Scathing article here, perhaps a little harsh. Any comments , guys? o o o o o o o o o
STATE OF THE SLAVE PRESS OF PAKISTAN by ABID JAN (InformationTimes.com) - "When a coup is not a coup?" asked the New York Times' Mexico Correspondent, Tim Weiner, when the White House official disinformation about the so-called "Venezuelan coup" was released to the American people in April 2002, and when an obedient U.S. Corporate Slave Press parroted the 'news' fed to them by Bush's disgraced Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. The answer to Weiner's question is: When the United States Government falsely claims it's a coup, but when a free press exposes the U.S. Government's disinformation or propaganda and proves that it's not a coup. http://www.fair.org/press-releases/venezuela-editorials.html Unlike the Slave Press in Pakistan, which cowardly endorsed the unconstitutional and illegal army coup of October 1999, the free press in Venezuela boldly exposed the "Venezuelan coup" propaganda or disinformation. It clearly proved that the White House and its Corporate Slave Media were wrong by writing that the abortive Venezuelan coup was made in the U.S.A. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/apr2002/vene-a15.shtml http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/apr2002/nyt-a15.shtml The free press of Venezuela called a spade a spade and proved that the New York Times maliciously labeled Venezuela's democratically elected President Hugo Chavez as "a ruinous demagogue" and "a would- be dictator" in its editorial of April 13, 2002. http://www.fair.org/extra/0206/venezuela-coup.html The example of Venezuela coup story is relevant to explain the contrasting tactics of the Slave Press in Pakistan. Just a comparison of how the American Corporate Slave Media reports about a democratically elected President in Venezuela and how the 'Pakistani' Slave Press writes about a fraudulently appointed military dictator in Pakistan is enough to show widespread corruption in the two slave medias. Indeed, the Slave Media in Pakistan has miserably failed to perform its journalistic duty of exposing the corrupt and tyrannical military dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan Army tyrant, self-appointed 'President' and deceiver-in-chief. It has also failed to expose the Bush-Blair-Sharon war against all Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians, Lebanese, Libyans, Sudanese, Egyptians, Saudis, North Koreans, Kashmiris, Afghans, Pakistanis, Islam and humanity. We can assess the slavish mentality of the 'Pakistani' Slave Press from its response to the December 30 address by General Musharraf regarding his stubborn refusal to remove his Pakistan Army uniform as he promised earlier. The next day (December 31, 2004), even the Washington Post came out with its harshly critical editorial, headlined "Another Pass for Pakistan." The Post editors wrote: "Mr. Musharraf pledged to resign from his post as Army Chief of Staff by Dec. 31. It was to be a modest step toward returning Pakistan to civilian rule, if not democracy. Yet now Mr. Musharraf is reneging, claiming that his continuance in uniform is essential to the country's 'unity.' He is wrong, of course -- but sadly, his chief ally, President Bush, is unwilling to hold him accountable." Ironically, almost all Pakistani editorials were completely silent on the subject of Musharraf Army tyranny from December 31, 2004 to January 12, 2005, when this article was published in the Information Times. The News International -- a large dogmatic faction of the Slave Press in Pakistan (Editor-in-Chief: Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman), which published General "Musharraf's address to the nation" in text and Web audio formats on December 30, 2004 -- didn't consider the military dictator's reneging on his promises a major issue at all. The News editorials after the army tyrant's ridiculous sermon were as follows: "State Bank's view on economy," "Inter-faith harmony" (December 31, 2004); "WTO: challenge and opportunity," "Fighting AIDS" (January 1, 2005); "Madrassa muddle," "Oil price increase," "Muscat deportees" (January 2, 2005); "A movement too late," "A win-win game" (January 3, 2005); "Timely completion of development projects," "Wanted: A holistic anti-tobacco policy" (January 4, 2005). On January 2, The News rather appreciated the army tyrant's notions on a theme, "Madrassa muddle," that is much appreciated by the Anti-Islam Mafia. The Washington Post rightly criticized General Musharraf at a time when The News in Pakistan published Mir Jamilur Rahman's article of January 1, 2005, with a shameful ringing title: "The uniform will stay - MMA should focus on the problems faced by the masses instead of agitating on non-issues." With this kind of pro-tyranny approach, it is not strange that dictators or tyrants of Pakistan stay in power for a very long time, or until their final hour arrives. Of course, it is a non-issue because with or without the Pakistan Army uniform, dictator Musharraf will eventually end up in hell. Even those editors and reporters, who consider themselves balanced and impartial analysts, make big mistakes in legitimizing military dictatorship at home and the Bush-Blair-Sharon war on all Muslims, Arabs, Islam and humanity globally. This happens when they either republish concocted 'news' stories, malignant articles and sinister editorials lifted from the Western Corporate Media, or when they use the same or similar anti-Pakistani, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti- Islam words, phrases or terminologies. For example, no one should call or