jeypore
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Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
EDITORIAL: Terrorisms psy-war is bad news
The terrorists have killed at least 40 people and wounded 90 in the Orakzai Tribal Agency from among a jirga gathered on Friday to form a lashkar against the Taliban. The jirga had already burnt the houses of some local Taliban and imposed heavy fines on two others. The gathering was hit by a suicide-bomber driving a double-cabin vehicle. This is not the first time a jirga has been decimated; an earlier gathering was attacked in Darra Adam Khel too. The elders of the Tribal Areas who commanded respect and took collective decisions have been largely eliminated.
This is terror and it is driven by a policy of intimidation in order to affect the decision-making processes of the state. Other coordinated acts meant to mould the thinking of the people in general and certain enclaves of influence in the country in particular also took place on Friday. In Lahore, the heart of Punjab which influences policy-making in Islamabad through the provinces dominant representation in the National Assembly, small bombs aimed at alleged immorality are meant to soften the peoples resolve to fight back. Similarly, four bomb hoaxes hit Lahore in one day, with psychological consequences anticipated by the terrorists.
In Bajaur, more elders were beheaded the same day to psychologically dent the courage of the tribes who have taken up arms against the Taliban and their foreigners in parallel with the Pakistan Armys operations. In Swat, even as the Tehreek-e Nifaz-e Shariat-e Muhammadi (TNSM) leader Sufi Muhammad apostasised the terrorists, the Taliban blasted the house of an ANP leader. All the elected members of the ruling party in the NWFP have had to leave Swat for security reasons, their leader Mr Asfandyar Wali Khan having narrowly escapade a suicide-bombers attack in Charsadda.
The selection of targets is also meant to affect the mind of the attacked and the not-attacked. The parliament that heard the in-camera briefing from the Army this week is also not free of the effect of this psychological war. The opposition, composed mostly of the not-attacked, questions the war on terrorism and demands investigation into how the last government got Pakistan involved in the war that confronts Pakistan with Al Qaeda and our own people. Spiritual leaders say Muslims cannot be involved in killing Muslims, leaving the question of whether that qualifies Al Qaeda and Taliban as non-Muslims unanswered. Those who join the Taliban drive against obscenity read music CD shops thus indirectly support the terrorists.
The media reflects all this. Unfortunately the tilt is against the government and indirectly against the military operations against the Taliban. The burden of the message is anti-American, reinforced by reports of how the Americans have maltreated their Muslim prisoners, including summaries of the memoir of Mulla Zaeef, ex-Afghan ambassador to Pakistan who spent three years in Guantanamo Bay. One columnist wrote that he told the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, that terrorists of the Tribal Areas were making their new hideouts in Multan, Bahawalpur and Muzaffargarh and if you attack them there they will go to Karachi; therefore the best thing would be to negotiate with the Taliban!
Even the Senate standing committee asked ex-ISI chief General (Retd) Hamid Gul for advice on the war against terrorism while knowing fully well that he is opposed to the Armys effort to resist the Taliban. Anti-Americanism and anti-Indianism, recklessly lumped together, are being purveyed from the free media. The latest nugget is politician Sheikh Rashid Ahmads boast that he would be proud to have his martyred body brought back from a battlefield inside India. Al Qaeda is winning the media war, first by getting its intimidatory killings publicised in the free media and then by getting politicians and analysts to come on TV and castigate the policy of fighting terrorism.
One recent not-so-popular seminar in Lahore arrived at the conclusion that the way Pakistani media has glorified the radicals and militants has not only emboldened the radical groups and organisations but has also caused an increase in the trend and level of radicalisation in Pakistani society. The media must not lose sight of the fact that if the radical forces win in the country, their first target can be the media itself. *
SECOND EDITORIAL: But there is good news too...
Apart from the extraordinary feat on the part of the mayor of Karachi of opening another signal-free stretch of the city artery roads, completing overheads and underpasses in eight months as opposed to a Lahore underpass along the canal that took three years to complete there is good economic news too. Iran has promised to look into the Pakistani request for deferred payment for oil, Pakistans biggest drain on foreign exchange reserves. The visiting foreign minister of Iran, Mr Manouchehr Mottaki, has said he would plead Pakistans case for extending the normal deferment period of three months. Iran has also resolved four out of the five issues pending in respect of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. The outstanding pricing issue too would be taken care of soon.
A statement from Abu Dhabis biggest investment group in Pakistan, made by Education Minister Nahyan bin Mubarak Al-Nahyan, says that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will help Pakistan in its financial stress. Capital Dubai is going to hold the coming session of the Friends of Pakistan forum where Saudi Arabia too is expected to make good on its promise of extending Pakistan a deferred payment facility. Eighty percent of Pakistans oil is imported from the countries of the Gulf. The problem is also reduced in its intensity by the steep fall in the price of oil after the global squeeze on demand.
