“In the world of journalism, there are stories, and then there are stories like this one.” Thus reads the first line of Indian TV channel CNN-IBN’s self-congratulatory piece. Why the congratulations? Don’t tell me you’re unaware of the scoop that shook the airwaves, the fruit of “CNN-IBN’s two-year hunt for truth”? The Bollywood answer to Frost and Nixon?

I refer of course to the explosive interview of former defence minister Ahmed Mukhtar, conducted by that Walter Cronkite of India, the inimitable CNN-IBN deputy executive editor Zakka Jacob. He is the man who finally found the smoking gun that proves that Pakistan knew about the presence of Bin Laden.

Know more: Ex-defence minister denies claiming Pakistani leadership knew about Osama's presence

Watch the clip and you’ll see the fear in Mukhtar’s eyes. He trips over his words, he fumbles, he is nearly incomprehensible. You can almost see the light sheen of a cold sweat as his nemesis closes in for the kill.

Ahmed Mukhtar is terrified, not because this relentless crusader for the truth had backed him into a corner, but because he simply doesn’t understand English. Or at least he doesn’t understand it well enough to keep up with the questions of Mr Jacob, which twist and turn like sluggish earthworms coming out after a rain, undulating lazily enough for a savvy interviewee to crush underfoot. Even Ahmed Mukhtar could do it. If he understood the question. Which he clearly didn’t.

It’s painful to watch, but watch you must, even if it is only to see what it looks like when journalism is murdered, its corpse exhumed and then cannibalised, Bhakkar style. There’s more; the interview begins mid-question without preamble, without a customary introduction or news report. It almost seems as if most of the interview has simply been edited out so that the remainder could be twisted to fit an agenda. It goes on like this, the flashing ticker reading ‘Insider exposes Pak-Osama Link’, until the denouement, the final question.

Watch the clip and you’ll see the fear in the former minister’s eyes.

Question: So President Zardari you are saying knew about it, General Kayani, the then army chief had information about it and there were people both in the civilian and military chain of command who had prior information about Osama?

Answer: Yeah

Never is it ever specified what ‘it’ is, or what information about Osama he is asking about. There is not a single direct or concise question throughout this three-minute, 16-second interview. That’s right, roughly the length of a commercial break. This, then, is “the story that’s never been heard before. A lie that’s been carefully protected all these years. The truth behind the killing of Osama bin Laden”. Oh and Manoj Gupta, the ‘investigative reporter’ who spent two years cracking this case remains a mystery to most.

But that’s CNN-IBN, which also recently spliced together footage of various protests in Azad Kashmir, one against Wapda, in order to make it appear as if the protests were against the Pakistani government’s oppression of Kashmiris.

Recently, AP published a story in which an anonymous former US intelligence official claimed that the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz was bombed because a Pakistani ISI operative was using it as a base to coordinate Taliban attacks. This is believable so long as you ignore that the US version of events went from ‘We didn’t do it’, to ‘We did it but it was to protect US troops’, to ‘it was an accident’, to ‘we got wrong information from Afghan forces’.

You must also ignore that a few days after the attack, a US tank forced its way onto the damaged compound causing, according to the MSF, damage to property and potential destruction of evidence. Ignore all this because the magic words have been spoken: Pakistan. ISI. And thus a veil must descend over your mind.

This will also help you believe the spate of analyses seeking to pin all the blame for the US’s repeated failures in Afghanistan on the deceitful Pakistanis. We are expected to believe that the gullible US, despite having 662 military bases and many more listening stations across the world, despite having the capability to snoop on every phone call, every email, every SMS, was somehow hoodwinked by a Pakistan which, while capable of this feat, is somehow still struggling to maintain domestic order.

Does Pakistan share blame for the plight of Afghanistan, along with the many others who have tried to carve out a piece of that bloodied country? Certainly. Are we responsible for the fact that the Afghan army, despite years of training and millions of dollars of support is incapable of standing and fighting a force that does not possess armour or air cover? Absolutely not. That’s on the US and the Afghans. And until both learn to accept their portion of blame, the Great Smears shall continue along with the Great Games.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro

Published in Dawn, October 19th , 2015

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