Western Media’s War on Pakistan

Did anyone notice that most of the news stories being sent by some of our friendly neighbors are full of statements which are from ``the official`` and ``the authorities``? I wonder why none of the respective governments (other than our neighbors of course) take any notice of these stories. On various occasions, one finds Indian reporters being politely asked to shut up during White House briefings when they unsuccessfully try to bring such stories in. However, these are all good examples of media war. But in the world where even petty shoplifters would get linked to terrorism because it is the latest buzz world in the global politics (since communism retired), it is not even funny anymore to read stuff like ``Terrorists born in UK, raised in Afghanistan, funded by Saudi Arabia, trained in Kashmir by Pakistan to attack targets in India were caught in Australia by US authorities while they were planning attacks against the penguin population of Antarctica``. You guys are getting too predictable and monotonous.

After Palestine, Chechneya, India, Philipine and whole of the western world, Thailand has also turned oppressor of Muslims and Human Rights of Muslims. Otherwise, there is no reason that all these muslim militants would have existed in Thailand. Like all other countries, societies in the world, Thailand has also enterd its name in the list of Nations which are againt Islam and should be fought against. Jehadi Inc. will now have another destination to expand its tentacles and then cry to the world about Injustice, Cruelty, Human Rights Violations of everyone except Muslims because all except Muslims are Tyrants and Cruel.
All non-muslim religions teach cruelty and way to lead a low-life. Only Islam tells its followers to lead an egalitarian life style. Only if those at helm of affair could look into the roots of violence perpetrated by these muslim militants! But everyone in the world is unreasonable and out to do all kind of injustice to the followers of this egalitarian religion.

Why oh why everyone in this world is unreasonable?

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#130 by Humsab on April 28, 2004 0:26am PT

`` All non-muslim religions teach cruelty and way to lead a low-life. Only Islam tells its followers to lead an egalitarian life style. Only if those at helm of affair could look into the roots of violence perpetrated by these muslim militants! But everyone in the world is unreasonable and out to do all kind of injustice to the followers of this egalitarian religion.

Why oh why everyone in this world is unreasonable? ``

I know what you mean..... makes me cry... Bwaah... bwaaaahhhh..... bwaaaaaahhhhhhh

#131 by arjun_m on April 28, 2004 7:45am PT

Honesty can’t ever by a one way thing. Indians did the same “support, train, arm terrorist groups…” thing in East Pakistan. And Indian army in Kashmir is doing something similar to what Pakistani army was doing in East Pakistan (in the name of fighting terrorist groups, unleashing atrocities on a civilian population which wants freedom). None of this is anything to be proud of for either India or Pakistan. Anyway, the point is that India is managing to get away with murder (in Kashmir, “security forces have reportedly been responsible for the killing of over 250 civilians in targeted and indiscriminate violence since the beginning of 2003” according to Amnesty International) due to strong public relations. On the other hand, Pakistan is being unfairly demonized beyond all limits of normal criticism. And we certainly need to counter this through a well-focused media campaign. I think that’s what this article was about.

re:#126 by ankit
That is nothing.
Pak sent a borrowed, used satellite into orbit and claimed it is better than India`s!
http://www.defencejournal.com/2002/nov/pak-satellite.htm``

``The urgency to place its first satellite in the Geo-Stationary Orbit was realised in the middle of last year, by which time Pakistan had already lost four of its five allotted space slots. The five slots were allotted to Pakistan by ITU (International Telecommunication Union), way back in 1984, but the country failed to launch any satellite till 1995. That year Pakistan again applied for and received the five slots, but once again the government failed to put up a satellite in orbit, losing four of it slots in the process. According to officials, if Pakistan failed to launch its satellite by April 19, 2003, the country will loose its fifth and last 38-degree east slot, and the availability of these space slots is getting difficult every day.

he leased satellite is currently being used by Turkey but by December 23, this year, it would be moved from Turkey’s 50 degrees east slot to Pakistan’s 38 east. The Satellite is at present called Anatolia 1. (Its been called Palapa C1 / Hughes HGS 3 / Anatolia 1 / Paksat 1 !) Turkey itself is the third user of the satellite, which originally belonged to Hughes Global Services Company who are the operators of the satellite.``
So, the satellite was moved from its previous slot to this new slot.

This then is the story of how Pak has a satellite in Geostationary orbit. Technically it is true but Pak did not launch that satellite. It does not have the capablity.

