In an otherwise straightforward speech in Lahore on Sunday, Imran Khan alluded to a conspiracy theory of Mansoor Ijaz that this blog has discredited not only once, but twice already. One can give Imran Khan the benefit of doubt, though, as there is a history of examples of journalists feeding Imran conspiracies, possibly as an attempt to curry favour with the PTI chief. As we stated before, “Whether or not you support Imran Khan, all political leaders need to be given the facts, not led by their noses on a wild goose chase”. As Imran’s political influence grows, it is important that he – and all political leaders – be able to make decisions from factual information, not conspiracies. Otherwise, the consequences can be disastrous. The New York Times recently reported that Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq was very prone to conspiracy theories and, as a result, made critical errors in government decisions. Pakistan should not follow this dangerous path.
Archive for the ‘Conspiracy Theories’ Category
Media Conspiracies and Imran Khan
Monday, October 31st, 2011
PDF The News speculates on Mansoor Ijaz with a twist
Saturday, October 15th, 2011
When Mansoor Ijaz’s piece in Financial Times was published earlier this week, we could almost feel the excitement in the air. Here is a piece in the international media that claims a conspiracy from president’s house! But, wait, there’s a problem! The majority of the piece actually attacks the national agencies a being a source of international terrorism! It seemed a missed opportunity for Zardari haters, for what self respecting journalist would be willing to blatantly ignore half of the claims in a column just to exploit the other half? But once again, The News (Jang Group), sinks to expectations.
Anjum Niaz tried to keep her piece short, possibly as a way to avoid drawing too much attention to the fact that her column is completely without substance. She even admits that the source, Mansoor Ijaz, is a “coup master” who “thrives on conspriracy theories” and is “driven by an uncontrollable ego to showcase himself as a kingmaker”. Then, after all but terming Mr Ijaz a bald faced liar, Anjum Niaz suggests that perhaps we should at least consider his claims anyway.
And then we get a hint to Anjum’s game:
First, Mansoor Ijaz must have provided irrefutable proof to the editors at FT. They will have gone over the “phone calls and emails” exchanged between Ijaz and the diplomat to establish the authenticity of the information. Publishing such slanderous material is to invite libel.
This blog has already investigated in detail just how credible Mr Ijaz is, but let’s consider Anjum’s argument on it’s own merits. According to Anjum Niaz, the Financial Times ”will have gone over the “phone calls and emails” and therefore anyone who uses basic common sense to question the credibility of Pakistan’s James Bond is wasting his time. Perhaps. But FT never actually said that they saw any evidence, Anjum Niaz just assumes it is so. It should also be noted that Mansoor Ijaz’s piece for the FT was not an investigative news report, it was an opinion piece. Even if he were asked to provide some evidence supporting his sensational claims, we don’t know how much or of what quality this evidence is. Presumably it was of the same quantity and quality of evidence he showed the Wall Street Journal when he claimed to have been a secret negotiator between Sudan and the United States government – a claim for which America’s National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States “found no credible evidence”; or the quantity and quality of evidence he provided the Los Angeles Times in 2003 when he claimed that,”the growing body of publicly available evidence offers sufficient proof of Baghdad’s mendacious designs to warrant the immediate use of force”. We remember how credible that ‘evidence’ turned out to be. Mansoor Ijaz even claims to have brokered a ceasefire between Kashmiri mujahideen and Indian army, although Jang Group reporters who were there tell a different story.
Next year, Khalid Khwaja tried to fix a meeting between American businessman Mansoor Ijaz and Kashmiri militant leader Syed Salahuddin. Khwaja contacted Salahuddin through his friends in Jamaat-e-Islami and informed him that Mansoor Ijaz wanted to deliver a letter from Bill Clinton. Syed Salahuddin came to know that Mansoor Ijaz had meetings with Indian Army officials in Srinagar in early 2000 and also with then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. He smelled a rat and refused to meet Mansoor Ijaz.
As we see, even a decade ago people were questioning the credibility of Mansoor Ijaz’s sensational stories and smelling ‘a rat’. And shouldn’t Anjum Niaz also be making the same assumptions about the evidence Mansoor Ijaz provided to back up his claim that the ISI is “a sponsor of terrorism” that “undermines global antiterrorism efforts at every turn”? She conveniently leaves out this entire part of Mansoor Ijaz’s latest conspiracy theory.
From there, Anjum spirals downward into a confused mess of speculation.
[I]f the account is accurate, Pakistan must identify the senior diplomat who allegedly contacted Mansoor Ijaz and prepared a dossier on behalf of Zardari for the White House and Admiral Mullen with Mansoor Ijaz as the messenger. How did the diplomat gain access to our military’s top secrets to pass them on to the White House and Admiral Mullen? Who gave them to him?
What if the senior diplomat was Hussain Haroon! What if it was Maleeha Lodhi, who Anjum’s colleague Shaheen Sehbai notes was Ambassador when Mansoor Ijaz supposedly arranged secret meetings between Nawaz Sharif and American national security officials at the White House! What if Gen Pasha gave away our military’s top secrets to the White House to the supposed diplomat! What if the national agencies are filled with Bharati agents! What if it was Anjum Niaz, pictured below with American President Bill Clinton who is the selling the nation!
Or, what if this is all just hair-brained nonsense…
Which bring us to the other Jang Group journalist who attempts to squeeze a controversy out of a conspiracy.
Shaheen Sehbai has been suffering humiliation for over three years now since Asif Zardari was elected to the presidency and not immediately booted out, as Sehbai incorrectly predicted. During these years, he has penned a number of pieces based in little more than rumour and speculation, and that appear to be aimed at pitting the civilians and the military against each other. His blatantly selective reading of Mansoor Ijaz’s opinion piece for FT is only the latest strike in this sad campaign.
