There is so much discussion going on about the presence of Black Water in Pakistan. I never paid attention to all the sensational text messages, emails and news articles appearing every where about Black Water and their not-so-secret missions.
I love Dr. Awab Alvi. I think he has his heart is in the right place. I was really surprised to see that an educated, enlightened person like him would buy all these rumors about black water. I am not a very good writer when it comes to debunking the sensationalism and putting the things in the right prespective.I will try my best to stay focused and clear.
Before talking about Dr. Alvi’s post. I would like to share some simple facts.
1. United States and Pakistan are close allies in the war on terror. This means that the two countries collabrate and co-operate with each other to strike against terrorist organizations. This collabration and cooperation is on many levels and the exact details of it can not be made public by either government due to security concerns.
2. United States provides Pakistani government billions of dollars for development. United States donated the most amount of money and efforts to help during the earthquake in Kashmir and to assist Pakistan with Swat Refugee Crisis.
3. The two countries have a long history of working together and it had always been mutually beneficial for both of them.
4. When our government have such strong ties with the United States, it is no wonder that we allow certain liberties to US agencies to work on our grounds. For example we have allowed them to attack militants in tribal regions using unmanned bomber planes. We have allowed them to build significant intelligence infrastructure and this we did long ago when the USSR invaded Afghanistan.
I believe that it is not such a big deal that we allow US security agencies a certain freedom to work towards our common goals like exterminating the Pakistani soil of Taleban. Our agencies must keep a check on the activities of US agencies in Pakistan to make sure that they do not harm our national interests. We will have to cooperate because we are allies in a war and our economy is dependent on that war.
Now lets talk about Dr. Alvi’s post which is based on several rumors in media.
1. The video at the end of the post: shows no proof of any kind (video clips, photographs, documents) showing black water doing all these things such as harassing Pakistanis or blocking roads. There are many roads blocked by security agencies in Islamabad. You can just show an image of a blocked road and claim that it is blocked by Black Water security personels.
2. The presenter in the video is a woman wearing Hijab and she ends her monologue with the line that “Pakistanis should realize that the United States is their real enemy”. Its more like an extremist propganda speech instead of an analysis by a professional defense expert.
3. In this video the analyst blames that the Black Water is on a mission to assasinate Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. Do you people really believe that killing Dr. Khan has become so difficult for CIA that it had to hire a notorious organization to do the job? Do you really believe that such secret operations are carried out by renting houses openly?
3. Dr. Alvi requested people to help map black water in Pakistan. Perhaps Dr. Alvi forgot to watch the video he shared. The woman in the video told that Black Water has an office in Khayaban e Rahat which is not far away from where Dr. Alvi lives. So if Black Water are such bullies I think Dr. Alvi would have no trouble finding their offices and may be he will even get some shocking pictures as well. like Black Water munching french fries at McDonalds?
4. Dr. Sahab asks patriotic Pakistanis to help map and expose Black Water. How he is going to verify that the video or pictures or incidents reported to pakvoices are genuine?
I am not saying that there is no Black Water in Pakistan. I am simply saying that there is so much sensational rumors based journalism going on about things that are not important. We the patriotic Pakistanis should be more concerned about the crisis in Baluchistan, food mafia, water and power resources. These issues are the real security threats to Pakistan.
I strongly urge the Pakistani blogging community to please be responsible. There is very little difference between fact and fiction. Do not sensationalize things on your own. Get some documented proof or make sure that the sources you are referring to are showing some credible documented proof of the claims they are making.
