Vietnam... Iraq... Afghanistan
Different Conflicts... Same Stink
Ever since Celestial Junk started posting daily Afghan news, I’ve been forced to scrutinize the cant that the Afghan conflict is given by news agencies from around the world. Lately I’ve been making a special effort to include a variety of opinion pieces along with hard news. The process of gathering op-ed, to say the least, has been revealing.
Journalists are obviously a pack animal, and like pack animals they seem to rush hither and yon in more or less the same direction, reporting not only the same news, but reporting it with the same cant. In other words, group think seems to be the modus operandi. For years now, journalists were focused on the Iraq conflict, as if it were the only front in the war on Islamic fascism. The struggles in Chechnya, Thailand, Kashmir, and even Afghanistan, were largely forgotten by news rooms. And, like pack animals, the overwhelming theme was that Iraq is a blood bath; period. Daily violence summaries were the standard; and little else.
From day one of the Iraq conflict, journalists, especially in their opinion pieces, portrayed the Iraq conflict as a quagmire, and this even before any reasonable person could’ve identified it as such. In the meantime, concise reporting on what is a diverse, evolving, and complicated situation, was and is virtually non-existent.
Even after hundreds of millions of words have been published or spoken by the MSM in regards to Iraq, the average person would be hard pressed to describe, in a systematic and detailed way, what the situation is throughout all of Iraq; unless that is, they seek alternative sources on which to build their understandings. The overwhelming result of MSM reporting on Iraq has been to create a crushing and defeatist “quagmire” mindset within the western public. If one’s only source of information is the MSM, this mindset is completely unavoidable.
Whether or not Iraq is a quagmire as of September 15, 2006, is irrelevant to the point being made here. The point is that long before sectarian violence became common place, and long before Iran was heavily involved, the media had created a quagmire by simply reporting almost exclusively on coalition and civilian deaths. No individual could escape the defeatist mentality because all they have seen, day in day out, is Iraq violence at the exclusion of all else.
Now the pack has shifted and snooped out a new swamp. Afghanistan, after years of being overlooked, has got the pack’s attention, and quagmire is once again the theme being drummed out constantly on most journalists keyboards throughout the western world.
I read anywhere from 5 to 10 Afghan conflict opinion pieces daily, and triple that number of news pieces on Afghanistan, from sources as varied as are possible via the internet. And, one undisputable fact emerges; western news media is bound and determined to create a Vietnam mindset out of the Afghan conflict no matter the reality on the ground.
What amazes me is that the vast majority of opinion pieces are based on nothing, literally. So called “expert” opinion is drawn from usually dubious or bias sources, and more often than not only specific pacifist supporting evidence is presented. The opinions of those actually in Afghanistan for protracted periods of time are seldom sought, and often actually twisted and reported out of context.
The opinions of Afghans who live in the west are treated like the irreproachable musings of the gods (as long as the quagmire theme is supported). Mitigating circumstances, context, and contrary evidence are seldom included even in hard news pieces. European news agencies are especially guilty of filtering available news to fit with Euro-pacifist dogma.
The present theme being drummed out of British media these days is that the British army is (one) going it virtually alone in Afghanistan (two) British troops are at the end of their wits and capacity (three) Britain is cleaning up an American mess (four) America is tucking tail and running. From subtle innuendo to outright fallacious commentary, it is hard to believe how any British citizen would not believe the above; they simply have no choice based on what is being constantly told them. In the rest of Europe, it is much worse.
Canadians should be pleased that Canadian op-ed content within the MSM is by and large mixed and nowhere near as overwhelmingly negative as European op-ed, although “quagmire” is a growing theme. The shortcoming of Canadian reporting seems to be the incredible lack of military knowledge within the media establishment. The recent proposal to send “tanks” to Afghanistan hit the media like a tsunami, largely because of ignorance; “Tanks… Canadian tanks…. Canadian tanks with cannons… in Afghanistan… we’re not making this us!”
The fact that aircraft with stunningly destructive capability have been slaughtering Taliban and pulling NATO asses out of the fire for months now seems to have been entirely lost on the pack. But “tanks”… now there’s a story. Sadly, most journalists seem to know virtually nothing about the military, combat, and military strategy, and despite this, they seldom seek the opinion of military personnel actually involved in Afghanistan. Essentially, we have individuals without the capability to conceptualize certain facts about armed conflict, yet they bring us and filter the daily Afghan news.
To be blunt, NATO is giving the Taliban a shit-kicking. NATO losses are small, especially considering that NATO is on the offense. Yet, judging by much of the news being reported, NATO, which includes our Canuck warriors, is losing. Increasingly, quagmire terminology is penetrating the MSM, and more and more pacifist ideology is being given prominence within MSM op-ed and even hard news. I read a lot of Afghan op-ed, and most of it is negative and simple rehashing of the same talking points.
The long and short of it is, that unless one gets information from a great variety of sources, and unless one uses critical thinking skills, the Afghan conflict will soon seem just like another quagmire; an Iraq quagmire… Vietnamistan. And this, no matter what the truth may be.
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