In a way, Shaheen Sehbai and Mansoor Ijaz have much in common. Both are prone to speculation, and both are known not to let inconvenient facts get in the way of a political agenda. Speculation plays a key role in this piece by Shaheen Sehbai also, as the author admits when he says that “The real facts would come out if and when the full text of that [alleged] memo ever gets out”. Lacking “real facts”, Sehbai decides to invent his own fantasy scenarios and wonders whether Zardari would offer to replace the present Army leadership with a team more friendly to the Americans. Unfortunately for Sehbai, such lazy speculation doesn’t pass a test of basic common sense – Zardari has already granted unprecedented extensions to both General Kayani and General Pasha, and sacking the leadership now to replace them with a more pro-American team would not discourage a coup, it would practically invite one.
Ironically, the one person who comes out smelling like roses is one of Shaheen Sehbai’s favourite punching bags, Husain Haqqani. After all, if Shaheen Sehbai is correct, Zardari knew that he could not trust his Ambassador in Washington to deliver such a pro-American, anti-Army message to the American government, so he had to turn to Mansoor Ijaz. So much for the old slander that says Husain Haqqani is ‘America’s ambassador to Pakistan’s embassy’, Zardari’s man in Washington who the Army doesn’t trust. Instead of being a pro-American Ambassador, Husain Haqqani is now a diplomat that must be worked around if an anti-Army message is to be delivered to Washington.
This brings us to the point that Shaheen Sehbai spends most of his time on: Mansoor Ijaz’s credibility. Unlike his colleague Anjum Niaz, who stops short of opening her column by terming Mansoor Ijaz a liar, Shaheen Sehbai goes out of his way to try to turn the “coup master” who “thrives on conspriracy theories” into a saint. He starts by echoing Anjum Niaz’s line that “the FT is not likely to publish something which it cannot substantiate if it was so required”. Some might find it curious that two ‘journalists’ working for the same media group would write the exact same speculative theory on exactly the same day, despite that fact that whether or not Mansoor Ijaz’s piece “invites libel”, they have no evidence to suggest it is true; or that if Mansoor Ijaz is in fact telling the truth, it has far greater implications for the subjects that both Anjum Niaz and Shaheen Sehbai conveniently left out of their ‘analysis’.
This gets to the obvious, though utterly predictable, failing of both Shaheen Sehbai’s and Anjum Niaz’s pieces for The News. Mansoor Ijaz’s column for FT included a brief accusation against Zardari in the opening paragraphs, but the bulk of the piece was directed not at Islamabad, but Rawalpindi. The title of the piece, it should be reminded, was ‘Time to take on Pakistan’s jihadist spies’ – nothing to do with Zardari. Mansoor Ijaz stated his conclusions and recommendations quite clearly: “More precise policies are needed to remove the cancer that ISI and its rogue wings have become on the Pakistani state…The enemy is a state organ that breeds hatred among Pakistan’s Islamist masses and then uses their thirst for jihad against Pakistan’s neighbours and allies to sate its hunger for power”. If Anjum Niaz and Shaheen Sehbai are to be believed and Mansoor Ijaz’s claims are above reproach, our security services are overrun with jihadis bent on overthrowing the government an installing a terrorist state.
But neither Shaheen Sehbai’s nor Anjum Niaz’s readers would know this, since Jang Group‘s ‘journalists’ conveniently ignored all of Mansoor Ijaz’s claims that were not convenient to their amateurish attempt at political point scoring and driving a wedge between army and civilian leadership. This highlights a major failing in our so-called ‘news’ media. Too many of our alleged ‘journalists’ are nothing but aging political gossips who act as if they would gladly sink the country for a juicy bit of drawing room drama. That’s not journalism. It’s not even a very good political hatchet job. Really, it’s just embarrassing.
Pakistan’s James Bond? Or Nicholas Schmidle…
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
Two months ago, Nicholas Schmidle caught the nation’s attention with his sensational piece for The New Yorker that presented a made-for-Hollywood re-telling of the Abbottabad operation. Now, a new thriller appears in the Financial Times, this time by a Pakistani. But, like Mr Schmidle’s earlier piece, this one, too, may not appear to be all that it seems.
The piece in question today is by Mr Mansoor Ijaz, and the author takes no time letting readers know his agenda in the title of his column, ‘Time to take on Pakistan’s jihadist spies’.
ISI embodies the scourge of radicalism that has become a cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy. The time has come for America to take the lead in shutting down the political and financial support that sustains an organ of the Pakistani state that undermines global antiterrorism efforts at every turn.
But Mr Ijaz is not here to bury the ISI only. Actually, he’s brought a little bit for everyone’s tastes, and he cleverly begins his column not by attacking ISI head on, but by telling a most incredible tale about the civilians also.
According to Mansoor Ijaz,
Early on May 9, a week after US Special Forces stormed the hideout of Osama bin Laden and killed him, a senior Pakistani diplomat telephoned me with an urgent request. Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president, needed to communicate a message to White House national security officials that would bypass Pakistan’s military and intelligence channels.
The message? “He needed an American fist on his army chief’s desk to end any misguided notions of a coup – and fast”.
That’s right. Fearing an imminent coup, Pakistan’s president wanted to get a message to the President Barack Obama. So he called a diplomat and asked him to call…Mansoor Ijaz? Even Nicholas Schmidle had the humility not to name himself as the killer of Osama bin Laden.
If Nicholas Schmidle was writing the screenplay for Hollywood’s next war thriller, though, Mr Ijaz has penned a worthy sequel.
In a flurry of phone calls and emails over two days a memorandum was crafted that included a critical offer from the Pakistani president to the Obama administration: “The new national security team will eliminate Section S of the ISI charged with maintaining relations to the Taliban, Haqqani network, etc. This will dramatically improve relations with Afghanistan.”
