Given the large population in the UK of Pakistani origin, the lack of serious media coverage of the overthrow and incarceration of Imran Khan, and the mass imprisonment of his supporters, is truly extraordinary.
Imran Khan was last week sentenced to three years in prison – and a five year ban from politics – for alleged embezzlement of official gifts. This follows his removal as Prime Minister in a CIA engineered coup, and a vicious campaign of violence and imprisonment against Khan and his supporters.
It is currently illegal in Pakistan to publish or broadcast about Khan or the thousands of new political prisoners incarcerated in appalling conditions. There have been no protests from the UK or US governments.
Imran Khan is almost certainly the least corrupt senior politician in Pakistan’s history – I admit that is not a high bar. Pakistan’s politics are, to an extent not sufficiently understood in the west, literally feudal. Two dynasties, the Sharifs and the Bhuttos, have alternated in power, in a sometimes deadly rivalry, punctuated by periods of more open military rule.
There is no genuine ideological or policy gap between the Sharifs and Bhuttos, though the latter have more intellectual pretension. It is purely about control of state resource. The arbiter of power has in reality been the military, not the electorate. They have now put the Sharifs back in power.
Imran Khan’s incredible breakthrough in the 2018 National Assembly elections shattered normal political life in Pakistan. Winning a plurality of the popular vote and the most seats, Khan’s PTI party had risen from under 1% of the vote in 2002 to 32% in 2018.
The dates are important. It was not Khan’s cricketing heroics which made him politically popular. In 2002, when his cricket genius was much fresher in the mind than it is now, he was viewed as a joke candidate.
In fact it was Khan’s outspoken opposition to the United States using Pakistan as a base, and particularly his demand to stop the hundreds of dreadful US drone strikes within Pakistan, that caused the surge in his support.
The Pakistani military went along with him. The reason is not hard to find. Given the level of hatred the USA had engendered through its drone killings, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the hideous torture excesses of the “War on terror”, it was temporarily not in the interests of the Pakistan military to foreground their deep relationship with the CIA and US military.
The Pakistan security service, ISI, had betrayed Osama Bin Laden to the USA, which hardly improved the popularity of the military and security services. Imran Khan was seen by them as a useful safety valve. It was believed he could channel the insurgent anti-Americanism and Islamic enthusiasm which was sweeping Pakistan, into a government acceptable to the West.
In power, Imran proved much more radical than the CIA, the British Tories and the Pakistani military had hoped. The belief that he was only a playboy dilettante at heart was soon shattered. A stream of Imran’s decisions upset the USA and threatened the income streams of the corrupt senior military.
Khan did not only talk about stopping the US drone programme, he actually stopped it.
Khan refused offers of large amounts of money, also linked in to US support for an IMF loan, for Pakistan to send ground forces to support the Saudi air campaign against Yemen. I was told this by one of Imran’s ministers when I visited in 2019, on condition of a confidentiality which need no longer apply.
Khan openly criticised military corruption and, in the action most guaranteed to precipitate a CIA coup, he supported the developing country movement to move trading away from the petrodollar. He accordingly sought to switch Pakistan’s oil suppliers from the Gulf states to Russia.
The Guardian, the chief neo-con mouthpiece in the UK, two days ago published an article about Khan so tendentious it took my breath away. How about this for a bit of dishonest reporting:
in November a gunman opened fire on his convoy at a rally, injuring his leg in what aides say was an assassination attempt.
“Aides say”: what is this implying?
Khan had himself shot in the legs as some kind of stunt? It was all a joke? He wasn’t actually shot but fell over and grazed a knee? It is truly disgraceful journalism.
It is hard to know whether the article’s astonishing assertion that Khan’s tenure as Prime Minister led to an increase in corruption in Pakistan, is a deliberate lie or extraordinary ignorance.
I am not sure whether Ms Graham-Harrison has ever been to Pakistan. I suspect the closest she has been to Pakistan is meeting Jemima Goldsmith at a party.
“Playboy”, “dilettante”, “misogynist”, the Guardian hit piece is relentless. It is an encapsulation of the “liberal” arguments for military intervention in Muslim states, for overthrowing Islamic governments and conquering Islamic countries, in order to install Western norms, in particular the tenets of Western feminism.