identify a dictator as a "President." But even the editorials, which criticize General Musharraf, dutifully address him as "President" despite the fact that he used illegal ways and means to label himself as a "President." Above all is the reproduction of 'news' reports which the military tyranny feeds to the Slave Media in Pakistan. Many 'Pakistani' editors and reporters continue to legitimize military dictatorship by republishing the ruling army's disinformation or propaganda. For instance, soon after reneging on his promise to remove military uniform, dictator Musharraf called a meeting of the Pakistan Army's top brass. At the end of the meeting, they issued a press release with various flavors. The 'news' release carried both words, "President" and "General," before the infamous name of Pervez Musharraf. Despite slight editing, the "President" word was not deleted by the so-called editors in most of the military 'news' reports that appeared on January 7, 2005 in different newspapers of Pakistan. If you do some research, it is not hard to find that the 'news' stories published in all leading daily newspapers in Pakistan were edited versions of the same army press release. The first paragraph in each newspaper contained the words, "President" and General, before the tyrant's name; the second paragraph referred to the 91st core commanders conference; and the last two paragraphs were reserved for dictator Musharraf's appreciation of army's negative role and costly/lavish defense production projects. The Daily Times, a small dogmatic faction of the Slave Press in Pakistan (Editor: Najam A. Sethi), dutifully printed the entire army press release obtained from military sources in which the "terror" word was used not less than six times. This shows how authors of the army 'news' releases are mindful of the most acceptable ways to promote their little military master. Unfortunately, this is not just one army 'news' report planted in the 'Pakistani' Slave Media. This is a crooked routine to ultimately make military tyranny acceptable to the oppressed citizens of Pakistan. Almost all those 'senior journalists,' who have spent their lives working for the Slave Press of Pakistan, see themselves as totally impartial or objective writers. They feel offended when they are told that they have been wasting their time and energy in undermining Pakistan, Arabs, Muslims, Islam and humanity. Nevertheless, it is true that they are engaged in this unethical practice in a way that they do not even feel it or acknowledge it. The main task of legitimizing an individual, action, policy, phenomenon, or certain values is preparing a pro-dictatorship mindset. That's when the slave mentality of the 'Pakistani' Slave Press starts playing a criminal role in serving military dictators, army tyrants and terroristic imperialists at home and abroad. That's why the Slave Media of Pakistan began undermining the mutual interests and common causes of all Pakistanis, Arabs and Muslims. It is ironic that the 'Pakistani' Slave Press continues to play a shameful role in preparing a pro-tyranny mindset required by the super tyrants in Washington, DC and their little puppets around the Muslim world. The corrupt role of the Slave Press of Pakistan in preparation of a pro-dictatorship mindset begins with using rancid notions, propaganda phrases/slogans and divisive terms, and ends with republishing fabricated 'news' reports, mischievous articles and Machiavellian editorials planted by the dogmatic/rogue media monopoly centers like Associated Press of America (AP), Reuters of Uk, Agence France Presse (AFP) of France and the rest of the Western Corporate Media. Unfortunately, the Slave Media propagandists in Pakistan do not stop after committing major crimes against their readers. They even go to the extent of proudly reprinting complete editorials or opinion pieces from the Western Corporate Press while trying to give the impression that 'we are either neutral/unbiased or we want to inform our people about news, views/opinions and ideas from the Wild West.' However, this is not the case in the Wild West. Even writings of the best Pakistani columnists, reporters or editors have never been published in the Western Corporate Media unless they have a clandestine role to play in legitimizing or endorsing anti-Pakistan, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, or anti-Islam viewpoints. Views/opinions of Salman Rushdie, Pervez Amir Ali Hoodbhoy, Ahmed Rashid, Kamran Khan and certain other notorious/rogue dogmatists have been printed in the Western Corporate Press, but it has censored or banned the views/opinions of all those Pakistanis, Arabs and Muslims who are anti-military dictatorship, pro-Pakistan nuclear defense, or pro- Kashmir freedom. The 'news' stories of Kamran Khan were published in the Washington Post to give legitimacy to the CIA reports such as the malicious attempt to implicate the Pakistan military in drug smuggling or to defame Pakistan's honorable nuclear scientist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. But any truth writer was ignored by the U.S. Corporate Press who could prove that the situation in Afghanistan was totally different than what the U.S. Corporate Media was presenting before October 7, 2001, or prove that Dr. Khan and all other Pakistani nuclear scientists have not done anything against Pakistan's national interests. The recent unethical game of reprinting cooked up 'news' reports, articles and editorials against Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan and other nuclear scientists of Pakistan, which were copied word by word from the U.S. Corporate