The memo was delivered to Admiral Mullen at 14.00 hours on May 10. A meeting between him and Pakistani national security officials took place the next day at the White House. Pakistan’s military and intelligence chiefs, it seems, neither heeded the warning, nor acted on the admiral’s advice.
Not only was Mr Ijaz the preferred messenger between President Zardari and President Obama, but he was also closely tuned in to the high-level military and intelligence discussions that were carried out over the next days. Amazing, no?
Before we go any further into this exciting tale, perhaps we should pause for a moment to ask, just who is Mansoor Ijaz?
According to his by line, Mansoor Ijaz is an American of Pakistani ancestry who “negotiated Sudan’s offer of counter-terrorism assistance to the Clinton administration”. Apparently, Mansoor Ijaz is not Pakistan’s Nicholas Schmidle, he’s Pakistan’s James Bond!
Writing for an American newspaper in 2001, Mansoor Ijaz claimed that “President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates”. And how does Mr Ijaz know about this high-level American intelligence failure? “I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities”.
Mr Ijaz claimed in 2001 that he was secretly negotiating between the governments of Sudan and the United States. Unfortunately, America’s National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States says otherwise.
Sudan’s minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Ladin over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Ladin. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment out-standing.
In 2001, though, Mansoor Ijaz was not a humble “American of Pakistani Ancestry” who secretly negotiated between foreign governments. At that time, his by line identified him as “a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is chairman of a New York-based investment company”.
Mansoor Ijaz is not a passive investor. Writing about his alleged links with Sudan in the 1990s, The Washington Post reporter David B. Ottaway noted that Mr Ijaz uses politics to advance his financial interests1.
Wealthy and well-connected, Ijaz was more than willing to pitch in. By Election Day in November, he had raised $525,000 for the Democratic cause, including $250,000 from his personal funds and $200,000 donated by guests at a fund-raising reception for Vice President Gore at Ijaz’s New York penthouse in September, according to Federal Election Commission records, White House documents and Ijaz.
Now Ijaz is trying to reap what he has sown. Having earned access to the Clinton administration through his fund-raising prowess, Ijaz has met with a succession of senior officials in the White House, State Department and Congress to further his business interests through changes in U.S. policy toward Islamic countries, particularly Sudan, a government long accused of sanctioning international terrorism.
A 2006 by line appearing in The National Review gives little more information about Mansoor Ijaz’s ‘business interests’.
Mansoor Ijaz is chairman of Crescent Investment Management LLC, a New York private equity firm developing homeland-security technologies related to Internet security, air and seaport-cargo security, and airship-surveillance technologies.
In addition to investing heavily in both politicians and security technologies, Mansoor Ijaz finds the time to write rather prolifically. Benador Associations, a PR firm representing Mansoor Ijaz as an ‘expert’, was also involved in managing media in the lead up to the 1992 invasion of Iraq.
The newly-formed Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) sits at the center of the PR campaign, which is coordinated closely with other groups that are actively promoting an attack on Iraq, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, Project for a New American Century, the American Enterprise Institute, Hudson Institute, Hoover Institute, and the clients of media relations firm Benador Associations.
CLI sends its message to American citizens through meetings with newspaper editorial boards and journalists, framing the debate and providing background materials written by a close-knit web of supporters. CLI also works closely with Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials to sponsor foreign policy briefings and dinners.
Nor is this the first time that Mansoor Ijaz has written about the need for America to take on the ISI. Writing in June of this year, Mansoor Ijaz wrote a piece strikingly similar to his latest:
The time has come for America to take the lead in shutting off the political and financial support that gives life to an organ of the Pakistani state dedicated to undermining global anti-terror efforts. The ISI embodies the scourge of radicalism and Islamist terror that emanates from the soil it runs roughshod over.
No mention then of the author acting as secret liaison between Islamabad and Washington, though. Perhaps he forgot? One thing Mansoor Ijaz did remember back in June is that not only did he negotiate with Sudan and the US, “He was also involved in the negotiation of the ceasefire in Kashmir between militants backed by ISI and Pakistan’s armed forces and Indian security forces in August 2000″. Is there no crisis that Mansoor Ijaz has not either created or solved?
Actually, the ISI is not Mr Ijaz’s only recommended target. Recently, writing for The Washington Post, Mansoor Ijaz encouraged Obama “to violate Pakistan’s sovereignty at every future opportunity it gets”. His credentials when trying to create this crisis, though, were that he was not only involved in negotiations between Kashmiri militants and Indian security forces, he “was the joint author of the blueprint for a ceasefire”. No, I’m not making this up.
Mansoor Ijaz is, like James Bond, an ‘International Man of Mystery’. In the 1990s, Mansoor Ijaz carried out secret negotiations between the government and Sudan and President Clinton to give Osama bin Laden to the Americans, but Washington wouldn’t listen. In 2000, he secretly negotiated a ceasefire between Kashmiri militants and Indian forces. And, once he remembered that he forgot, he was a secret messenger between Islamabad and Washington following the Abbottabad operation. His missions were so secret that nobody knew about them but him.
Mansoor Ijaz is also, like Nicholas Schmidle, a storyteller. In 1999, he told News Hour that “his father was a founder of the Pakistani nuclear program”. In 2004, he recited a tearful memory of how his father could not “fulfill his dream of helping his country become a peaceful nuclear power”.
In 2007, Mansoor Ijaz wrote that Benazir Bhutto, “looted the treasury, sparked conflict with India in Kashmir to cover her financial misdeeds and ignored the fundamental needs — jobs, education, basic healthcare — of her people”, and said that “Pakistan requires a revolution, not a bunch of has-been, corrupt politicians who self-servingly and halfheartedly claim they want to fix what they themselves tore apart.” After her death a few months later, his story took a different tone.
