{"id":5528,"date":"2010-05-31T00:00:50","date_gmt":"2010-05-30T22:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=5528"},"modified":"2010-05-30T22:19:06","modified_gmt":"2010-05-30T20:19:06","slug":"framing-pakistan-how-the-pro-israel-media-enables-india%e2%80%99s-surrogate-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/05\/framing-pakistan-how-the-pro-israel-media-enables-india%e2%80%99s-surrogate-warfare\/","title":{"rendered":"Framing Pakistan: How the Pro-Israel Media Enables India\u2019s Surrogate Warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"

In its bitter rivalry with India, Pakistan is at a fatal disadvantage. Unlike its South Asian neighbour, Islamabad lacks an ally with <\/strong>considerable influence<\/a> over American mainstream media. <\/em><\/p>\n

The latest example of US media complicity with the Indo-Israeli alliance<\/a> came in the aftermath of the much-hyped Times Square \u201ccar-bomb\u201d <\/strong>incident. Typical of the media orgy of Pakistan-bashing that followed the discovery of an SUV packed with 250 pounds of non-explosive fertilizer<\/a> was a piece<\/a> written by Newsweek\u2019s Indian-born editor, <\/strong>Fareed Zakaria<\/a>, in which he <\/strong>brands Pakistan as <\/strong>\u201ca terrorist hothouse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a wannabe terrorist shopping for help, Pakistan is a supermarket,\u201d writes Zakaria. \u201cThere are dozens of jihadi organizations: Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Al Qaeda, Jalaluddin and Siraj Haqqani\u2019s network, Tehrik-e-Taliban, and the list goes on. Some of the major ones, like the Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, operate openly via front groups throughout the country. But none seem to have any difficulty getting money and weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zakaria is in no doubt about who\u2019s to blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom its founding, the Pakistani government has supported and encouraged jihadi groups, creating an atmosphere that has allowed them to flourish,\u201d claims the CNN pundit. <\/strong><\/p>\n

To back up his assertions, Zakaria cites no less an authority that Pakistan\u2019s ambassador to the United States. In Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military<\/a>,<\/em> which Zakaria <\/strong>considers a \u201cbrilliant history,\u201d Husain Haqqani claims that support for jihad has been \u201ca consistent policy of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Case closed for the prosecution? Perhaps not.<\/p>\n

The Pakistani diplomat\u2019s credibility as an objective critic of jihadism is undermined somewhat by his intimate ties to the Israel-centric neoconservative network<\/a>. A former fellow<\/a> at the Likudnik Hudson Institute<\/a>, Haqqani co-chaired Hudson\u2019s Project on Islam and Democracy. Its director, Hillel Fradkin<\/a>, was a Project for a New American Century signatory to a 2002 letter<\/a> to George W. Bush equating Yasser Arafat with Osama Bin Laden in an effort to convince <\/strong>the White House that \u201c<\/strong>Israel\u2019s fight against terrorism is our fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haqqani also collaborated with another neocon, Stephen Schwartz<\/a>, on the Institute for Islamic Progress and Peace. A project<\/a> of the notorious Islamophobe<\/a> Daniel Pipes, it is widely suspected to be an attempt to \u201cdivide and conquer<\/a>\u201d the American Muslim community. In short, if Tel Aviv had handpicked Pakistan\u2019s ambassador to Washington, they could hardly have found a more suitable candidate than Haqqani.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also advancing \u201cthe Pakistan Connection<\/a>\u201d to the Times Square plot is Haqqani\u2019s onetime <\/strong>collaborator Stephen Schwartz. Writing in Rupert Murdoch\u2019s staunchly pro-Israel<\/a> Weekly Standard, Schwartz pushes \u201cthe Pakistani Taliban did it\u201d storyline. Faisal Shahzad\u2019s arrest, he writes, \u201clends credibility to the claim by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the branch of the Afghan terrorist movement operating there, that they planted the unsuccessful car-bomb.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Zakaria, Schwartz holds Pakistani authorities responsible.<\/p>\n

\u201cPakistani reality cannot be evaded,\u201d he writes. \u201cThe jihadist domination seen in the Pakistani army and intelligence services (ISI) is visible everywhere South Asian Muslims congregate. It explains the reluctance of the Pakistani government to fulfill its commitment to fighting the Taliban. And it equally accounts for conspiracies like that foiled in Times Square.\u201d<\/p>\n

The one evading \u201cPakistani reality,\u201d however, is Schwartz. If any government is to be held responsible for terrorism carried out by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), it is not in Islamabad but in Tel Aviv or New Delhi.<\/p>\n

As Gordon Duff, senior editor of Veterans Today, revealed <\/strong>in a recent interview<\/a>: \u201cWe have very little doubt that the Indians and the Israelis, that are all over Afghanistan with German passports pretending to be military contractors, are operating 17 camps along the Taliban regions training and arming terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Duff, \u201cThe Pakistani Taliban is in close cooperation with, supplied, financed, armed and trained by Israel and India to attack Pakistan.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Duff\u2019s claims are based on a February 2010 fact-finding tour of Pakistan, where he was briefed<\/a> by the highest levels of the country\u2019s military and intelligence establishment, including Lieutenant General<\/a> Hamid Gul, former director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Admiral<\/a> Iftikhar Ahmed Sirohey, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Mirza Aslam Beg, former Chief of Army Staff.<\/p>\n

Fearful of offending their Israel-conscious<\/a> paymasters<\/a> in Washington, the Pakistani military and intelligence services have been forced into the humiliating position of leaking their side of the story through the Veterans Today website.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the ISI leak<\/a>, the Times Square terror plot was a \u201cfalse flag operation to implicate the Pakistani Taliban and then threaten and force Pakistan to \u2018do more\u2019 in North Waziristan.\u201d This was followed by \u201ca massive media disinformation war\u201d to induce the belief that \u201call global terrorism is emerging from the Pakistani tribal pocket of North Waziristan, and that the ISI\/army is either hands and gloves with the Taliban or not willing to do more.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Clearly, Israel and India share a common geostrategic interest in the destabilization<\/a> of the nuclear-armed Muslim nation. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated, \u201cOur ties with India don\u2019t have any limitation\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israel, however, has proven itself a rather dubious ally<\/a>\u2014as a growing number of Americans are beginning to realize. Perhaps one day policymakers in New Delhi will have a similar awakening. But for the time being, the media component of its alliance with Tel Aviv affords India a powerful weapon to wage surrogate warfare against Pakistan.<\/p>\n

___________________________<\/p>\n

Maidhc \u00d3 Cathail is a widely published writer based in Japan. To read more of his writing, go to Maidhc \u00d3 Cathail: Writing and Analysis<\/span><\/em> .<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In its bitter rivalry with India, Pakistan is at a fatal disadvantage. Unlike its South Asian neighbour, Islamabad lacks an ally with considerable influence over American mainstream media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}