Posts Tagged ‘ISI’

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Crazy Talk Hamid Mir Aur Ansar Abbasi Kay Saath

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

Hamid Mir hosts 'Crazy Talk'

On Crazy Talk last night, Hamid Mir and Ansar Abbasi put on an incredible show. And by ‘incredible’ I mean, of course, without a shred of credibility. Also, though, I mean incredibly funny.

Earlier in the day, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif issued a statement on the raid in Abbottabad. According to Hamid Mir, Nawaz’s speech revealed groundbreaking stuff that you would not believe. According to Hamid Mir this incredible groundbreaking stuff was that drones are being flown from within Pakistan. As if this is somehow news. According to Hamid Mir, though, this is proof that government itself is responsible for all the deaths that Gilani mentioned in his own speech.

What’s missing from this groundbreaking news? Any mention of Army or ISI. It is as if Nawaz claimed that drones are being flown from PM House in Islamabad and not an Army base in Jacobabad. But Pakistan has an Army. Pakistan has intelligence agencies. So why does Hamid Mir tells his audience that Nawaz Sharif has put this responsibility for drones on the civilian government?

Of course, Hamid Mir did notice Nawaz’s statements critical of the military later in the show. But rather than criticise Mian Nawaz, Hamid Mir also says “Kuch logon ka ye bhi khayal hai ke “ Nawaz Shareef nay darasal haqeeqat mei wohi batain kari hain jo ke saddar Zardari Sahab Chahtay thay kyonkay wo bhi ander say yehi chahty hain ke fauji qayadat kay khilaf inquiry commision ki baat ho”. (Some people also think that in actuality, these statements reflect what President Zardari wanted because from inside, he also wants talks about inquiry commission against the army leadership) . This incredible fact became even more incredible when Ansar Abbasi stated that he also hears the same voices in Hamid Mir’s head and confirmed Hamid Sahib’s statement that there is a secret faction of Zardari cronies in Islamabad who are cursing the military and trying to weaken Pakistan’s security services.

First of all Mr. Hamid Mir, can you please explain who these “kuch log” (some people) are? I mean I would really like to find out who said this because I know that you didn’t just make these people up, right? Secondly, are you saying that these critical statements were put into the speech by people in the government? Of course, this makes perfect sense now. I’m sure the government’s media advisers worked furiously to finish the opposition leader’s speech in time for his press conference.

In the mind of Hamid Mir, everything Nawaz Sharif said about Pakistan cooperating with drones is evidence against the civilian government, not the military. And anything that could possibly be considered as critical of the military is evidence against the civilian government also because they hypnotized Nawaz and made him say these things. These mind control magicians are, of course, “close to Zardari”. Again, this makes perfect sense. Asif Zardari is always using his mind control magicians to convince the media to say such sweet things about him!

Ansar Abbasi then offers his own helpful advice: Any inquiry should be independent, but should also avoid giving any points to our enemies. And who are Pakistan’s enemies? According to Ansar Abbasi, number one enemy is America and number two enemy is India. No mention of the people who have killed tens of thousands of Pakistanis with bomb attacks. In some ways, this makes sense. There are plenty of awami lives to spare, but very few general’s egos.

Ansar Abbasi continues to say that there are people in foreign capitals who tell him and his colleagues to write against the Army and ISI to push the agenda of Washington. This is when Hamid Mir cuts him off and says “Aur gandi galiyan deitay hian- Gandi galiyan deitay hian! Asif Zardari kay qareebi saathi fauji leadership ko gandi galiyan deitay hain leikin public kay samnay kuch aur kehtay hain” (And they use abusive language! They use abusive language! Asif Zardari’s close aides use abusive language for Army leadership but say something else in front of the public). Really? So are you saying Mr. Hamid Mir that you are such good friends with Zardari and his inner circle that you know what they say when they’re not in front of public? And you can see that with such authority because you hang out with them and chill on weekends discussing all of this over chai biscuits and samosas?