I think we have seen how that playbook has ended in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, amongst others. The use of the word “claim” to engender distrust of Khan in the Guardian article is studied. He “claimed” that his years living in the UK had inspired him to wish to create a welfare state in Pakistan.
Why is that a dubious comment from a man who spent the majority of his personal fortune on setting up and running a free cancer hospital in Pakistan?
Khan’s efforts to remove or sideline the most corrupt Generals, and those most openly in the pay of the CIA, are described by the Guardian as “he tried to take control of senior military appointments and began railing against the armed forces’ influence in politics.” How entirely unreasonable of him!
Literally thousands of members of Khan’s political party are currently in jail for the crime of having joined a new political party. The condemnation by the Western establishment has been non-existent.
It is difficult to think of a country, besides Pakistan, where thousands of largely middle class people could suddenly become political prisoners, while drawing almost no condemnation. It is of course because the UK supports the coup against Khan.
But I feel confident it also reflects in part the racism and contempt shown by the British political class towards the Pakistani immigrant community, which contrasts starkly with British ministerial enthusiasm for Modi’s India.
We should not forget New Labour have also never been a friend to democracy in Pakistan, and the Blair government was extremely comfortable with Pakistan’s last open military dictatorship under General Musharraf.
On my last visit to Pakistan I went to Karachi, Abbottabad and the Afghan border. I hope to return in the spring, should the new government let me in.
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More evidence of US involvement in ousting Khan
“The U.S. State Department encouraged the Pakistani government in a March 7, 2022, meeting to remove Imran Khan as prime minister over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to a classified Pakistani government document obtained by The Intercept.”
https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/imran-khan-pakistan-cypher-ukraine-russia/
Imagine if it was Russia that meddled in foreign states this brazenly. But now? Nah. Not even reported by the same furious russiagate-MSM-“journalists”.
They have no shame at all.
thx!
“(…)
The text of the Pakistani cable, produced from the meeting by the ambassador and transmitted to Pakistan, has not previously been published. The cable, known internally as a “cypher,” reveals both the carrots and the sticks that the State Department deployed in its push against Khan, promising warmer relations if Khan was removed, and isolation if he was not.
(…)”
“carrots and the sticks” how refreshing an honesty.
“(…)
The document, labeled “Secret,” includes an account of the meeting between State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, and Asad Majeed Khan, who at the time was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S.
The document was provided to The Intercept by an anonymous source in the Pakistani military who said that they had no ties to Imran Khan or Khan’s party.
(…)”
“They have no shame at all”
Washington is giving Niger a stern lecture about “democracy”. To the approval of British and French politicians and journalists.
“Democracy” is rule by the people. Which people is not specified. “Autocracy” is self-rule, aka independence.
And the reported news is that they are also prosecuting Khan under the Official Secrets Act for mentioning the existance of this cable. He cannot win !
“It is difficult to think of a country, besides Pakistan, where thousands of largely middle class people could suddenly become political prisoners, while drawing almost no condemnation.”
Greece, for a start.
Or 6.1. protestor, or, as planned, soon the AfD in Germany.
https://www.takimag.com/article/fire-islands/
from WikiLeaks 2010:
US Special Ops in Pakistan:
as an addendum this 2010 piece by Jeremy Scahill (back then as member of the The Nation staff)
Its sort of a build up to what came later.
“WikiLeaking Covert Wars – The latest WikiLeaks dump has corroborated, in part, what sources recently told The Nation about covert military actions in over seventy-five countries.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/wikileaking-covert-wars/
Originally Dec.9th 2010, republished today.
“(…)
It is also clear from the cables that the ability of US Special Operations forces to operate in Pakistan is viewed as a major development. The US Embassy there notes the potential consequences of the activities leaking: “These deployments are highly politically sensitive because of widely-held concerns among the public about Pakistani sovereignty and opposition to allowing foreign military forces to operate in any fashion on Pakistani soil. Should these developments and/or related matters receive any coverage in the Pakistani or US media, the Pakistani military will likely stop making requests for such assistance.”
Such statements might help explain why Ambassador Richard Holbrooke lied when he said bluntly in July: “People think that the US has troops in Pakistan. Well, we don’t.”
(…)”.
