PTI's new video war

Imran is expanding his war against the army top-brass, has got the top leadership on his radar, and is sending out provocative clarion calls to the country’s youth.

Today wasn’t the finest of days of chief justice Faez Isa’s Supreme Court. For someone who has tried to ringfence the court against political theatrics, he couldn’t stall the drift of the proceedings in the NAB case in that direction. Imran Khan, helped by the “show us the Pope in the Apostolic Palace Window” group, spoke nothing but politics. Form 47, informal martial law, fresh elections, stolen mandate, me this, Nawaz that, our persecution, MBS watch was my watch but NAB’s shenanigans during my tenure? No that wasn’t me etc. The court too bent towards politics with recalls of the vote of no confidence against Iman and how and why he resigned from the parliament interspersed by good samaritan calls for dialogue to calm the house on fire (read Pakistan). What was meant to be a technical debate on National Accountability Bureau’s governing legal structure became regurgitation of what we hear from PTI’s X account. Imran had a field day. It didn’t look like CJ Faez’s court. It seemed as if the Bandiyals were back.

One could live with this momentary relapse of court events to the good-to-see-you days if these engagements had produced a window for a political breakthrough. None could come. Imran paid no attention to pleas for sanity. That’s because his real issue is not with politicians in the other camp but with the army. On that front he continues to heat up an already burning flame by spearheading a smear and slime-throwing campaign of unprecedented nature. His court statements were just a distraction from this core fact.

Those who think otherwise should closely look at the PTI’s video war’s latest product. This one doesn’t just focus on army chief General Asim Munir. It aims at the entire top army leadership, corps commanders, formation commanders, and staff officers included. Here is a quick forensic profile of it.

Misleadingly titled around the Special Investment Facilitation Council—the army’s hybrid effort to pull in mega foreign investment in collaboration with the civilian government—the 2 min 52 secs long video’s opening shot makes it look like a critique of this body’s performance. What follows, however, is a full-blown dirty bomb strike on General Headquarters, hitting areas that the previous social media campaigns avoided.

The video trains multi-barrels towards the full spectrum of General Asim’s commanders whose last meeting’s press release had taken a stern note of the PTI’s vicious propaganda. The video shows the commanders’ still picture with General Asim’s insert, and questions whether the army’s whole purpose of existence was to battle “Pakistan’s most popular party”. And that’s just the start. It then unlatches its full ammo load and drops in meticulously-organized blitz. As the visuals roll, the voice over calmly talks about the army’s “majority” being “professional, morally well-grounded and oath-abiding” but categorizes the rest---the top of the hierarchy and not just one man---being consumed by the “compulsion to pit the institution against the people.”

While this fake division is narrated, the screen splits into two windows. One (the good window) runs visuals of smartly turned-out young recruits marching in immaculate formation. Simultaneously, the second window (the bad window) shows what looks like Rangers firing into a crowd.

As any ordinary videographer will tell you, videos are made to tell stories. As any ordinary video editor will tell you, video chunks are selected and lined up for editing with only one purpose: to create maximum and lasting impact on the viewer. Video frames are to the editors what words are to the writers. Each is carefully chosen to fit a context and each serves the purpose of expressing a coherent thought and a clear message. Even voice overs (the audio that accompanies the selected videos) are subject to the selection of the visuals. You select the visuals first and then write the story. Not the other way around.

So there is nothing coincidental or random about the selection sequence in the PTI’s video war. The good-window-bad-window split, the choice of what and who is shown in these frames, and the oral narration are all combined to push the damaging propaganda that a “minority has a problem with Imran while the majority is cool.” The new and more malevolent dimension of the propaganda now includes “the whole of the army leadership” under General Asim Munir’s leadership.

The video takes a tone jump when it mentions expanding terrorism. The audio difference in this section and the previous section seems to suggest that this was recorded in two parts or at different times or locations. The narrator however remains the same.

The terrorism-related bit of the video accuses the Army’s media body, the ISPR, of ignoring national security matters and obsessing with holding the 9th May culprits to account, therefore suggesting that they are putting the country in harm’s way as they neglect their core responsibilities for the sake of keeping Imran in jail. The video quotes selective data from 2023 and 2024 but conveniently forgets to mention the start of these disturbing trends from 2020 onwards when the Imran government run decided to populate Pakistan’s border areas with Afghanistan and other KP districts with relocated Taliban in the name of reconciliation. Nor does it mention a long series of martyrs from the forces whose loss of life not only shows the intensity of the battles fought against these groups, re-entrenched since past four years, but also the declared policy to combat the threat. But then the video is not meant to pay homage to anyone nor factually report a national security challenge—it is designed to damage the professional profile of the institution that Imran started to detest since he was shown the door.

This deep hate oozes to the fore in the next part of the video when the narrator accuses, using the second person pronoun, YOU, the army leadership of having a sadistic mindset and, more tellingly, targeting the “youth” of Pakistan. It does not mention PTI workers nor shows any numbers for its insinuations. It instead frames an age-specific case of torture in prison. It shows the image of youthful hands (barely 14 to 16) whose nails are being pulled through a plier and speaks of mental and sexual abuse of the jailed (again no names, no numbers, just an image of hands holding jail doors). The images are computer generated.

It then rambles on to push the charge of ‘YOU’ stopping the PTI from contesting elections, sentencing Imran for 31 years, and of instituting humiliating cases against a modest woman like Bushra. It reverts back to the pictures of General Asim Munir and mocks the 83rd formation commanders meeting saying that they meet only to think of further ways to torture Imran. The endlines about SIFC are mere fillers to justify the title.

The long and short of the forensics of the video therefore is that Imran is expanding his war against the army top-brass, has got the top leadership on his radar, and is sending out provocative clarion calls to the country’s youth. This is worse than the last video he posted from his account even though this one has been put out from the party X handle only, and was reposted quickly by PTI USA.

The judges desire for dialogue notwithstanding, Imran is creating a do or die situation for his party. He thinks he can do all this and, not just get away with it, but also get out of jail and grab back power. He is not the only one. Some of his political allies in robes (the show us the Pope pack) also think the same way. These actions have steamed up the system fully and it is not possible to defuse the situation. Imran’s isn’t petitioning for peace. He waging a war. Every moves he makes and every video he puts out speak of that intent. This is not going to be sorted out by hopeful homilies.