Posts Tagged ‘Conspiracy Theories’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

United Nations, Escaped Goats and War Hysteria

Friday, September 30th, 2011

On 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.

Opinion-Maker's warning to USA

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.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Dunya, Geo TV, Jang, The Nation, The News | 3 Comments »

Conspiracy Theories Luqman Kay Saath

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Mubashir Luqman continues his incessant projecting of conspiracy theories, most recently following the death of Burhanuddin Rabbani in a suicide bomb attack earlier this week.

As the programme opens, Luqman begins with the story of Rabbani’s assassination. And continuing his quest to be PTI media advisor, who else does Luqman turn to for analysis but PTI Foreign Affairs Advisor Shireen Mazari. Unfortunately, Shireen Mazari once again proves that she has nothing to offer but vague accusations against the involvement of unnamed ‘foreigners’, but she can’t really say who it was or what should be done. The implication was obvious, however, that this was another conspiracy by the Americans, even though American Secretary Hillary Clinton stated that US will continue peace outreach to the Taliban even after Rabbani’s assassination.

But that wasn’t the only allegation of ‘foreign hands’ to appear on Conspiracy Theories Luqman Kay Saath. Next up was the violence in Balochistan, which Luqman again claims is the due to the involvement of foreign elements. This time, though, Luqman leaves little question of who these ‘foreign elements’ are when he drags out the rotting carcass of the Visa Conspiracy to flog it’s crumbling limbs yet again.

When his guest notes that there is already an inquiry into this, Luqman responds in true form, “Who needs inquiry? I telling you he issued visas!” and asks the guests to agree that the Ambassador to America is an agent. When another guest reminds that the Embassy in Washington has opened all the books for review and showed that there were no discrepancies or inconsistencies, Luqman changes the topic.

Once again, Mubashir Luqman does not act in the role of a neutral moderator facilitating a discussion between varying points of view. Rather, he comes to the programme with a specific agenda to promote, and bullies his own guests by telling them inquiries and facts are not important because Mubashir Luqman has already decided!

This attitude would be bad enough if Mubashir Luqman was insisting that his guests and viewers accept his opinion based on facts and evidence. But instead Luqman fails to deliver even the slightest bit of proofs for his claims. Rather he resorts to blaming invisible foreign bogeys and discredited conspiracy theories. The result is viewers of Conspiracy Theories Luqman Kay Saath listen to talk about serious issues like peace process in Afghanistan and sectarian killing in Balochistan, but after one hour they are more confused and misinformed than before. That’s not journalism.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Dunya | 4 Comments »

Confirmation Bias and the Gora Effect

Saturday, September 17th, 2011

Confirmation Bias

Reading The News today, we noticed an article that did not stand out much except for the by line. This particular column was penned not by a recognised name, but by one Mr Alan Farago. Though it is not unusual to see a Western name attached to a by line in the print media, unfamiliar names raise our suspicions. Who are these people, and why are they writing for the Pakistani press? While some articles may actually be legitimate reporting, there also exists a tendency for media groups to publish pieces that involve what we call ‘Confirmation bias and the gora effect‘.

These pieces tend to follow one of two themes: America is on the decline, or America is the world’s terrorist. Mr Farago’s piece is one of the first type, describing an America that suffers from election fraud. One hopes the publishing of this article is not a clever way for certain elements to set up an election hijacking here, prepared with the typical excuse, “America does it, so why can’t we?” But our greater interest was just who is this Alan Farago writing about election fraud in America? Is he a political scientist? Is he a lawyer who specialises in election laws? After conducting some research, we found that Mr Alan Farago works for an environment NGO in Florida, USA.

Mr Farago has the right to write about whatever he chooses, of course. But the question must be asked why The News – a Pakistani newspaper – chose to publish a piece about alleged electoral fraud in America by the employee of an environmental NGO? Could it be because Jang Group knows that its readers enjoy reading pieces that make America look bad?

Another example found in The News earlier this week is in a column by Aijaz Zaka Syed. In his column criticising America for its response to 9/11 attacks, Aijaz Syed suggests that perhaps al Qaeda was not even responsible for the attack, and references “independent researchers and experts like Dr Alan Sabrosky”. Again we asked ourselves, who is this Alan Sabrosky? Actually, we were not the only ones who wondered this. Another independent researcher, Mr Adam Holland, investigated Alan Sabroksy’s background and found that he is not quite what he seems.

