Posts Tagged ‘Hamid Mir’

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Sympathy for the Devil

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

Hamid Mir with Osama bin Laden

In 2001, Osama bin Laden, by his own admission, masterminded the 9/11 attacks which killed 3,000 innocent people including dozens of innocent Muslims. This was not the first mass murder of innocents masterminded by bin Laden, nor would it be the last. His plan to draw the Americans into a protracted war like they did the Soviets in the 1980s has resulted in the deaths of countless innocent people. Early Monday morning the American President Barack Obama announced from the White House that this mastermind of death was killed in a hideout in Abbottabad.

The top editorial in Dawn describes Osama bin Laden’s path of destruction quite well.

HE is dead, and his demise marks the end of an era. America has finally killed the man whose pursuit had consumed the country for almost a decade, an extremist who inspired even more violence than he himself perpetuated. In many ways 9/11, Osama bin Laden`s signature attack, has come to define the last 10 years. It has shaped US foreign policy to a greater degree than any other development of the decade and led to two major wars, one of which continues today. It has resulted in gross violations of human rights in the name of the `war on terror`. It has transformed Pakistan and Afghanistan, dragging them into ideological divides and violence. The latter has claimed many more thousands of lives than were lost on 9/11. All of this can be traced, directly or through those inspired by him, to Osama bin Laden, a former jihadi fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan who later decided that American interference in the Muslim world justified indiscriminate violence against the US and those Muslim nations cooperating with it.

But a different portrait of this man is being painted in other parts of the media. Top personalities at media giant Jang Group are channeling jihadi talking points and painting a picture of bin Laden as a martyr who died fighting against terrorism.

Writing in The News, Ansar Abbasi writes

If Osama was considered a terrorist by the Pakistani government just because of being convinced by Washington’s propaganda, then why was not he apprehended by our own forces? He should have been tried and sentenced here if he was doing anything in violation of the law of the land.

Osama was branded a terrorist by the US after his alleged involvement in the 9/11 attack, which resulted in the killing of a few thousand innocent Americans. So, the principle is that those who kill innocents are terrorists. Therefore, if Osama was a terrorist for his alleged involvement in the 9/11 episode, then following the same principle why the US, which is responsible for killing more than a million innocent Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, is not termed a terrorist state?

Despite the statements taking credit for 9/11 by Osama bin Laden himself, Ansar Abbasi uses terms like “alleged involvement” and “Washington’s propaganda” to suggest that bin Laden was falsely accused. This should not come as a surprise, though, as the same Ansar Abbasi on Capital Talk said,

“Aik toh pehli baat mei yeh kahoonga , Amreeka jisko terrorist kehti hia mei usko terrorist nahi manta. Agar terrorist maasoomon ko marnay
ka principle hai toh sab say ye pichli aik century mei sab say zyada masoomon ko amreeka nay mara hai”

(“Whoever America calls a terrorist, I do not call them one. If killing innocents is a trait by terrorists then in the last whole century the maximum number of innocents killed was by America.”)

Additional praise and sympathy for Osama bin Laden came from Hamid Mir who wrote a long eulogy for The Osama bin Laden I knew.

I was lucky to meet him for the third time on the morning of November 8, 2001. I was the first and the last journalist to interview him after 9/11. Intense bombing was going on inside and outside the city of Kabul. He welcomed me with a smile on his face and said: “I told you last time that the enemy can kill me but they cannot capture me alive, I am still alive”. After the interview, he again said: “Mark my words, Hamid Mir, they can kill me anytime but they cannot capture me alive; they can claim victory only if they get me alive but if they will just capture my dead body, it will be a defeat, the war against Americans will not be over even after my death, I will fight till the last bullet in my gun, martyrdom is my biggest dream and my martyrdom will create more Osama bin Ladens”.

Osama fulfilled his promise. He never surrendered.

While describing Osama bin Laden as a hero, Hamid Mir repeatedly terms the US as “the enemy”.

According to my knowledge, he escaped death at least four times after 9/11.At times, he dodged the world’s most sophisticated satellite systems and dangerous missiles by his own cleverness, and at others, it was his sheer luck that saved him from enemy strikes with only minutes to spare.

Osama bin Laden wanted to fight on the frontline, but his colleagues stopped him. Heated arguments were exchanged. Bin Laden was angry, but Abu Hamza Al Jazeeri convinced him to escape. They placed many rockets with timers, aimed at two different directions, as a deception. They decided to break the enemy encirclement, heading in the third direction with a group of foot fighters.

The al-Qaeda sources claimed that he does not believe in suicide, it is easier for him to sacrifice his life in the battle against the enemy till the last bullet and the last drop of his blood.

These description of Osama, a foreign terrorist (despite what his defenders at Jang Group are saying), stands in stark contrast to the media treatment of the treatment of another death earlier this year when a Pakistani man known for his tolerance and defense of innocents. I am of course referring to Salmaan Taseer.

Recent surveys have decisively shown that Osama bin Laden was discredited and largely disliked across the world and especially in Pakistan. Therefore the question must be asked: If support for bin Laden has fallen to below 18 per cent, who are these journalists speaking for? It’s clearly not Pakistan.

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Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Dawn, Geo TV, Jang, The News | 4 Comments »

Media Reactions to Osama bin Laden Death – I

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

So much nonsense spilling out of the TV right now. While we try to make sense of it all, Nadeem Paracha has written a good first reaction to the media first reaction.

As CNN and BBC were showing thousands of Americans gathering outside the White House, cheering the news, the sounds and sights coming from Pakistani channels are at best bizarre.

As news anchors shoot away reading the fast unfolding news, they seem unsure whether to describe Osama’s reported death as ‘wo marey ja chukey hein’ or ‘mara ja chukka hai’, – both mean ‘Osama has been killed’, but the first sentence uses words like ‘chukey hein’ that in Urdu and Hindi is used to give respect to someone older.