And finally, when one of the guests Haider Abbas Rizvi mentions that when 9/11, London bombings and Madrid bombings happened, no body asked for resignations of their intelligence heads, Hamid Mir cut him off and mentioned that there is a difference that in 9/11 terrorists entered US and that helicopters from another country did not enter airspace. Even though he later admitted that there was a security breach, my question for Hamid Mir is: Are organizations such as Al-Qaeda, Afghan Taliban, or the Haqqani network and their allies not working diligently to kill innocent civilians? Have they not claimed the lives of more than 30,000 Pakistanis? Are they not in our country uninvited? The answer to all these questions is yes, but then why is Hamid Mir so hesitant on calling these terrorists organisations out for what they really are? Why is Hamid Mir forgetting that a bigger breach of sovereignty was carried out by these terrorists plaguing our nation?

At the end of the episode, I felt exhausted. Partly I was tired from laughing and partly it was from the mental gymnastics that were required to bend logic into such contortions necessary to understand what Hamid Mir and Ansar Abbasi were trying to say. One thing is certain, whether or not Nawaz gets his enquiry, no one will be any wiser for listening to this type of Crazy Talk.

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Posted in Geo TV | 5 Comments »

Conspiracy theories and anti-Americanism Distort Reporting on High Level Talks

Monday, April 25th, 2011

Daily TimesA column by Shahzad Chaudhry in Daily Times starts with a very informative history of drone strikes that illustrates how the tactic has increased over time. But then the author veers very much off of a straight path and begins weaving in baseless conspiracy theories.

Questions are being asked of illicit relations between such agents and the Punjab-based militant groups and the increasing incidence of bomb blasts in Punjab and other centres, seeking hidden motives characterising these as the CIA’s sinister moves to cement further dissent in Pakistani society.

Chaudhry continues on to say that “The CIA has always had a separate agenda from the declared stance of both the state and defence departments in Washington”. But what is the evidence for any of this, and why does his informative history of the drone program spiral out of control and into a conspiracypalooza? Though some countries intelligence agencies may operate very independently from oversight of parliament, the US has kept its intelligence agency on a tighter leash following embarrassing incidents of the past. According to a report in TIME:

Bucking a veto threat by Obama and overruling a deal among the White House, Republicans and two Democratic committee chairmen, Pelosi is pushing to dramatically expand congressional oversight of the CIA and other intelligence agencies. At issue is Congress’s ability to monitor the intelligence programs deemed most sensitive and closely held by the Executive Branch. And the battle is turning into the biggest confrontation yet over Executive power between the liberal House Speaker and a White House that has moved steadily to the center on national security matters.

Pelosi wants the CIA and other intelligence agencies to inform all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees when they launch any covert action or other controversial program, not restricting that information to the chairmen and ranking opposition members and party leaders, or “Gang of Eight,” as required by current law. She also wants the congressional intelligence committees to have the power to task the Government Accountability Office (GAO) with auditing any intelligence program, Democratic aides say, a power the GAO has for classified Pentagon programs but not for the intelligence agencies. “The Speaker has made it very clear that she wants disclosure for the full membership of the intelligence committees, not just the ranking members,” says Pelosi’s press secretary, Brendan Daly.

It is pertinent to note also that even after all the Wikileaks documents have been released and made available to the public, no evidence of a CIA plot to destabilize Pakistan has surfaced. Surely in the thousands of top secret documents there would be some mention of such a nefarious scheme.

The News (Jang Group)Another column, riddled with contradictions and conspiracies, is by none other than Ahmed Quraishi writing in The News. The author begins by asking “Is ISI the problem?” You can imagine what Ahmed Quraishi’s answer will be before even reading one more word. But what is worth mentioning are the contradictions and conspiracies in his answer.

Ahmed Quraishi states that Admiral Mullen’s suggestion that ISI maintains links to Afghan Taliban factions is “factually incorrect” and blames the Pakistani side for not loudly correcting him. But then, a few paragraphs later, Ahmed Quraishi states that actually we are maintaining contacts with Afghan Taliban who are killing American troops, just as Admiral Mullen said.

We should tell Washington that we will maintain ties to legitimate Afghan parties, including the Afghan government and Afghan Taliban. American demands to cut off ties to any one of them are misplaced. If an Afghan group that Pakistan maintains links with is killing US soldiers in Afghanistan, this is not necessarily Pakistan’s design or responsibility.

