(Video) As the world follows the violence and unrest in Pakistan, Bill Moyers speaks with historian Juan Cole and journalist Shahan Mufti about how the US's relationship with the troubled nation will impact prospects for peace, human rights, and democracy in the war-torn region. Full Story »
Posted by Fabrice Florin
Cole and Mufti articulate a particular narrative about the situation in Pakistan. In their minds, the Taliban threat has been over-exaggerated by the American media. They bring considerable expertise and experience to their perspectives, but this interview suffers from a lack of balance.
SHAHAN MUFTI: I think you’re right on. And I think it’s problematic because this really harks back to the period right before the Iraq War, as well, where there was this hype that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. We were- we could have been convinced in a second that Iraq was about to use them. And it’s unfortunate that the press did play its part in that problem. And the press is, once again I think, playing its unfortunate part where it is relaying all of these opinions that are coming from intelligence sources or whatever, and ruling this as information. And all of a sudden we’re seeing the same sort of almost hysteria. BILL MOYERS: Do you agree with Shahan, that you’re seeing a repeat of the- JUAN COLE: Yes. Yes. BILL MOYERS: -official propaganda being disseminated as news? JUAN COLE: Yes. I think that’s exactly what’s going on. I mean, especially with regard to the nuclear issue. There is no way on God’s green earth that these scruffy tribal fundamentalists, in the North-West Frontier Province, are having anything to do with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Which, by the way, are stored in secret places, and they’re not assembled. And assembling them is a complicated process which requires various high-level military and civilian authorizations. And to put that nuclear issue front and forward is just a way of scaring the American public and putting pressure on Pakistan to do something they didn’t want to do.
Shahan makes a important point about the media's limited access to war information in Pakistan. The media is over-reliant on the Pakistani Army for information on the conflict.