It should also be noted here that in discussing the event, Hamid Mir on GEO TV referred to Osama bin Laden as ‘Shaheed’ also which is a term of respect for a martyr.

So, as Pakistani newscasters (especially on the ever-animated hyperbolic private channels), continue to zigzag between ‘chuka’ and ‘chukey,’ it was only a matter of time before we began seeing what is called the ghairatbrigade, or the pride brigade take their seats in front of the camera.

Pakistan’s private TV channels are brimming with the most gung-ho characters of this brigade – talk show hosts with an addiction for anything conspiratorial and rhetorical, and never far from using sheer jingoism to give weight to the shenanigans of the Pakistani right-wing, especially regarding the rightists’ blinding hatred for the US, the West, India and Pakistani politicians.

So until the writing of this piece, and merely an hour after the news about Osama’s death poured in, the usual suspects in this respect are up and running questioning the validity of the report.

The two star anchors of big media houses started behaving as if their jobs are now on the line since Osama is dead and America seems to have won at least this aspect of its war against al Qaeda. Then one after the other they started breaking with a photo which was published on the internet sometime in 2009.

The cynical display is quite pathetic, almost akin to the shock the loud mouthpieces of the agitated right-wing exhibited when Raymond Davis made a smooth exit from Pakistan, on the behest of Pakistan’s security agencies that, ironically, were alleged to have been propping up a number of media men and politicians such as Imran Khan to pump up anti-Americanism in Pakistan.

Respected journalists and analysts like Najam Sethi, Ayesha Siddiuqa, Hasan Askari and Farrukh Saleem are right to suggest that large sections of the country’s intelligence agencies are using certain media personnel and politicians to drown America’s concerns about Pakistan protecting certain al Qaeda members and those belonging to militant Islamist outfits that America says the Pakistani establishment considers to be ‘friendly.’

Nevertheless, whereas the largely knee-jerk and quasi-reactionary narrative peddled in the name of ghairat in the media and from the mouths of some politicians and TV anchors is now sounding as empty as empty can be, the government and the military-establishment will have to think on its feet.

With Osama’s dramatic demise, the Pakistani establishment cannot hide anymore behind the padding its clumsy doings in the war against terrorists was being provided to them by sympathetic media men.

They have to answer one very simple question: In spite of the Americans claiming that Osama was hiding somewhere in Pakistan, why did the Pakistani military, who too has lost numerous soldiers in its war against al Qaeda and the Taliban, continued to deny it?

What’s more, in a frenzy to impress their masters in certain sections of Pakistan’s security apparatus, these media men and politicians were not even immune to unleash rhetoric that can leave Pakistan and its people not only isolated, but suffering from collective bouts of paranoia, delusion and xenophobia.

Here we would add that since the writing of this piece, Ansar Abbasi has gone on TV and defended Osama bin Laden saying “we only believe Osama was a terrorist because America told us so”.

Whereas now it is becoming more than clear that Pakistani security agencies and the Pakistani government did have an inkling at least as to what the Americans were planning to do, instead of asking the question ‘what Osama was doing hiding in a compound situated in an area where there is sufficient presence of the Pakistan army and ISI,’ these TV men were quick to suggest that the man killed may not be Osama.

In fact, one of them confidently announced that according his sources (that’s a nice way of putting it), the man killed was not Osama. But lo and behold! Only an hour after curious claim came the report that the Americans have released the pictures of the dead body and face of Osama.

As I go on monitoring the media, the atrocious narrative questioning the validity of the news championed by these talk show hosts-turned-anchors-turned-presenters had fallen on its face and gradually replaced by a line that suggests that the Pakistan military (not the government) should also be given credit for this prize catch. That is when the race to publish the image started.

 

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Posted in Dawn, Jang | 10 Comments »

Bhutto, Sheikh Mujib and Hamid Mir – II

Friday, April 29th, 2011

The News (Jang Group)As we explained a few days ago, Hamid Mir claims that America “masterminded” assassination of Sheikh Mujib even though the source he presented suggests the opposite. Today we will examine the other part of Hamid Mir’s conspiracy theory which is that America also “masterminded” the death of ZAB.

Hamid Mir’s claim appears to rest on the claims that American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger threatened to “make a horrible example out of” Bhutto. This is a well told story. It even appeared in Ameer Bhutto’s column yesterday where he said that ZAB “confronted foreign hegemonic powers even though he had to ultimately face the gallows”. But after examining the evidence behind Hamid Mir’s claims about American involvement in the death of Sheikh Mujib and finding that his sources undermine his claims, I decided to do a little background research into this story of Kissinger’s threat against Bhutto also.

Hamid MirHamid Mir notes that during a telephone call, American diplomat Howard B. Schaefer did not give clarification on Henry Kissinger’s threat. But why would Howard B. Schaefer be requested to give clarification on this? Was he present during this supposed conversation? More to the point, though, Henry Kissinger is still alive. Hamid Mir can have tea with Osama bin Laden but he can’t ask Henry Kissinger a question?

Actually, Hamid points to the source of the claim as coming from Brig Syed A.I. Tirmazi’s 1995 book, “Profiles of Intelligence”. Here is the way the story is told in Brig Tirmazi’s book:

On August 9, 1976, American Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger had a talk with ZAB, in Lahore, to dissuade him from acquiring Nuclear Reprocessing Plant from France for which the deal had already been finalized after Pakistan had agreed to all the safeguard requirements laid down by both France and the International Atomic Energy Agency. In their talks, Dr. Kissinger found ZAB inflexible and determined to go ahead with the acquisition of the Reprocessing Plant and make Pakistan a nuclear power. Incensed, he warned ZAB, “We will make a horrible example of you,” adding menacingly, “When the railroad is coming, you get out of the way.” But ZAB stood his ground. The US virtually mowed down ZAB. The political and economic crisis situation that started to develop during 1976-77 was fully exploited by the power broker USA.