Which is it? First Ahmed terms Admiral Mullen’s statement ‘factually incorrect’ and then he says the same thing that Admiral Mullen says also.

In addition to such contradictions, Ahmed Quraishi finished his column with a repeat of the conspiracy theory that we read in Shahzad Chaudhry’s columns – the claim that the US is trying to destabilize Pakistan.

The US military and CIA inflate these assessments to justify prolonging the Afghan war and, more importantly, to justify meddling in Pakistan.

Actually, the US has announced that it will start removing troops from Afghanistan this year and will be out of the country by 2014. If the US plans to prolong the war, it has a funny plan to do so.

It should also be noted that Ahmed Quraishi’s claim that “The strength and ability of terror groups such as TTP and BLA to resupply will end when CIA ends its grand strategic project in Afghanistan” does not make sense as BLA first launched attacks prior to the US invasion of Afghanistan following 9/11 attacks. If BLA could resupply and pose attacks before US involvement in Afghanistan, why would it be affected once the US leaves? This makes no sense.

Ironically, Ahmed Quraishi concludes his column with the sentence, “This is political propaganda.” Perhaps here he is correct. Both Shahzad Chaudhry and Ahmed Quraishi writing in two different newspapers are parroting the same conspiracy theories based in anti-Americanism and not solid evidence. As high level talks continue between the military and their counterparts in the US, media should inform the people of developments so that they are aware. But media should not invent developments and spread conspiracy theories that are absent of supporting facts.

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Posted in Daily Times, Jang, The News | 8 Comments »

Misinformation Dominates Raymond Davis Conspiracies

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

Conspiracy theories continue to dominate the coverage of the ongoing Raymond Davis saga, and it seems that the wilder and less supported by evidence, the more popular the conspiracies become.

Ata Rabbani writes in The Nation that Raymond Davis was part of a secret plot to destroy Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. In the first sentence of his column, Ata declares that Raymond Davis is not a diplomat. He later undermines his claim when he says, “Not being a legalist, I would refrain from referring to the Vienna Convention”. If Ata Rabbani admits he is not a legalist and would refrain from referring to the Vienna Convention, how can he make declarations about diplomatic immunity which is defined by the very treaty that he says he is not qualified to discuss?

Ata Rabbani later incorrectly claims that Raymond Davis “annual remuneration is three times more than the other hired American secret undercover agents”. According to research conducted by The News, the median income of security contractors in Iraq was $445,000. According to documents released by the FO, Raymond Davis salary was $200,000, which would mean that rather than three times more, it is actually only half the median salary for similar jobs.

Knowing that Raymond Davis salary was less than half the median salary for similar jobs, the claim of Ata Rabbani that “it is because he is entrusted with a special and exceedingly sensitive job” becomes impossible. Furthermore, it renders completely ridiculous his further suggestion that the facts “all point to the Americans being after their life-long objective in Pakistan: our nuclear capability.”

What should also be examined is why reporters continue to refer to the salary of Raymond Davis as “$0.2 Million” instead of $200,000 which is not even a quarter of a million dollars? Could it be that this is intended to leave readers with the impression that Raymond Davis is a millionaire when in fact his salary is less than the typical pay for these security contractors?

Then there is the column by Sultan M Hali which perpetuates the ‘transparently silly’ conspiracy theory that Raymond Davis was delivering nuclear weapons to al Qaeda.

Gp Capt (Retd) Air Force S.M. HaliUnder the garb of diplomats, the US government managed to place intelligence, security and guerrilla warfare experts in its embassies and consulates in Pakistan. These estimated over 3000 operatives have been conducting an internecine warfare within Pakistan. They have managed to infiltrate the Taliban and Al-Qaeda network and create their own Tehrik-e-Taliban (Pakistan) force, which has been recruited, trained and equipped by these CIA operatives to target Pakistan Army personnel, Armed Forces installations, markets, hospitals, schools and public places to destabilize Pakistan. The Soviet Intelligence Agency SVR has disclosed that RAD and his network have provided Al-Qaeda operatives with chemical, nuclear and biological weapons so that installations in the US may be targeted and Pakistan is blamed and pressed to do more of the US’ dirty work like conducting operations in North Waziristan.