Press, is a part of the dirty work that the Slave Media in Pakistan and its US-based correspondents cunningly perform because of their slave mentality and because of financial corruption. However, they have failed to actually realize the extent of their involvement in harming Pakistan's nuclear weapons defense program and undermining roots of the Pakistani Nation. For example, it is easy to argue that the 'Pakistani' Slave Press could not avoid reprinting foreign malicious stories about Pakistan's nuclear weapons defense projects after the entire Western Corporate Media maliciously maligned Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan and other Pakistani atomic scientists, with most stories datelined Islamabad and Washington. It is even more easy to argue that asking not to republish foreign false articles, as they are planted, is like the Bush-Cheney regime asking newspapers in the United States to refrain from printing/broadcasting stories of its failures in illegally occupied Iraq and unlawfully occupied Afghanistan because in its perception it is against the U.S. national interests to do so. It is not so difficult to read between the lines and see how the most critical stories in the American Corporate Media outlets differ only in the way the war on the Iraqi citizens and the Afghan people is conducted. They are all similar and fully back the Bush-Cheney junta in its imperialism, war and atrocities. They actually prepare the ground by regurgitating the so obvious official lies, disinformation and propaganda. Furthermore, we never see any story or article, based on a Pakistani, Arab, or Muslim perspective, published in the U.S. Corporate Press which is critical of the Bush-Cheney plutocracy's wars. Moreover, we have not seen any original article or editorial lifted from The Nation or other daily newspapers of Pakistan and reprinted or reported as news, word by word, in the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, Time, Newsweek, Foreign Affairs, AP, Reuters, UPI, AFP, CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, or BBC, etc. The Daily Times editorial of February 7, 2004, headlined "Lessons of l'affaire proliferation," made fun of General Musharraf for his reference to the press in Iran, Libya and North Korea. It asked: "Is there a free press in Libya and North Korea" and even in Iran? Ironically, Najam Sethi, the dogmatic and rogue editorialist of the Lahore, Pakistan-based Daily Times, failed to realize that reprinting false 'news' reports, malicious articles and misleading editorials, word by word -- which were plagiarized by Khalid Hasan, the Daily Times Washington correspondent, and certain other 'Pakistani' reporters from the Western Corporate Media -- is absolutely not a practice of the real, free and independent press. Reprinting fictitious stories, defamatory articles and racist editorials from the Western Corporate Press or reporting them as news is the first step towards legitimizing lies, disinformation, propaganda and other crimes, and labeling innocent persons as criminals or terrorists. For example, the New York-based Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) has pointed out: On April 20, 2002, the Chicago Tribune ran the following correction: "An editorial on Sunday mistakenly said that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had praised Osama bin Laden. The Tribune regrets the error." Also, note the way they, the dogmatic, rogue propagandists in Pakistan, fraudulently report military thug General Pervez Musharraf as the "President" of Pakistan; sadistic tyrant Iyad Allawi as the "Prime Minister" of Iraq; Narco dictator Hamid Karzai as the "President" of Afghanistan; corrupt traitors as "Iraqi Police," "Afghan Police," "Iraqi Army," or "Afghan Army"; and the once freedom fighters (Mujahideen) of U.S. Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who fought against unlawful Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, as "insurgents." 'Pakistani' Slave Press also repeatedly uses the terms, "suicide bombers" and "suicide bombing." Webster's New World College Dictionary states that suicide is "1. The act of killing oneself intentionally. 2. Ruin of one's interests or prospects through one's own actions, policies, etc." But the same Slave Media of Pakistan has never raised the key question: Why do people under illegal military occupation commit suicide or martyrdom? It has neither studied suicidology nor published any articles about suicidology. The people, who commit suicide under unlawful military occupation, claim that they are not "suicide bombers." They say they are freedom fighters, anti-occupation forces and martyrs. They say they have to commit martyrdom to liberate Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kashmir from the evil armed forces of tyranny and oppression. James Madison, the fourth U.S. President (1809-1817), once rightly said: "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land (USA), it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." President Madison made his true statement a long time ago, but today the Neo-Con Bush-Cheney regime and the Zionist-controlled U.S. Congress have imposed tyranny and opppression on the American people through their tyrannical and repressive laws. Now the U.S. rulers are forcing countless Americans to either commit suicide in Iraq, Afghanistan and the USA, or become freedom fighters, anti-occupation forces and martyrs to liberate America from the stranglehold of tyranny and oppression. It is ironic that the 'Pakistani' Slave Press did not use the same terms, "suicide bombers" and "suicide bombing," when Afghans