I was hoping to read a bit more about CM’s travels. Like the Turkish one last year. I do hope that any forays to Pakistan again are only undertaken with greatest safety first measures . Please.
Funny how the attempt to stop Trump stand for election by legal edict is also the same gambit to stop Imran standing again. Because obviously he would win.
Anyone not understanding that this means a civil war in Pakistan , one to resemble Ukraine in 2015, but a lot, lot more deadlier, with an option to drag reluctant Indians into the worldwide conflict, who can actually field a million men, just like they were required to do in WW1&2 because there are just not enough nato white arses in the world to mince! There are 3 senior ex military leaders visiting Taiwan for some reason! Why? Are they scoping Indian forces being sent in against an unlikely Chinese invasion?
This is just the further boiling frog symptom. We are being led to a widening of conflict, a whole world conflagration from which the rump Collective Wastes citizens/slaves will be required to withdraw from and hide behind a wall built to preserve the unipolar imperial order.
West Africa is the same. The World Bank attack on Uganda on the opposite side of will set the African continent on fire from the Atlantic to the Indian Oceans.
A civil war in Pakistan between the Mountain Men Pashtuns, supposed distantly related to the Alexander of Greatness’s history, and the CIA/MI6 owned and run Pakistan Military Establishment and their aristos with their homes in London and New York and jet set lives.
My money is on the hardy mountain men.
A civil war in a nuclear weapons state , with secret US bases going back to the 50’s from which U2 missions flew over Russia and from which Afghanistan was attacked again and again.
The Chinese were about to neutralise its toxic past by turning Pakistan into a major link in the BRI, ending finally the poverty of the deliberately uneducated village tribalism. End the supply of cheap labour to the Arabs in building the folly glass tower cities on the sands and be the beaten house servants and labourers that keep these shitty cities running for the European tourists.
It would bring to a sudden end the exported dodgy customs to the diaspora, who without westernising for many generations in their youth are mere pawns traded into marriages by the village elders from their villages. This is largely how it seems to be in the U.K. slums that they are gathered and brainwashed in.
I wonder which side many of these will pick? They are equally brain deaded by football and fast food as their non-religious fellow subjects, but still do as told by their mosques. It’s only when the civil war at home bypasses the mass media that most will ever realise there might be something amiss with the ‘Homeland’.
by the way, besides a very picky description of Pakistan, Craig is dead wrong on the Indian track. London may very well be in bed w Modi, it doesn’t show w the Guardian who are in a full-throttle progressive attack on central govt
hmm comment disappeared. just pointing out the Glenn Greenwald show on this subject, don’t see anything controversial about that.
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[ Mod: There’s no sign of it on the server side. If it had been suspended or deleted it would still be viewable by the mods. Try posting it again. ]
Labour Heartlands has run with The Intercept article as well…_
https://labourheartlands.com/leaked-cable-reveals-u-s-pressure-on-pakistan-to-oust-imran-khan/
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/08/10/us-urged-ouster-of-khan-cable-shows/
Thank you for your reflections on Pakistan’s current political environment. You rightly highlighted important aspects of Pakistan’s recent political ambience including military’s interference in the fledging democratic process in Pakistan, media blackout on Imran Khan’s arrest and radio silence from international community especially from the US and UK. However, your analysis about Imran Khan’s rise into political arena at the national stage, his success in 2018 elections and the eventual demise from the executive office is incoherent, superfluous and lack evidence.
You associated Imran Khan’s success in 2018 with his anti-US policy, drone attacks and his stance on Afghanistan. Which is not entirely true. Imran Khan’s movement or PTI becoming a national political party is not organically grown, it was manufactured by the military establishment.
Consider this.
After Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, the establishment in Pakistan had no choice other than allowing PPP to form a government. By winning 2008 elections, PPP formed a coalition government led by Zardari, the most conniving yet seasoned politician in Pakistan.
Zardari with old wounds with battle against the military, cautiously planned to curb power from the latter. For instance, his government passed a Bill that demanded ISI – the premier intelligence agency – to report to the civilian government instead of military establishment. He also plotted against the military through memo (known as memo-gate) from Pakistan’s Ambassador in the US highlighting military’s intent to takeover power from PPP and bring martial law. Despite severe political strain, he managed to complete his tenure by making sacrifices in the shape of couple of ousted Prime Ministers and the Pakistan’s ambassador to the US.
