If ignorance is bliss, Sumayya Chawla is the happiest woman on the planet.

If ignorance is bliss, Sumayya Chawla is the happiest woman on the planet.

In her fantastically ridiculous piece, Is Pakistani Media Awake?, she is unflinchingly absurd, demonstrating to us all she has somehow escaped any character trait remotely resembling reasonableness.

It would be wrong to deride a work without citing the offensive statements, so here, dear Reader, is a small sampling of her rock-filled dish:

The ‘tough love’ response of Mrs Clinton to this was something along the lines of  ‘ well I am sorry you feel that way but it wasn’t our intention, you don’t have to take the money you know, if you don’t want to’. What exactly is going on here? Why isn’t anyone telling madam secretary that your country is killing innocent Pakistanis, killing babies rather, as she was so keen on pointing out in her address to university students in Lahore. Why didn’t any of our esteemed journalists ask her why the US is busy killing and bombing Pakistanis if we are such great friends and allies? Why wasn’t it politely suggested to her that she perhaps should not have come to Pakistan as she wasn’t very welcome here. Why don’t we see a revolt in the Pakistani media against the freak show that was Clinton’s visit to Pakistan? Why didn’t the big shot media anchors boycott the interview with Hillary Clinton while more than a 100 Pakistanis were being blown up in Peshawar and hundreds more were fighting for their lives? If Mr. Zardari and his government are not human enough to feel any empathy for his fellow Pakistanis who suffered terribly in this outrageous attack, where was the Pakistani media, why didn’t they refuse to cover her visit due to a national tragedy?  If they are such torchbearers of truth, then how dare they sat in their suits and ties and conducted an interview that amounted to nothing in terms of expressing the real sentiments of the majority of the Pakistani public? American Govt. has taken off its gloves and is now openly hostile to the Pakistani state and people, so why in God’s name are we still walking on eggshells.

As a lit major, the grammatical errors were enough to knock me down. However, I shall put forth a Herculean effort to ignore them all because we’re dealing with the bigger issue of her thought process mirroring that of a two-year old.

Within her bewildering rhetorical questions, I see her tripping over her own points.

I shall answer with my very own attempt at the Socratic method:

Is there anything wrong with a nation granting aid to another nation, especially one with which its aims are so closely aligned? Exactly what was wrong with Secretary Clinton pointing out Pakistan was under no obligation to take the aid? And exactly why are you viciously against the aid going to schools, police officers, health clinics, etc? Did you want to match the funds of Kerry-Lugar and supply the country with assistance? (That would be awfully generous of you!) Are you as upset with other international aid groups and private donors who donate to charitable causes within Pakistan? If not, I highly recommend you buy a dictionary and look up the word “consistency,” it’s a great word, one of my favorites.  Ms. Chawla, do you have sympathy for any of the people killed by extremists or is your screeching reserved specifically for all things related to drones? Can you so easily ignore the suicide bombings and drive-by assassinations of brigadiers? If so, the Pakistani public envies you a good deal. Exactly why should the media have boycotted the interview with Secretary Clinton? How is closing our eyes and covering our ears going to solve problems? (See, this is where I see a vast wilderness of immaturity where your rationality should be, Miss Chawla.) Any notion of a “biased-in-favor-of-President-Zardari” media culture in Pakistan can be immediately dismissed, for even the President’s most outspoken detractors admit the media is staunchly anti-Zardari. In this way, do you realize you have outdone the Ahmed Quraishis of Pakistan? I advise you to be careful though, Mr. Quraishi tries his best to outdo everyone else in his nonsensical vitriol, he may not appreciate playing second fiddle to you. Also, please respect the office of the President and address him as such…he was voted in democratically, and if you must kick and scream, take that up with the public that voted overwhelmingly for the PPP. You wrote “American Govt. has taken off its gloves and is now openly hostile to the Pakistani state and people.” Did you consciously disregard the Secretary’s statements of friendship? I shall include one: “I am well aware that there is a trust deficit. My message is that’s not the way it should be. We cannot let a minority of people in both countries determine our relationship.” Miss Chawla, it appears you do a wonderful job on inducing amnesia and forget all the hard work both Americans and Pakistanis have done, currently do, and will continue doing to foster better relations.

You ask if the media is awake…I have to answer that no, the media — and you! — are fast asleep at the wheel.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. If you cannot or are not willing to learn, Miss Chawla, then the knowledgeable and well-versed in nuance among us have a task: to continuously point out the flaws in arguments like yours and offer a vision of a world not driven by hate or fear-mongering.

Is this what they want?

Today there were two suicide attacks in Pakistan, killing at least 37 and wounding at least 65. Two suicide attacks start off the week, continue to terrorize citizens, and to a great extent, end several UN programs.