were jumping right into the Soviet tanks and other Russian military vehicles, with bombs wrapped around their bodies, after hiding and waiting in trees for hours. Why were the Mujahideen or Afghan anti- occupation forces called freedom fighters by U.S. Government officials? Why did the U.S. Government officials call the Afghan resistance to illegal Soviet occupation of Afghanistan a Jehad? Why are they now calling the same freedom fighters "insurgents, criminals and terrorists," who are fighting to liberate Afghanistan, Kashmir, Iraq and Palestine from the illegal armed forces of tyranny and oppression? Why is their anti-occuption struggle now being labeled as "insurgency" and "terrorism"? Readers should note that "Iraq's insurgency" are the first two words of an AFP 'news' story of January 2, 2005, headlined "Violence greets Iraq's new year," which was reprinted in DAWN (Editor: Tahir Mirza), another dogmatic faction of the 'Pakistani' Slave Press. Did the Slave Media in Pakistan ever think about these very important questions before republishing bogus 'news' reports, articles, editorials, disinformation and propaganda, which were originally planted by the overt and covert, Western corporate sources of tyranny and oppression? 'Pakistani' Slave Media's reliance on government advertisements, its bribery scandals and its income tax frauds compel it to bow down under unrelenting pressure from the ruling military tyranny, but no one forces it to reprint disinformation and propaganda planted by the Associated Press (AP), Reuters, AFP and the rest of the Western Corporate Press. Nobody forces it to use the same propaganda terms, phrases, or slogans in its own news, articles and editorials. This shameful recycling of Western Corporate Media's trash ultimately leads to the consolidation of a slave mentality and a pro-tyranny mindset in favor of the ruling tyrants, dictators and usurpers. The Slave Press in Pakistan and all other Muslim-majority countries should stop cooperating with Western disinformation propagandists and stop legitimizing their evil racism. It should stop being the direct or indirect promoter of tyrants. It should not function like a mouth piece of tyrannies. It becomes an agent of legitimization when, for instance, it calls a dictator or tyrant the "President" or "Prime Minister," while knowing that he is not a democratically elected President or Prime Minister. It should stop calling or identifying Musharraf, Karzai and Allawi as "President" and "Prime Minister" respectively because they are dictators and tyrants. Similarly, it is unjust and unfair to call the resistance to illegal military occupations an "insurgency." Dictionary defines insurgency as an "open, armed and organized resistance to a constituted government." But there is no legally constituted government in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the three illegally occupied states which are still being ruled by unlawful military tyrannies. The truth and fact of the matter is that the Bush-Blair-Sharon regimes have installed their puppets, pawns or tools in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere to bestow some legitimacy over their genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, oil robbery and theft of assets. The Slave Press of Pakistan should stop fawning like dogs and stop singing paeans to tyrants and dictators. It should not extol their irrational dogmas and run screeds of their so-called "Enlightened Moderation." It should stop advertising lengthy extracts from the speeches of dictators/tyrants and stop disseminating selected excerpts from their nonsensical rhetoric. In places, such as Pakistan, where government-controlled radio and television channels are mere extensions of the king's palace, the editors of newspapers, magazines, newsletters, websites and other publications should stop giving blanket positive coverage of political developments in favor of the ruling military dictatorship. In their publications, they should give more space to the opposition which has no radio and TV channels. The basic premise of the Pakistani Press should be that elections, cabinets, Parliament, four provincial assemblies, judiciary and public offices are not democratic and legal as long as the corrupt and tyrannical Musharraf Army remains in power. Reporting the statements and activities of military rulers, government officials and politicians should not be a routine formality, especially when editors only reprint disinformation or propaganda supplied to them by the army tyrant's highly paid press officers. A serious, persistent boycott of military tyranny by the Pakistani media can remove the army tyrants and their corrupt mercenaries from power within a short span of time. If the message from the Pakistani press to the military dictators/tyrants is: 'We don't want you in power; we won't call anything democratic, which is tyrannical, and we won't cover any undemocratic events as long as the army tyrants/dictators remain in power.' If the entire Pakistani media expose the ruling military tyranny every day, then the ruling army dictatorship will be toppled very soon. But first the slave press has to become a free press to fulfill its real journalistic duties. [Mr. Abid Ullah Jan is a noted columnist and author of The End of Democracy, A War on Islam, and Occupied Pakistan. He is Director of the Independent Center for Strategic Studies and Analysis (ICSSA) http://www.icssa.org and a Member of the Free Press Network (FPN) http://www.informationtimes.com/fpn ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater? 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