Moborate

In this lead story from the online edition of the New York Time s on the 26th of September, reporter Carlotta Gall humanizes one of the 16 American and Afghani officials allegedly ambushed and killed in cold blood at the Pakistani outpost of Teri Mangal in 2007, at the end of what they had thought would be a peaceful meeting to resolve a border dispute: "…a Pakistani soldier opened fire with an automatic rifle, pumping multiple rounds from just 5 or 10 yards away into an American officer, Maj. Larry J. Bauguess Jr., killing him almost instantly. An operations officer with the 82nd Airborne Division from North Carolina, Major Bauguess, 36, was married and the father of two girls, ages 4 and 6." US Major Larry J. Baugess (source: NYT) Ms Gall’s story, the publication of which coincided with an increase in the verbal volleys being fired in Pakistan’s direction, blended seamlessly into the narrative currently being fed to the American public by its mainstream media. The narrati...

So, most of our readers have probably already heard about the advertisement that the Government of Pakistan took out in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 . According to Dawn , the ad was first offered to the New York Times , which "refused to publish it, forcing Pakistani officials to go to a business newspaper with a specialised but influential readership." Here is the ad (via the LongWarJournal): Pakistan's 9/11 ad in the WSJ Irrespective of the merits of the advertisement - and there are many who have questioned its design and message - one of the intriguing questions that arise is why the New York Times refused to publish it. A half-page ad is, after all, darn good revenue especially in these recessionary times. According to the WSJ's own blog , which shrugged off the ad's chances of changing the anti-Pakistan narrative in the American media: "The [New York] Times asked for “more clarity in the ad about who was placing it,” ...

Pakistan Today's cover May 3, 2011 It can be argued that the world’s most powerful countries are those that understand the difference between perception and reality, and attach equal importance to controlling both. Pakistan’s reality is a harsh, challenging one, but unless we move proactively and immediately to counter the further degradation of our already distorted image, it is about to get a lot worse. Consider this, from Al Jazeera English : “The Arab Spring has eroded many of the conventional assumptions about the relationship between dictators, Islamists and the West. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria, we heard dictators playing the Islamist card for three decades – "support us unless you want the terrorists to win". The reality has been quite different...Today, the US continues to lavishly fund the Pakistani military, while using drones and secret soldiers such as Raymond Davis to attack the extremist forces that the same regime supports. It is up to the US...

Hmmmm. Does the Guardian know something we don't? A screen-grab off the Guardian 's Wikileaks database... Thanks to Missing Romance for sending it on to us: Ayatollah Ali Zardari?!? First it was the New York Times and BBC Urdu Service leading the world (and the gullible Pakistani media) to believe Saudi King Abdullah said Asif Zardari was "the biggest obstacle to Pakistan's progress", when he actually only said that Zardari was "the primary obstacle to the government's ability to move unequivocally to end terrorist safe havens" in Pakistan (okay, so the actual phrasing is far more baffling than the misquote). Now we have the Guardian trying to imply stronger links with Iran than anyone knew. Just doesn't pay to be Zardari does it? Oh wait, that came out all wrong...