In Rawalpindi, a suicide bomber detonated outside a bank, as men and women lined up in the heat to collect their salaries. At a checkpoint near Lahore, it was a white Suzuki that caught the eye of police officers, men with reliable instincts and a desire to protect civilians. They tried to stop it from entering the city and that was when it exploded.

In an earlier post, I wrote about the very clear signs that extremist attacks would no longer be limited to the far corners of the country. These attacks confirm it, and confirm something else, too: international aid groups fear for the safety of their workers and are pulling out.

The most obvious example of this is the United Nations. Its tireless work in the region has been overshadowed by the killings of UN workers. The attack on the UN World Food Program shocked Pakistanis and the world…how could an organization that worked to feed the poor be a possible target? The workers were Muslims — three men, two Pakistani and an Iraqi and two Pakistani women paid the ultimate price for their jobs in public service.

Are we going to let these brutes rip apart the lives of hard-working Pakistanis and prevent a brother from helping his own? Is that the kind of country they chase after, a barren wasteland of death and desolation?

Is that what they want?

It doesn’t much matter. The Zardari administration has decided failure is not an option, and will continue to work against extremism — short-term strategies include military offensives, long-term includes economic development and education. This, of course, is where we will sorely miss the NGOs if they cut activities due to security risks. It is a tough battle, but Pakistanis are strong-minded and will win.

The journalists and career-politicians attacking government initiatives should compare how easy it is for them to write rubbish and have checks float their way to that man who waited in line at the bank to collect his check and was massacred. By chasing their few minutes of fame with hyperbolic statements, these people give extremists the opening to continue and bolster their power.

Is that what they want?

Hamid Mir and his Ridiculous Benchmarks for Success

If anyone needed more proof of the media being overrun by the disgracefully uninformed, here it is. In
this preposterous piece, Hamid Mir makes outlandish demands of United States’ policy whilst having the nerve to wonder at the mistrust between the US and Pakistan. The fact that this man is executive editor of Geo TV in Islamabad is troubling.

Taking a deep breath, I feel the only way to tackle this monstrosity of distorted facts and hysteria is to go through it, point by point.

At the end of his first paragraph, Mir brings up the favorite punching bag of Pakistan’s obsessed media, the Kerry-Lugar bill. One has to wonder: now that the Pakistani public seems to be embracing the aid package, will the pseudo-journalists go through withdrawal symptoms once this this is no longer a relevant topic?

Mir writes: “Very few people in Washington realise that tension between Pakistan Army and President Zardari were actually created by Kerry-Lugar Bill.”

Quite off the mark, the statement goes to illustrate Mir’s love for simplified truths. The Kerry-Lugar bill was up for debate for many months. The writing, drafting, research and of course, floor debate and vote process was very much an open process. Throughout this sequence, there was no outcry to be heard, no fear of losing sovereignty to be felt. If anything, Pakistanis should be aware that tougher, far more intrusive clauses were actually not approved and the bill was full of immense respect and recognition for Pakistan at the time it was signed into law. Mir misses the point that tensions between the Pakistani Army and President Zardari’s administration are mainly over the new role the army must now play: to serve the federal government. We have in Pakistan a fledging democracy, and we absolutely must give it a chance to flourish. The Army has the noble task of protecting the people from danger, and it must work with President Zardari’s government to meet that goal. Tensions are natural when the role of one entity changes, and as Kerry-Lugar also notes, the Army is on its way to becoming a powerful, professional force in place of a political one.

Mir’s next paragraph launches into a recap of a conference on US-Pakistan relations that took place at Harvard University. Mir cites Ambassador Haqqani’s declaration that democracy is the only way forward for Pakistan. Indeed, Ambassador Haqqani has said as much from Day One, and worked tirelessly towards that end. Mir laments that his question, “Why the US is not listening to the voice of democracy in Pakistan coming through an elected parliament?” went unanswered. The answer, boys and girls, is taught in International Relations 101: diplomatic relations between nations are between the federal executive branches. President Zardari will not be setting up meetings with elected members of American state and city governments, as his work directly leads him to President Obama and the State Department. Realizing that Mir is unaware of this plain fact (and also knowing this is only the second point in his article) makes one uneasy about the rest of Mir’s piece.

Does Mir advocate American involvement with the Parliament? Does Mir forget that he just mentioned the rift between Zardari and the army and that too, over American involvement? The United States most unequivocally supports democracy in Pakistan, any question of that at this point is beyond ludicrous.

His third paragraph states, “No doubt that the US is the most controversial country in Pakistan and Pakistan is the most misunderstood country in the US. There is a huge mistrust on both sides but even then both countries need cooperation of each other because they are facing some common threats. Pakistan lies in one of the world’s most important geopolitical regions surrounded by Afghanistan, Iran, China and India.”

