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News today seems to be sponsored, by someone who gets to benefit by the news...

It is just something that gets more polarized by the day.

Any fact seems to have two view points, depending on who the target audience is and one starts to scratch ones head to find out what the truth is. That says something about the quality of news.

Some fundamental themes today are:

1. Focus on the exception, not the rule

for example

a. "54 year old Indian man has not brushed his teeth since he was born!" could make the headline here.. they would even go to break that sentence to suggest that Indian men do not brush their teeth..

b. "Billions of people across India have been brushing their teeth since 3000 B.C. till today, starting with neem twigs to the latest Ultrasonic brushes!".

Let's see...

a. makes better headlines.

2. Take sides irrespective of the truth

a. Lashkar-E-Toiba is definitely a terrorist organization and granted there may have been some collusion with Pakistan in the early stages of the organizations creation where ISI had a hand in it, but the organization has been banned by the Pakistani govenrnment since 1998 for almost a decade! Also LET was started in the disputed territory in India, Kashmir which is being claimed by separatists, but is administered by India! So it is not fair to say that Pakistan is responsible for the Mumbai attacks...

b. Al-Qaeda is definitely a terrorist organization and granted there may have been some collusion with Afganistan in the early stages of the organizations creation where the Taliban had a hand in it, but the organization has been banned by the Afganistan government since 19xy.. So it is not fair to say that Afganistan is responsible for 9/11

again a. makes better headlines..

Except for the fact that a. was actually the headline in the NPR news today. Just couldn't believe what we were hearing! The logic was unbelievable.

To top things off, apparently the USA is going to give India all the support it can and also give Pakistan all the support it needs.

Did not quite get the part where Pakistan needs support right now. What am I missing here?

Ps. There are a lot of Peace loving Pakistanis out there and no doubt, they feel bad when all Pakistani's are portrayed as terror junkies. If LET and Pakistan are divorced, then the Pakistani government and the people should have no problem in helping India launch an offensive against LET, no?

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History

This post is about a thought provoking comment letter that was read out in the local radio news this week.

A listener had written in to compare today's Iraq to pre-independence India in the 1940's!

My intitial reaction was "bah"! After some thought, I realized that the comment was right on!

Both the countries were/are in a state of unrest caused by civil disobedience.
Both countries plagued by attacks on the occupiers (Brits/Americans).
Both countries dealing with separatists within, thanks to divide and rule policies and a furthering of various local interests (in India it was Hindus vs. Muslims and in Iraq it is the different Muslim sects!)

The point that was made based on these similarities was :

1. The British decided India was no longer a place they could occupy!
2. They came up with an EXIT STRATEGY!!!!
3. They got out a few weeks ahead of schedule and Lord Mountbattern just pulled out and handed over control to the Indians.

This resulted in the following :
1. Indians were forced to react!
2. They formed a govenment and learnt to embrace democracy and developed a system realtime.
3. They did go through a painful partition with a lot of bloodshed to appease the separatists.

It took a few decades, but finally, they got their act together and are a major player in the modern world!!

So, an exit strategy today might not be a bad idea after all!

Who knows, history might do the one thing she is best at doing.

Repeat herself !?

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