Alan Sabrosky bills himself as the former Director of Studies at the U.S. Army War College. He has made quite a name for himself in recent months by first declaring himself a military expert with high-level connections in the U.S. military hierarchy, then by outrageously claiming that Israel was responsible for 9/11 and that the U.S. military knows this and is concealing it. While he offers no evidence for this, he claims that he should be trusted because of his expertise. The truth of the matter — with respect to both his background and his claims — is quite different, of course. Sabrosky has deliberately inflated his role in the military and has used that ruse to promote a hateful, fact-free conspiracy theory. In fact, while he did work as an administrator at the U.S. Army War College, he was not, as his job title seems to indicate, the director or dean of the college. Far from it. According to the Press Office of the Army War College, in the mid-1980s, Sabrosky served as a civilian administrator at a research department of the college, supervising the publication of papers written within that department. His job title was “Director of Studies” because he supervised publishing studies done within a department of the college. He was a mid-level civilian manager at a military college, without access to the sort of highly classified material of the sort he now fraudulently claims to have. Moreover, since his employment at that school was about 25 years ago, his employment there would provide him with no special insights with respect to 9/11. How on earth could someone who worked on the level of a college librarian in the 1980s be privy to top secret information revealing a vast hidden conspiracy? And how on earth could he be the only person to know about it or think it worth revealing?

So why would Aijaz Syed cite this man as “independent researcher and expert”? Could it be because Alan Sabrosky writes that 9/11 was a conspiracy of Mossad?

These are but two examples, but news watchers will find many more. How many times have we been sent videos of a Mr Alex Jones or Webster Tarpley reciting all types of conspiracies? A minimum amount of background checking finds that these individuals are known conspiriacy theorists with few (if any) qualifications and no credibility in the international media. At home they are considered ‘crack pot’, but here their paranoid delusions are published as if they were renowned researchers. The only qualification required for the Pakistani media, it seems, is that they blame someone else for our problems and have white skin.

Why is this enough to get treated as a credible source by some of the nation’s leading media groups? Confirmation bias is when people accept information that confirms what they want to believe, even if the information is not true. In the case of Western conspiracy theorists, the confirmation bias is strengthened by what we call “the gora effect” – the fact that the subjects are white somehow gives them credibility, even if what they are saying is ridiculous. “Look, even the goras admit this!”

Confirmation bias can be dangerous not only because it allows people to believe in a false reality, but because believing in fictions will result in making decisions that are self defeating in the real world. It is as if a captain was told his opening batsman was also an excellent bowler. His match strategy, because it is based on false information, is actually a strategy for failure!

The News may prioritise raising revenues over raising the public awareness, and Aijaz Syed, who a couple of months ago warned of an imminent American invasion of Pakistan (which, of course, was not true either), may be a paranoid conspiracy theorist himself. If the people are going to devise a strategy to solve Pakistan’s problems, media must serve as a bearer of truth – not delusional conspiracy theories and selective information that confirm wishful thinking. Otherwise, basing our decisions on false information, we too will devise a strategy for failure.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in The News | No Comments »

How Conspiracy Theorists Distort Reality

Monday, September 12th, 2011

Though 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.

Tags: ,
Posted in Conspiracy Theories | 2 Comments »

Terrorists Have No Taboos

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

This post is a response to the editorial that was published in The Nation on Saturday 3rd September. The editorial talks about the suicide attack in Quetta on Eid:

The Nation logoThat these incidents occurred on Eid also highlighted the fact that, instead of praying for the prosperity and progress of the country on this sacred occasion, the perpetrators committed these deeds instead, making one doubt that they could have been Muslims. This gives rise to the suspicion that the perpetrators of these and other deeds of terrorism may well have been penetrated by India, particularly after it obtained consulates in Afghanistan from the Karzai regime.

Previously, the militants, who claimed that they were following the precepts of Islam, were careful enough to leave aside religious festivals, and it goes without mentioning that the biggest religious festival of Islam was among them. Now that this taboo has been broken, the government needs to be particularly vigilant at the next Eid, due in just over two months, and Ashura and its related gatherings.

The Nation claims that in the past, militants have not carried out attacks on religious festivals and holidays. Research into past militant attacks, however, reveals that this is not true. Actually, terrorists have been carrying out attacks at mosques, religious events, and Islamic institutions in Pakistan for years.

There have been dozens of attacks on mosques and other Islamic institutions and festivals in Pakistan over the years. Some of those incidents are listed as follows:

On 31st August, a suicide bomber detonated in a parked car outside a Quetta mosque, killing 11 people after Eid prayers.

