Pakistan

Pakistan is a majority Muslim country on the Indian Ocean, bordering Afghanistan on the west and India on the east. British colonial rule ended in 1947. In 1999, the elected government of Nawaz Sharif was overthrown by Pervez Musharraf in a military coup. Pakistan, along with its rival India, are both nuclear powers.

In August 2001, Pakistan was described as having "failed to achieve political stability, sustained economic growth or a clear sense of national identity." 

Pakistan lobbying and public relations in the U.S.

 * In December 2007, Pakistan through its embassy in Washington, DC hired an American lobby firm, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, to improve Pakistan's image in the U.S. The contract runs initially for three months. Ogilvy's work is to do media training for members of the embassy, guidance, reporter outreach, and write press material. Ogilvy is to be paid US$45,000 per month.


 * Pakistan has renewed its contract with Van Scoyoc Associates, Inc. lobby firm, initially signed in the summer of 2007. The fee runs $55,000 per month.


 * In 2007, Pakistan had been getting criticism from the U.S. Congress and from the presidential candidates and in response has increased its lobbying and public relations activity in the U.S. The Hill reported:


 * Cassidy & Associates has inked a year-long $1.2 million contract with Pakistan’s embassy in Washington, according to records filed with the Justice Department. Cassidy’s work will involve an intense lobbying and public-relations campaign promoting Pakistan’s status as an “important strategic partner of the U.S.”


 * “We thought we had some challenging issues and we thought we should add another lobbying firm,” said Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, first secretary of political affairs at Pakistan’s Washington embassy.

U.S. military in and near Pakistan
In January 2008, Pakistan President Musharraf turned down proposals from Mike McConnell, the director of U.S. national intelligence, and General Michael V. Hayden, the director of the CIA, to increase U.S. military presence in the country. Predator surveillance/attack aircraft are now used in the country against Al Qaeda, Taliban, and other militant groups and talks are underway to increase the use of these aircraft.

The New York Times reported, "The C.I.A. operatives in Afghanistan and the covert Special Operations forces there have made little secret of their desire to move into the tribal areas with or without Mr. Musharraf’s explicit approval. In the administration, there has been discussion of whether Mr. Bush should give orders to allow them more latitude. Mr. Musharraf has explicitly rejected that, and within days after Mr. McConnell and General Hayden’s departure, he told a Singapore newspaper that any unilateral action by the United States would be regarded as an invasion."

The U.S. is giving large sums of money to the Pakistani military. "At the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week, Mr. Musharraf said several times that the 100,000 Pakistani troops that he said were now along the border were hunting for Taliban extremists and “miscreants,” but he also said there was no particular effort being put into the search for Qaeda fighters. In Washington, however, the Bush administration has said that fighting terrorists, chiefly Al Qaeda, is the primary purpose of the $10 billion in American aid that has been sent to Pakistan, mostly for reimbursements for the cost of patrolling the tribal areas."

Media
The BBC says of the country's media:


 * President Pervez Musharraf's rule ushered in increased freedom for the print media and a liberalisation of broadcasting policies. However, media rules were tightened in 2007 in the midst of an opposition campaign against the president. The legislation gave the broadcasting regulator more power to shut down TV stations.


 * Many Pakistanis watch international satellite TV channels, via a dish or an often-unlicensed cable TV operator. Indian channels such as Zee TV and STAR TV are popular with those who can receive them. The channels circumvent censorship in Pakistan that is far more restrictive than in India.

Pakistan and tobacco issues
A document from the Philip Morris collection shows that Pakistani smokers' fears and anxieties about health were considered a "market opportunity" for cigarette companies to market "light" cigarettes in that country.

In countries where information about the health effects of smoking is less advanced, cigarette makers anticipate an eventual increase in smokers' health anxieties and begin positioning their brands to cater to, and profit from those fears:

(Taken from Page 46 of the document, Bates No. 2504008518):

"The evidence as a whole seems to indicate, in fact, that anxiety about the health/safety had not yet reached the level where avowedly very mild cigarettes like Rothman's Lights could expect an extensive franchise...Over time, anxiety levels would rise, as they have done in other markets, and when this happened mild/light brands like Rothman's Lights would begin to achieve respectable sales. The indications were, however, that such as development would take some time." search_term=Pakistan confidential Additional suggested search terms: "Pakistan market," "Pakistan health," "Pakistan transit" (refers to smuggled cigarettes)

