The Nation has taken a contradictory position on US Aid, saying that Pakistan should both refuse all aid and request more aid from the US depending on whether the claim fits The Nation’s immediate political agenda. These contradictory positions demonstrate that the only consistency in the The Nation’s editorial page is anti-Americanism and anti-government.
Today’s editorial page includes the column, “Right way, at last!” in which the editors of The Nation pen the following suggestion for the Americans:
Mr Obama should also pay heed to Mr Zardari’s remark that the Swat campaign has caused an expenditure of $2.5 billion and there is need for Washington to come forward with increased assistance.
That’s right. Suddenly, The Nation is asking for President Obama and the Americans to increase aid to Pakistan.
Let’s look back at past editorials of The Nation. On November 10, 2009 the editorial “The truth please!” read as follows:
Finally, the military needs to distance itself from the US, even if the political leadership cannot do so for their own interests…It is time to create a distance between the Pakistan and US militaries and see how the latter fares in Afghanistan.
And lest we forget the drama around the Kerry-Lugar bill? Even before the controversial conditionalities were known, The Nation was already calling into question the aid in an editorial, “The price of US aid”.
The passage of this aid bill was an inevitability, given Pakistan’s importance to the War. However, that does not mean Pakistanis need welcome it…
As we can see from their own words, the position of the editorial staff at The Nation about foreign aid from the USA changes more often than the price of sugar. If the US offers some aid, The Nation says we don’t need to welcome it, then they say the Americans are not giving enough aid! The Nation says the military should distance itself from the Americans, that the US has negative intentions, then they say that the US should be giving more support to Pakistan!
The only consistency in The Nation’s editorials is that they are anti-America, except when they are for increased American participation. The Nation is also anti-government, except when they say that Zardari is doing “what a democratically elected leader ought to be doing.”
In fact, the only consistency in The Nation’s editorial page seems to be the inconsistency. That you can count on.
Tags: Contradictions, foreign aid, Kerry-Lugar, USA
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