A few weeks earlier, more than 40 people were killed in a suicide attack at a mosque in Jamrud in the Khyber tribal agency just after Friday prayers ended. This is during the holy month of Ramadan.

In April, the Taliban killed 41 people in a double suicide attack on a Sufi shrine (considered a holy place by some) in Dera Ghazi Khan in an attack on minority religious groups.

In March, at least 10 people were killed and 37 injured when a powerful bomb exploded in a mosque adjacent to the historic shrine of Akhun Panjo Baba in Akbarpura after Friday prayers.

In January, suicide attacks targeting Shia religious processions in Lahore and Karachi killed 16 people. The Fedayeen-e-Islam, a subgroup of the Pakistani Taliban, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and Jaish-e-Mohammed, claimed credit for the Lahore attack.

All of the attacks listed above took place since the past eight months. But terrorist attacks on religious occasions and places are not new. Actually, this was not even the first time an attack took place on the sacred occasion of Eid.

In 2006, 22 people were killed and dozens wounded in a suicide attack during an Ashura procession in Hangu. 20 more people were killed and 60 injured by a suicide bomb attack during another Ashura procession in Karachi in 2009. Ashura processions were not attacked in 2008, but only because police arrested five militants, including a suicide bomber, who were plotting attacks before they could carry them out.

In 2007, on the eve of Eid ul-Adha, a suicide bomb blast again targeted Aftab Ahmad Sherpao killing at least 57 and injuring over 100 at Jamia Masjid Sherpao, in Charsadda District.

In 2009, a suicide bomber killed five and injured 12 people at a girls’ religious school in Pishin district of Balochistan.

Also in 2009, at least 32 persons were killed and 85 others injured in a powerful suicide blast during funeral procession of a Shia elder, and more than 30 Shia Pakistani worshippers were killed and more than 50 wounded in a devastating suicide attack outside a mosque in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan.

In one of the most brutal and brazen attacks, as reported by Geo, a suicide assault team stormed a mosque that is frequented by Army officers. Forty persons were martyred, including children, and over 80 others injured in the terror attack at Parade Lane mosque in Rawalpindi.

Even religious clerics are not safe from militants, a fact proven when a suicide bomber killed five Pakistanis, including anti-Taliban cleric Dr. Sarfraz Naeemi, in an attack on a mosque in Lahore during Friday prayers.

As we can see most of these attacks took place on Mosques while prayers were in progress or people were getting ready for prayers. Since Friday prayers hold importance for Muslims, militants target mosques at Jumma Prayer times. These attacks, however, as clearly shown above have not been limited to mosques and include funeral processions, madrassas and religious congregations.

Neither are The Nation newspaper’s suspicions that perpetrators may have risen from India ignores the fact that responsibility for attacks has consistently been claimed by militant extremist groups such as Laskhar-e-Janghvi and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan who consider as ‘takfiri’ anyone who does not accept their extremist ideology.

It is important that prominent newspapers like The Nation condemn terrorism as they did in their editorial on 3rd September, but it is equally important that these condemnations tell the facts about terrorists and not make excuses for them, even unintentionally, by perpetuating conspiracy theories that confuse the masses about who is responsible. The fact is, terrorists have no taboos.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in The Nation | No Comments »

Latest Conspiracy Theory

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

After 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.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Pak Observer, The Nation | No Comments »

Along with credibility, Jang Group’s shame is vanishing also

Monday, August 8th, 2011

The News (Jang Group)We noted yesterday that The News (Jang Group) published a conspiracy theory on the front page that was filled with inaccurate information. Today, Jang Group bowls wide again, this time with a headline that will surely raise the blood pressure of any patriot: ‘Seals had intruded into Pakistan 12 times before Osama raid’. And again, there is a problem. This latest report is plagiarised from a foreign media report that has been largely discredited.

The report in The News is credited to ‘Monitoring Desk’ and consists of several paragraphs cut and pasted from an article by Nicholas Schmidle in the American magazine, The New Yorker. Schmidle gives an exciting and detailed account of the Abbottabad operation that killed Osama bin Laden in May. The account is so detailed that the American reporter even notes what is stuffed into the pockets of the SEALs as they fly to bin Laden’s compound and what they were thinking as they climbed the stairs in the house to find the al Qaeda leader.

