Blaming Blackwater: Pakistan Awash in Conspiracy Theories
Last week, Pakistani journalist and best-selling author Ahmed Rashid wrote a column for the BBC in which he detailed how Pakistan’s legitimate problems — like the fact that suicide bombings are nearly a daily occurrence — are being overshadowed by conspiracy theories. Almost all of these theories involve the idea that the U.S. and India are engaged in a global conspiracy to destroy Pakistan. That we are the ones responsible for the violence and unrest in Pakistan, not Pakistan. Rashid explains that the single most popular conspiracy theory is that local suicide bombers are actually American “stooges” planted in cities to create dissent among Pakistanis.
Rashid writes:
Recently, [on a talk show] one senior retired army officer claimed that Hakimullah Mehsud — the leader of the Pakistani Taliban which is fighting the army in South Waziristan and has killed hundreds in daily suicide bombings in the past five weeks — had been whisked to safety in a U.S. helicopter to the American-run Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.
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Rashid says these kinds of theories are getting serious play on local talk shows. That they are the most popular shows on TV and the ones bringing in the most revenue for advertisers, which in Rashid’s opinion (he lives in Lahore) makes them all the more likely to continue being broadcast. “Nobody discusses the failure of the education system that is now turning out hundreds of suicide bombers, rather than doctors and engineers,” Rashid writes. As a result, confused, demoralized, and angry Pakistanis are becoming more confused, more demoralized, and more angry.
Rashid is not the only one observing Pakistan’s decent into mislaid blame. In May 2009, NBC News aired David Gregory’s interview with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in which Mr. Zardari said that “we knew” that Osama bin Laden was “your operator” in the 1980s. He also said that he believed Osama bin Laden was working on behalf of the U.S. government to destabilize Pakistan and to “overthrow the first woman elected in an Islamic country.” Zadari claimed to have gotten that information from his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, who was the prime minister of Pakistan at the time.
But perhaps the most outrageous allegation came just last month, from Pakistan’s Taliban themselves. In response to a series of suicide attacks, including one at the Islamic University in Islamabad which killed five students and another in a Peshawar market that killed more than 100 civilians, Tehrik-i-Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq told Al Jazeera that Blackwater was to blame and that the U.S. defense contractor has been working in a joint operation with Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, to demonize the Taliban.
“I want to tell the people in Pakistan and the Muslim nation that the Tehrik-i-Taliban are not responsible for the bombings, but Blackwater and Pakistan’s spy agency are behind them,” Azam Tariq declared.
In this newest mosque massacre, would Blackwater be blamed?
The day after the blast, the Tehrik-i-Taliban emailed CNN to let them know they were behind the carnage. “We reconfirmed it, that the TTP has done it, and will do more which are already planned. … We once again mention that we are not against the innocent people and the state of Pakistan but we against those officers and ministers who are American by hearts and minds and Pakistani just by faces,” the email message said.
The sooner this nation understands that the people in that part of the world are not the same as we are the better. We have this ethnocentric view that thinks we can change the politics of a nation. No amount of money and propped up leaders can change the culture of death in that region. 103 dead in Iraq from suicide bombings in this mornings news. Our abiliy to not see a people for what they truly are is a center of the universe attitude that goes all the way back to our ancestors in Europe. If we are there to fight a war than fight a war.
Hard not to read almost anything about Pakistan and not think “ok, enough already – just f-cking nuke it.”
Actually I have to disagree with #1 and state that it is the exact opposite, it is our new view of multiculturalism that dives us to believe that “everyone is just as good as us and like us”. The old Europeans and early Americans believed in the primacy of their culture and religion. Hence the Native Americans treated as savages, Africans enslaved, and colonial empires.
We now live with crap like “white guilt” and “political correctness” because of it. You can’t criticize anyone based upon their behavior and evidence because its “racist”.
I find it interetsing that this article shows up here the day after this:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Is-Headley-an-American-agent-who-turned-rogue/articleshow/5273422.cms
Convincing evidence that David Headley, the American currently under investigation for participating in the Mumbai attacks, was rogue US agent/informer. One of the bloggers at PJM, Rusty Shackleford, was all over this story when it was useful to imply that American muslims were engaged in world-wide jihad. I suppose its less interesting when the evidence is instead leading to the fact that he was a US asset, and that the US seems unable to prevent these from playing them on both sides.
Almost all of these theories involve the idea that the U.S. and India are engaged in a global conspiracy to destroy Pakistan
Well, thank goodness the shape-shifting Jewish space lizards weren’t involved this time!
Somebody better invent Force Fields pretty soon. We need to completely isolate these countries!
How to you convince stupid? Look at the conspiracy factions in this country. When the tsunami hit Indonesia there were those who strongly believed the US engineered that event. Almost immediately after the Ft. Hood shootings there were reports of a second shooter. But not to worry, we always have the media who will enthusiastically do it part to keep these theories alive.
Ms Jacobsen,
Good to see interest. But perhaps you can do some more research, this is pretty thin. Some links, quotes, comments to get you started:
http://catastrophist.wordpress.com/category/pakistanafghanistan/
Regards, TC
Vech;
The tsunami theory was published in an EGYPTIAN newspaper by a “scientist”. Israel was also implicated.
It was published in a part of the world most likely to believe such nonsense and least likely to be educated in the hard sciences.
Try again …
Saw this on Drudge “NYT: Details of work carried out by Blackwater against suspected insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan… Developing…”
Now, isn’t that an interesting coinkydinky?
And on the USA Front…
5 Pakistani-Americans (contradiction?) realize that Allah doesnt
tolerate divided allegiances and are arrested in Pakistan
trying to kill Americans
KEEP ISLAM OUT OF THE USA.