“But I firmly believe that she loved Pakistan, and for all her faults, had returned there this time to turn a new page in its troubled political history. We should remember her for her courage to stand up in the face of incalculable odds to bring some semblance of sanity to the disaster that Pakistan has become.”
His latest revelations come at a curious time. Just when America’s and Pakistan’s agencies appear to be turning around what was a souring relationship, along comes Mansoor Ijaz who remembers what he had forgotten the last time he wrote the same article attacking ISI – that they were sold out by the civilians in Islamabad.
It’s hard to question a man who wrote in 2003 that “the growing body of publicly available evidence offers sufficient proof of Baghdad’s mendacious designs to warrant the immediate use of force”. But maybe this time, before anyone rushes to judgment, we ought to ask for a little more proof.
1. Ottaway, David B. ‘Democratic Fund-Raiser Pursues Agenda on Sudan’. The Washington Post. 29 April 1997.
United Nations, Escaped Goats and War Hysteria
Friday, September 30th, 2011On 22 September, American Admiral Mike Mullen famously appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee of the US Congress and delivered remarks that shocked Pak-US relations. A few days later, The Washington Post reported that senior Pentagon officials criticised his remarks saying he overstated the case. Asked about the controversial statements, the White House refused to endorse Adm. Mullen’s views. Though the American establishment is divided on its message about Pakistan, our own media is standing united in their messages about America. In fact, this past week’s media has been so united, more cynical bloggers might even think it was scripted.
We knew it was going to be a special week in Pakistan media when we were treated to a special edition of Hamid Mir talking about whether the Americans were preparing to launch surgical strikes against Pakistan.
Alarmed by the possibility of being caught in an American strike, we began searching for the source of this threat. We were unable to find any American officials making any such threats. If there could be any good reason to invent the threat of surgical strikes, though, Hamid Mir knew just what it was. US pressurisation had finally united the nation. No longer were there any divisions in Pakistan as everyone had joined hands in a shared commitment to ‘Crush America’.
Hamid Mir’s jubilation was shared by his Jang Group colleague Ansar Abbasi who termed US criticism ‘a blessing in disguise for Pakistan‘ and maked a claim identical to Hamid Mir, that anti-Americanism is uniting the nation.
One is indebted to the Yankees for hurling the latest charge sheet against Pakistan at a time when we direly needed unity. It is now for the Pakistani leadership to exploit the American aggression in the best possible manner to eliminate terrorism, suicide bombings and extremism within Pakistan.
Actually, it was not just Jang Group that was convinced that US pressure had united the nation behind Army and ISI, also on Dunya on the same day’s Khari Baat, Mubahshir Luqman, Maleeha Lodhi and Hamid Gul made exactly the same statements.
As the week progressed, media headlines were filled with defiant statements about ‘fierce resistance‘, ‘severe responses‘ and ‘lead walls‘ to protect from the invading Americans. Editorial pages screamed about ‘unity for national defence’ and some media groups even reported ‘Fatwa for Jihad against America’.
Not only was the nation united against American threats, but all media voices reported in unison that the American threats were just a devious scheme to make Pakistan the scapegoat for America’s failure in Afghanistan.
This was reported not only by the guests of Hamid Mir and Mubashir Luqman’s shows above, but by retired brigadiers. And the same line even appeared in such respected publications as Pakistan Observer, where experts like “Dr Raja Muhammad Khan” warned the Americans to ‘accept harsh reality’. Media ‘think tanks’ published warnings to Americans complete with photos of missile tests and the reminder that Pakistan is a nuclear nation that should not be tested.
Recent tensions in US-Pakistan relations have even resurrected Zaid Hamid’s media career as ARY invited him to explain his disappointment in the All Parties Conference failure to declare martial law.
Though media did a commendable job of saying on a united message, in the future their handlers should do a better job of explaining the meaning of the talking points before allowing our respected TV anchor sahibs to make fools of themselves by mistakenly translating ‘scapegoat’ as ‘bhagi hui bakri’. Obviously some of the more famous talking heads may not understand the talking points they’re parroting, but they should at least know the right words to use.
As the week draws to an end, we look back at the headlines and talk shows and the headline in Jang reports that we will now ‘give peace a chance’. And so in the course of seven days, our media invented a war, fought bravely on the front (head)lines, and then quietly resolved the conflict without losing one single soldier. In fact, our media managed this war so effectively that the American media is not even mentioning their defeat.
It’s like the Americans are trying to pretend that there was never a war at all.
How Conspiracy Theorists Distort Reality
Monday, September 12th, 2011Though media in Pakistan is filled with half-baked conspiracy theories, such non sense is by no means a Pakistani invention. Actually, many of the most popular anti-American conspiracy theories are connected with tales concocted by America’s own conspiracy theorists. In an ironic twist of rhetorical convenience, conspiracy walas who term every American journalist a CIA agent will just as quickly grasp onto their American counterparts and treat them as more honest than Pakistani journalists who do not help perpetuate their illogical stories.
On the anniversary of 9/11 this year, American news website Slate published a guide to understanding how American conspiracy theorists constructed their own tales about the 9/11 attacks. While this piece is about American conspiracy theories, though, the ingredients are easily identified as the same for our own homemade conspiracy theories. See if you can recognise them.
Step One: Don’t Spare the Melodrama
In the past 10 years, a new genre of film has proliferated on the Web: the 9/11 conspiracy documentary. Aided by the rise of YouTube and some not-so-subtle propaganda techniques, these feature-length films have become the movement’s No. 1 recruitment tool, often attracting the devotion of college and high-school students. Their makers use several methods to elicit maximum emotional impact, whether the film is presenting the zaniest possible theories, like the online hit Loose Change, or merely implying that the Bush administration took part in a cover-up of some generic sort, like Michael Moore’s record-breaking documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
First, as dramatic and horrifying as the events of that day were, 9/11 conspiracy documentaries will always attempt to dramatize them further. The 2004 film 911: In Plane Site opens with slow-motion footage of the Twin Towers being hit and coming down over intense orchestral music. Slow-motion disaster shots and melodramatic music are two key components in the agitprop toolbox.
