Washington Post better avoid becoming a US Tabloid
By Makhdoom Babar
Editor-in-Chief

ON September 6th, 2007, the global community got up to shocking news. The news was that a B-52 Bomber Jet of the US Air Force took off from Minot Air Base in North Dakota and landed at Barisdate Air Force Base in Louisiana, flaying almost over the entire strategic depth of the US. May be it was a routine sortie that the said USAF Bomber Jet took but what was loaded on that very USAF Jet was not routine anyway. It was something that was enough to destroy at least half of the world. The said USAF Bomber Jet was carrying not less than 6 deadly Cruise Missiles, loaded with nuclear warheads and nobody from the US Nuclear Command and Control establishment had any knowledge about it. Later the US President ordered a probe into the matter and as a result of the outcomes of the probes; some four to five junior USAF officers were terminated from the service while no change or up gradation in the Nuclear Command and Control establishment was introduced at any level. It was stated officially by Pentagon that pilot of the said USAF Bomber Jet, “mistakenly” flew with nuclear bombs armed on the aircraft. There was no hue and cry made by the US media, particularly the Washington Post, The New York Times of the Newsweek. The US media remained mum over this averted massive threat to the global community and much more to the US citizens. There was no editorial or comment as a follow up and the matter was later hushed up very smartly. No one from among the US media questioned the so- called credibility of the US nuclear C2 (Command and Control).
However, all out of blue, on November 10th, the US media came up with a report, showing concern about Pakistan nuclear set up and nuke weapons. The Washington Post, in one of the funniest and self negating reports, stated that US plans to “seize” Pakistan’s Nukes as it fears that thy may fall into ‘wrong hands’. The newspaper further states that “but US officials are worried that their limited knowledge about the location of the Pak nuke arsenal, it was impossible for them to do so without any major risk”. Now from where can one get an example of such a self-negating report? On one side the newspaper reports that the US officials feel that Pak nuke weapons are so vulnerable that they can into the hands of extremists any time and on the other side it says that US officials say they have a very limited knowledge about the location of these weapons. One wonders that if the US government, with the availability of state-of-the-art detecting devices, satellite-based intelligence and sniffing dogs like spies, cannot obtain ample knowledge about just the location of these nuke weapons then how can any religious extremist get even an iota of such information?
The Daily Mail believes that this was a display of a yellow journalism of first order and nothing else. The Daily Mail would here like to discuss that Pakistan’s C2 was put in place in year 2000. This C2 is considered to be 2nd to none in the world and ever since the introduction of this C2; Pakistan has emerged as a very mature and highly responsible nuclear State of the world. We have examples in our neighbour where India placed a C2 some three years back and it is still to show any responsibility in safeguarding its nuclear assets. The stealing of a truck loaded with Uranium a couple is years back with no trace so far is one of the examples in this regard.
The Daily Mail would also like to elaborate here that there is a broad, wide and universal consensus in Pakistan over the safety and security of the strategic assets irrespective of politico-religious differences. All the political parties have always been in an un-written accord to ensure the strategic assets. This state of affairs clearly indicates that whatsoever is the political situation in the country and howsoever a government in power is fragile, Pakistan’s strategic assets could always remain safe and secure, owing to flaw-less C2.
The Daily Mail believes that Pakistan nuclear programme, terrorism, extremism and changing political scenarios are the hot cakes to sell for the Western and particularly the US media. When they have nothing to sell, they bring out these issues from their cold storages and reheat them and try to sell them like freshly baked hot cakes. However, in the process, they have started to cross all the professional and ethical boundaries and have also began to loose credibility. To our worthy colleagues in profession like those of the Washington Post, The Daily Mail’s sincere advice is that they should better stop indulging themselves into such practices of yellow journalism otherwise they will end up with nothing else but to earn an image of some tabloid media outfit.