Fareed –
The all so familiar cycle of allegations and counter-allegations has started again in earnest but this time around the game is being played with a whole new set of equipment. There has been a deliberate attempt by Pakistan to strategically unleash a pack of spinmeisters into the Western media complex. These spin doctors have in my humble opinion been able to use the western media portals to articulately unleash their Machiavellian propaganda to sway public focus and attention away from the hard facts that have emerged in the aftermath of the ghastly installment of Jihadi terror faced by the men and women of Mumbai. This has allowed Pakistani diplomats and strategists to hoodwink US public and maintain their favorable opinion when it comes to supporting the humanitarian and military aid to Pakistan which is sustained by their tax dollars.
India’s public relations nightmare has been compounded by the fact that media outlets like CNN have been quick to invite Pakistani bureaucrats and politicians to give them a chance to make their case vigorously( a case in point is Wolf Blitzer having Hussain Haqqani on in Late Edition) against Indian allegations of Lashkar and ISI complicity in the 11/26 attacks. You invited Henry Kissinger a man I greatly admire but whose ideas and conceptions about the geo-politics of the sub-continent are caught in a time-warp and who still continues to espouse the archaic US foreign policies of the 80’s and 90’s which have ever since changed poles. It is no secret that Pakistan is and has been a state-sponsor and hotbed of Islamic extremism and so is the fact that the fledgling government in Pakistan has no writ whatsoever on the evil machinations of ISI and other sympathetic rogue elements within the establishment. The US media seems to be either oblivious or unconcerned about these facts and this apathy can only be explained as if they were hibernating in a self-created cocoon of indifference and ignorance(as with Fox News).
In closing, my frustration as an expatriate Indian is quite evident with the present state of affairs back home but more so with the deliberate ambivalence of the Western media with respect to the extremist outrages being perpetrated on the Indian terra firma. I appreciate your proclamation of an impending visit to your land of birth which would be a show of solidarity with the millions who have been victims of terror in the land of your birth and around the globe. In the same breath I would like to exhort you to be in the vanguard of change to end the status quo of the western media with regards to its ambivalent commentary and posturing in the face of such despicable acts of terrorism.
MD