Hillary needed ‘boatloads of patience’ to go through Pak media content on US

ISLAMABAD: Commenting on content about the US in the Pakistani media, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an email that it needs “boatloads of patience” to go through it. She overall remained sceptical about coverage of US-related issues in the Pakistani media, which is shown from many of her emails that have been declared “unclassified” by the State Department recently.
She was informed that the media content is “somewhat painful to read since, as you know, in Pakistan, the media can be particularly outrageous. However, we can’t ignore the fact that these talk shows are the most watched programming in prime time… The host sets up the discussion in fairly provocative way and the guests, who come from across the political spectrum, respond. As you can see, the first commentator is strongly anti US.
“However, what I have observed since our media offensive began last Fall is that there is usually a more moderate guest as well, who will argue along the lines that it is only natural for the US to protect its interests and GOP should do a better job of protecting Pakistan. Believe it or not there have even been instances where we get credit for some of the things we do. Also on occasion where there have been particularly egregious attacks on US policy, the host will read a statement from our Embassy in the following programming. We try to get airtime on these programs whenever possible but it is hard. It ‘s a hard slog getting this right but we are making progress.” A “TV Talk Shows Summary - February 18, 2010” is attached with this mail.
She was sent an email about a newspaper article discussing the outrage on blasphemous movie in parts of Muslim countries and opinion of Indian novelist Salman Rushdie, who is also accused of blasphemy, on it. The article titled “The Satanic Video”, by Bill Keller, reads: “Except, of course, it’s far from over. It moves temporarily off-screen, and then it is back: the Pakistani retailer accused last week of “blasphemy” because he refused to close his shops during a protest against the video; France locking down diplomatic outposts in about 20 countries because a Paris satirical newspaper has published new caricatures of the holy prophet. “It’s not really over for Salman Rushdie, whose new memoir recounts a decade under a clerical death sentence for the publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses.” That fatwa, if not precisely the starting point in our modem confrontation with Islamic extremism, was a major landmark. The fatwa was dropped in 1998 and Rushdie is out of hiding, but he is still careful. “His book tour for “Joseph Anton” (entitled for the pseudonym he used in his clandestine life) won’t be taking him to Islamabad or Cairo. Rushdie grew up in a secular Muslim family, the son of an Islam scholar… His memoir is not a handbook on how America should deal with the Muslim world.
“But he brings to that subject a certain moral authority and the wisdom of an unusually motivated thinker. I invited him to help me draw some lessons from the stormy Arab Summer.
“The first and most important thing Rushdie will tell you is, it’s not about religion. Not then, not now. The best argument we have is not our aid money, though that plays a part. It is the choice between two futures, between building or failing to build a rule of law, an infrastructure of rights, and an atmosphere of tolerance.
“One future looks something like Turkey, prospering, essentially secular and influential. The other future looks a lot like Pakistan, a land of fear and woe.”
In another email, she was told that “Ambassador (Hussain) Haqqani asked me to submit a proposal to help the Government of Pakistan strengthen its communications with the Pakistani public”. She was told: “We’ve followed Pakistani media coverage of Kerry-Lugar — with more strategic communications management by the government, that could have been a positive story. (The anti-American forces have used the same messages to attack US aid packages for at least 10 years. It was easy to see the attacks coming.)
“Communications help won’t solve the immediate political crisis, but it could be one useful element of a larger strategic communications strategy.”
On Thursday, November 5, 2009, she expressed in a newspaper article published in Time Magazine by Joe Klein. It reads: “In the last week of October, Secretary Clinton moved squarely to the center of the world stage, attempting, at the behest of her special envoys, to improve the rocky alliance with Pakistan and nudge the Middle East pugilists into talks. “In the course of the trip, there were the first stray wisps of a hint that Clinton wanted to begin asserting her independence, as the Administration, facing roadblocks across the world, struggled for a firmer foreign policy tone after an opening nine months that might be called the Rodney King — “Can’t we all just get along?” — phase.
“During her three days in Pakistan, she ran a gauntlet of town-hall meetings and media interviews that may have been unprecedented, to use the word of the week, for a U.S. Secretary of State. The trip, planned by Holbrooke and Pakistan specialist Vali Nasr, offered an unusually subtle itinerary for a U.S. diplomatic mission. A visit to a Sufi mosque that had been bombed by Sunni extremists, for example, sent a powerful message to Pakistan’s moderate Islamic majority.
“We saw her praying there,” an academic named Shala Aziz told me, “and, for the first time, I’m thinking, The Americans have hearts.” (See photos of the suicide bombings in Islamabad.)
“The big news was that Clinton allowed herself to be hammered with hostile questions from students, talk-show hosts and Pashtun elders — and that, on occasion, she pushed back, raising incredibly sensitive issues, like why no one in the Pakistani government knew where Osama bin Laden was, even though he had been in the country since 2002.
“Press accounts either emphasized the embarrassment of a Secretary of State’s getting pummeled or fixed on Clinton’s undiplomatic bluntness. But they missed the point: her candor, her willingness to listen to and acknowledge criticism, had begun to undermine the prevailing Pakistani image of the U.S. as arrogant and bossy, more interested in having the Pakistani military fight its war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban than in having a true strategic partnership.