Step Two: Offer a Historical Recap
Because most Americans are disinclined to imagine that the government is capable of perpetrating something like 9/11 on its own people, 9/11 conspiracy documentaries have to convince them that this is indeed a realistic possibility. The history lesson is a standard plot device of such films as the anti-Semitic Missing Links and Alex Jones’ 2006 film TerrorStorm. These films usually cite historically revised accounts of what they see as government conspiracies and false-flag attacks. JFK’s assassination, the USS Liberty incident, and the claim that FDR knew about Pearl Harbor in advance are three of the most popular narratives, as is the infamous-in-conspiracy-circles Northwoods Memo. For good measure, the films usually throw in widely accepted cases of government deception, such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the Reichstag fire. Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup, the fourth edition of Dylan Avery’s blockbuster, covers most of these and throws in the alleged fascist plot to overthrow FDR in the 1930s. As an added bonus, Avery is able to tie everything back to the Bush family.
Step Three: Frame Reality
A key claim of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists is that the media are taking part in the cover-up, either maliciously or inadvertently. At the same time, conspiracists rely on mainstream media reporting for most of their clues as to how an inside job possibly occurred. Their films have found a clever way to bridge these contradictions. Both Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup and the lighter conspiracy film 9/11: Press for Truth take mainstream media reports and frame them within television sets. This gives the segments an otherworldly, Big Brother quality when trying to convince the viewer that the mainstream media present nothing but corporate propaganda. At the same time, for news reports that add credibility to the conspiracy theory, the framing device plays to the idea that if it’s on TV, then it must be true.
Step Four: Make Bush Look Really Evil
Another key to any good 9/11 conspiracy film is to make George W. Bush and his Cabinet members look as sinister as possible. Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 is not a conspiracy film, but it does spend the first 45 minutes throwing out a wide net of potential conspiracy theories involving Afghan oil pipelines, a cover-up of Saudi complicity in 9/11, and something about the Carlyle Group. Most conspiracy films ham fistedly make Bush appear evil by juxtaposing shots of the former president with shots of the attacks themselves, but Moore is far subtler. The Fahrenheit 9/11 opening credits depict the Skeletor-like Bushies getting their makeup done over creepy acoustic guitar strings, or “third-world atrocity music,” as the Weekly Standard put it. Spooky!
Step Five: Connect the Dots
In his excellent look inside the world of conspiracists, Among the Truthers, Jonathan Kay coined the term “flowchart conspiracism” to describe the phenomenon of conspiracy theorists connecting the dots between disparate ideological elements in a vast web beneath some overarching evil force, like the Illuminati or the reverse vampires. The anti-Semitic film War by Deception spends most of its time connecting the 9/11 attacks back to Israel and Jews in the Bush administration, but this flowchart ties a 9/11 Commission cover-up back to Bush himself. The shaky shots of a flowchart on a chalkboard add to the sense of danger: This information is so explosive that we’re nervous even showing it to you.
We highly recommend watching the full slideshow at the Slate website which includes additional links and video clips that demonstrate each step. Even though the examples are only 9/11 conspiracies, the different elements are easily recognised from all variety of conspiracy media.
As you can see, just as poets, dramatists, and songwriters have developed forumulas for creating entertaining pieces, conspiracy theorists have developed formulas for manipulating the emotions and the senses of the masses to convince them of their tales. These formulas can be used by political forces to promote a particular agenda or ideology, or they can be used to create sensational dramas that boost ratings. Whatever the reason, though, conspiracy theories use these ingredients to create one specific product – a false perception of reality in the minds of the public.
Latest Conspiracy Theory
Thursday, September 1st, 2011After the recent attack on a security checkpost in Chitral district, some newspapers have published editorials proclaiming that the band of militants that crossed the Afghanistan border were a proxy of NATO. These editorials lack even the minimum of evidence supporting this claim, making it nothing but a sensational conspiracy theory.
The very questionable Pakistan Observer says the attack was NATO’s raid
NATO and US forces are deployed all along the border with Pakistan and with sophisticated intelligence gadgets, it is not possible for a big group of people to cross the Durand Line without their knowledge.
Actually, an American Colonel told Daily Mail that the border ‘is impossible to seal’.
Colonel Luong, who oversees troops in a part of eastern Afghanistan that includes the volatile Khost province, said: ‘It’s naive to say that we can stop enemy forces coming through the border.’
The border referred to is over 2,400 km (1,492 miles) long and, according to ISPR, it is impossible to monitor the entire border.
The public face of Pakistan Army, the ISPR told BBC that there is a 2,400-km-long border between the two countries and this whole stretch cannot be manned, therefore, fencing is being considered. To a question the ISPR spokesperson said that it is not that fencing would stop infiltration all together but militants would get a tough time and the overall volume and frequency of militant infiltration would decline.
This fact did not stop The Nation, which originally published the above statement by ISPR, from repeating this new conspiracy theory that directly contradicts ISPR’s statement and blames NATO for the recent militant attack.
Plainly, these attacks are the American response to our refusal to move troops against the Haqqani group in North Waziristan, whose militants, the US alleges, cross into Afghanistan and kill its soldiers. The US, therefore, wants Pakistan to feel the pinch.
