MOHAMMAD JAMIL
ON 31 March, National English daily carried Rob ert Bennet Jones’ latest anti-Pakistan article titled ‘Regional Politics’, which is totally misleading and vicious. The timing of publishing the article is intriguing, as at the present nothing is being talked about except the Coronavirus pandemic, and the nation and its defence forces are fighting against this torment. It is an effort to target the national security,the government,the defence forces andthe people of Pakistan. It appears asif the newspaperis collaborating with the hostile elements to target Pakistan at this crucial time. Owen Bennett Jones is a freelance British journalist and former BBC’s correspondent in many countries including Islamabad and a Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. Jones has a long list of anti-Pakistan and anti Pakistan Army articles to his credit. He has been showing keen interest all these years in the affairs of the country. He is seen as pointing fingers at Pakistan Army holding it responsible for most of the issues faced in Pakistan. His agenda of bashing Pak Army is similar to agenda of people like Hussain Haqqani and other so-called liberals who keep scolding Pakistan defence forces all the time. Robert Bennet Jones is author of the book titled ‘Pakistan: Eye of the storm’ which was published in 2003. He started the book with President Musharraf, and moved back to the 1999 coup, which installed him. He then picks up some of the key issues which drive Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: Kashmir, The Bomb, The Army, among others. Last year, he had written a lengthy review of the book titled ‘Pakistan’s nuclear bomb: A story of defiance, deterrence and deviance authored by HassanAbbas, in which he had given some fictional account of Pakistan’s atomic program to malign Pakistan. In his latest article, Robert Bennet Jones wrote: “For decades, the State of Pakistan has been criticised for its alleged links with militant groups. The Taliban and Haqqani Network in Afghanistan, Jaish-e-Mohammad in Kashmir and Lashkar-e-Taiba in India have all been the subject of consistent and widespread international complaint. If it wasn’t for the nuclear bomb and the unfailing ability of deft Pakistani officials to confuse their foreign counterparts, the country might well have been designated a state sponsor of terrorism”. Referring to groups of critics’ concerns ofliberalsin Pakistan, he also mentions about the second group of critics concerned about something else. “The US, India, Iran and many in Afghanistan complain that the proxy forces are sources of regional in stability that exacerbate Pakistan-Indiatension and destabilise Afghanistan”, adding that “Pakistan has reached the point that it no longer has plausible deniability so much as implausible deniability”. Apart from the British journalist, American writers and authors have also been targeting Pakistan and its institutions. Former Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani in his book titled ‘Pakistan between mosque and military’ had analysed and traced the origins of the relationships between Islamist groups and military, thus disparaging Pakistan and its Army. He conveniently forgot that the US was responsible in equal measure for supporting jihadis in 1980s. One wonders how a crafty person with dubious credentials could be made Ambassador to the most important country ie the US.Anyhow he managed to reach the corridors of power. He was once Media Advisor to Punjab CM Nawaz Sharif when Benazir Bhutto was Prime Minister of Pakistan, and later joined Zardari camp and manoeuvred to get the coveted position. Col (R) Lawrence Sellin, the author of ‘Restoring the Republic: Arguments for a Second American Revolution’ published in 2013, has been critical of US presidents, media and the ruling elite. But in his later articles, he came out with sinister plans against Pakistan. He wrote: “Pakistan and Iran fuel the insurgency in Afghanistan; Balochistan has strong presence of the Taliban and serves as a support base for war in Afghanistan. Iran is also fuelling Baloch insurgents and there are serious differences between Iran and Pakistan. China will use CPEC to acquire strategic advantage. Completion of CPEC will seriously hurt the US interests.” He suggested that the US must stop focusing on Afghanistan’s insurgency and instead focus on measures to separate Balochistan from Pakistan, which will eliminate Taliban’s safe haven. He went on to write that Chinese regional hegemony as represented by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the related construction of Chinese military bases on the Arabian Sea could be thwarted. This shows how US hawks in military openly suggest policy options to destabilize other countries and their allies to stir chaos.Another Pakistani writer,Ayesha Siddiqa had written a book in which she was critical of military establishment. If one goes through the articles and books written by her, it is not difficult to conclude that she is ‘her’ master’s voice – the US. The question is that why Pakistan is the target of hostile propaganda? The answer is that after the Soviet troops were forced to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1980s, the US, India and other Pakistan’s detractors were worried becauseit was beyond their imagination what Pakistan’s premier agency had achieved.After appointment of Lt General Faiz Hameed as chief of the ISI, she dwelt on the relationship between him and COAS General Bajwa, and wrote: “When Qamar Bajwa had taken over the command of the army, he brought his own man to headthe ‘C’wing of the ISI responsible for counterintelligence, which means a hand on the political pulse of Pakistan and on the organisational pulse of its army. Indeed, Hameed grew so powerful in that position that many viewed him as the main man running the ISI and not Lt. General Naveed Mukhtar, who served as the DG ISI from December 2016 to October 2018”. —The writer is a senior journalist based in Lahore
