Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Is the media blowing US-Pakistan relations out of proportion?

          In the uproar surrounding Osama bin Laden's death, I have been noticing a lot of media reports proclaiming that the US and Pakistan are experiencing a crisis in their relations and are drifting away from one another.

         One Reuters report, that I read in JPost, announces about the raid itself that "The CIA ruled out working with Pakistan on the raid because 'it was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission: They might alert the targets,' Panetta said." Leon Panetta is the chief of the CIA.

          Another article, this one in Time Magazine, has a headline of :

Finding Bin Laden Raises Questions About Pakistan's Complicity

           The New York Times has an article where American officials are quoted as saying:
"American officials stopped well short of accusing Pakistan of sheltering Bin Laden, but they strongly indicated that they would want answers about the extent of the network in Pakistan that allowed Bin Laden to live and hide in apparent comfort for so long. "

           All in all, the media paints Pakistan as an untrustworthy ally..but my question is, how much of this is speculation and how much is fact?
           I think that when it comes to international relations, media speculation does not help anyone. We do not know what is happening behind closed doors. By the media announcing theories as facts, they are providing a disservice to citizens. Maybe Pakistan was hiding Bin Laden, maybe not. But for the media, which needs attention grabbing headlines to generate business, speculation is an easy way to grab readers and reminds us that one should always try to look at the media's stories with a grain of salt

1 comment:

  1. i think that it comes from facts surrounding the event. that the last time america came close to capturing bin laden, they were working with pak9istand and someone tipped him off and he got away. the fact that his mansion was across the street from a pakistani military academy. i think that there is a lot of cynicism about the american-pakistan relationship.

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