As usual, neither Pakistan Observer nor The Nation provides any evidence to support this paranoid fantasy which defies basic reason. If NATO forces were able to secure the border, wouldn’t it mean that they did not need Pakistan Army’s help to keep Haqqani militants from crossing into Afghanistan to attack NATO forces? As explained by ISPR, the border with Afghanistan being over 2,400 km long is porous and subject to crossing without detection. Blaming the NATO forces for militant attacks is not based in facts, but based only plays on anti-American sentiments. That’s not journalism, it’s propaganda.
Proof of Osama’s death, or proof of media credibility has vanished?
Sunday, August 7th, 2011A sensational headline on the front page of The News (Jang Group) announces the latest conspiracy theory concocted to confuse the masses over Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound and the US raid that killed him. The News reports that US chopper crash removes all proof of Osama’s death, but is it all proof of Osama’s death, or all proof of Jang Group’s credibility that has vanished?
According to the article by Khalid Mahmood Khalid, “The only proof of the death of Osama Bin Laden (OBL) were the 20 Navy SEALs reportedly on board this helicopter and all of them died”.
This is not so according to US officials as reported by The New York Times.
American officials said that 22 of the dead were Navy Seal commandos, including members of Seal Team 6. Other commandos from that team conducted the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Bin Laden in May. The officials said that those who were killed Saturday were not involved in the Pakistan mission.
But the problems with The News report do not stop there. Khalid Mahmood Khalid goes further, suggesting that the Americans killed their own troops in order to cover up the conspiracy. Quoting an Indian TV report, Khalid says, “Now no one can say with certitude whether the helicopter had in fact met an accident or there were some other reasons of its destruction”.
But wait. The report by New York Times tells a different story.
In the deadliest day for American forces in the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan, insurgents shot down a Chinook transport helicopter on Saturday, killing 30 Americans, including some Navy Seal commandos from the unit that killed Osama bin Laden, as well as 8 Afghans, American and Afghan officials said.
The helicopter, on a night-raid mission in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province, to the west of Kabul, was most likely brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade, one coalition official said.
According to American officials, it was not an accident but a rocket attack by Afghan militants, and Taliban has claimed responsibility.
Does this mean that Taliban have killed the SEALs to cover up an American conspiracy? Ridiculous.
It should be noted that Khalid Mahmood Khalid appears to have done no actual research for this article as he refers throughout the piece to “According to an Indian TV channel”. Is this the state of Pakistani journalism? Sitting and watching Indian TV and then spinning fantastic conspiracy theories from their reports?
What appears on the front page of Jang Group’s The News does not remove all proof of Osama’s death. It may, however, remove all proof of Jang Group’s credibility.
Is American preparing war against Pakistan? Latest conspiracy theory in The News
Saturday, July 23rd, 2011This has been an inauspicious year for Pakistan. Governor of Punjab and a Cabinet Minister assassinated. World’s most wanted terrorist discovered living in Abbottabad. PNS Mehran attacked by Taliban militants. Karachi enflamed by target killings. Clearly this all points to one possible outcome…war with America? That’s right. According to Aijaz Zaka Syed, Pakistan is the next front in America’s war.
In a piece published by The News (Jang Group), Aijaz Zaka claims that all signs point to an imminent attack on Pakistan by American forces.
Only two months ago, Aijaz was singing a different tune. After Osama bin Laden was killed in the Abbottabad opertion, Aijaz wrote a piece for The News that started by denying that Osama was responsible (even though Osama himself confessed to the attack), and then said that now American President Barack Obama has an opportunity to “turn the page” and start fresh with the Islamic world.
Obama has a momentous opportunity to turn the page on America’s disastrous decade and make a fresh start with the Muslim world. He has repeatedly talked about seeking “a new way forward” with the Islamic world. It’s time to show he means it. The so-called Islamic extremism as represented by the likes of Bin Laden is merely a symptom of a far serious disease. And the source of the disease lies elsewhere – in the Middle East. Obama would drive home this message when he hosts Israel’s Netanyahu later this month, if he really believes in what he says.
It should be noted here that Obama did exactly as Aijaz wished, telling Israel’s Netanyahu that he should pull back to the 1967 borders. The American president even went further stating clearly that “The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.”
In light of these facts, we might expect Aijaz Zaka to praise Obama! But actually Obama is not mentioned in his latest piece at all. Rather, Aijaz reaches back in time to dust off the relic of “Bush’s Crusaders”. Nevermind the facts, though, they are inconvenient to this “crazy, outrageous idea” that Aijaz has concocted in his mind.
And this isn’t the only inconsistency in Aijaz’s analysis. In May he wrote that “the departure of one long isolated and ailing figure changes nothing”. Today, Aijaz sees the raid on Osama’s compound in a much more sinister light.
The US military-industrial establishment, the Israeli lobby and Muslim-bashers on the Hill have been looking for an excuse to take the war to Pakistan, the only Muslim state with a nuclear arsenal. And they got it when Osama bin Laden was conveniently discovered, not in a cold cave along the Afghan frontier but living cheek-by-jowl with Pakistan’s elite military academy.
That’s right – the OBL raid was a precursor to a war on Pakistan! Nevermind that the raid was months ago and since then America actually has less personnel in Pakistan. According to Aijaz, a war has been in the works for some time. Further evidence for this can be found in the US withholding $800 Million in military aid and Adm Mullen accusing ISI of being in cahoots with terrorists.
Only, there are a few problems here also.
First, if the OBL raid was just an excuse to invade Pakistan…why haven’t the Americans invaded? In fact, ever since that day American officials including President Obama and Adm Mullen have gone out of their way to praise Pakistan and say that there is no evidence of complicity.
Second, the Americans continue to say that the $800 Million is only on hold – not cut – until the trainings that the money was meant to pay for resume. Otherwise the rest of the the $2.7 Billion is still flowing to Pakistan military. Are we to believe that the US is funding the Army it is preparing to fight?