The fact is, the US should not be hated by Pakistanis but rather identified as a true ally. The anti-terror, pro-democracy goals of both nations are so neatly aligned, it just does not make sense for conspiracy-minded Pakistanis to break up this valuable bond. There are many in Pakistan who acknowledge the US’s extended hand and are grateful for it, because they understand a stable future for their country depends on it. Others will, however, continue to blast away at the US and the West in general in visceral, illogical ways. That is why the US is controversial in Pakistan. As to why Pakistan is misunderstood…it’s simple! American taxpayers are sending over an incredibly generous, well-thought out $7.5 billion in non-military aid alone, and all across their papers and televisions are reports of Pakistanis caught up in a fury. Of course this leads to confusion, how can they be anything but confused and frustrated? Any cooperation must come with respect, and if Mir believes in the spirit of partnership, he must lead the charge and do his best to bolster US-Pakistan efforts.

In ill-structured form, Mir abruptly cuts off topic and discusses the US drone attacks. If the US is so worried about the border, he asks, “Why is there no fencing and no proper border check posts? There are more than 350 illegal entry points on the Pak-Afghan border. Every day more than 20,000 vehicles and 45,000 people cross the border without proper documents.” Once again…how can we go from hearing “The US is intruding and will soon take over the country” to “Why isn’t the US building a proper border fence?” This is absurd and baffling.

Pulling another 180, Mir begins demands for a timeline for troop removal from Afghanistan, going so far as to say the replacement of American troops with UN peacekeeping forces would be better for the nation. There are a myriad of reasons as to why all this is utterly useless. The United States has a solid interest in Afghanistan, and will do its best to stabilize the country. The entire world in invested in Afghanistan, with billions in aid coming from Afghanistan’s neighbors, the EU, USAID as well as individual donations. Mir’s recommendation exposes he clearly does not know President Obama’s administration is working on a new strategy for military operations, and are contemplating a troop increase. UN peacekeeping forces would not be able to accomplish as much, nor have equal clout as, American troops.

Towards the end of his piece, Mir must have challenged himself to spit out the most bizarre statement he could muster. And he rose to the challenge.

Nobody can deny the fact that Pakistan and Afghanistan have become unsafe after the arrival of US troops in the region.

Is one to assume Afghanis were “safe” under the tyrannical, murderous Taliban regime? That the quality of life, civil liberties, access to education were readily available to all people? Is one also to forget all she knows about Pakistani history and pretend Pakistan through the 90s up until the attacks of 9/11 was a perfectly safe country? Hamid Mir, you should be ashamed of yourself. The horrors that took place should never be forgotten, and you have some absolute nerve as you try to rewrite history.

There is one thing all people need to understand at some point, and that is that the United States of America is not interested in taking over another country. We are all living in the era of globalization, our successes and failures are tangled up. It is disingenuous and immoral to lie when you are in the media, in the name of a noble profession — journalism. Perhaps Mir and others like him will slowly come around. If not, we can all be grateful cooler heads seem to be prevailing. As Pakistan is rocked with tragedy after tragedy at the hands of the extremists, the public is slowly realizing the importance of a partnership with the US.

The goal, for all of us, is a stable, prosperous and modernized Pakistan.

Gunmen attack, Pakistan burns

29. 23. 41.

The numbers are chilling. The horrifying wave of attacks Pakistan is currently dealing with has sunk the nation into a dark grief. These attacks are well-coordinated – like today’s attacks in Lahore—and strategically targeted – like the UN World Food Program office.

More numbers: 6. 9.

In an attack early Thursday evening, a bomb exploded in a parked car, killing a six-year old boy and wounding nine others – mostly women and children.

These attacks are the extremists’ way of warning the Pakistani government to leave them alone, allow them to fester and continue to grow within the country. What we need now is to band together behind the Zardari administration, heed the words of Rehman Malik and Liaqat Ali Khan and work together against this evil.

That is the only way to keep Pakistan from burning.

WFP attack stuns and angers the world

The attack on the UN World Food Program offices in Islamabad was ruthless and sickening in every possible way.

As of right now, five people are reported killed: two Pakistani men, two Pakistani women and an Iraqi man. The WFP, citing security for its staff, has temporarily closed its offices throughout the country.

Though suicide bombings have become frequent, the world is appalled at the latest act of savagery. What is the logic of such attacks? Who did the attackers hope to impress by killing innocent people, who dedicated their time to feeding their poor, hungry displaced brethren? What goes through the mind of these monsters as they plan, fund and carry out attacks?

Let’s learn from this grim development and face the hard truth: Pakistan needs assistance to excise this internal cancer. Pakistanis can no longer afford a nonchalant attitude, not when their own citizens are being targeted and killed by extremists.

There has got to be an end to the media blasting aid from foreign powers when the fact is, Pakistan needs it. Its hard-working and noble citizens need it. Its prosperous, stable future hangs in the balance.