Indian Defense

Fire Imran Khan Or The Speech Writer? People Ask After Pakistan PM’s Mujahideen Claim At UNGA: Pak Media

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3 years ago

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Prime Minister Imran Khan is under fire — again. And this time, it has to do
with his address to the 76th session of the General Assembly of the United
Nations — a forum that puts one in the spotlight before the entire world.

In his address, delivered early Saturday via a pre-recorded statement, he
spoke about how Pakistan, a front-line state fighting against the occupation
of Afghanistan in the 80s, along with the US, trained Mujahideen groups.

PM Imran Khan said that these fighters were considered heroes and went on to
state that then US president Ronald Reagan invited them to the White House, in
1983. The premier, citing news items, said that Reagan compared them to the
founding fathers of the United States.

Twitter users have jumped at the opportunity to point out that the statement
was supposedly made in error.

Journalist Gharida Farooqui wrote: “What an international embarrassment that
too at UNGA forum this time. US President Ronald Reagan NEVER compared
‘mujahideen’ to Founding Fathers. It’s a FAKE NEWS. PM Khan refers to a fake
“news item” to launch Pakistan’s case at such a prestigious forum! Who wrote
speech for PM Khan? Fire him.”

PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz chimed in to say that it is PM Imran Khan
that must be “fired” and not the speech writer.

“Bad SELECTION,” she added, in an oft-quoted reference to the premier used by
the Opposition.

Geo.tv did a little digging around to determine what Regan actually said in
his speech, delivered at an annual dinner of the Conservative Political Action
Conference, and whether he did really speak of the mujahideen in those terms.

It bears mentioning here that a commander of the Afghan mujahideen was
actually present at the gathering, and the US president was high praise for
him, going so far as to describe the mujahideen as “brothers”.

The relevant excerpt from his speech is given below:

“There’s much more to do. Throughout the world the Soviet Union and its
agents, client states, and satellites are on the defensive — on the moral
defensive, the intellectual defensive, and the political and economic
defensive. Freedom movements arise and assert themselves. They’re doing so on
almost every continent populated by man — in the hills of Afghanistan, in
Angola, in Kampuchea, in Central America. In making mention of freedom
fighters, all of us are privileged to have in our midst tonight one of the
brave commanders who lead the Afghan freedom fighters — Abdul Haq. Abdul Haq,
we are with you.

“They are our brothers, these freedom fighters, and we owe them our help. I’ve
spoken recently of the freedom fighters of Nicaragua. You know the truth about
them. You know who they’re fighting and why. They are the moral equal of our
Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We
cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left; it
is right versus wrong.”

While it can be argued that Reagan mentioned the Nicaraguan freedom fighters
right before saying “they are the moral equal of our founding fathers”, it
does not really take a leap of imagination to argue that he was speaking of
freedom fighters in general when he made the comment — especially when, just
moments prior, he had referred to the Afghan freedom fighters as “our
brothers” and said we “owe them our help”.

But while Reagan may or may not have been referring to freedom fighters
everywhere when he described them as no different from the founding fathers of
the United States, the comment has become a partisan debate in Pakistan, where
people have taken polar opposite views depending on which side of the
political divide they stand on.

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