It should be noted that Brig Tirmazi is something of a curious figure. Till date we have been unable to discover any background information about this person other than that his name appears on a few books: “Profiles of Intelligence” about his time with intelligence agencies, “Ali the Manifesting Imam” which appears in Shia bookshops, and “Doctrine of Hate” which tells that America is involved in a global war against Muslims. Other than his books, though, nobody seems to know who this man is.

Some people claim Brig Tirmazi is a former DG ISI, or Director Counter Intelligence ISI or maybe DG IB. Some say he was awarded Sitara-i-Imtiaz (M). Some say he was Defence and Army Attache to the Pakistan Embassy in Tehran from 1981-1985 and that he mysteriously retired as a 52-year-old Brigadier in 1985. Nobody has a photo of the man, and most people only know his name from his books and what they have been told by “sources”.

So we decided to look for other sources that could tell more about Kissinger’s threat. We were directed to Tariq Ali’s book, “The Duel” which was published in 2008. Here is the way Tariq Ali tells the story:

In his death-cell memoir, If I Am Assassinated, he alleged that Henry Kissinger had warned him, during one of his visits to Pakistan in August 1976. that unless he desisted on the nuclear question, “We will make a horrible example out of you.” Both Kissinger and Bhutto could be economical with the truth, but the remark has recently been confirmed. A journalist in the Pakistan financial paper Business Recorder cites a senior Pakistani foreign official (on condition of anonymity) present on the occasion:

…Kissinger waited for a while, and said in a cultured tone, “Basically I have come not to advise, but to warn you. USA has numerous reservations about Pakistan’s atomic programme; therefore you have no way out, except agreeing to what I say.” Bhutto smiled and asked, “Suppose I refuse, then waht?” Henry Kissinger became dead serious.

He locked his eyes on Bhutto’s and spewed out deliberately, “The we will make a horrible example of you!” Bhutto’s face flushed. He stood up, extended his hand towards Kissinger and said, “Pakistan can likve with the US President. Now your people will have to find some other ally in this region.” Bhutto then turned and went out.*

* Business Recorder January 29, 2008

In Tariq Ali’s version, Kissinger is still threatening ZAB over the nuclear processing plans, but in a much more dramatic way. At least Tariq Ali, however, provided further clues.

The article referred to by Tariq Ali was actually not originally published in Business Recorder but rather in Urdu newspaper Daily Express by Javed Chaudhry on 15 January 2008. Javed Chaudhry says his source was a senior official in the foreign ministry of Musharraf, that he worked for ZAB and was present at this exchange between Kissinger and Bhutto and also worked for Gen. Zia and became one of his closest advisors. If anyone wants to do a little additional research, it should be fairly easy to narrow down who was a senior foreign ministry official for ZAB, Zia and Musharraf also. There certainly can’t be too many who would fit such a description.

The version that Tariq Ali refers to is a translation of Javed Chaudhry’s original article by Rais Ahmad Khan which appeared in Business Recorder on 29 January 2008. The translated piece was introduced with the following disclaimer:

The following is an unconfirmed and unverified account of a person who wishes to remain anonymous. The account is the narration of experiences of a senior foreign ministry official who, according to the writer, was privy to ZA Bhutto-Henry Kissinger talk and later witness to General Ziaul Haq’s outburst of anger against US in front of its ambassador.

The question of veracity of this write-up remains unanswered and the identity and whereabouts of the official and the author of this story are yet to be ascertained, it makes for interesting reading, nevertheless:

With such a disclaimer, why did Tariq Ali quote the article as if it were true and verified? Tariq Ali quoted another source, Bhutto’s book If I Am Assassinated. Strangely, I revisited this book and could find no mention of a threat from Henry Kissinger, though ZAB does make reference to a threat from Abdul Wali Khan (Constituent Assembly of Pakistan Debates Volume 1.23.2.1948 to 26.3.1948 page 283).

The entire story gets even more confusing if you consider it in the context of this history of the time. When this threat was allegedly made (August 1976), Henry Kissinger was the Secretary of State under American President Gerald Rudolph Ford. ZAB was arrested in July 1977. Gerald Ford was no longer the American President and Kissinger was no longer US Secretary of State. In July 1977, the American President was Jimmy Carter and the Secretary of State was Mr Cyrus Vance. How could Kissinger know what would happen after his party lost the elections and a new government was formed?

It also does not make sense that the Americans would mastermind a coup against ZAB due to the nuclear program and put into power Gen Zia who was COAS and the Americans knew was working on the nuclear program also. And as for the claim by “Brig Tirmazi” that “economic crisis situation that started to develop during 1976-77 was fully exploited by the power broker USA”, this does not make sense from a historical perspective either. In 1976, US gave $782.5 Million in economic aid (non-military). In 1977, US gave $296.7 Million in economic aid. According to Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad, American sanctions due to the nuclear program were not imposed until April 1979 – when Gen. Zia was in power. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, American President Jimmy Carter offered to increase aid to $400 Million, which Gen. Zia famously termed “peanuts”. None of this historical context supports the claim that the US made a horrible example out of anybody.

It should also be noted that the American President Jimmy Carter, rather than “mastermind” the death of ZAB, appealed to the Pakistan Supreme Court to commute the sentence along with British PM James Callaghan, and USSR President Leonid Brezhnev. This appeal was ignored by Gen. Zia and after ZAB was killed, the nuclear program continued along without pause to the knowledge of the Americans.

Was Bhutto threatened by Henry Kissinger? Nobody seems to have bothered asking the one person who would know – Kissinger himself. But even if Kissinger did make a threat, events that followed would show that it was a hollow threat. There is no evidence supporting the claims that appear in columns by Hamid Mir and others that America had anything to do with the death of ZAB.