Third, despite the sensational newspaper headlines, Amd Mullen never blamed ISI for killing Saleem Shahzad. Though it remains a mystery to many journalists, the fact is that American officials post unedited transcripts of their statements on government websites – a very helpful tool for fact checkers and something editors may want to start actually using. In this case, we can look at what Adm Mullen actually said about Saleem Shahzad…
Q: Admiral Mullen, you said, I haven’t seen anything to disabuse those reports. Which reports? The reports that the – the journalist killed, or the reports that the ISI was involved?
ADM. MULLEN: The reports that – the reports that the – that he was killed and that there were government officials who sanctioned that.
Q: Actually, the reports said that the ISI did it. Is that what you’re talking about?
ADM. MULLEN: The – this is the – The New York Times report?
Q: Just this Times story a couple of days ago – the ISI effectively murdered him.
ADM. MULLEN: Yeah. And I haven’t – I haven’t seen anything where I could confirm that.
Q: (Wait a minute ?).
MODERATOR: That it was the ISI?
ADM. MULLEN: That it was the ISI.
Q: You haven’t seen anything that can confirm that?
ADM. MULLEN: Yeah.
Q: But you said – but you had said, now you couldn’t disabuse the report.
ADM. MULLEN: I – in specifically identifying who did it, you know, I just – I just don’t have that. I haven’t seen anything –
Q: But it was the – but it was the government.
ADM. MULLEN: Yeah, that it was sanctioned by the government, yeah.
Q: So your answer do that is that you can’t – OK. It’s the opposite of whatever I said originally.
ADM. MULLEN: No, no, no, no. I mean, they did – I have not seen anything to disabuse the report that the government knew about this. I cannot – you know, I would not be able to walk in and say, you know, here’s the string of evidence I have to confirm it.
Further, Adm Mullen’s statements about ISI were that he told Dawn, “It is fairly well known that ISI had a relationship with the Haqqani network”. This is certainly different that how it was sensationalised by Aijaz Zaka. Also, here is a photo of formder DG ISI Gen Hamid Gul with Jalaluddin Haqqani.
ISPR recently reported that present DG ISI Gen Pasha visited the US and reported that relations between the two powers are improving despite media sensationalism.
He said a range of issues was discussed in a congenial environment to improve mutual understanding between the two sides. Contrary to the speculative reporting in a section of the press, the USPR DG said neither doubts were raised nor aspersions cast on the functioning of the ISI and both sides focused on the way forward.
Aijaz also suggests that the arrest of Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai this week “is part of the plot”. According to Aijaz Khan, Dr Fai was arrested “for lobbying for the Pakistani government in a city where every other guy is a lobbyist”. Actually, according to Dawn, Dr Fai was arrested for acting as a front organisation for the ISI. Whether or not we are sympathetic with Dr Fai, do we really expect the Americans to allow foreign agents to operate in their capital? Imagine if someone was caught running a CIA front organisation in Islamabad. Would Aijaz Khan be so forgiving then?
It appears that Aijaz Khan is twisting the facts in order to present the Americans as a bogey. Ironically, turning to the Business page of the same newspaper that features Aijaz Khan’s latest screed, readers will see the following headline: ‘United States top trading partner of Pakistan. Let me tell you, this is a strange way to prepare for war.
Aijaz concludes his piece by saying that, “I’m no sucker for conspiracy theories, but I wish for once this was merely a conspiracy theory of idle pundits.”
Sir, your wish is granted.
Conspiracy theories and hate speech in the media
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
In The Nation this week, senior journalist and project consultant/editor at Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) Ghani Jafar approaches a worthwhile subject – media used for propaganda in Pakistan. But instead of a serious investigation of the issue, readers are spoon fed tired conspiracy theories and hate speech.
Allegedly an examination of American influence in media, Ghani Jafar’s piece quickly descends into transparently silly claims packaged in hate speech. Take for example his claim that the electronic media is becoming a puppet of American propaganda.
The onslaught has become so pervasive that, barring some honourable exceptions, the electronic media space of Pakistan is becoming their Master’s Voice. A la CNN and Fox News, they have employed half-literate, attractive young females to keep male viewers glued to the screens.
Where to begin? First, the idea that the electronic media is a mouthpiece for the US is so laughable that I cannot help but wonder if Jafar sahib actually owns a television. But then let us ourselves examine the evidence he gives for this claim – TV channels “have employed half-literate, attractive young females to keep male viewers glued to the screens”.
What a proper journalist should look like?
The sexism of such a statement is beyond the pale and frankly shocking coming from such an esteemed journalist. Should the role of TV anchors be reserved for men only? And which of the female journalists does Jafar sahib believe are “half-literate”? Is he speaking of Ayesha Tammy Haq? Or Ayesha Siddiqa? Or does he mean Munizae Jahangir or Fareeha Adrees? Please tell which are the stupid women journalists you mean!
But Jafar’s hatred is not reserved for Pakistani women alone. He goes on to spit his venom at American journalists by terming a major American newspaper as a tool of “the powerful Jewish lobby”.
Talking of this mother of the US strategic communicators, I must confess being taken aback when a senior journalist in the New York Times editorial department had; in anticipation of my question regarding the daily’s linkage with the powerful Jewish lobby, for I was then visiting America (in 1991) as the Executive Editor of dear departed The Muslim in Islamabad; volunteered to confide that, yes, they did advance the cause of the Shylocks in the City of Gold.
Again, the writer offers no name for this New York Times editor who volunteered that the newspaper is a tool of Jewish hegemony leaving us to take Jafar’s word despite our own mind’s telling us that this conversation never really took place at all.
Neither is this the first time that hate speech has been featured prominently in mainstream media and neither is The Nation the only offender. Anjum Niaz infamously termed the same American newspaper as ‘Jew York Times’ in 2002 for a piece published by Dawn.
