Western Media’s War on Pakistan

Sometimes I wonder, is the ``Kashmir problem`` the sole reason for the existence of Pakistan? Which is why even reportage by Western media is called ``war``?

In my few days in Pakistan, I went through English newspaper everyday. I went through whatever English magazines there were. I spent time with journalists from local Urdu newspapers.

There is hardly any coverage on the ailments of poverty in Pakistan. That could be because:-

a) There is no poverty in Pakistan, in which case the Pakistani media is credible.
b) There is poverty in Pakistan, in which case the Pakistani media is not credible.

Where does the Western media come into this and how are they at ``war`` if they report on what can be called truths?

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arjun_m at 83:

Although your post is addressed to HE, let me remind you something. The same sources had made us believe that Iraq had WMD. Remember that Australia is one of the strongest coalition partners of the USA.

We will believe USA, UK, Australia and others on terrorists when they get the WMD in Iraq out in public.

HE

In a world run by the Mantos, Romairs of the world will get their hearing, if not wield power. In a world run by Romairs, you will have nothing but Mullah-Military alliance in which every sane and intelligent voice is shut out.

That has been the situation in Pakistan since 1970s. If the situation changes, Pakistan`s image will improve. If not, painting Romairs as Mantos will not work. The policy of denials that comes instinctively to establishment Pakistanis has no takers outside of Pakistan.

Mr. Pirzada
Apart from preventing arrests in other countries of those who trained in Pakistan(as I suggested in #21), the committee/thinktank/media university also needs to look into how Pakistani TV and newspapers talk of nonMuslims.

For example one day a maulana was being asked whether scriptures allow Muslims to be friendly with Jews. Another day the religious question was whether Christian girls can be spouses of Muslims, the caller enquiring explained that his papers were in order, but he wanted to check just incase the need arose. Yet another day, during a news analysis on PTV, the term kafir was used while discussing India-Pakistan relations.

You may consider this to be normal religious or other imperative but my guess is such matter-of-factness about the absolute immutability of religious divides in every aspect of life is not good for the `image` in the West. Of course as long as the programs are in Urdu, English-speaking Westerners will not catch on. However where this attitude shows up in English publications too, they will.

tahmed32#81
Please read again. I agree that, with the state of enmity between the two countries being what it is, Pakistan had to do what it did, especially after Advani`s provocative statements following the Indian nuclear tests.
For the record, I was against India developing a nuclear bomb. Not that I am a peacenik but because I do not think that it improved India`s security in any way. For that matter, even Pakistan`s security did not improve after its explosion; it simply brought its bomb out of the closet without adding any more to its defense capability.

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Dost Mittar #80 for once I will agree with hamidm. regardless of the reasons (and they go beyond kashmir - you and most other Indians many not think this way, but rest assured that there is plenty of evidence that there are many in Indian who would like nothing better than to see Pakistan run over and humiliated - a bit of this evidence can be seen on chowk at any time). For pakistan the bomb is the Great Equalizer, the ultimate reason Advani changed his tune from threats to watching cricket.

The incredible thing I find is that this is one issue, the issue of national defense, on which all pakistani leaders - despite their vast differences on other things - have been unified on. Throughout the 1980`s and 1990`s, each one of them - the two bhuttos, zia, nawaz sharif - permitted pakistan`s nuclear program to proceed despite great international pressure and economic sanctions.

dost-mittar,

............ i agree... that makes two of us ........ now what about the other 1.1 billion idiots

hamidm2:
``can you imagine being a pakistani living next to india armed with nuclear weapons?``
I think that you missed the point. Given the animosity with India, Pakistan had no alternative but to develop the bomb; but this animosity itself is because of Pakistan`s Kashmir-first rather than Pakistan-first policy. Take another example, if India decided to ``eat grass`` until it recovered the territories lost to China, wouldn`t it be in a much worse plight than Pakistan is in? Pakistan has to accept the fact that it cannot afford permanent hostility with India, and get on with normal life while maintaining what it regards is its principled stand on Kashmir.

Threat to pakistan,

More than the laskers, the threat to pakistan come from the authors like pirzada, who believe and propogate the notion that all that pakistan needs is some propganda. For these fools who have been brain washed by the k for kafir education cannot accept that there can be no smoke without fire, they cannot accept the jihadisation of the pak society. They cannot accept the reality that desensitisation of the killings start in the himes with th ritual killing of animals in the back yards of pakistan. Indian muslims and muslims all over the world have slowly refrained from this barnaric act, but in pakistan after 1947 this killings have increased every year.

If propagande is the fix for pak problems here are some clues for the newly created media institute for pakistan.

Try a propoganda to prove that osama is not is atourist, given up on jihad and is marvelling the beauty of kyber pass in pakistan.

say that sghar was a tourist visiting kashmir on a forged portugee passport and was illezadagally arrested by BJP hindutwa armies and pakistn had to save him through hijacking.

say that lasker meetings at madreke are purely religious and is devoine as proved by the fact that it is the largest muslim gathering after haj.

show that honour killing is a tribal act, nothing to do with islam even though it is found in islamic countries from sudan to turkey.

say that in the last 50 years, all of the new legislations, blasphemy to hoodood are opposed by the educated of pakistan, like YLH and tehmed while they are apologists for it by saying that what to do zia, did it.

Pirzada, truth has this unsavoury habit of coming out despite any propaganda. It is sad that education did no impact on you, you are no better than the garden variety jihadi, and an educated jihadi is worse than the uneducated one.

His Excellency (various posts):

While President Musharraf might have issued the decision of making a u-turn on Talibans within 4 hours of 9/11, the soul searching was going on for quite sometimes. Kindly recall that he had announced curbs against sectarian organizations known to have been receiving energies from Talibani Afghanistan before 9/11. His speech of August 14, 2001 is an evidence.

arjum at # 59:

``How do you spin the president of your country defending a terrorist group? pakis...? ``

Well my dear fundoo Indoo, let us first try spinning Indians supporting killers like Advani, Joshi and Modi.

Ahmed Bilal, His Excellency, HP, Romair, Tauheed, and Zain:

Solution for me appears to be fdi in Pakistan. If more of the European and American companies have long term strategic interest in Pakistani economy, only then the media will become less hostile.

However, we have a classical catch 22 situation here. The fdi won`t come unless the media gives positive coverage to us. Media is not going to be positive till we don`t have foreign investment in Pakistan.

I think that the current Government is on track, not delibrately trying to become an economic basket case i.e. its siding with the USA (Romair). It is also trying desparately to wipe out marks of our previous stupid policies (Tauheed). Still, most of the time western media does not report what comes out of Pakistan (HP: For example, it does not report our touristic festivals as it would for India, even though our festival of Basant and Jashan-e-Baharan e.g. are truly garandiose). And although Romair, Tauheed and I will support Presdient Musharraf on recognising Israel, Pakistan is increasingly a democratic country. It will not take actions only on what the President desires. Hence, our continued support for Kashmiris (Ahmed Bilal), refusal to sending troops to Iraq (Urstruly and echoboom), and refusal to handover foreign terrorists caught in Pakistan to the USA (Zain Malik).

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