Earlier this week, Fatima Bhutto wrote an article for the American magazine Foreign Policy that accused Zardari in the KP flood disaster saying that it will be his ‘Katrina’. While this article has created some buzz among foreigners, it has not impressed many Pakistanis. One, Dr Usman Siddiqui, wrote the following rebuttal to Fatima’s article.
This is an interesting yet disturbing article. Having read her work before I thought she would have at least been able to filter between credible and incredible sources. She may be right but one can also argue that her views toward Mr. Zardari’s trip can be somewhat unfair, I say this without diminishing the importance she shed on the unfortunate floods. These visits are planned months in advance and topics ranging from A to Z are to be well studied by members representing both sides. It’s like ‘final exam day’ for the people who studied the material, they plan for months on ways to argue Pakistan’s national interests in these meetings. It’s easy to call off ‘exams’ at the University but to call off a planned visit from a Head of State is a decision based solely on a country’s national interests and one that is not made by Mr. Zardari alone.
Pakistan’s president needs to be making these trips as often as possible. Its sad but sometimes I think people forget that almost every major news outlet in the world refers to Pakistan as ‘the most dangerous place on earth’. Hence building foreign bridges that have unfortunately deteriorated is more important than ever.
Of course one can argue that this wasn’t a good time but really is there ever a good time with Mr. Zardari ? I mean really, no one is ever going to say anything positive about him regardless – whatever he does. These ‘credible’ pundits and ‘sources’ she refers to are going to take this opportunity to really go at him just because he ignored their selfish calls to cancel his trip, which they rallied for days before the unfortunate escalation of the floods, because of the ‘statements’ made in India last week by David Cameron. It’s like a selective group of these absurd ‘anchormen’ and their hand picked ‘senior political analysts’ have such ill feelings towards Mr. Zardari that they forget what the meaning of ‘National Interests’ is. What ever happen to ‘Aman ki Asha’, is that a front too or do they really want to make peace. I thought our generation was sick and tired of people not trying to resolve issues. If something was said and we had a problem with it, then what was better than a meeting between the two so things can be clarified. They come up with baseless rumors like the Intelligence Director canceling his trip, which Dawn News yesterday reported to be false, and then build a conspiracy that the 21 year old Bilawal is going to announce his ‘grand’ return to Pakistan. I was amused how an experience writer like Ms. Bhutto helped the argument, which is quite funny yet sad, that Pakistan is a country full of Fox News wannabes; “Zardari takes a lot of overseas trips — so many that one local TV pundit estimated somewhat anecdotally last year that Richard Holbrooke, U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the “AfPak” region, had spent more time in Pakistan than Zardari had recently.”.. …unfortunately the individual who made this statement is referred to as a ‘local TV pundit’ rather than a comedian.
Our intellects and media personnel should have payed attention to what Cameron was trying to imply and then come up with a conclusion on how to actually solve that problem, yet they twisted it around and tried to hide from it. Come up with a legal way to ‘try, convict and sentence’ the immoral animals known as the extremist/terrorist s that are running around in Pakistan. Their ideology is fighting the State, killing thousands of innocent people while our pundits don’t have the audacity to point fingers and call them out……..hey lets forget the substance of Cameron’s statements and call out Zardari’s ‘gairat’ instead….. …really when are we going to learn. Instead of reporting on where Pakistan’s Head of State should spend his night or recommending that he stay at a local motel, they should report on how much relief – whether it be in a physical form or financially – from governments or citizens, that will God Willingly pour in from these ‘Western’ countries to help out with the floods. Who knows maybe they will think twice about questioning ones ‘gairat’ and realize when the right time to be a mature person is rather then creating a drama series.
