US airs ads on Pak TV condemning anti-Islam film to pacify enraged Muslims - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The US is airing advertisements on Pakistani television condemning the anti-Islamic film - The Innocence of Muslims - in a bid to pacify the enraged Muslims. "As you know, after the video came out, there was concern in lots of bodies politic, including Pakistan , as to whether this represented the views of the U.S. Government. So in order to ensure we reached the largest number of Pakistanis - some 90 million, as I understand it in this case with these spots - it was the judgment that this was the best way to do it," Politico quoted State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, as saying. The ads show clips of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemning the film in English (dubbed in Urdu) in remarks they made last week, emphasizing that it was not produced or authorized by the U.S. government. "In the case of Pakistan , it is common and traditional to have to buy airtime on Pakistani TV for public service announcements. So in that environment, it was their recommendation that we buy some airtime to make sure that the Pakistani people would heard the President's messages and the Secretary's messages, so we did purchase some time, is my understanding, on Pakistani TV stations, all of the stations," Nuland said. She pointed to other instances of the U.S. government airing ads in foreign markets - including after the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan . The anti-film, made by an Israeli American who goes by the name of Sam Bacile, has created a furore across the Muslim world, leading to worldwide protests against the US.