 

Not only does this article promote a conspiracy theory that is simply ridiculous on its face, but also the author cannot get the basic facts correct. He claims that “over 3,000 operatives” have been in Pakistan. This would mean that every single American granted a visa was a spy!

But that is not the only bit of misinformation. The author’s claim that the CIA created TTP is laughable. American drone strikes killed the leader Baitullah Mehsud in 2009, and these supposed CIA terrorists attack the CIA itself.

The author goes on to ask why no high level targets are killed by drones, ignoring the fact that it was a CIA drone strike that killed Baitullah Mehsud himself. He also ignores statements by Pakistani officials that CIA drone strikes have passed up opportunities to kill high level targets in order to protect the lives of innocent civilians.

Perhaps all of this misinformation should not be such a surprise. You will recall that the author S.M. Hali is connected to the ‘virtual Think Tank’ O.M. Center for Policy Studies that we exposed last week as a possible propaganda ring. Putting his name to articles that are filled with such obvious misinformation, it is not unreasonable to wonder if he is honestly mistaken or if he is bald faced lying. One cannot help but ask what is his true agenda, and why Pakistan Observer is willing to print such poor commentary.

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Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Pak Observer, The Nation | 3 Comments »

Are Intelligence Agencies Using Media As Puppets?

Saturday, November 13th, 2010

Ansar AbbasiAre some elements in the intelligence agencies using media as puppets? This is a conclusion that is being reached by some analysts based on recent news articles published by The News (Jang Group).

Earlier this week, investigative editor for The News Ansar Abbasi wrote the article titled ‘Ex-MI chief, commanders Quetta, Pindi involved’ which claims that Lal Masjid operation and Bugti killing both were the responsibility of Pervez Musharraf alone as he had bypassed GHQ.

Analysis of this article by blogger named Peja Mistri concludes that the article is actually part of an internal struggle within the military establishment and attempt to clear the army name regarding Lal Masjid and Bugti, possibly to ease the concern of ideological factions within the military. Whatever the intent of the article, the question has been raised whether Ansar Abbasi is writing news articles to inform the public or is a puppet for intelligence PR.

This question was raised again today when the same reporter Ansar Abbasi published the article ‘5,000 Jiyalas likely to join Sindhi police‘. When Abbasi interviewed Sindh Inspector General Police, Sultan Salahuddin Babar Khattak, he was told in detail the process for publicly advertising for applicants and determining final results based on merit. So what is Ansar Abbasi’s source for this conspiracy?

According to the article Ansar Abbasi was told this conspiracy by ‘an official source in the Sindh government’ who told him that “the Sindh chapter of an elite intelligence agency had also raised similar apprehensions and reported to its headquarter”. With only this evidence, Ansar Abbasi accepts the conclusion that only the intelligence agency is giving him correct information.

Like other parts of the country, the province of Sindh, whose capital city Karachi saw one of the worst terrorist attacks on Thursday, is in dire need of professional police, a well-trained investigation department and skilled prosecution; however, political considerations of rulers are pushing things from bad to worse.

These recent events begin to remind us of the debate that raged earlier this year about another journalist, Hamid Mir, and the secret connections between journalists an intelligence agencies.

The agencies have always had personnel on their payrolls operating as reporters, anchors, and ‘analysts’ ever since the Ayub Khan dictatorship in the 1960s. Respected journalist and author, late Zamir Niazi, in his book, The Web of Censorship, suggests that the agencies recruited a number of ‘journalists’ during the Ayub dictatorship, specifically to check leftist sentiments that were all the rage among journalists at the time.

Then during the Z.A. Bhutto regime, Niazi hints that the populist government and the conservative ‘establishment’ fought a battle of ideas through paid journalists. But the phenomenon of agency-backed journalists upholding the military establishment’s agenda and ideology in the press  really came to the fore during the Ziaul Haq dictatorship in the 1980s.