The reality is: there are only a handful of nations with this capability at present, India being the last such nation.
http://www.blonnet.com/2003/01/07/stories/2003010700110900.htm

``The primary companies involved in this activity are ArianeSpace (Ariane) of France; International Launch Services (ILS) — a joint venture between the American defence and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin and the Russian organisations Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre and RSC Energia; the American Delta family of launch vehicles developed by Boeing; and Zenit Sea Launch, a joint venture between Boeing, RSC Energia, Kvaerner of Norway and SDO Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash of Ukraine. Other players include the Chinese, who have developed the Long March rockets, and the Japanese, with their H-IIA launch vehicle.
With the launch of India`s first GSLV rocket in April 2001, India joined this group with the ability to launch a satellite into a geosynchronous orbit. Satellites in a geostationary orbit, 36,000 km above the earth on the equator, appear to remain fixed over a particular part because they move at the same speed and direction as the earth`s rotation.``
Sridhar

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Ahmed Bilal 134. . .

a) Everybody wants freedom, every bus driver wants freedom to be the only person on a route to the exclusion of every other bus driver . . . right . . . even Ladonia wants freedom (http://www.ladonia.com), does that mean every little splinter group wants freedom and will be given freedom?

b) OK, Kashmir wants freedom, hypothetically assume that was suddenly magic wand, so now what about all the non-Kashmiris resident in Kashmir and the Kashmiris resident in the rest of India, Pakistan, Birmingham etcetc? What about their views? Which era border of Kashmir does who choose?

c) India and Bangladesh/East Pakistan, please don`t even bother to compare this with Kashmir. Large parts of West Pakistan are still in a state of denial on the subject of the events in Pakistan leading to Bangladesh. Analyse them chronologically, have a public debate on it in Pakistan?

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This article was about media perception of Pakistan.

Tell you what, read my travelogue on my trip to Pakistan, and let me know why you think I did not carry a camera, and just took notes instead?

Bilal Sahib, you and Moeed Pirzada would make a better case for your country`s image if you petitioned the powers that be to simply permit media personnel to move around freely in atleast some parts of the country. Reportage when permitted liberties, gets tired of criticising . . . whereas reportage when blocked tends to only criticise.

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#137 by veeresh on April 28, 2004 9:57pm PT

You are absolutely right about giving liberties to media personnel in Pakistan. And there is a lot more that should be changed, but going into it would get me off the topic. We discuss these things among ourselves more than anything else because we know that eventually we would be the ones in high-level policy-making positions in Pakistan in a decade or so. We do need to debate and accept responsibility for whatever we did in East Pakistan. Suppressing collective will of people doesn’t work, and that’s something India needs to realize in Kashmir too. And India did exploit the situation in East Pakistan and supported, trained and armed terrorists/freedom fighters of Mukti Bahni. Anyway, I feel that there is a need for an open debate on Kashmir in both Pakistan and India. Why don`t we just let them decide what they want as promised by the UN resolutions? I read your travelogue and thoroughly enjoyed it. :) Thanks.

#136 by arjun_m on April 28, 2004 7:24pm PT

``India isn`t the issue here..Does India have a bad image because it backed the Bangladeshis?....Heck even the US backed radical Islamists for a while..``

It seems that we agree on most of the facts, but we are drawing different conclusions out of it. That`s what I am trying to say too. India and US did not get a bad image in spite of doing something very similar to what Pakistan is doing in Kashmir. A part of that is attributed to a strong media image, which is a good thing for any nation. That`s why Pakistan needs to do better diplomatically, and work on a well-focused media campaign. However I would definitely condemn any acts of violence against civilians, even if those are committed in the name of fighting for freedom. But I haven’t heard any of you condemning atrocities committed by Indian security forces in Kashmir. Living in denial?

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AhmadBilal 139 . . . more than anything else, a basic newspaper needs to cost about 2/- per day, Urdu or English, in Pakistan. That is where it needs to start from. No amount of policy is going to fix that, just competition.

On Kashmir, I want to put something here:- within India itself, water sharing between States is a major point of discontent and argument, leading to problems you may not believe could occur within a Nation. Presumably water sharing is a problem within Pakistan too.

Now there is an agreement on water sharing between India and Pakistan which seems to stand the corrosion of time, tide, war and strife between our Nations. Parts of it concern Kashmir too.

I think your mentioning East Pakistan/Bangladesh spells out the real issue behind the resolution of the Kashmir issue. Thirty three years on from 1971, the Pakistani establishment has to equate these two issues.

Isn`t that it?

#141 by veeresh on April 29, 2004 12:17pm PT
#140 by arjun_m on April 29, 2004 10:27am PT

Thanks for your insights gentlemen. Having made our positions clear, now it seems that we are repeating same things over and over again, without any signs of agreement. :) So we can agree to disagree on the effectiveness of a strong media campaign for Pakistan, and continue the discussion in some other article. Peace.

Great article. Good ideas...I hope they get implemented though...

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