The military decided to pave way forward for PMNL for 2013 elections. Nawaz Sharif led PMNL formed a coalition government in 2013. Just like Zardari, NS was wounded in the past by the military establishment. This time around he wanted to cautiously manage relations with the military top brass. He kept the foreign ministry under his own desk without an appointment of a Foreign Minister. He took few steps to endorse his own foreign policy which obviously didn’t align with the establishment’s approach. For instance, he wanted to normalise relations with India. He invited Prime Minister Modi twice to Pakistan, once to his residence in Lahore and the second time to Murree Hills. He also stealthily approved release of a meeting minutes from a high level security meeting which become Dawn Leaks. The content of which was entirely unwelcoming for military in which the civilian government was telling military to act against militants in the country or face international isolation.
Then the establishment decided to support an alternate political force to act on their behest. They ousted PM NS based on wiki-leaks stats on offshore assets.
The military supported Imran Khan to stage sit-in protests for 114 days in Islamabad. They launched the project to “brand” Imran Khan as the saviour of nation, a pious man who is clean and transparent, without any corruption records. IK, who happened to be a womaniser, a playboy, started chanting prayers and passing religious statements to appeal to the zealous Islamic lot. They built a rhetoric around how corrupt PPP and PMNL governments were. They also made Imran Khan to make promises for which the nation was desperate including employment opportunities for youth, foreign direct investment, sovereignty of Pakistan’s as opposed to being a puppet to foreign powers including US and China, and to bring billions of rupees embezzled by Zardari and Sharifs from abroad. Not only this, the military also directly interfered in 2018 elections by placing military personnel in polling stations to ensure Imran Khan comes into power.
IK became PM by forming a coalition government. However, the real power remained with the establishment. For the first 3 years of his tenure, he kept dancing on the strings stretched by military brass. Only when he tried to move away from being a puppet, they put him back to the shithole he belonged to.
When IK was first arrested few weeks ago, there was a choreographed violent protest which vanished in few days. Had his rise into power been organically grown, people would have gone mad on the streets.
That aside, what I am unable to comprehend is the radio silence from international community especially from US and UK, who explicitly promote values of democracy, freedom of speech and rule of law. What is it that the military is doing for US and UK to keep them silent?
No expert on Pakistan politics but Pakistan is near India and both countries are nuclear armed.
If there is a Civil War in Pakistan then it could affect India.
The US (as usual) would in the event of Civil War affect indifference and act as ‘peace promoters’ whilst being right behind and underneath the project of keeping Pakistan in the ‘Democratic Community’ (I made that phrase up as the credulous Western media genuinely believes that this community exists) and that they have no say or sway in Pakistan.
As far as Imran Khan goes he has a list of charges to answer to the US view of the world with their ‘Rules based International Order’ (their rules – their order) so I’m not surprised they have nobbled him via Lawfare as Lula et al were.
When the Old Order is about to collapse then more of this is going to happen as the plundered and exploited countries decide that there has to be a better way of growing an economy in the old Western conditional loans way.
The wiser capitalists know this and some invest in China and other BRICS countries but The Guardian/The BBC etc. are not noted for having a Global Helicopter view of the world as their own personal investment and salaries depend on the world staying as it is.
My view is if these media bodies have to tell us all the time that what they are telling us is true then – it’s a bit like the phrase – ‘To be honest with you……..’
This suggests that before, you may have been lying to me – but you are not lying this time.
The ‘truth’ is they have always been lying and lying by omission as in the coverage or non-coverage of Pakistan’s politics is all they have got left these day.
Confirmation of Craig’s insights now comes directly from US State Department classified documents:
https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/imran-khan-pakistan-cypher-ukraine-russia/
“THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT encouraged the Pakistani government in a March 7, 2022, meeting to remove Imran Khan as prime minister over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to a classified Pakistani government document obtained by The Intercept.