Hamid Mir, Tariq Ali, Javed Chaudhry, Ameer Bhutto – all of these authors and more are playing fast and loose with history, conjuring up quotations that they never heard and each adding his own pinch of spice to make it more exciting. Each of these so-called journalists is merely gossiping, not reporting. That’s not journalism. It’s fiction. The irony, however, is that despite their different politics, the result of this gossip is that each of them is making excuses for what we have on record as the actions and statements of the man who was undoubtedly responsible for Bhutto’s death – Gen. Ziaul Haq.

 

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Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Jang | 4 Comments »

Bhutto, Sheikh Mujib and Hamid Mir

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

In Daily Jang of 18 April, Hamid Mir tells the tale of a recent trip to Dhaka for a journalism conference celebrating the 20th anniversary of English newspaper Daily Star. But the story is not about journalism rather it is about American conspiracies in which Hamid Mir claims that the assassinations of Bhutto and Sheikh Mujib both were plots masterminded by the USA.

Hamid Mir: Bhutto, Sheikh Mujib Aur America

Hamid Mir tells that “The mastermind behind the two murders appears to be America”, but he offers no evidence to support this claim. Actually, the sources that he does reference, specifically the research of American journalist Lawrence Lifschultz, suggest that the US intelligence agencies knew that Bangladeshi soldiers were plotting a coup, but not that the Americans organized or supported such acts. This should come as no surprise as it is the job of intelligence agencies to know secrets. But there is an important difference between knowing about a coup before it happens and orchestrating or supporting such an act.

More importantly, the report of Mr Lawrence Lifschultz “Anatomy of a Coup: A Journey of a Quarter Century” published in Daily Star in 2000 tells a much more complicated story of the killing of Sheikh Mujib than is admitted by Hamid Mir.

According to Mr Lifschultz, “the American Ambassador, Davis Eugene Booster, gave strict orders that all contacts with the group planning the coup be broken off. In January 1975, we came to an understanding in the embassy that we would stay out of it.” Sources of Mr Lifschultz 25 years later have said that even though the official policy of the USA was to “stay out of it”, some CIA officers have have had meetings with the coup plotters so that they would not be taken by surprise. But this is far different from being the “mastermind” as Hamid Mir claims.

Actually, the story is even more complicated which Hamid Mir would know if he had read Mr Lifschultz’s reporting. According to a declassified secret White House memorandum referred to by Mr Lifschultz the US was on the side of Pakistan and against India in 1971.

[The President] “holds no brief” for what President Yahya has done. The US “must not–cannot–allow” India to use the refugees as a pretext for breaking up Pakistan. The President said with a great deal of emphasis that he is “convinced” that that is what India wants to do.

The American President went on to tell his national security team that

If there is a war, I will go on national television and ask Congress to cut off all aid to India. They won’t get a dime.

Speaking of the political situation, the American President said the following:

It is not our job to determine the political future of Pakistan. The Pakistanis have to work out their own future.

The American President also made very clear that

“We can’t allow India to dictate the political future of East Pakistan.”

Throughout this top secret memorandum, the White House is very clear that they support Pakistan, not India, and that they do not want to see Pakistan divided and believe it is up to Pakistan to determine its own future. The only reference to a possible coup comes near the end of the memo when Under Secretary of State Mr John Irwin tells the president that

“We have had reports in recent days of the possibility that some Awami League leaders in Calcutta want to negotiate with Yahya on the basis of giving up their claim for the independence of East Pakistan.”

According to Mr Lifschultz report, the coup was masterminded not by CIA. Rather he states very clearly that

The coup itself was an inside job by right wing elements within Mujib’s own party, his own cabinet, his own secretariat, and his own national intelligence service, who viewed Mujib’s leadership as no longer capable of holding out against a left wing challenge to their interests.

But that is not what Hamid Mir tells his readers. According to Hamid Mir, “Sheikh Mujib and Bhutto had reached a settlement to share power” and the Americans masterminded the murder of Sheikh Mujib and Bhutto “because they appeared increasingly inclined towards China”. But this directly contradicts Mir’s source Mr Lawrence Lifschultz who notes that

Henry Kissinger [was] then working with Pakistan’s military junta, through whom he was simultaneously channelling the most sensitive negotiations of his career – those with China…

The Americans were not worried about Pakistan being inclined towards China. Actually the Americans required Pakistan’s relationship with China to facilitate secret talks between the US and China during the cold war. But that is not all. Hamid Mir’s claim of a US masterminded coup also directly contradicts his own source and the top secret White House memorandum of the time.

Continued…

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Posted in Jang | 10 Comments »

Who is playing Sindh card?

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

The popular talking point has become, once again, that the government is playing ‘Sindh card’ in its relationship to the judiciary. But a careful examination of recent media articles suggests that perhaps there is another player holding the cards.

‘Sindh card’ refers of course to the idea that President Zardari and other PPP politicians attempt to energize a base of Sindhi supporters by invoking provincialism. Ethnic parties certainly exist, but PPP is a national party that enjoys support across ethnic and provincial lines. So while PPP might have a base in Sindh, that is not sufficient to classify it as an ethnic party. Nevertheless, a series of media reports suggest that some in the media might be attempting to do just that.

Last Saturday, Shaheen Sehbai wrote the column titled, ‘Use of Sindh Card – when, how and why!’ which The News published front and center of the first page.

Next day, The News published a cartoon image of a ‘Sindh Card’.

Jang Group cartoon of Sindh Card

The same day, Hamid Mir accuses President Zardari of playing the Sindh Card by praising the Supreme Court. But when protests were held in reaction to the Supreme Court’s unilateral dismissal of NAB chief Justice (retd) Deedar Hussain Shah, Jang Group reporter Tariq Butt termed the reaction “using Sindh Card”. So we learn from The News that praising the Supreme Court is invoking ‘Sindh Card’ and protesting Supreme Court is invoking ‘Sindh Card’ also.