When Schmidle’s report was published, it instantly gained international attention. With this attention, however, came scrutiny of Schmidle’s reporting techniques. Suddenly, the reporter found himself under the spotlight when The Washington Post revealed that Nicholas Schmidle never interviewed any of the SEALs involved in the operation.

Schmidle says he wasn’t able to interview any of the 23 Navy SEALs involved in the mission itself. Instead, he said, he relied on the accounts of others who had debriefed the men.

But a casual reader of the article wouldn’t know that; neither the article nor an editor’s note describes the sourcing for parts of the story. Schmidle, in fact, piles up so many details about some of the men, such as their thoughts at various times, that the article leaves a strong impression that he spoke with them directly.

The SEALs, he writes of the raid’s climactic moment, “instantly sensed that it was Crankshaft,” the mission’s name for bin Laden, implying that the SEALs themselves had conveyed this impression to him.

He also writes that the raiders “were further jostled by the awareness that they were possibly minutes away from ending the costliest manhunt in American history; as a result, some of their recollections — on which this account is based — may be imprecise and, thus, subject to dispute.”

Except that the account was based not on their recollections but on the recollections of people who spoke to the SEALs.

Once this was revealed, other media groups began issuing public corrections. A professor who knows the reporter wrote that his article actually follows a long line of previous problems with his reporting on Pakistan including a time that he said that because he learned some Urdu, he could also understand Pashto. She goes on to note that Schmidle claims in his piece that the translator Ahmed yelled at locals in Pashto to return to their homes. She then points out that this detail caught her eye as “the majority of persons in Abbottabad, where the raid took place, speak Hindko rather than Pashto”.

How could this happen? According to the professor C. Christine Fair, Nicholas Schmidle was not an accredited journalist and had even been denied his visa due to lack of credentials. It was not until he was taken under the wing of Shireen Mazari that he was able to enter Pakistan.

Mr. Schmidle had one serious problem: he was not an accredited journalist, which meant the Pakistani government was disinclined to give him a journalism visa. He sought my advice. I explained to him that visa issues are not my bailiwick but I outlined some of the key issues he could consider if and when he sets out upon his newfound adventure. Though he didn’t know much about Pakistan, Mr. Schmidle struck me as a fast study.

In the end, Dr. Shireen Mazari (an outspoken, anti-American polemicist) agreed to host Mr. Schmidle at the think-tank she ran at the time. However, it was a bargain with the devil: he still was not a journalist and he got his visa at the behest of a dubious shill for Pakistan’s intelligence agency.

Not only did The News plagiarise a discredited article, it plagiarised a discredited article by someone who can’t tell the difference between Urdu and Pashto.

On one day, The News publishes a front page conspiracy theory based on inaccurate information the reporter heard while watching an Indian TV channel. Rather than admit the mistake and publish the correct information the next day, The News chose to publish a sensational piece that plagiarises from a discredited article in an American magazine. Is there any foreign report that is too poor for Jang Group not to repeat it if it makes good headlines? Along with credibility, Jang Group’s shame seems to be vanishing also.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Foreign Media, Jang, The News | 4 Comments »

Proof of Osama’s death, or proof of media credibility has vanished?

Sunday, August 7th, 2011

The News (Jang Group)A 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.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Jang, The News | 4 Comments »

Is American preparing war against Pakistan? Latest conspiracy theory in The News

Saturday, July 23rd, 2011

The News (Jang Group)This 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.”

Aijaz Zaka SyedIn 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.

Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gen Hamid Gul

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.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Conspiracy Theories, The News | 2 Comments »

Yahood-o-Hanood Ki Saazish

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

Talat Hussain owes a favour to Nawa-i-Waqt. Following his stunningly poor report that laid the blame for violence in Karachi at the convenient scapegoat of President Zardari, Nawa-i-Waqt followed by placing the blame at an even more remote bogey – the Hindu-Zionist conspiracy!

The Nation logoAccording to an editorial in The Nation, recent statements by Interior Minister Rehman Malik prove that a Hindu-Zionist conspiracy is responsible for Karachi’s violent gangs – a statement that was subsequently rubbished by Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Wassan.

Unfortunately, there are some foreign elements in Karachi, but they’re not Israeli. When an accidental explosion rocked Baldia last year, it wasn’t a pile of Hindu suicide vests and grenades that detonated. But these were not the foreigners The Nation was looking for.