As left-leaning journalists were forced to exit newspapers during the Zia dictatorship, the corridors of these newspaper offices were suddenly stormed by large groups of pro-establishment personnel, mainly consisting of anti-Bhutto journalists and pro-Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) men.

With the role of the ISI and other intelligence agencies expanding due to Pakistan’s direct involvement in the so-called ‘anti-Soviet Afghan jihad,’ many of these journalists were brought under the wings of various agencies, triggering a trend that still disfigures prominent sections of mainstream Pakistani media. What’s more, between early and late 1980s, the agencies were also able to plant men in the administration and finance departments of various mainstream media groups.

Journalists must remain steadfast about their independence and transparent about their facts. They should ask if a story is about police recruiting process, why is an intelligence agent giving some information? What is he trying to achieve? Reading Ansar Abbasi’s articles one is likely to conclude that Ansar Abbasi believes intelligence agents are simply honest angels who have come to give him some secrets out of their own kindness.

Certainly Ansar Abbasi would be furious if news was being written not based on facts but under direction of PPP leadership. So why is it different if the direction is coming from intelligence agencies? Journalism cannot be free if it is not independent. If reporters are writing front page stories at the direction of intelligence agencies, they have stopped being journalists and become propagandists. Actually, even the perception of such shenanigans is enough to destroy the credibility of the media.

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Posted in Jang, The News | 34 Comments »

Express Tribune Joining Conspiracy Brigade?

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

The Express Tribune logoA disappointing move by Express Tribune which has been a relatively good source of unbiased information since its recent launch. Today the new blog on the news website includes a conspiracy column by discredited conspiracy theorist Ahmed Quraishi.

Quraishi’s post is a perfect example of his style of disinformation and sleight-of-hand propaganda. He begins with a claim that America has orchestrated attacks against Pakistan since 2006. Really? What attacks has America orchestrated against Pakistan in last five years? Where are his proofs? This is quite a revelation, so shouldn’t he spend the article talking about his evidence for such? Actually, he has none, so he quickly changes the subject to Wikileaks.

But even about Wikileaks, which is the subject of the remainder of the column, Ahmed Quraishi is not honest with his readers.

According to Ahmed Quraishi, the information about ISI in the Wikileaks documents is proof of a secret US government and military operation to smear Pakistan.

But according to British reporter Declan Welsh – who Ahmed Quraishi himself refers to as a trustworthy authority on the issue – this information about ISI came not from USA and its CIA intelligence service, but from Afghanistan’s own spy agency, NDS, and that American officials consider the reports to be “useless”.

But despite the startling allegations the files yield little convincing evidence behind Afghan accusations that the ISI is the hidden hand behind the Taliban.

Much of the intelligence is unverifiable, inconsistent or obviously fabricated, and the most shocking allegations, such as the Karzai plot, are sourced to the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan’s premier spy agency, which has a history of hostility towards the ISI.

“The vast majority of this is useless,” a retired US officer with long experience in the region told the Guardian.”There’s an Afghan prejudice that wants to see an ISI agent under every rock.”

When Ahmed Quraishi quotes Delcan Walsh’s article, he does not mention this important section because it completely undermines Quraishi’s claim that everything is a secret conspiracy by the Americans.

In fact, even when Ahmed Quraishi does quote from Declan Walsh’s article, he does not include the full paragraph and misrepresents the author’s statement.

Ahmed Quraishi quotes Declan Walsh in this paragraph:

British journalist, Declan Walsh, noticed the anti-Pakistan streak in way the Obama administration handled the leaks. “In issuing such a strongly worded statement with implicit criticism of the ISI,” Mr. Walsh wrote in The Guardian, “the White House may be trying to keep ahead of a tide of US opinion that is hostile towards Pakistan.”

But let us look at the full statement from Mr Walsh’s article:

The ISI has rejected suggestions that it is playing a “double game”, pointing to the arrest of the deputy Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Karachi last February as proof of its good intent. In issuing such a strongly worded statement with implicit criticism of the ISI, the White House may be trying to keep ahead of a tide of US opinion that is hostile towards Pakistan. But the Obama administration has little choice but to stick with its Pakistani allies, whose co-operation they need in hunting al-Qaida fugitives along the Afghan border. The ISI and the CIA are co-operating closely on drone strikes that have hit 47 targets and killed up to 440 people this year.