But is Tariq Butt correct that protests are government playing the ‘Sindh Card’, or is the reporter himself producing the card? After all, Supreme Court Bar Association President Asma Jahangir has also expressed reservation over the Supreme Court’s dismissal of Justice Deedar Shah.

The SCBA president was not satisfied with the decision in as much as it provided for the chief justice of Pakistan to decide the matter if the leaders of the house and opposition were at dispute over the appointment. She said this means the complete authority to make appointment would go to the CJP discarding parliament. She said the government should go for a review petition in this case.

On Tuesday, Ansar Abbasi pulled the ‘Sindh Card’ from his sleeve by comparing Shaheen Sehbai’s‘Angel of Punjab’ Mian Nawaz Sharif to President Zardari:

How President Zardari’s PPP is using the Sindh Card to target the judiciary stands exposed if one sees the fashion in which Nawaz Sharif got his conviction set aside.

Nawaz Sharif’s conviction in the plane hijacking case was set aside by the Supreme Court in 2009, but neither he nor any member of his party gave racial colour to his case. Instead, he focused on the dictator, ignoring the judges altogether who had convicted him.

Ironically, the very next day, Vice Admiral (retired) Taj M Khattak in The News directly contradicts Ansar Abbasi’s comparison while himself playing the ‘Sindh Card’.

Back on Nov 28, 1997, during Nawaz Sharif’s second term as prime minister, charged political workers of his PML-N stormed the Supreme Court on Constitution Avenue in Islamabad. The judges inside had to scramble for safety to their chambers…the mob which attacked the Supreme Court consisted of supporters hailing from Punjab, determined to cause physical harm to then-chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah, who is from Sindh…

In a piece that is allegedly about the history of the government-judiciary relationship, the retired military officer mentions Sindh 11 times. He mentions Punjab only three times. The author complains of “second-tier politicians” from Sindh who go to the Supreme Court “prominently displaying their ethnic symbols”. Once again, readers are left to wonder who is actually playing the ‘Sindh Card’ here?

Vice Adm. (retd) Khattak concludes his column with what appears to be a non-sequitur – a story about Chief Justice Muhammad Rustam Kiyani who was bullied over some land in Sindh by a patwari who “had never done a day’s honest work”. According to Khattak, the Chief Justice was rescued by the intervention of Gen Ayub whose “gentlemanliness was to last to the end”.

Again, one might ask, what does this story have to do with the present government’s relations with the judiciary? Could it be an attempt to invoke ethnic tension as a means of disparaging the government? Why else would the author go to such lengths to invoke the ‘lazy Sindhi’ stereotype compared to the ‘gentlemanly’ Gen Ayub?

Unfortunately, this appears not to be an isolated incident by one retired military officer, but as is shown in the references above, a disturbing trend of blaming every action of the government on a ‘Sindh Card’. Disagreement with government actions and policies is a legitimate subject for opinion columns. But even then, the disagreement should be based on facts, not thinly-veiled attempts to invoke ethnic stereotypes and play to provincialism for political ends. Please, leave the cards at home and stick to pen and paper for reporting.

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Posted in Jang, The News | 18 Comments »

The News (Jang Group) Assault on Government

Sunday, April 3rd, 2011

The News (Jang Group)The News (Jang Group) has taken a particularly adversarial tone against the government lately, with Jang’s celebrity journalists coming out with bald faced political attacks on the president and parliament based on nothing more than rumour, speculation, and conspiracy theories. We have already covered Ansar Abbasi’s baseless attack on parliament over devolution of HEC. But actually Saturday’s The News included several articles that crossed the line of responsible journalism.

Shaheen Sehbai’s front page story included no facts or investigative reporting, and was nothing but a baseless attack on the government in what appears to be another thinly veiled attempt to incite a war between the executive and judiciary.

This did not go unnoticed by the PPP who issued a rejoinder on Sunday.

More dangerous is Mr. Sehbai’s totally baseless and unfounded assertions that the Government is pitched against the honorable courts. To say that confronting the honorable judiciary is a “declared policy” of the Government is totally false in fact, and highly malicious in character, depicting mala fide intentions of the writer. It is most regretful that the Group Editor of your esteemed newspaper is deliberately pitching two pillars of the State by painting imaginary scenarios of animosity and conspiracy, when there are none in reality.

In fact, Shaheen Sehbai does not even bother pretending to have ‘informed sources’, offering only his own insults and accusations. This is considered reporting by Jang Group?

While Ansar Abbasi and Shaheen Sehbai may be expected to make baseless attacks on the government, they are not the long voices. Also joining the chorus is Tariq Butt, who wrote on Saturday that “President Asif Ali Zardari is seeking the shoulder of the highest judicial forum to cry on while he has asked his minions to do everything to attack the superior judiciary”. Like his colleagues, Ansar Abbasi and Shaheen Sehbai, Tariq provides no evidence of a presidential directive to attack the judiciary.

On Sunday, the assault continued with a front page article by Hamid Mir suggesting that the president’s praise for the judiciary is insincere and that he “masterminded this reference just to embarrass teh Supreme Court by playing the Sindh card because all the judges who gave the verdict against [ZAB] were from Punjab”. The only evidence Hamid Mir can provide for this mind-reading of the president is “an impression in many political circles”. No doubt these “political circles” include certain Group and Investigative ‘Editors’ at Jang Group.

It should be noted that for all the accusations from Shaheen Sehbai, Hamid Mir, etc of playing Sindh Card, neither the president nor his representatives have uttered any such thing. Rather these accusations come from ‘journalists’ claiming to be able to read the mind of Zardari. On the other hand, the opinion page of Sunday’s The News includes a cartoon of a ‘Sindh Card’. In addition to the articles mentioned above, one cannot help but wonder who it is that is actually attempting to exploit provincial prejudice and whip up the emotions of their base.

Speaking about media freedom in this week’s Friday Times, Pakistan Representative Human Rights Watch, Ali Dayan Hasan, was highly critical of the way media attacks the civilian government just because it can.