The meeting, between the Pakistani ambassador to the United States and two State Department officials, has been the subject of intense scrutiny, controversy, and speculation in Pakistan over the past year and a half, as supporters of Khan and his military and civilian opponents jockeyed for power. The political struggle escalated on August 5 when Khan was sentenced to three years in prison on corruption charges and taken into custody for the second time since his ouster. Khan’s defenders dismiss the charges as baseless. The sentence also blocks Khan, Pakistan’s most popular politician, from contesting elections expected in Pakistan later this year.”
This is from a German text, 14/8/23
The author, Berlin born Gilbert Kolonko, does know Pakistan which he has been travelling for 11 years.
Unfortunately the text dives into all kinds of side issues so I will reduce it to a few paragraphs
In case here:
“Pakistan: Corrupt to the core – Imran Khan was sentenced to three years in prison. For an “act” that every one of his predecessors also committed. The USA is only indirectly involved in this. But it is directly involved in Pakistan’s creeping decline.”
https://overton-magazin.de/top-story/pakistan-korrupt-bis-ins-mark/
Kolonko´s hyperlinks appear valuable, all of them English language. I will include them below. (orange coloured in the original)
A few translated parts:
“(…)
The 70-year-old Khan is not done yet; the former cricket star is too popular for that. Moreover, Khan can appeal against the verdict. Many experts agree that the verdict will be overturned because of a number of procedural errors.
But it is already clear that the current government and the Pakistani army have achieved an important partial goal: Khan’s supporters are demoralized – there were hardly any protests after the current arrest. Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is also badly battered after the many party resignations. But elections without Imran Khan will become an embarrassment that the Bhuttos, Sharifs and the army will also find hard to afford.
Pakistan is not Nepal: when Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu pressured the Nepalese government to accept a controversial U.S. loan last year, the rest of the world barely noticed.
When a document was leaked from Donald Lu, in which he spoke negatively about Khan’s visit to Moscow and added that all would be forgiven if Khan was overthrown in a vote of confidence, it was said that the U.S. was behind Khan’s overthrow. Khan initially jumped on the bandwagon, but later retracted his accusations against the U.S. But now The Intercept republished the leak with Donald Lu’s words. Again, this is old hat. Imran Khan retracted his allegations against the U.S. some time ago and named ex-army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa as the mastermind behind his downfall.
Donald Lu is a diplomat who has done damage before with his arrogant, non-diplomatic words. Yes, Imran Khan is no friend of U.S. policy and has also strongly criticized its war in Afghanistan.
But Khan also accepted an IMF loan during his time in office, even though he had previously said he would not do so – so his words are more radical than his actions, and the U.S. knows this, too. Moreover, their experts also know Pakistan at least well enough to know which problems will take care of themselves.
(…)
The U.S. also helped save Pakistan’s influential from the onerous tax burden. In 2008, Pakistan once again needed an IMF loan of $7.6 billion. But the loan was tied to one demand: Pakistan should finally introduce an agricultural tax. The sector was firmly in the hands of the large landowners. In power at the time was the PPP of Bhuttos, a family of large landowners from the Sindh region. As the U.S. continued to need Pakistan’s support to fight the war in Afghanistan more cost-effectively-Pakistan was needed for bases and as a supply route-the demand for an agricultural tax “miraculously” disappeared from the IMF’s list of demands.
As recently as 2013, agriculture in Pakistan accounted for 21-25 percent of the country’s gross national product. But of the approximately 60 billion U.S. dollars generated by the predominantly large landowners, only twelve million were collected in direct taxes from the state. This corresponds to a tax rate of 0.02 percent. It was not until October 2021 that agriculture noticeably appeared on the fiscal radar under the Khan government.
