Native Orientalists at the Daily Times

A must read article by Shahid Alam published in Counter Punch discussing the recent controversy regarding the resignation of Najam Sethi from Daily Times which was allegedly due to employee pay-scale conflict with the owners of the media group. Shahid Alam in his article goes on to analyze the core reason as to how Daily Times came into existence around 2002 and then its subsequent dubious positioning over the many years “in making Daily Times a ‘new voice for a new Pakistan’“which may possibly be so expertly served the interests of its founders. A few interesting excerpts have been quoted here while the rest of the article can be read that Counter Punch

Counter Punch: The DT was launched in April 2002, simultaneously from Lahore and Karachi, just a few months after the United States had invaded and occupied Afghanistan, with indispensable logistic support from Pakistan. Was this timing a mere coincidence? Or was the launching of an aggressively pro-American and pro-Zionist newspaper, led by a team of mostly US-trained editors and columnists, an imperative of the new geopolitics created by the Pakistan’s mercenary embrace of the US-Zionist global war against terrorism?

Coincidence or not, the DT has served its masters with verve. Its pages have carried countless editorials justifying Pakistan’s induction into the US led war against Afghanistan, under the cover of the attacks of September 11. The editors and columnists at DT have routinely excoriated the patriots who have opposed Pakistan’s surrender to US-Zionist demands, as naïve sentimentalists unaware of the tough demands of realpolitik. Endlessly, they have argued that Pakistan – with the world’s sixth largest population, a million-strong military, and an arsenal of nuclear weapons – can save itself only through eager prostration before the demands of foreign powers.

… In 2007, when the lawyers in Pakistan took to the streets to demand the restoration of the Chief Justice sacked by the military dictator, the DT did not support them. Instead, it defended the sacking, and repeatedly made the case for a ‘gradual transition’ to civilian rule in Pakistan. A civilian government, they were afraid, might not be as compliant to US pressures as Pakistan’s military rulers.