Pakistan’s media needs to use its independence responsibly. Unfortunately this is not happening. It targets the government because it does not fear the former. It does not hold the military to account because it is frightened of their power. HRW is of the view that the greatest threat to media freedom emanates today not from the elected government which has shown respect and tolerance as it should for the media. Rather, it stems from the intelligence agencies, non-state actors such as the Taliban and, finally, from the judiciary which has exploited over-broad contempt laws to stifle criticism of the institution.

Media’s role includes responsibly keeping the people informed about the actions of government and politicians. But The News appears to have passed beyond the line of responsible reporting and crossed into bald faced attacks on the president through rumour, speculation, and conspiracy theories based on nothing but the imaginations of its staff. Worse, there appears to be the possibility of a renewed campaign to instill distrust and tension between the executive and the judiciary. This is not journalism, it is politics. We encourage Jang Group to review the editorial policies of it’s prize English language newspaper and work to put in place policies that ensure reporting is based on facts, not political opinions, and that reporting is objective and not biased. At present, star reporters of The News are offering neither.

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Posted in Jang, The News | 23 Comments »

Poor Reporting on Raymond Davis Confusing Issues

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

The Raymond Davis case continues to dominate media headlines, though the people are probably more confused than ever about the facts due to poor reporting on the issue.

Ansar Abbasi has termed the issue in The News ‘the Lal Masjid of present govt’, a term he appears to have borrowed from Hamid Gul.

“A national consensus has developed on the issue of Davis. The people demand his trial here and are not ready to see him going in US hands without being punished,” former ISI chief Lt Gen (r) Hamid Gul said, warning that if the man is given back to Washington it would not only depress ordinary Pakistanis but would serve as another Lal Mosque disaster.

Hamid Mir’s report in The News is seasoned with such phrases as “imperial arrogance” and “shady secret agents”. He then quotes anonymous ‘diplomats’ that make sensationalist claims such as, “tomorrow Raymond Davis type secret agents may kill more people in other capitals of the world and then the US will claim diplomatic immunity”, or compare Raymond Davis to Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists. It must be noted that Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists do not have any claim to diplomatic status.

Other reports in The News have quote Munawar Hassan terming MNA Fauzia Wahab’s statement that Raymond Davis is entitled to diplomatic immunity as “a disgrace to the ‘Shuhda’ of Pakistan”, once again invoking ghairat in place of actual facts on the law.

This is a similar position taken by The Nation which published an editorial today which says,

It would seem that asking for his release is morally wrong of the US, and, at the same time, handing him over to Washington would demonstrate Pakistan’s undue weakness, reflecting its unhesitating compliance with the US commands, right or wrong.

Pakistan Today published the headline ‘Charge Raymond under anti-terrorism sections’ and quotes from the bereaved families of the dead men. Certainly this is an emotional issue, but emotions should not have bearing on the facts.

Dawn published one of the worst examples of emotional manipulation and terrorising the people which is Mohsin Hamid’s article comparing Americans to hunters paying to kill Pakistanis in cold blood.

So what is going on? Who is Raymond Davis, and what are people like him doing in Pakistan? I’ve read articles likening him to Rambo and RoboCop. But I believe another Hollywood film franchise metaphor is more apt. Predator.

The Raymond Davis affair has brought home what should have been obvious to us Pakistanis for a long time. Pakistan has become a game preserve, a place where deadly creatures are nurtured, and where hunters pay for the chance to kill them.

What is missing from all of these discussions is the fact that the issue rests on one question only which is does Raymond Davis enjoy diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Conventions, not on emotional manipulation, ghairat, or sensational horror stories about Americans hunting Pakistanis in the streets.

This poor reporting has not been unnoticed by Dr Syed Mansoor Hussain, who writes in Daily Times that every journalist who terms Raymond Davis as ‘Rambo’ should be forced to sit through the movies until they know what they are talking about.

It was also interesting that some ‘intrepid’ journalists started to refer to Davis as ‘Rambo’. Clearly none of them had ever seen a Rambo movie. Rambo, as they should know, is always on the right side of morality, always gets his man, always escapes the clutches of evil, sadistic and clearly bigoted oppressors and tormentors by killing most if not all of them. And yes he never wears a shirt. So for those who continue to compare Davis with Rambo and do so without having any idea what Rambo represents should in my opinion be forced to see all the Rambo movies one after another for three days in a row without being allowed to fall asleep.

Dr Hussain’s point is on worth thinking about because, as he points out the case is being exploited for political agendas

The Davis scenario is getting progressively complicated. The reason is politics. Anti-American sentiment is rampant in Pakistan and anything which even remotely reeks of pro-Americanism is immediately seized upon by the religious parties and politicians of a ‘certain’ predisposition to vilify the present government of Pakistan.

Though Dr Hussain writes specifically of relgious parties here, the same can be said of the media. When Ansar Abbasi is not taking advice on diplomacy from Hamid Gul, he proposes there is a threat of ‘a possible Hollywood Rambo-style sting operation by the US forces to get Raymond Davis released’. The Nation, never one to be easily outdone in anti-American zeal, uses the term ‘Rambo’ over 100 times since the incident!

All of this fills the pages with spicy and sensational stories that may sell to an audience which is hungry for action movies. But while we are filling our bellies with this channey, our minds are starving for relevant facts and information. Instead of demanding that the US stop pressurizing the government on Raymond Davis diplomatic status, the media should stop playing the anti-American card and give the reader something that will help him understand the situation, not give him indigestion.

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Posted in Daily Times, Dawn, The Nation, The News | 12 Comments »

Is Name Calling Really Worth Journalists Time?

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

For someone who is happy to label people as ‘liberal extremist’ or ‘liberal fascist’, Hamid Mir is very sensitive about anyone saying anything about him. On Tuesday, Hamid Mir asked in Express Tribune “Why these attacks against me?” after Khaled Ahmed pointed out the ridiculousness of Hamid Mir using the ‘liberal fascist’ label against other people.

