Selling the war
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The News International, Thursday, June 25, 2009
While the showing of photographs of 54 dead militants by the ISPR director-general is a welcome step in that it helps remove some of the questions that are increasingly cropping up surrounding the death toll inflicted by the military operation on the militants in Malakand and Swat, it would be fair to say that an information and credibility gap has opened up on this very sensitive matter. If the general public is to continue supporting this war of ours then they need to know a lot more about it than the currently is the case. There is no independent verification of the death toll or even of the injuries inflicted upon the Taliban and in the context of the recent and not-too-recent past where official claims were often found to be otherwise, leaving the general public rightly sceptical, it would be in the fitness of things for more such information to be passed on to the public and the media. Also, and one needs to say this, slightly paradoxically, people in the UK may be better informed about out war than we are, courtesy of a recent investigative programme on the BBC's flagship Panorama show. The BBC team were given access that out own media personnel have yet to get, and were able to spend time on an active frontline. Their report makes compelling viewing and raises questions which are just beginning to be addressed by those who brief our media every day. We wonder why the same access is not being offered to local news and media organizations.
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While the showing of photographs of 54 dead militants by the ISPR director-general is a welcome step in that it helps remove some of the questions that are increasingly cropping up surrounding the death toll inflicted by the military operation on the militants in Malakand and Swat, it would be fair to say that an information and credibility gap has opened up on this very sensitive matter. If the general public is to continue supporting this war of ours then they need to know a lot more about it than the currently is the case. There is no independent verification of the death toll or even of the injuries inflicted upon the Taliban and in the context of the recent and not-too-recent past where official claims were often found to be otherwise, leaving the general public rightly sceptical, it would be in the fitness of things for more such information to be passed on to the public and the media. Also, and one needs to say this, slightly paradoxically, people in the UK may be better informed about out war than we are, courtesy of a recent investigative programme on the BBC's flagship Panorama show. The BBC team were given access that out own media personnel have yet to get, and were able to spend time on an active frontline. Their report makes compelling viewing and raises questions which are just beginning to be addressed by those who brief our media every day. We wonder why the same access is not being offered to local news and media organizations.
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Labels: ISPR, Media War, Military Operation, Swat Operation, Taliban, War on Terror
posted @ 3:39 PM,
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