Pakistani media and the Afghan Taliban

After when the Biden Administration announced that it will withdraw the troops from Afghanistan, the security situation started deteriorating in Afghanistan. The Taliban have been completely relying on a military solution. The Taliban takeover of the districts has increased threefold which is alarming. An increase in violence is a breach of the agreement that the Taliban and the United States reached a peace deal last year in Doha. The withdrawal of U.S troops has no doubt have had a psychological effect on the morale of the Afghan Army. But it positively boosted the Taliban’s strength. The media propaganda in Pakistan is preparing the public perception, support, and manpower for the Taliban military victory in Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban are a proxy terrorist group, they are heavily supported by the state-controlled media in Pakistan. Almost all media outlets are portraying the Taliban as the true Mujahedeen fighting the foreign troops and their supporters, Mohsin Dawar a member of Pakistan’s Parliament and leader of Pashtoon Tahafuz Movement from Tribal Areas in his recent speech at the Parliament has warned of Pakistan’s persistence on its status quo policy of supporting a favorite group in Afghanistan’s internal affairs. Mr. Dawar categorically said, “Our favorite in Afghanistan is the Taliban” but on the other hand, Mr. Darwar pointed out that role of media in supporting the Taliban falls victories in Afghanistan is outrageous.
All the Pakistani, print, private media, and Government TV channels are controlled by the government and indirectly guided by the ISPR. Mr. Dawar made remarked that “We know who controls the media in Pakistan” The TV talk shows, news channels, think tanks, anchors, political analysts are all in rush to magnify, and glorify any gains the Taliban make in Afghanistan. As Mr. Dawar said Pakistan has not learned from her past experiences of having a favorite group in Afghanistan. Mr. Ari Alavi the President of Pakistan tweeted on July11, “Pakistan’s emerging economy faces two threats. Unrest in Afghanistan, on which we hope the Taliban and their compatriots will have peace…” This tweet is a brazen example of high Pakistani official publicly supporting the Taliban.
Pakistan’s Geo news a private TV channel recently conducted an interview with Suhial Shaheen a Qatar-based Taliban member of the peace negotiation committee. The anchor was creating a perception as if the Taliban are the winner of the war in Afghanistan. The anchor was not following any standard of journalism impartiality. The questions asked by the anchor was a sense of the Taliban’s glorification in their recent gains in Afghanistan. Moreover, inviting only the Taliban in such debates reveals the partiality of the media outlet to the terrorist Taliban.
Pakistan’s continuation of the “Strategic depth” policy of supporting the Taliban movement has already shown spillover effects in the tribal areas. Mr. Mohsen Dawar informed of the Pakistani Taliban regrouping in the Tribal areas of Pakistan. In their initial power show the Taliban in North Waziristan of Mir Ali area burnt down the only girl’s school. Moreover, as Mr. Dawar mentioned, the Pakistanis who have joined the Taliban ranks, and are killed in Afghanistan are welcomed. He gave the example of the recent Taliban rally in Peshawar city where the Taliban received the dead body of their fighter in a rally carried under the auspices of the state authorities.
In the past, due to Pakistan’s policy of nurturing terrorist groups, Pakistan suffered flashback effects in which over70000 a thousand people were killed. The worst was the attack on Army Public School in Peshawar carried by the Tehrike Taliban Pakistan in 2014. Additionally, the economy suffered $150 billion worth of infrastructure destruction due to terrorism.
The Pakistani media so obsessed with the recent Taliban’s fake victories that they even forgot fulfill their humanistic obligation of reporting civilian casualties, displacement of thousands of families, and abstracting the provision of governance in almost 29 provinces of Afghanistan. According to Mr. Nadir Nadery chairman of the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission, reported that more than 13 million people have been deprived of their basic necessities of life, and damage inflicted by the Taliban to infrastructure is worth 500$ million. The irony is that none of the Pakistani media reported the human sufferings either caused by the Taliban or by the war between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
Afghanistan is at a critical juncture in history. The international troops are leaving without establishing a political settlement that could plunge the country into another civil war. The neighboring countries in particular Pakistan who has a huge influence on the Taliban should commit to bringing peace not to support a proxy like the Taliban who according to Mr. Dawar “the proxies are the proxies; they can turn one day against you”. All Pakistani independent thinkers, activists, the international community, and media should unveil Pakistan’s establishment Hippocratic policy of supporting the terrorist Taliban by interfering in Afghanistan’s internalaffairs which is a breach of international law.