Hamid Mir explains that he used the term because he had seen it used by an American author, Jonah Goldberg.

I would like to invite his attention towards the book Liberal Fascism written by American Journalist Jonah Goldberg, published in 2008. Mr Goldberg wrote the history of liberal fascism from Mussolini to the American Left and declared Hillary Clinton as a liberal fascist. If an American journalist can use the term liberal fascism then the Pakistani media can also make comparisons between religious extremists and liberal-fascists.

While it’s true that this term was used by the American Jonah Goldberg, the facts are a little more complicated. Jonah Goldberg is not a journalist like Hamid Mir or Talat Hussain. Jonah Goldberg is a right-wing political columnist who is a regular guest on Glenn Beck and a commentator on FOX News which he even described as a populist, tabloidy network.

Jonah Goldberg made headlines last fall for calling Islamophobia “a myth” and said that Americans should stop worrying about Muslim sentiments regarding plans to build a New York City mosque. Is this really who Hamid Mir is taking his ideas from?

For the record, here is famous American cultural critic Jon Stewart interviewing Jonah Goldberg about the book that Hamid Mir is such a fan of:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Jonah Goldberg
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> The Daily Show on Facebook

It should be noted here that this term was also discussed recently as the topic of Kamran Shahid’s show Front Line on Express News of 6 February.

As could be expected, Orya Maqbool Jan presented some fairly right-wing views, but nothing particularly noteworthy and overall the entire programme seemed to be an excuse for Kamran Shahid complaining about English-language media not allowing rebuttals – a complaint that is proven meaningless by the very English-language articles by Khaled Ahmed and Hamid Mir which consist of an ongoing debate and rebuttal on the specific issue!

Hamid Mir has been writing about the bogey of ‘liberal fascist’ for a month, and the only definition of what exactly is a ‘liberal fascist’ that anyone seems to be able to come up with is ‘someone who doesn’t agree with me’. Certainly Hamid Mir is entitled to his opinion, but we must ask whether the time and energy of our journalists is best spent having a debate about name-calling while the country struggles with serious issues of economy and security.

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Posted in Express News, Express Tribune, Jang | 3 Comments »

Media Hostility – Entertainment or Incitement?

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

Learning from TV

The past two days we have looked at two subjects that might seem unrelated, but actually have quite a bit in common: Meher Bokhari’s treatment of Salmaan Taseer and the theory of ‘Amusing ourselves to death’. These two seemingly unrelated items are connected by the common bond of entertainment and influence. A question must asked – when does media hostility transform from entertainment to incitement?

Omar Waraich mentions the role of a hyper-sensationalist media in an article for The Independent, noting specifically Meher Bokhari’s open hostility to Governor Taseer and her discussion of his murder.

Meher BokhariMany blame Pakistan’s sensationalist news channels for blurring the distinction and whipping up hostility towards Taseer. Chief among the accused is Meher Bokhari, a voluble political talk-show host famed for her high-decibel interrogation style. In December, she interviewed Taseer. Even by Bokhari’s standards, the hostility was striking.

“It’s said that you’re doing this for point scoring,” she asked. Minutes later, she flourishes a fatwa denouncing Taseer, deferentially quoting from it. The day of Taseer’s funeral, Bokhari opened her show by comparing Qadri to a Muslim “hero” from the 1920s, who killed a Hindu man for publishing a blasphemous book.

Bokhari denies any wrongdoing, and insists she was presenting facts. Taseer’s family feel otherwise. The first show, says daughter Shehrbano Taseer, was “plain incitement to murder”. The second, she says, was a “senseless condonation” of it. Bokhari again is no fundamentalist. She doesn’t cover her hair, dresses in western clothing and has vociferously denounced the Taliban.

So what does this mean when a journalist who is clearly not a fundamentalist plays one on TV? Is it possible that projecting extreme views and playing a hostile character on news programmes can actually make someone kill? For most people, the answer is no. We can turn off the television if we don’t like the content, and even if we do we’re more likely to be misinformed than influenced to take a violent action. But that does not mean that media has no effect on our society, especially when the same message is being broadcast from multiple channels.

Dr Matt J Duffy is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. Writing for MidEastPosts.com, he examines the role of ‘cultivation theory’ in his article ‘Pakistan Media Mainstreaming Extremism’. The professor’s interested was piqued by the difference between the public reaction to Governor Taseer’s assassination in Pakistan and the reaction to the attempted assassination of a US Congresswoman by Americans.

The reaction differs dramatically from the recent assassination attempt in the United States in which a gunman tried to kill a congresswoman and succeeded in murdering six others. Despite what some call a “hate-filled” sphere of public discourse, everyone in the United States widely denounced the gunman’s actions.

In the US media, the discussion quickly turned to the role of ‘toxic political tone’ inciting the gunman to go on a shooting rampage. In Pakistan, however, we did not see reflection on political hate speech rather we saw the talk shows asking if the gunman was a ‘hero’.

After the assassination, a popular talk show host, Meher Bokhari, nodded in agreement with a guest who explained that the bodyguard acted justly given the slain governor’s views. And other talk show hosts, such as Hamid Mir and Javed Chaudhry, said that Taseer brought his death upon himself.

Dr Matt explains a phenomenon communications researchers have termed ‘mainstreaming’ – constant exposure to television messages creating a common set of views on issues. This is an amoral phenomenon; it can result in good outcomes or bad outcomes depending on the messages. American media has used the effect to reduce intolerance and racism.

The effect can lead to positive developments for a society. Since the 1970s, the mass media in the United States have peppered their news media and programming with subtle messages of tolerance, particularly of other races. At the same time, polls have shown a steady decline in racist beliefs and opposition to interracial marriage. The results of the 2008 elections were rather stunning as well.

