Biases of the American Press

siraj91

It will be unfair to ignore at least these two: Dr. Abdus Salam (sp?) and Maulana Edhi (sp?).

Besides, reading some people on Chowk, I would not lose hope. In particular, I am impressed with Pakistani women here: they are articulate, opiniated, cultured, and very intelligent. There is no reason why a country blessed with such people can not overcome any challenge.

Regards

Re Siraj 91

Yes Pakistan does have a great deal wrong with it, but it is absurd to suggest that everything is wrong. The biggest problem is that the most are really uneducated. and the educated ``elite`` like it that way.

re women in jeans - If Pakistani women really want to fight for such things as the ``right`` to wear jeans (in that climate) - OK - let`s help them, but only if they fight their own fight not if it is to conform to some western notion of how they should dress, look, or feel. The wole world eating Mcdonalds and wearing levi`s, Hmmm - I`m sure more than a few people would take exception to such an eventuality.

Actually, self-realization, in a public sense of the word, for Pakistani women will be increasing difficult without the creation of truely vibrant economy and universal education and two years of universal national service after graduation from High school or college, in Pakistan.

Keep your faith in the essential goodness of ordinary Pakistanis, they will yet redeem that faith.

Re:Reply #: 84

``Thats what your intolerant and bigoted religion teaches you... that humans are inherently unequal... made from brahma`s head, feet or arse... can be as high as the brahmins or can be sub-human cockroaches like muslims and shudras``.

Ali1,

What is your problem? It is people like you who make me feel partition was the best thing that happened to India. You have a problem with Harimau, address it to him but for God`s sake do not bring in our religion. Since you are so biased and ignorant,it is useless to educate you about hindu religion. Who knows may be you came out of Brahma`s arse. That sure will explain everything about you.

sridhar

re ferozk

The President of the United States expressed regret and said that our prayers are with the missing Chinese pilot`s family. If that`s not talking softly and humbly, what is?

I agree 100 per cent that collision with China must be avoided for business reasons. Not only is it the second biggest market but the potential, as the disposable income of the 1.2 bilion population goes up, is galactical. I have an interest in at least two companies which have half a billion invested in China between them. Definitely a no to any escalation.

But when you say,

``...and continue to stick with their policies of twenty years ago...``

that is just the invitation to conflict. The Cold War didn`t turn hot precisely because America was armed to the teeth and ready and willing to use the B-2. As Sir Winston said, the only sure guarantee of peace is to prepare for war. A strong America that is respected by the world is the first true guarantee of world peace. We discovered that 20 years ago and it worked. As the first Republican president said,

``What is conservatism but the keeping of the tried and tested as opposed to the untried and unknown``.

The minute China and the rogue states half way perceive a weakened American resolve, there will be havoc in the world. The world wasted 40 years on the Cold War thanks to pinko liberalism; never again!

By the way, as for the Pershing II missiles, the consensus you mention was pretty thin: the Iron Lady`s England, Helmut Kohl`s FRG by a thin margin, and Denmark I believe. And pinkos never stopped protesting the very things that saved them.

It may be a multipolar world now. But look deeply: philosophically it is fast becoming a world where the Anglo-American(please don`t tell me that the French are part of this) ideals of represenattive govt, free commerce, and individual liberty are ascendant. That ascendancy must be protected.

Re: arjun_m, #94

``The Chinese will get away with the EP-3 incident and threats to nuke LA. India got sanctioned for just testing nukes.``

Wonder why? What China is in American psyche, India will never be. China is in America`s core, India is in its periphery. For America, China and India are not the same and are not equal, and will never be.

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Scout # 90

Try to mimick the good writing skills of Zahra; then Chowk wont throw your responses into the waste basket :)

Zahra: You rule.

Bias.

While we are on the subject of bias, has anyone ever known Barbara Crossette of NYT to write an article that cast India in a positive light?

Just curious :)

I dont fully disagree with the American vierw. I am Pakistani and have lived all my life except for five years in Pakistan. i have studied there and everytime i visit Pakistan I find it to be in a social, moral and economic decline. Please tell me one good that is there in Pakistan? One thing is a bit too difficult as there isnt any. We can romance with our country as that is all we have done in the last 50 years. We have lost track. We are intolerant people who consider themselves to be the most religious in the world as their women dont wear jeans. We are corrupt to the core and on all sides on a collapse of all values.

I fully agree with the point of view that the Americans have of us. we are to be blamed of it. We have to start writing about all the evil not try to defend it.

Chowk Staff,

How come my post to ``harimau`` wasn`t put up?

I didn`t even use any swear words.

You put his crap about Kashmiris up, but not my reply to him?

Pretty sad.

To the halal butcher # 84

``Like communism and stalinism, the civilised world must rid itself of this inhuman, unnatural religion; along with its bigoted followers if necessary``

Nice for you to sum up the evil of Islam so succinctly and what we need to do to get rid of it. Starting with you. I volunteer to make a start on you. Get your cleaver ready.

How many Halal Muslim on Muslim murders took place last week butcher boy???