(…)”
articles quoted:
on “gifts” not declared
“All and sundry cashed in on Toshakhana”
https://www.dawn.com/news/1345340
“NA passes bill to amend Official Secrets Act”
https://www.dawn.com/news/1768896
Nepal vs. the IMF
“On MCC pact, US message to Nepal is getting more clear: Take it or leave it”
https://kathmandupost.com/national/2021/11/20/on-mcc-pact-us-message-to-nepal-is-getting-more-clear-take-it-or-leave-it
General behind Khan´s end
“‘Super King’ Bajwa, not US, behind ouster: Imran Khan”
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/super-king-bajwa-not-us-behind-ouster-imran-khan/articleshow/97855923.cms
“Imran Khan pushes Pakistan austerity measures to revive $6bn IMF package”
paywall:
https://www.ft.com/content/fb64d5f8-ed3e-4b1f-aab4-d19927519efe
“PTI’s Asad Umar questions former FBR chairman Shabbar Zaidi’s default claims”
https://www.dawn.com/news/1767303
“New tax measures to hit builders, developers and fertiliser sales”
https://www.dawn.com/news/1761978/new-tax-measures-to-hit-builders-developers-and-fertiliser-sales
“Landlords finally come on govt’s tax radar – FBR accepts exchange companies as ‘legal source’ of transferring remittances for claiming income tax exemption”
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2317902/landlords-finally-come-on-govts-tax-radar
Pakistani investment in London real estate
“London property fetish”
https://www.dawn.com/news/1345340
good academic study by the Wilson Center:
“Running on Empty – Pakistan’s Water Crisis”
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/running-empty-pakistans-water-crisis
books quoted:
“Descent into Chaos
By Ahmed Rashid”
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/530606/descent-into-chaos-by-ahmed-rashid/9780143115571
“Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
by Steve Coll”
https://www.buecher.de/shop/englische-buecher/directorate-s-the-c-i-a-and-americas-secret-wars-in-afghanistan-and-pakistan/coll-steve/products_products/detail/prod_id/55188050/
“The Pakistan Paradox. Instability and Resilience
by Christophe Jaffrelot”
https://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/en/content/pakistan-paradox-instability-and-resilience-christophe-jaffrelot
I have donated £100. Thanks for the reminder to donate, and thank you for the work you do.
Secretary Antony Blinken
@SecBlinken
4:53pm Aug 16, 2023
Congratulations to new Pakistan Interim Prime Minister @anwaar_kakar. As Pakistan prepares for free and fair elections, in accordance with its constitution and the rights to freedom of speech and assembly, we will continue to advance our shared commitment to economic prosperity.
Update: Blinken’s message has had a community note attached to it by Twitter/X . .
“The US State Dept. under Antony Blinken on March 7, 2022, encouraged the removal of Pakistan’s previous democratically elected prime minister Imran Khan. In April 2022 Imran Khan was removed from power and arrested.”
aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/10/did-us-ask-for-imran-khans-removal-as-pakistan-pm-after-he-visited-russia
The Intercept with an update on the intern. reactions to their report last week.
The Pakistani govenment says 3 different things.
The US SoS first says “no, then “why not”.
“Pakistan Confirms Secret Diplomatic Cable Showing U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan – After initially suggesting the cable published by The Intercept was inauthentic, Pakistani officials now claim it doesn’t reveal a conspiracy.”
Aug. 16th 2023
https://theintercept.com/2023/08/16/imran-khan-cable-pakistan-us/
‘Not Jinnah’s Pakistan’: Shame, grief ripples across social media after churches, homes torched in Jaranwala
https://images.dawn.com/news/1191996/not-jinnahs-pakistan-shame-grief-ripples-across-social-media-after-churches-homes-torched-in-jaranwala
This article has a hidden “gem”:
Just days ago, we celebrated Independence Day and the founder of our nation. It reminded us of Jinnah’s iconic August 11, 1947 speech to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan — “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State.” We searched for the audio of that speech and found that this particular section has been lost to Pakistan, ostensibly at the hands of those who did not want Jinnah’s secular ideology to spread. Attempts were made in the late 70s to erase that section from the speech entirely. How deeply symbolic that is on a day like today, when we mourn the loss of not just places of worship and homes, but of our own humanity.
Branko Marcetic on Jacobin nicely sums up the Kahn case on Aug. 21st here:
https://jacobin.com/2023/08/imran-khan-pakistan-ouster-us-power-media-propaganda
How all the media called Kahn a liar:
“(…)“There was no US conspiracy against Khan,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Center for International Studies research fellow Maham Javaid wrote in the Boston Globe. Khan had simply “turned fiction into fact, at least for his followers.” He was simply “trying to tap into anti-American sentiments to mobilize support” despite having not “a shred of evidence” for his claim, former Pakistan ambassador to the United States and UN Maleeha Lodhi was quoted saying by CNN. “This is nonsense,” wrote Hamid Mir in the Washington Post.