But the opposite effect is also possible, and the constant stream of vicious hostility has an effect on our society. Meher Bokhari may dress in western clothes and condemn the Taliban in English-language newspapers, but when people watch her on TV, they are being sent a very different message.

In Pakistan, the cultivation effect appears to be leading to a reality that is damaging its society. The nation is suffering from the “mainstreaming” of extremist messages. But, the media are not merely reflecting these extremist beliefs. They are helping to make these beliefs acceptable – homogenizing them for the masses.

It may be entertaining to watch people yell and insult each other over inanities. But when the line begins to blur between yelling on TV and yelling in the streets, entertainment turns quickly to incitement. We each make our own decisions in life, but these decisions are influenced by those we look to for information and guidance: parents, teachers, friends…and now TV. Perhaps Meher Bokhari did not look into Qadri’s eyes and tell him to kill Salmaan Taseer, but she didn’t have to. The message was already clear.

Watching horror movies also can be harmless entertainment, but when we find ourselves turning into monsters, maybe we should consider changing the channel.

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Posted in Ethics, Samaa TV | 3 Comments »

Ahmed Quraishi and Hamid Mir and the Imaginary ‘Extremist Liberal’

Monday, January 17th, 2011

Ahmed QuraishiI must admit that I was surprised to see Ahmed Quraishi eulogizing Salmaan Taseer this morning. He eloquently praises the late Governor for his principled stand and laments his killing. But I also found his column somewhat crass – a political operative exploiting a national tragedy to promote his political agenda. Ahmed Quraishi’s eulogy for Salmaan Taseer is peculiar not for his sympathy with the slain PPP leader, but for the enemy that he invents to take the blame.

Ahmed Quraishi’s column pushes the idea that the nation is under threat from ‘liberal extremists’, a group that we heard about last week from Hamid Mir also. Quraishi describes this new right-wing bogey man as a threat as serious as religious militants:

The real problem over the law is between an extremist westernised minority of Pakistanis, who ridicule religion, and between another extremist religious minority, that takes religion to extreme. The extremist westernised minority wants no religion at all and keeps talking about European secularism, which is misplaced in Pakistan. This provokes the religious extremist minority into paranoia and pushes them to extremes, as in the case of the 26-year-old bodyguard who murdered Governor Taseer. Caught between the two extremes are the majority of moderate, peaceful Pakistanis.

We know the religious militants pose a real threat to Pakistan, and we know this because they announce their threats themselves on loudspeakers and with the unmistakable message of bomb blasts and other acts of murder. But who are these extremist westernised liberals that are threatening Pakistan?

Hamid MirI kept reading to find out the answer, but Ahmed Quraishi couldn’t tell me. The only person Hamid Mir could come up with was Aatish Taseer who he terms ‘a liberal extremist’ for “wrongly [accusing] his father for having a religious hatred against the Jews and Hindus”.

But even if Aatish Taseer wrote some unkind things about this father, who has Aatish killed? Who has he threatened? Where is his band of ‘extremist liberal’ thugs toting AK-47s into mosques ordering that religion be removed from the country? Does Hamid Mir really want to equate an inter-family disagreement with the jihadi killers that are slaughtering people in the streets as part of an effort to bring back some sort of caliphate?

Consider one of the final paragraphs in Quraishi’s column:

Our overriding concern in this debate is to unite Pakistanis and stop a situation where Pakistanis go to war with each other because of two extremist minorities. We must stop anyone fanning this divide and try to bridge it with reason. Incitement to kill or to ridicule religion from either side must be sternly dealt with.

Again I ask: Who are these ‘extremist liberals’ that are inciting to kill or ridiculing religion? The truth is that they are merely figments of Ahmed Quraishi’s and Hamid Mir’s overactive and slightly paranoid imaginations. They don’t exist. If they do, prove it.

Partly this is paranoid delusion, partly this is probably political gamesmanship. The right-wing has created a convenient ‘straw man’ of ‘extremist liberals’ to convince moderates that they have a choice between extremists and the right-wing. This is a false choice. Ahmed Quraishi and Hamid Mir think they’re quite clever, but like all straw men theirs falls apart quite easily.

It should be noted that both Hamid Mir and Ahmed Quraishi’s attempts to blame ‘extremist liberals’ for the death of Salmaan Taseer appear in a newspaper that continually publishes political propaganda. Just today, the newspaper featured a column by Ansar Abbasi that accuses “The Zardari-Gilani duo has wasted the first three years of its rule, marred by corruption, inefficiency and bad governance” and then praises that PML-N “would seek an early implementation of institutional and structural reforms to check corruption and bad governance, and to improve economic and social conditions of the state as well as the masses.” The political gamesmanship is so haphazardly obvious that it is almost laughable.

What isn’t laughable is that both Ahmed Quraishi and Hamid Mir, whether intentionally or unintentionally, are making excuses for the jihadi mindset and further dividing the people against each other. Salmaan Taseer was murdered, as they both admit, not for blasphemy but for simply speaking his mind. But then Ahmed Quraishi and Hamid Mir go on to warn these imaginary ‘extremist liberals’ against speaking their minds also. Like the jihadis who cannot tolerate anyone whose religion is different from theirs, right-wing apologists like Ahmed Quraishi and Hamid Mir cannot tolerate anyone whose politics is different from theirs.

The assassination of Salmaan Taseer should have taught us that media created bogey men are a dangerous thing. Mosharraf Zaidi recently told Al Jazeera that partly to blame for Salmaan Taseer’s murder was the “24/7 media in Pakistan…and the build up to the assassination: the criticism of the law and the resulting overreaction – gross overreaction – by the radical right in Pakistan.”

Rather than inventing new bogey men for people to fear and blame for all of society’s ills, the media should be providing the people with sober analysis and facts so that we can make sense of the world around us and develop real solutions for real problems. We don’t need any fake enemies, we have enough real ones to deal with at the moment.

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Posted in Jang, The News | 5 Comments »

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