The Indian prime minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, while inaugurating the Baglihar Dam, has spoken of working together with Pakistan. Unfortunately, the media in Pakistan gave the impression that Pakistan had protested against the dam. When the Pakistan Indus Waters Commissioner Mr Jamaat Ali Shah was asked, he said that India had modified the dam last year after the verdict from a World Bank arbiter, that Baglihar was in accordance with the Indus Waters Treaty and that Pakistan was only concerned now with the filling and emptying of the dam under the terms of the treaty. That is good news too. *
EDITORIAL: Terrorisms psy-war is bad news
The terrorists have killed at least 40 people and wounded 90 in the Orakzai Tribal Agency from among a jirga gathered on Friday to form a lashkar against the Taliban. The jirga had already burnt the houses of some local Taliban and imposed heavy fines on two others. The gathering was hit by a suicide-bomber driving a double-cabin vehicle. This is not the first time a jirga has been decimated; an earlier gathering was attacked in Darra Adam Khel too. The elders of the Tribal Areas who commanded respect and took collective decisions have been largely eliminated.
This is terror and it is driven by a policy of intimidation in order to affect the decision-making processes of the state. Other coordinated acts meant to mould the thinking of the people in general and certain enclaves of influence in the country in particular also took place on Friday. In Lahore, the heart of Punjab which influences policy-making in Islamabad through the provinces dominant representation in the National Assembly, small bombs aimed at alleged immorality are meant to soften the peoples resolve to fight back. Similarly, four bomb hoaxes hit Lahore in one day, with psychological consequences anticipated by the terrorists.
In Bajaur, more elders were beheaded the same day to psychologically dent the courage of the tribes who have taken up arms against the Taliban and their foreigners in parallel with the Pakistan Armys operations. In Swat, even as the Tehreek-e Nifaz-e Shariat-e Muhammadi (TNSM) leader Sufi Muhammad apostasised the terrorists, the Taliban blasted the house of an ANP leader. All the elected members of the ruling party in the NWFP have had to leave Swat for security reasons, their leader Mr Asfandyar Wali Khan having narrowly escapade a suicide-bombers attack in Charsadda.
The selection of targets is also meant to affect the mind of the attacked and the not-attacked. The parliament that heard the in-camera briefing from the Army this week is also not free of the effect of this psychological war. The opposition, composed mostly of the not-attacked, questions the war on terrorism and demands investigation into how the last government got Pakistan involved in the war that confronts Pakistan with Al Qaeda and our own people. Spiritual leaders say Muslims cannot be involved in killing Muslims, leaving the question of whether that qualifies Al Qaeda and Taliban as non-Muslims unanswered. Those who join the Taliban drive against obscenity read music CD shops thus indirectly support the terrorists.
The media reflects all this. Unfortunately the tilt is against the government and indirectly against the military operations against the Taliban. The burden of the message is anti-American, reinforced by reports of how the Americans have maltreated their Muslim prisoners, including summaries of the memoir of Mulla Zaeef, ex-Afghan ambassador to Pakistan who spent three years in Guantanamo Bay. One columnist wrote that he told the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, that terrorists of the Tribal Areas were making their new hideouts in Multan, Bahawalpur and Muzaffargarh and if you attack them there they will go to Karachi; therefore the best thing would be to negotiate with the Taliban!
Even the Senate standing committee asked ex-ISI chief General (Retd) Hamid Gul for advice on the war against terrorism while knowing fully well that he is opposed to the Armys effort to resist the Taliban. Anti-Americanism and anti-Indianism, recklessly lumped together, are being purveyed from the free media. The latest nugget is politician Sheikh Rashid Ahmads boast that he would be proud to have his martyred body brought back from a battlefield inside India. Al Qaeda is winning the media war, first by getting its intimidatory killings publicised in the free media and then by getting politicians and analysts to come on TV and castigate the policy of fighting terrorism.
One recent not-so-popular seminar in Lahore arrived at the conclusion that the way Pakistani media has glorified the radicals and militants has not only emboldened the radical groups and organisations but has also caused an increase in the trend and level of radicalisation in Pakistani society. The media must not lose sight of the fact that if the radical forces win in the country, their first target can be the media itself. *
SECOND EDITORIAL: But there is good news too...
Apart from the extraordinary feat on the part of the mayor of Karachi of opening another signal-free stretch of the city artery roads, completing overheads and underpasses in eight months as opposed to a Lahore underpass along the canal that took three years to complete there is good economic news too. Iran has promised to look into the Pakistani request for deferred payment for oil, Pakistans biggest drain on foreign exchange reserves. The visiting foreign minister of Iran, Mr Manouchehr Mottaki, has said he would plead Pakistans case for extending the normal deferment period of three months. Iran has also resolved four out of the five issues pending in respect of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. The outstanding pricing issue too would be taken care of soon.
A statement from Abu Dhabis biggest investment group in Pakistan, made by Education Minister Nahyan bin Mubarak Al-Nahyan, says that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will help Pakistan in its financial stress. Capital Dubai is going to hold the coming session of the Friends of Pakistan forum where Saudi Arabia too is expected to make good on its promise of extending Pakistan a deferred payment facility. Eighty percent of Pakistans oil is imported from the countries of the Gulf. The problem is also reduced in its intensity by the steep fall in the price of oil after the global squeeze on demand.
The Indian prime minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, while inaugurating the Baglihar Dam, has spoken of working together with Pakistan. Unfortunately, the media in Pakistan gave the impression that Pakistan had protested against the dam. When the Pakistan Indus Waters Commissioner Mr Jamaat Ali Shah was asked, he said that India had modified the dam last year after the verdict from a World Bank arbiter, that Baglihar was in accordance with the Indus Waters Treaty and that Pakistan was only concerned now with the filling and emptying of the dam under the terms of the treaty. That is good news too. *