The contrast was especially sharp after George W. Bush’s eight years of unqualified support for the military dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf. “In the past, when the Americans came, they would talk to the generals and go home,” said Farahnaz Ispahani, a government spokeswoman and Member of Parliament. “Clinton’s willingness to meet with everyone, hostile or not, has made a big impression — and because she’s Hillary Clinton, with a real history of affinity for this country, it means so much more.” “There are no toasts at state dinners in Pakistan, because there is no alcohol. There are opening statements, though, and Clinton’s — delivered impromptu on the first night of her trip after tossing aside her notes — was surprisingly emotional. Earlier in the day, President Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, had presented the Secretary with an album of photos from her first visit to Pakistan, in 1995, and a framed photo of Bhutto and her two sons with Clinton and daughter Chelsea. “It did bring tears to my eyes,” Clinton said at the state dinner in her honor at the presidential palace, “because I so admired your wife. She gave her life ...” She faltered then, choking up, but quickly pulled herself together, talking about the “reasons why we do what we do — to provide opportunities for all.”
“Clinton’s first trip to Pakistan as First Lady in 1995 had been a transformative experience for her — the beginning, I believe, of the process that made her a plausible candidate for Secretary of State. I traveled with her on that trip; when we set off, she seemed depressed and even more private than usual. The Democrats had cratered in the 1994 congressional elections, and she had been trounced in her efforts to enact a universal health care plan. It was a very personal defeat; as Clinton traveled the country trying to sell the plan, crowds shouted her down and cursed her.
“She (Clinton) does not like to talk about herself, but she did tell me one interesting story about Bhutto. When her husband was governor of Arkansas, she and Bill and Chelsea visited London and stood on the sidewalk outside Bhutto’s hotel, waiting for the then Pakistani Prime Minister to arrive. “She was wearing a yellow embroidered shalwar kameez with a chiffon scarf. I was just a fan, standing on the sidewalk with everyone else. It was the only time I ever did anything like that,” Clinton says.
“When Clinton and Bhutto met formally, on the first day of the 1995 trip, they hit it off immediately, in part because Bhutto was also obsessed with the impact the Islamist tide was having on women and children. I remember asking Bhutto that day what the biggest change in her country had been over the past 25 years, and she said, “I used to be able to walk down the street wearing jeans, without a headscarf. Now I can’t.” “”The Saudis,” who had been aggressively funding religious schools. Of course, Bhutto’s acquiescence to, and participation in, the general corruption of the Pakistani government was part of the reason public schools were so inadequate and madrasahs became popular. (See photos from the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in 2007.)
“Clinton’s value to the Administration was clear in Pakistan. She wowed a public so skeptical that it had been questioning the $7.5 billion in purely economic and humanitarian aid the Administration had promised. “How much damage control have you been able to do on this trip?” asked Meher Bokhari, a television-news-show host, at the end of Clinton’s meeting with Pakistani women. The Secretary seemed nonplussed by the bluntness of the question. “I don’t know,” she said. “I hope some.”
“Afterward, I asked Bokhari to answer her own question. “Well, this trip was long overdue,” she said. “The Pakistani people really needed to talk to an American about our concerns — the strings attached to aid programs, the drone attacks, their history of support for the military dictatorship. And it needs to be followed up. But if you ask me about the damage control” — she paused, thinking it through — “I’d have to say a lot. She accomplished a lot.” In the end, though, Clinton’s success will be determined by whether she can expand her role beyond public diplomat.”
On Saturday, June 20, 2009, she was informed about a “New York Times reporter who was kidnapped by the Taliban has escaped and made his way to freedom after more than seven months of captivity in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“David Rohde, along with a local reporter, Tahir Ludin and their driver, Asadullah Mangal, were abducted outside of Kabul on Nov. 10 while Mr. Rohde was researching a book. Mr. Rohde was part of the Times reporting team that won a Pulitzer Prize in May for coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan last year.”
On Friday, October 1, 2010, she was emailed an AP story mentioning that “officials think bin Laden involved in Europe plot”. Datelined Washington, the story reads: “Osama bin Laden emerged October 1 as possibly a key figure in the European terror plot, and officials said he may be flexing his muscles in a move to show a besieged al-Qaida remains strong and able to launch major attacks on western targets. U.S. counterterrorism officials said they believe that senior al-Qaida leaders, including bin Laden, were involved in the plan to strike several European cities in a coordinated assault.
“If bin Laden had a direct hand in the planning, it would be the most active role he has played in a terror plot since the 9/11 attacks, according to U.S. officials and analysts.
“A Pakistani intelligence official said Thursday that eight Germans and two British brothers are at the heart of the European terror plot, which is still in its early stages. One of the Britons was killed in a recent CIA missile strike, he said.
“Pakistan, Britain and Germany are tracking the suspects and intercepting their phone calls, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information to the media. U.S. officials have pressed Pakistan to increase its efforts to root out the militants hiding in the mountainous border region.
“The U.S. has dramatically stepped up its missile attacks in North Waziristan, and is believed to have launched at least 21 this month. The covert campaign is largely carried out by CIA drones and has led to the deaths of a number of top militant leaders. “Pakistan has complained vocally about the program but is believed to provide intelligence assistance for at least some of the strikes.”