Leaders

 * Pervez Musharraf, President, General, came to power in a 1999 coup

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Shaukat Aziz - former PM (2004-7)
 * Anne W. Patterson - former US Ambassador
 * Wendy Chamberlain - former US Ambassador
 * Afghanistan
 * Barack Obama: U.S. presidential election, 2008/al Qaeda, the Taliban and Pakistan
 * Bush administration
 * Bush lies and deceptions: The Pakistani Exception
 * CMD Pakistan
 * Iran
 * Jundullah
 * nation branding
 * North Korea
 * nuclear weapons
 * Pakistan-Israel Peace Forum
 * Pax Americana, Africa
 * regime change
 * Saudi Arabia
 * U.S. military bases overseas
 * violence in the Middle East
 * weapons of mass destruction
 * Farooq Tariq - labour leader

1992

 * Murray Waas and Douglas Frantz "Despite Ban, U.S. Arms Are Sold To Pakistan," Los Angeles Times, March 6, 1992.
 * Douglas Frantz and Murray Waas, "U.S. Knew Arms Sales Broke Law, Pell Charges," Los Angeles Times, March 7, 1992, reposted here

2000

 * Syed Ahmed Tariq Mir, "Pakistan, A Failed State," October 1, 2000: "Mir, Member of the Central Co-ordination Committee, MQM, said in the SAPRA conference, that the effects of partition are visible in Pakistan even after 53 years of independence. He said Pakistan is ruled by 46 families and that the Mohajir population of over 30 million is being kept hostage by the Punjabi dominated Pakistani establishment."

2002

 * Javed Amir, "A Failed State with Nuclear Weapons," Dawn, November 24, 2002.

2003

 * "Pakistan: The world's next failed state?," pakistan-facts.com, February 28, 2003.

2004

 * "Pakistan hires Bush's man as US lobbyist," sify.com, February 10, 2004: "Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has hired Frank Howard, Jr., the man who managed President George W. Bush's election campaign in 2001, as his key lobbyist in Washington. ... Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the acting parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, told the Dawn newspaper that Howard was running a public relations firm in Bethesda, Maryland, and had played an important role in the Bush-Cheney election campaign. ... When contacted at his hotel, Howard confirmed that he was running a public relations firm named 'Eagle' and was here on 'business'."
 * Leon Hadar, "Were We All Wrong About Pakistan, Too?," Cato Institute, March 1, 2004: "The revelation that a leading Pakistani scientist has been running a smuggling operation that provided nuclear military designs to Iran, Libya, and North Korea, has ignited 'Shocked! Shocked! Shocked!' outcries in Washington. After all, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear military program is a national hero in a country that President Bush has described as a key 'ally' of the United States in the war against terrorism and the campaign to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). And Khan was a close associate of President Pervez Musharraf, the recipient of huge amounts of American military and economic aid."

2006

 * "Bush's Pakistan problem," San Francisco Chronicle, March 3, 2006.
 * Terence Hunt, "Bush: Pakistan Committed to War on Terror," Associated Press (ABC News), March 4, 2006.
 * "Bush convinced of Pakistan commitment in terror war," Reuters (Washington Post), March 4, 2006.
 * "Pakistan 'building new reactor'," BBC, July 24, 2006.
 * Gretchen Peters, "Pakistani Truce Already Falling Apart," The Blotter Blog/ABC News, October 24, 2006: "U.S. military officials tell ABC News cross-border attacks by the Taliban are up '300 percent' since President Musharraf declared a 'truce' with tribal leaders in the troubled Northern Waziristan region that borders Afghanistan." re The Other War: Afghanistan

2007

 * Satyam Khanna, "O’Hanlon Teams Up With AEI’s Kagan To Advocate Pre-Emptive Strike On Pakistan," Think Progress, November 19, 2007.
 * "Crimes Against Humanity: A Crisis in Leadership" - Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; and Part 4 provided by User:Gospelnous and posted on YouTube, June 20, 2008.

Profiles

 * "History of Pakistan" in the Wikipedia.
 * Pakistan, National Geographic, accessed January 2008.
 * Country profile: Pakistan, BBC, accessed January 2008.

Documents

 * December 10, 1971, taped conversation of President Richard M. Nixon and  Treasury Secretary John Connally, discussing Nixon's secret intervention into the 1971 War between Pakistan and India. A part of the Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia's Nixon online exhibit.
 * William Burr, ed., "China, Pakistan, and the Bomb: The Declassified File on U.S. Policy, 1977-1997," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 114, March 5, 2004.
 * Congressional Research Service Reports:
 * Pakistan: Chronology of Events, updated February 7, 2006.
 * Pakistan-U.S. Relations, updated February 10, 2006.