In Haaretz, Hamza Azhar Salam called it an “inescapable conclusion” that Khan had simply invented a conspiracy theory that’s not only anti-American but antisemitic (though the latter was never explained). The Wall Street Journal went further, not just calling Khan’s claim a “conspiracy ploy,” but suggesting that Khan’s diplomatic cable was faked by his team.(…)”
This is of course the case by design and derives from a corrupted academic culture:
“(…) Yet as we can see, many commentators — often highly credentialed voices with powerful institutional backing who are published in influential establishment news outlets — rushed to categorically dismiss the idea as fantastical and false and to declare anyone who advanced it as outside the bounds of seriousness. They were themselves spreading misinformation at the same time they were claiming to be correcting the record, taking a strident, absolute position on something that, at that point, it was impossible for them to know with full certainty was true or false.
And because there’s rarely any professional consequences in US media for these kinds of errors if they happen to line up with US government interests, everyone involved will simply move on. Some, in fact, are choosing to double down.
There is a style of dissenting commentary, usually on the Left, that too readily accepts claims of US culpability before all the evidence is out, while sometimes overstating US involvement and level of control of events around the world. But the opposite is far more widespread: commentators and political figures who presume the fact that evidence hasn’t yet surfaced (or simply ignore it if it does) means any such claims are obviously untrue and absurd, and that we should rule them out from the get-go — even though we have a mountain of examples from recent and distant history of the US government carrying out coups, fomenting unrest, and trying to engineer regime change, with documentary evidence often taking years to surface.(…)”
p.s. not sure that I would agree with the term “the Left”. Since “the Left” which is rightly called so, has always been doing the opposite.
If they now regard US White House PR as the new standard of information level it simply means they are not “The Left” any more. There have been clear definitions of these political terms agreed on in scholarship and by common sense logic. In fact this misunderstanding-labeling by Marcetic embodies one of the major problems of our new “era” (which btw has started much earlier than 2022).
Imran Khan’s bravery is evident in his accomplishments as a cricketer, philanthropist, politician, and advocate for various causes. His resilience in the face of challenges and dedication to his principles have made him a prominent and influential figure both in Pakistan and on the international stage.
Worst Persecution Against Christians in Pakistan’s History: Urgent Help Needed
Posted on August 22, 2023 by Catholicism Pure & Simple
https://www.churchinneed.org/news/
CP&S comment – Islam, is redoubling its typical destructive atrocities against the small and harmless Christian communities in Pakistan. The mainstream media looks the other way. The Catholic organisation, Aid to the Church in Need, has sent out this urgent appeal for help for our brave and suffering brothers in Christ.Working closely with Bishop Indrias and other project partners, ACN will be sending out aid where the need is greatest.
In the meantime, please continue to pray for those traumatised by Wednesday’s horrific acts of violence against those attacked simply because of their faith.
https://catholicismpure.wordpress.com/2023/08/22/worst-persecution-against-christians-in-pakistans-history-urgent-help-needed/
The Intercept keeps reporting, thankfully.
This from Sept. 17th 2023:
“U.S. Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal for Ukraine, Leaked Documents Reveal
The U.S.-brokered loan let Pakistan’s military postpone elections, deepen a brutal crackdown, and jail former Prime Minister Imran Khan.”
https://theintercept.com/2023/09/17/pakistan-ukraine-arms-imf/
“Secret Pakistani arms sales to the U.S. helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the International Monetary Fund earlier this year, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement, with confirmation from internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arms sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military — marking Pakistani involvement in a conflict it had faced U.S. pressure to take sides on.
The revelation is a window into the kind of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between financial and political elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as the public pays the price. Harsh structural policy reforms demanded by the IMF as terms for its recent bailout kicked off an ongoing round of protests in the country. Major strikes have taken place throughout Pakistan in recent weeks in response to the measures.
(…)
The weapons deals were brokered, according to the documents, by Global Military Products, a subsidiary of Global Ordnance, a controversial arms dealer whose entanglements with less-than-reputable figures in Ukraine were the subject of a recent New York Times article.
Documents outlining the money trail and talks with U.S. officials include American and Pakistani contracts, licensing, and requisition documents related to U.S.-brokered deals to buy Pakistani military weapons for Ukraine.”