According to The Nation, “it is well documented, that no less than 67 percent of the illegal business of arms smuggling is in the hands of the Israelis”. Despite an extensive search, we have been unable to discover any documentation that supports this claim. This is surprising since The Nation claims “it is well documented”. We were able to find a 1997 report from the United Nations that includes the following section on illegal arms in South Asia:

South Asia

70. The problem of excessive and destabilizing accumulations of small arms and light weapons in South Asia was significantly shaped by the war in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1988. During that conflict, both sides in the cold war exported large quantities of both major conventional weapons and small arms and light weapons into the region. Today, Afghanistan is a leading source of unaccounted weapons. The conflict continues and much of the current inflow of weapons is due to illicit deals involving a circuitous network of manufacturers, buyers, suppliers and distributors which are able to operate because of a lack of State authority. There is a lack of cooperation among several States in the region that also contributes to the problems of covert supply and poor controls over small arms and light weapons.

71. Insurgents and terrorist groups, as well as drug traffickers, in the region are also supplied with small arms and light weapons by illicit or covert networks. This region is particularly plagued by illicit trafficking in explosives, especially improvised explosive devices which have been frequently used in armed attacks. Most armed groups are based overseas and conduct fund-raising abroad for the illicit procurement of arms and for violent acts in the region.

72. In this region, the production of and trafficking in drugs are directly linked to the proliferation and acquisition of small arms and light weapons. This problem, and illicit trafficking in weapons in general, is exacerbated by a lack of either local or international controls of land and maritime borders in certain States of the region.

It is possible that the editors at Nawa-i-Waqt have simply woven a false statistic from thin air?

Let us explore further the reality of illegal weapons markets that deal in the violent deaths of innocent Pakistanis. Below is a video that looks at the source of much of the illegal weapons that rain death on Pakistan.

Certainly illegal arms are available from Israel, USA, Russia, China, Germany, Italy…Everywhere in the world that makes weapons those are available in Pakistan. Also, sadly, guns handmade by Pakistani children are available.

But while the English language article in The Nation is misleading, the Udru language piece in Daily Nawa-i-Waqt adds a little mirch masala for the awam.

nawa-i-waqt logoThe Urdu article says that the trio consisting of India, Israel and USA mutually and individually conspires against Pakistan and the agenda of this “shaitani ittehad salasa” is to damage Pakistan sovereignty and malign the reputation of Pakistan. The piece also mentions that after 9-11 this “American” war has given a great opportunity to our enemies to conspire against us, especially India, a country that hasn’t accepted the creation of Pakistan since 1947.

The Nawa-i-waqt piece also comes to this extremely “logical” conclusion that since our security agencies have found involvement of RAW in PNS Mehran attack, Indian terrorists surely must have sponsored these Israeli weapons found in Karachi. But Nawa-i-waqt ignores the fact that it was not RAW but Taliban who confessed to the attack on PNS Mehran. Of course, in the bizarre world of such conspiracy theories, Taliban is also part of the Hindu-Zionist conspiracy.

Then the piece says that this devilish trio is behind the current unstable conditions of Karachi are directly or indirectly responsible for target killings.

The most interestingly bizarre (read chatpatti) news that Nawa-i-Waqt breaks to its readers is that it claims that Indians themselves created the Mumbai attacks and they placed blame for them on Pakistan to malign Pakistan’s image in the world:

nawa-i-waqt clip

The piece further asks the audience why our leaders use restraint against India even after presence of proof that points in their direction and tells us that our country’s sovereignty and security depends on whether or not we choose to point fingers at India. Could it be because these ‘proofs’ are as elusive as Nawa-i-Waqt‘s statistical claims?

The repetition of misleading conspiracy theories by irresponsible media do nothing to inform the people or progress the nation towards a solution for serious issues like the bitter violence that cause the people to suffer daily. Though this latest conspiracy began by a statement of Interior Minister Rehman Malik, The Nation and Nawa-i-Waqt had the opportunity to provide an important correction to the Minister’s statement by giving readers the facts. Instead, The Nation decided that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and rather than correct the politician they take his conspiracy theory and make it even more sensational with fabricated statistics and accusations against a Hindu-Zionist bogey.

The Nation is correct in its conclusion that “it is essential to probe the matter to the finish and try to find out the sources of the funding of this vicious project of widespread destabilisation”. But this cannot happen so long as media groups like Nawa-i-Waqt are exploiting tragedies to promote conspiracy theories instead of honestly investigating and exposing the truth.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Daily Nawa-i-Waqt, The Nation | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »