosenberg.

Journalism is an important vocation and Pakistan has many fine and courageous journalists who operate in extremely difficult conditions. Foreign correspondents also have an important social role and are similarly exposed to danger from extremists. So for your paper to have suggested, absolutely groundlessly, that Matthew had some intelligence connection was a betrayal of our collective calling and has endangered him, all other Wall Street Journal correspondents, and all journalists and foreign correspondents in your country.

Let me set the record straight: Matthew is an experienced foreign correspondent who has worked for many years covering the region, including Pakistan. In that capacity, he has pursued no other agenda than seeking the truth and has had no other aim than to bring to the world’s attention news and analysis of what is happening in your very important country at a critical time.

Our profession has been done a great disservice by the utterly baseless article, and I call upon you to print an immediate and prominent retraction to ensure that it is widely understood that the piece was without foundation. At present, your paper is is guilty of spreading falsehoods, but it could ultimately be complicit in a far greater tragedy unless this wrong is corrected. We obviously reserve our right to pursue legal action in this instance.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Thompson

Source

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Tragedy of the talk shows in Pakistan

Tragedy of the talk shows —Elf Habib

The shows obsessively promote the political circus splashing the spicier rhetoric and sensation. Their anchors, contrary to the common norms of calmness, insouciance and neutrality are often quite agitated, flippant and biased on certain issues. Some are almost too rapacious to devour their guests

The private channels in Pakistan have come a long way since CNN was first introduced by Benazir Bhutto to allow us “a window on the world”. They have become largely independent, even defied some of the Musharraf edicts and played a pivotal role in his ouster. Their strength to stir frenzied hysteria on various partisan and controversial issues like the restoration of the judiciary was witnessed during the Long March. They fiendishly flagellate the federal policies and performance, nonchalantly promote the Opposition and repeatedly project a coven of the dictator’s coteries, retired generals and bureaucrats as political and defence wiseacres, analysts and commentators. Even the politicians utterly pounded in elections are routinely solicited to swipe the state of current events. But their morbid infatuation with the fundamentalist, obscurantist and jingoistic notions and an inveterate apathy towards any rational approach, thought and realities is far more rattling to the saner elements.

Even Islam, persistently proclaimed as the leitmotif, lacks an evolving and enlightened interpretation essential for interaction and survival in modern pluralistic societies. A programme on a local television channel, for instance, eulogised the Taliban enforcement of standardised beard brands and compulsory prayers as great reforms in Afghanistan. The media naively ignores that immense resources required for a real welfare cannot be sustained through poppy trade, scuttling the transit supplies or mercantile fleets but can only be generated through modern education, skill and expertise. This in turn, can only be achieved through cooperation with the advanced industrialised Western states and not through alienation or confrontation against them. Yet they reinforce hatred against the West incited by the mullahs and dictators for their combined disdain against democracy and the inevitable evolution in human thought and culture.

Similarly, the mullah myths that the world is divided into Muslim and non-Muslims and that almost the entire world is continuously conspiring against Muslims are also fervently perpetrated. Our flubs and failures are also invariably imputed to our enemies rather than to our own weird vision, priorities and policies. India and Israel are particularly blasted for our miseries. No sincere attempt is made to squelch the suspicion, angst and attitude knowing well that the democracies like Britain, France and Germany have left behind the bitter hatred of several bloody wars and millions of deaths and are fast forging a larger single community. We, in contrast, have been squandering our resources trying to match our might against a ten times larger neighbour rather than caring for the vital needs, welfare and happiness of our masses and to diffuse the militancy and fissiparous fights.

An irrational angst against the US, evident in lambasting American policies and intentions, like the outburst on Kerry Lugar Bill, is another nauseating preoccupation. American policies are more ruthlessly anatomised in Pakistan than in the American media, which is rather more dominated by sports, cinema and celebrity gigs. We rail against this biggest donor that even interdicted the Indian onslaught with the famous “hands off West Pakistan” Nixon gesture. We would rather have the US conduct all its actions in accordance with the wishes of our mullahs, media magnates and anchors. The drone attacks are another irritant being consistently castigated as counter-productive and avoiding any dispassionate analyses of their impact in remote, inaccessible hostile and torturous terrains. Drone attacks, of course, are said to turn useful if they are conducted by Pakistan, implying that the problem really is not with their attacks but with their possession and ownership.

Touting the nuclear weapons as the most marvellous and sacrosanct achievement worthy of all human and socio-economic sacrifices is another media passion. Contrary to the global norms of accepting the people as our prime national asset and resource, the media has ironically glorified the nuclear arsenals as the national assets (asaasay). Nuclear stocks and the Taliban were, in fact, edified as the two great national assets. The Taliban trove has already turned devastatingly toxic making one shudder at the fate and future of the second asset. The media, of course, never emphasises that the largest nuclear stocks on earth could not save the Soviet Union from splintering, secure the safety of Israel or procure food, fuel and medicine for North Korea. They were no deterrent against the debacle and ignominy at Kargil, Taliban terror, the tension following the Mumbai carnage and the begging bowl syndrome.

Unfortunately, the media rather than illumining the need for building modern affluent industrialised welfare models like Scandinavian states or Britain has been acquiesced into advocating the medieval militaristic obsession. The modern welfare states evidently need a continuous and extensive investment in education, research and skill forming and the public welfare projects for which the defence expenditure has to be rationalised to not more than a fifth of the national budget. But the media has never ventured this vital and critical orientation. Nor has it ever highlighted the need to spruce the non-productive expenditure, the multilayered bureaucracy, overlapping corporations, excessive taxes and utility costs. It flagellates the authorities for lack of food, water, sanitation, fuel and power facilities without revealing the real reasons for the chaos or building pressure for their rectification. It even rarely bothers to guide the public on some ordinary mundane matters like traffic, cleanliness, cottage industries or initiatives for livelihood.

The shows obsessively promote the political circus splashing the spicier rhetoric and sensation. Their anchors, contrary to the common norms of calmness, insouciance and neutrality are often quite agitated, flippant and biased against certain issues. Some are almost too rapacious to devour their guests. One anchor petulantly ranted why a certain point so passionately felt by her was not explicated during a foreign visit; another anchor declares himself to be the number one columnist of the country; while commemorating ZAB’s martyrdom, one anchor had also invited a scion of the prosecuting family. A bubbling anchor, known for her characteristic shrill aggressive tone, was hooked on hydrogen bomb. The selection of guests, experts and the issues is also quite ambiguous. The largest political parties like the PPP and PML-N are often equated with the palookas like the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Some guests are allowed to perorate at length while others are repeatedly and relentlessly interrupted. The exasperated viewers often feel that the anchors should rather swap their seats. Some talk shows are just the anchor’s rudderless screeds.

Despite such evident bias and thrust, the channels never declare their political affiliation or sympathies. The Western media giants like the Fox, CNN and Guardian are openly known for their commitment and affiliation facilitating the viewers to understand a particular viewpoint. In Pakistan, ironically, each channel claims to be independent and impartial masking its true colours and association. Parallel to a dictators’ penchant to be apolitical, espousal to a particular party or thought still remains a taboo with the media giants. Enlightened citizen’s fora are thus needed to evaluate the media programmes. The media’ representative councils and official watchdogs similarly also have to be energised to replace the ruinous stranglehold of the clergy, emotions and the establishment by a more rational and realistic content and purpose.

The writer is a freelance columnist. (Daily Times)

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Anchor-istan: Media jihadis and their vision of Pakistan

Guest blog by: Bahadar Ali Khan

After watching Pakistani media’s talk shows, the assertions made by learned anchor-persons of these talk shows and reading the Urdu columnists I have visualized a future scenario of good governance for Pakistan. Under the recommendations of the media persons of our country and right wing parties, I have come to the conclusion that we should make a government just as they recommend and infer every day in their allotted air time. My understanding is that after we have this government inplace all of our problems would be resolved for ever. We’ll no longer be accepting US dictations nor we would be needing their arms. India would flee from Kashmir. Another popular hate-subject, Israel would be annihilated. The Western civilization would cease to exist and US and European will get back to stone age. All the corrupt elements from the Pakistani society would chastise theirself and anyone who obtained expensive plots from government would return it in the greater interest of the general public. Also anybody who got anything except salary would return it.

Now let us see how this government of ‘angels’ would look like. Nobody can doubt that best person for Pakistan’s presidentship is General (rtd) Hamid Gul. Syed Munawar Hassan is the best candidate for the Prime Minister of Pakistan. None other than Imran Khan suits the best for ministry of religious affairs. He is so good at collecting donations that he would run his ministry purely on donations and nothing would be taken from national exchequer. Shireen Mazari can be appointed ambassador to US. Qazi Hussain Ahmed would become Pakistani High Commissioner to India because by doing so one day he would fulfil his life long wish of heralding Pakistani flag on Delhi’s Red Fort. He can do this secretly on any weekend. Rest of the portfolios of economy, defence, foreign affairs, strategic affairs, science and literature and many other section can be filled by the appointments of very talented and expert on every subject media anchor-persons. These people are so capable that every ministry would run in an exemplary fashion.

There would be a National Consultation Council whose members would be from the board of the directors of “Ideology of Pakistan Limited”. General Mirza Aslam Beg can be appointed as governor of Baluchistan and because of terrain of his province he would be more effectively keep an eye on the ’strategic depth’ and US activities in Afghanistan. MQM suits best for the governorship of Sindh because though they are kind of misfit for this set up but the problem is that if we appoint anybody else the governor, MQM would not let him enter the governor house.

I believe if this government comes into being all of our assets including Talibans and nuclear weapons would get safe for ever. We will defeat NATO and allied forces in Afghanistan and later on will continue our march towards Central Asian states until we get our strategic goals and during this course our strategic depth would expand as far as North Pole goes. This government will neither take any foreign aid nor will return anybody’s loan. In order to appease Taliban this government will shut down all the girls colleges and schools.

Maulan Abdul Aziz ( Lal Masjid fame ) will be appointed Pakistan’s permanent representative in United Nations where he will brief the rest of the world about Pakistan power and importance. He will construct a mosque in the UN building whose students would march in the streets of New York and anybody ( any women ) not following the proper dress code will be kidnapped and brought to UN Mosque where she would be tortured to get the dose of spirituality. If the US, because they are host of UN office, do something derogatory or put any restrictions on our envoy’s actvities , our government will transfer the head quarters of UN to Waziristan. Osama bin Laden will be our Ambassador at large where he will work on the puritinization of the infidels and if some infidel not followed his line, he would be slaughtered.

Our new government will keep friendly relationship with China only one condition, if all Chinese men stop shaving their faces and their women put on modest dress. If China not followed these condition then we would teach them a lesson by sending our Mujahideen in their Sinkiang province. This government would definitely fulfil the longing for waging a war against US and in that war our government would destroy US.

The only problem that is left to be tackled as what will happen to the current lot of Politicians. So our pious government would arrange their punishments from the federal Shariah Court. And their worst punishments would be to appoint them on higher posts but stop them from taking bribe and perks.

So what do you think?

Source: http://bkhan.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/anchor-istan-a-vision-of-a-pure-government/

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Charsadda Attack and the Friends of Taliban

Charsadda, 10 November 2009. More than 30 people were killed and over 50 injured in a car bombing in Pakistan's north-western city of Charsadda, health officials said on Tuesday.

The blast occurred at a busy market in the town, which is located around 30 kilometres north-east of Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province.

'It was a suicide bombing. The bomber was riding a Suzuki Alto car,' district police chief Riaz Khan said. 'We have recovered his body parts.'

Shahzeb Khan, a health official at the main state-run hospital in Charsadda, said over the phone that 'more than 30 bodies and over 50 injured were moved here.' He said dozens more critically injured were taken to Peshawar.

'The death toll may rise because there are so many people who are in critical condition,' said the health official.

Express television quoted an eyewitness as saying that the bomber rammed his car into other vehicles and push-carts at the market.

Dozens of shops and several vehicles on the road were destroyed in the blast that also snapped the power cables and shattered the windowpanes of buildings in the vicinity.

No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing but the suspicion fell on Taliban, who have intensified attacks on civilian and official targets since mid-October when the military launched a major assault in their heartland of South Waziristan - a remote district near the Afghan border.

Around 30,000 ground troops are pitched against some 10,000 guerrilla fighters in the operation that Pakistan has described as crucial for its campaign to root out rising Islamic militancy.

Friends of Taliban

Here are the people responsible for brainwashing and developing suicide bombers, i.e. the notorious Taliban spokespersons and apologists in Pakistani media and politics. These are the real criminals; these are the traitors who develop footsoldiers against the Pakistani nation and its institutions.

A Taliban terrorist arrested in Lower Dir. (resembles Ansar Abbasi?) Source

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