Sorry for the divergence

An unknown individual has struck in the name of freespeech. The Siqafat Organization Rutgers with which I was affiliated sometime ago was being run by people who believe in Censorship. Their message board apparently has been hacked, and proclaimed in the name of freespeech.

http://www.freedomofspeech.cjb.net

Pakistan Zindabad

Re: sigalph235 #: 85

I agree with your hypothesis that Reagan`s firmness pushed the Soviet state/communism to collapse, but the real reasons were economical and not political/military. The Soviets could not keep pace with the monies devoted by the United States on armaments. The Soviet Union collasped economically before it went belly up politically.

Yes, George W. Bush is pushing an American point of view and is only acting on those issues, which directly affect United States interest. I disagree with you that it is pushing for global freedoms across the board. In a realpolitik sense, United States` unilateralism may make a good congressional sound byte, but it makes for bad policy.

United States` foreign policy, since the end of the Second World War, in Europe has always revolved around the principle of consensus. It was the common European consensus that the Soviet Union was a threat to western Europe, a view advocated by Washington, that pushed for the creation of NATO and the European Coal And Steel Community - the parent organization of the European Union.

I will agree with you that Reagan was tough on the Soviet Union, but if you look at the deployment of the Pershing II missiles in western Europe, Reagan deployed those missiles after getting an ``ok`` from western Europe. Reagan`s ultimatum for the Soviets to get out of Afghanistan was facilated by Pakistan`s cooperation in the insurgency against the Soviets in Afghanistan. As to Nicargua, that was a complete failure, because depite all Reagan`s bluster, the Sandistas remined in power inspite of the United States` proxy war against them from bases in Hondurus.

In a bi-polar world of the cold war, United States-Soviet Union conflict was mirrored by their respective sphere of influences (east and west Europe). After the end of the cold war in November 1989 and the unification of the two Germanies in 1991, the bi-polar international diplomacy, which had dominated the world politics since 1945, was replaced by a multi-polar world. There are too many spheres of influence in the international relations at the present time.

The problem, for the United States, is that it wants to be a uni-polar power in a multi-polar world.

The United States, under Clinton, sought to sustain its influence via an economic diplomacy to take advantage of the process of international market globalization. That policy was also predicated on the building consensus. The Bush administration, on the other hand, is pushing United States into unilateralism.

I have nothing against that policy.

The United States is welcome to this policy, but it should be prepared for adverse reactions against it and should not think that world will gladly tolerate its selfish interests unconditionally and eternally. My friend, the United States cannot have its cake and eat it too!

To paraphrase Karl von Clusewitz, economics is the continuation of national security by other means in the present international context. Military might is proportional to a nation`s economic strenght and a nation`s political influence is the mixture of both its economics and military might.

China has learned this lesson and the United States seems to be forgetting its own historic experience in this regard.

My reference to Bush`s neo-cold war policies was to suggest that the Bush administration needs to follow the advice of Teddy Roosevelt- it should talk softly and carry a big stick, but sadly all it is doing is carrying a big stick!

How long can it sustain its confrontational policies?

Already there are misgivings in the board rooms of American business firms as to how this Sino-American EP- 3 Aires crisis will impact on American business interests in China? The United States did not have billions invested in the former Soviet Union, but it does in China! Is the United States willing to foresake its billions in China over some nostalgic cold war memory out of a John Wayne movie?

In your heart, do you really think that American business firms are willing to see their monies disappear so that Bush`s approval ratings go up in a CNN poll?

My friend, I supported Reagan and his policies and I supported Bush`s father`s stand against Iraq and I support the sanctions against that country (which I think need to be reconsidered).

Being a republican, I believe in the pledge of alligence. Still, I will not blindly follow a leader just because he/she happens to be a republican, because I feel that one needs to change with the times.

If the republicans do not change with the times and continue to stick with their policies of twenty years ago, they seriously risk stagnating politically and undermining their own chances in 2004.

I hope that you will take my advice and my advice to you my friend is not to get your panties in a knot and to think rationally and calmly on issues, which affect United States and try to avoid political knee jerk responses. :)

Ciao!

Interesting article about India in Pakistani press :

http://www.newsline.com.pk/html/impressions.html

Sincerely,

re feorzk #69

My friend, the problem with your and Rockefeller`s brand of Republican foreign policy was that it was without principle and without power. Your liberal Republican foreign policy was based on nonsense do-gooderism that got America into the Cold War in the first place. You guys like Hatfield and Dan Coats were apologetic when Reagan asked the Commie s.o.b.s to get the h * * * out of Afghanistan, Poland and Nicaragua. You guys don`t believe it but the USSR or the Berlin Wall didn`t crumble from within. The Reagan Revolution brought them down. China and Russia today will have to be negotiated with principle not flaccidity. And if the pinlo French and the neo-Nazi Germans want to criticise the US, well what`s new? The only concern W ought to have is the national interest of the USA and the promotion of global freedom.

Feroz, I hate to break it to you, but the liberal Republicans lost in 1976 and the nazi Republicans in 1996; either you are an internationalist pro-business Republican or something from a different time.

RE: Haramiu # 70

[``The Kashmiris constitute less than 1% of India`s population and will be squelched like cockroaches.``]

Thats what your intolerant and bigoted religion teaches you... that humans are inherently unequal... made from brahma`s head, feet or arse... can be as high as the brahmins or can be sub-human cockroaches like muslims and shudras.

Like communism and stalinism, the civilised world must rid itself of this inhuman, unnatural religion; along with its bigoted followers if necessary.