Secret agencies, media & the national interest
PERTH, AUSTRALIA: This is in reference to Orya Maqbool Jan’s article, “Secret agencies, media and the national interest” (May 13). This ‘conspiracy mindset’ and a load of irrelevant, adhoc joinery of various ‘happenings’ to manufacture an argument is very common among the ‘experts’ in Pakistan. Such ‘experts’ always look at one side of the coin to suit and propagate their views.
It was The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and other media groups of the like that brought the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation and several US presidents to their knees by actively exposing the lies, conspiracies and ‘secret programmes’. Indeed, it was the media that did it all without any fear!
It also happened to be none other than the Washington Post in the US and The Guardian in the UK that secured and published the WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden’s confessions. That was the single biggest setback to the US government and the CIA in a psychological warfare of 50 years, according to the US Senate Intelligence Committee.
Yet, none of the journalists were murdered as a result! Newspapers were not shut down! There were no calls for revenge! That is called democracy. For God’s sake, stop drawing parallels between the greatest democracies on the planet and Pakistan!
Haris Chaudhry
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