The war logs are likely to stoke passions in Pakistan where the rightwing press has long accused the US of seeking an excuse to invade and seize the country’s nuclear weapons.

Not only does Mr Walsh state that America is sticking by Pakistan as an ally, but he even predicts that media types like Ahmed Quraishi will exploit the Wikileaks to fuel their conspiracy theories.

Ahmed Quraishi ends his post complaining about the poor quality of information in the leaked documents, but what he fails to inform his readers of is that this has been explained to anyone who has paid attention to the issue from the very beginning – the documents that were leaked are field reports or “raw intelligence” that has not been accepted by the American government or military. According to New York Times newspaper,

Much of the information — raw intelligence and threat assessments gathered from the field in Afghanistan— cannot be verified and likely comes from sources aligned with Afghan intelligence, which considers Pakistan an enemy, and paid informants. Some describe plots for attacks that do not appear to have taken place.

At the end, Ahmed Quraishi’s “two important questions” are easily dismissed: The only propaganda campaign and faulty intelligence appears in Ahmed Quraishi’s conspiracy theory.

That a discredited propagandist like Ahmed Quraishi would try to pull the wool over the eyes of readers with such a column is not surprising. Actually, it is even expected by the very journalist that Quraishi quotes. What is disappointing is that a respectable publication like Express Tribune would give a platform for such nonsense to be spread. We expect better.

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Posted in Express Tribune | 1 Comment »

Geo's Hamid Mir: Conspiracy Theorist Charged with Conspiracy

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
Geo TV's Hamid Mir Accused of Conspiracy

Geo TV's Hamid Mir Accused of Conspiracy

I have been holding off on this story for a while just because I wanted to see if it actually developed into anything. Sometimes these things pop up, but then quickly disappear if there’s nothing to them. Actually, I will not take any opinion about the validity of the charges, but I think that since the issue involves a major media organization and the story has begun to be reported in the international press, it is worthwhile to examine the facts.

The story involves Hamid Mir who works for Geo TV. He is accused of instigating the murder of Khalid Khawaja, and ex-ISI official, by Taliban kidnappers.

What is the story?

In order to get beyond the suspicions and rumours that seem to be surrounding much of this story, let’s look at how this incident was reported by the UK newspaper Guardian. I have removed paragraphs about reactions to the incident to put together a basic storyline. We will look at Hamid Mir and other reactions to the story directly also.

The tape purports to be a recording of a phone conversation between the journalist, Hamid Mir, and a Taliban spokesman about the fate of Khalid Khawaja, a former intelligence agent being held by the Taliban.

In the tape Mir describes Khawaja as a CIA collaborator, questions his Islamic credentials, and accuses him of playing a treacherous role in the 2007 Red Mosque siege in which more than 100 people, including the chief cleric, were killed. When the abductor asks the journalist whether Khawaja should be released, he urges him to further interrogate him.

Last month Khawaja’s bullet-pocked body was found on a roadside in Waziristan with a warning note to other “American spies”.

…

The Taliban added to the controversy by issuing a statement that denied the tape was real but, confusingly, threatened the state telephone company for having taped the conversation.

…

On 24 April the Taliban issued a video showing a strained-looking Khawaja admitting to having worked for the CIA and betrayed the Red Mosque clerics.

A week later, after his execution, Mir wrote a detailed account of Khawaja’s life. He recycled the allegations against the former ISI agent, attributing them to militant sources.

Hamid Mir Responds

Hamid Mir publicly responded to the charges against him in a column for The News, the newspaper owned by Jang Group which also owns Geo TV on which his show appears. Calling the story a “grand plot against media.”

On his Facebook page, Hamid Mir threatened legal action against Daily Times and some blogs for publishing the story.

‘We are taking legal action against Daily Times(owned by Salman Taseer) and some US based blogs supervised by Mr.Hussain Haqqani for hatching a conspiracy against Hamid Mir by using a fabricated tape.’

