Imran Jan |
It is a well-known fact that Donald Trump, ever since his days of fighting to clinch the nomination of the Republican Party, has attracted enormous media attention with his flamboyant personality and strong opinions. Many rightly believe that he gets free air time from major news media outlets. One way or the other, whether with his tweets attacking people of color or the twitter posts praising himself, the man has managed to stay in the news almost the entire time since his election.
Recently, President Trump had a one on one with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan inside the White House where the two men were all praises for each other. Both men have many things in common, which has been a topic of much discussion. President Trump, in that meeting with PM Khan, in front of news cameras had shared, “I think Pakistan is going to help us out to extricate ourselves [from Afghanistan].”
CNN’s Sunday morning show called GPS is hosted by Fareed Zakaria, an Indian-American always ready to jump on any opportunity to criticize Pakistan.
Another comment that Trump made in that meeting regarding the war in Afghanistan was: “If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win that war in a week. I just don’t want to kill 10 million people.” The statement was felt across Afghanistan with sadness and even the Taliban criticized it.
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Trump is Right?
As a ritual the American TV media, especially CNN, has jumped on his words from that meeting with Khan and has been running with it ever since, trying to find avenues of critique. CNN seems determined in refusing to understand or touching upon the context and true meaning of the comment and is using it to bash Trump. What CNN does is that it reads between the lines only when there is nothing to read.
Donald Trump is a despicable character to many and there are some strong reasons to dislike him. However, this statement of his is very reasonable. He basically said that the American firepower is so powerful, not to mention that the American army is the most lethal in the history of mankind that it can wipe out Afghanistan entirely in just a matter of days, if the Commander in Chief of that army were to go that route.
Many rightly believe that he gets free air time from major news media outlets.
As Denzel Washington’s character Joe Miller, in the movie Philadelphia, always asked; “Explain this to me like I am a two-year-old. What am I missing here? Is it not good to choose peace instead of war? Is that not what the American people want? Is it not truthful to say that our hammer is so strong that it is better not to use it as it could do enormous damage, so therefore, it is better to just talk and negotiate a way out of America’s longest war in history? Is it not a civilized way to deal with endless wars through peace talks? Could someone explain it to me like I am a two year old, why such a stance would be criticized?”
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CNN’s Fareed Zakaria a Closeted Anti-Pakistan?
CNN’s Sunday morning show called ‘Global Public Square (GPS)’ is hosted by Fareed Zakaria, an Indian-American always ready to jump on any opportunity to criticize Pakistan. Being raised in India and naturalized in America, it is not surprising that he harbors an anti-Pakistan feeling. His openly anti-Pakistan arguments make it impossible to call him a closet anti-Pakistan media pundit.
CNN seems determined in refusing to understand or touching upon the context and true meaning of the comment and is using it to bash Trump.
Just this Sunday, there was a discussion between Zakaria and Afghan ambassador to the United States Roya Rahmani about the statement Trump had made about killing ten million people in Afghanistan. During the discussion, completely irrelevant to the topic and the discussion, Zakaria said that it was indeed Pakistan due to which the war in Afghanistan has not been won yet.
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Fareed Zakaria’s Plagiarism Scandal
It is worth mentioning here that Zakaria is the same man who was caught, more than once, plagiarizing other people’s ideas in his writing, with more than 20 instances of plagiarism. He was removed briefly from CNN and Time magazine, but then he apologized for the plagiarism and was reinstated.
He said, “Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore’s essay in the April 22nd issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers.”
Lo and behold, he continues to use CNN as a platform to further the agenda of the power system in America, bashing war aversers such as President Trump, and targeting Pakistan at the slightest opportunity that presents itself. CNN surely knows about this but it serves their purpose of furthering their own agenda, which as raw as it may sound, can be summed up in two words; Fake News.
Imran Jan is a political analyst. He can be reached at imran.jan@gmail.com. Twitter @Imran_Jan. The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.