In both the instances of Anjum Niaz’s racist hate speech in Dawn and Ghani Jafar’s racist hate speech in The Nation, the question must be asked where were the editors when these pieces came across their desks? Were they sleeping on the job, or does this type of hate speech accurately reflect the beliefs of the media groups which own them?
After lashing out at the Jewish bogey, Ghani Jafar then proceeds to term Pakistani media as “terrorists” due to the response to the murder of fellow journalist Saleem Shahzad. According to Jafar sahib, “Fingers were instantly pointed at the ISI without the slightest clue as to who had picked him up, where, how – or other ‘unnecessary’ details.”
Actually, the ISI fell under suspicion after it was revealed that Saleem Shahzad had emailed Ali Dayan Hasan informing him that he was summoned to an ISI office.
Shahzad came under ISI scrutiny in October when he wrote in the Asia Times that Pakistan had freed a detained Afghan Taliban commander.
Within days, he was summoned to an ISI office, according to an email he sent to Ali Dayan Hasan, a researcher for Human Rights Watch. Intelligence officials pressured him to reveal his sources or retract the story. He refused.
At the end of the meeting, one of the intelligence officials issued what he took as a veiled threat. The official told Shahzad intelligence agents had recently arrested a terrorist who was carrying a hit list. The official then said he would tell Shahzad if his name was on the list.
This does not prove ISI complicity in Saleem Shahzad’s death, but it certainly provides “the slightest clue” that any investigative journalist worth his weight would be negligent to ignore. So why is Jafar sahib so quick to ignore it?
What is most curious about this bizarre rant in The Nation is that just a few weeks ago the same journalist wrote a long piece in Daily Times criticising Liaquat Ali Khan for “forcing both Islam and Urdu down the throats of his adoptive homeland of Pakistan”, Nurul Amin as “a wily, scheming and ruthless butcher”, and terms Gen Zia-ul-Haq as the biggest “compulsive liar”. Why is Ghani Jafar so offended by those who will question the establishment when he does the same in his next breath?
Jafar Sahib then goes on to claim that Osama bin Laden was innocent of the 9/11 attacks and that this was all an invention of CNN.
Anyway, going back to 9/11 and its scheme of things, President Bush had wasted little time after the establishment of the ‘fact’, by who else but the CNN, that the ‘terrorist’ happenings of the day were the handiwork of a little known network of Al-Qaeda, to announce the start of the global ‘crusade’ [his words] that now must be wrapped up because, among other things, Uncle Sam has gone broke.
Osama may well have been quick in condemning the 9/11 happpenings, but who was listening? Ten years later, America’s lackeys in Pakistan are not listening to anything that Uncle Sam may not like to hear.
But let us once again look at the facts. It was CNN that published the alleged statement of Osama bin Laden denying involvement only a few days after the attacks. When Osama bin Laden sent a video tape admitting responsibility, the statement was published by Al Jazeera. If Ghani Jafar performed even the minimum of research he would know these facts. Instead he has simply repeated transparently silly and easily debunked conspiracy theories.
It is both puzzling and unfortunate that Jafar stooped to this peddling of conspiracy theories and hate speech in what could have been an important and informative piece. Complaints about intelligence agencies using media for propaganda purposes have been bubbling under the surface for some time. None other than Ansar Abbasi has complained of this in his own writings that the military establishment is “feeding the media with distorted information”.
Additionally, Wikileaks cables have revealed that editors at Jang Group may even be aware of journalists taking payments from intelligence agencies but choose to look the other way.
10. We have protested directly to reporters, editors, and the Group Chief Executive and Editor in Chief Mir Shakil ur Rehman over the consistent inaccuracy of “Jang Group” reporting, as well as their refusal to apply the most basic standards of journalistic ethics, stating that we expect to be called about and to respond to any story any entity of the group is carrying about the Embassy or its activities, and even provided them with direct telephone numbers for the IO, the PAO, and the Ambassador. Despite these efforts, the “Jang Group” has not changed its practices.
11. All of this occurs under the eye of the Group Editor who has not exercised supervision or applied good journalistic practices when assigning and reviewing stories. When queried by Post’s IO he stated that they know that many of their reporters have political agendas, are paid by ISI, military intelligence, Jamaat-e-Islami, or other interests but that they prefer not to fire or reprimand these reporters.
If it is true that “the US has allocated $50 million” for buying media channels and journalists, why not conduct investigative research and provide facts that reveal which media channels and journalists are taking payments whether from US accounts or any other agency accounts? Does this not seem to be the sensible and rational reaction to such a claim? Instead, readers of The Nation are told this claim and then paragraph after paragraph following contains nothing on the subject.
Perhaps the most troubling of all, though, is that Ghani Jafar is referenced in his bio as “project consultant/editor at the Institute of Strategic Studies (ISSI)”. Does this article then reflect the quality of work being performed at ISSI? Let us hope that there has been some mistake, and that the conspiracy theories, hate speech, and lack of basic research were an accident that does not reflect the true nature of Ghani Jafar, The Nation, or ISSI.
The Nation Peddles Easily Debunked Conspiracy Theory About US Media
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011The Nation on Saturday published an article which claims that US President Barack Obama has ordered a media blackout about a damaged nuclear power plant.
Actually, a simply search of Google News immediately revealed hundreds of articles about the incident including pieces in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
The original source for the article is a conspiracy theory website called, ‘The European Union Times’. Other articles featured on this website include stories about how to gain immortality and several articles promoting the HAARP conspiracy theory which was debunked by Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy last year.
So why did The Nation re-publish this easily de-bunked conspiracy theory from a conspiracy website? And don’t the editors of The Nation do even a simple Google search to verify the claims made in articles before they go to press? When all the facts are considered, the article raises some troubling questions – but not about the US, rather about the credibility of The Nation.