The blog Let Us Build Pakistan, an independent blog of PPP supporters, has been tracking the story closely, since May 14 when they published the recording of Hamid Mir.

Daily Times has also responded to the legal threats from Hamid Mir today in its editorial:

In DT’s editorial “Shocking revelations” (May 17, 2010), we argued: “There should be a thorough investigation into the matter by the security agencies. It should first be ascertained whether it was actually Hamid Mir or an impersonator on the audiotape.” We did not pass judgment on the genuineness or otherwise of the audiotape, but left room for the possibility that it was a forgery, as Mir has subsequently claimed amidst his loud protestations of innocence. In an inadvertent admission, however, he says the audiotape is an amalgam of bits and pieces of other conversations (innocent journalistic exchanges, according to him). Even if this is conceded, there is sufficient in the ‘bits and pieces’ to arouse alarm. Surely Mr Mir should welcome the opportunity to clear his name if the tape is indeed a forgery. On the other hand, if it turns out to be genuine, Mir has a lot to answer for and the law should take its course. The country is in the middle of a life-or-death struggle against the homegrown jihadis who have declared war on the state. Journalists, who are engaged in an increasingly precarious and dangerous profession in conflict areas, may be required for professional reasons to keep lines of communication open with the ‘enemy’. However, this does not give anyone, journalist or not, room to transcend the law of the land or the ethics of his profession. If the tape is genuine and Mir did say the things about Khalid Khwaja that are on the tape, a prima facie case is made out for his arraignment on charges that could include being an accessory before the fact to the murder that followed, as well as in possible violation of the Army Act (applicable to civilians in times of war). The statement released by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan denying the contents of the tape and trying to clear our intrepid anchor’s name has done more to muddy Hamid Mir’s case than anyone else could have.

Other Journalists Weigh In

Ayesha Sidiqqa is a regular contributor to Dawn, and has a Ph.D. in War Studies from King’s College, University of London. She has written two books on Pakistan’s military. On her blog, Dr. Sidiqqa writes,

Is the man conversing with, whats alleged as a member of the Punjabi Taliban, Hamid Mir? The simple answer is yes. The man in the tape is Hamid Mir beyond doubt. The voice and style of conversation is his. I have had conversations with him on several occasions and he breaks stories in this very style. The conversation should not surprise people as Hamid Mir has old links with the Islamiscts and the intelligence agencies. In the world of the armed forces information is difficult to access. Relatively better access to information comes at a price which Hamid Mir and many other journalists in the world, particularly Pakistan pay happily. There is not a single journalist, especially on the electronic media who comments on national security and is not fed by the military. I remember one very popular journalist who even writes for foreign press. He is considered an authority on military affairs. The poor chap cannot tell the front of a submarine from its back. Planting people in the media and intelligentsia is an old trick. The only matter of concern really is that how and why is the audio recording made available on the net? The real story is the disclosure rather than the conversation.

UPDATE: Journalist and former BBC correspondent Shahid Malik writes in an email today:

Award winning journalist and documentary maker Asad Qureshi life is under severe danger of being cut short by his captives in Waziristan. Hamid Mir claiming that the famous tape recording is fake and fabricated is naked lie, for no ones voice can be faked perfectly, as it is like your finger print and the voice on the tape certainly does belong to Hamid Mir. TTP member has supposedly come forward in support of him claiming it to be fake also.
As Hamid Mir is the only known clue to who have abducted Asad Qureshi as he is in touch with them, he should be questioned ASAP to recover Asad from his captors. The media trial and or taing sides can go on, but a stake is a innocent life and that also of the one of our best reporter/ director and documentary maker. Please to check the credentials of Asad Qureshi at www.imdb.com and also look at his award winning documentary on the 2005 earth quake and Wazirisan called ‘Wana Olives’ and many others.
UPDATE II: Shahid Malik email may be fake

From the comments:

An extract reportedly from an email has been attributed to journalist and former BBC correspondent, Shahid Malik. I write this to clarify that the credit for its authorship is not mine.

The paragraph in question caught my attention only today (November 10, 2010); hence a belated correction.

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Posted in Geo TV, Jang | 6 Comments »

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