Perhaps it was inevitable. In the worst days in Iraq, complaints multiplied about the media’s “negative” reporting of the war. There’s little of that now, as the situation improves there. Now, apparently, it’s the turn of Afghanistan, where the days may not be the worst they have been, but they are not good. In an interview given to The Associated Press on Oct. 26, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, blasted the media for pessimistic reports from that battleground, and he said he’s tired of it. On the same day he was interviewed, Stars and Stripes began a massive two-day series on what it called “The Battle for Afghanistan.” More about that later.
“Somebody likes to report an attack somewhere and that becomes the trend in Afghanistan, or they don’t report the positive events or the absolute brutality or the illegitimacy of the Taliban,” the general was quoted as saying. He said he was particularly perturbed about reports in the press that gave the impression the Taliban was about to storm Kabul and other cities. He called these reports “just not true.”
It’s a situation that’s frustrating for the warfighters and the press both. Soldiers know of favorable results that only they see. Reporters can’t be everywhere at once — there are precious few of them covering both wars anyway — and they feel duty-bound to describe the overall tide of battle to their readers and listeners.
And that tide, almost everyone agrees, has not been good of late in Afghanistan. Casualties among U.S. and NATO forces have increased sharply, as have those among Afghan civilians. The AP article quoted McKiernan as saying, “We are not losing Afghanistan.” But it also noted that in earlier congressional testimony, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said: “I’m not convinced we’re winning in Afghanistan.” He also said, however: “I’m convinced we can.”
A bit of semantic confusion, reflecting the unsettled situation in the country. That very instability is part of the problem. In Iraq the “surge” led to a reduction in violence that led to some real examples of economic and social stability which led to some serious coverage of same. From all appearances, the battle in Afghanistan is at the point where Iraq was before the U.S. sent in some 30,000 troops in what was called the “surge.”
In another seemingly parallel development, U.S. commanders have made it known they believe they need about 20,000 more troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, according to The Washington Post. That would be surge-like.
Against this backdrop, the Stripes series came out. It wrapped up a lot of developments, giving readers a rare comprehensive look at the conflict in Afghanistan. The reporters, Michael Gisick and Drew Brown, didn’t pull any punches with respect to the unfavorable things — the intransigence of the insurgency, the dominant drug trade, official corruption. But they also pointed out that many public works have been undertaken, and “access to basic health care and education has been dramatically expanded.” And they noted that a strategy of narrowing the battle to remote regions so as to spare populated areas was by and large holding.
In all, it seemed to me a fair and thorough accounting of what’s happening in Afghanistan, without slipping into the temptation of arguing who’s winning and who’s losing.
There was no indication that McKiernan, in his talk with The AP, was alluding to the series in Stripes, which is virtually the only newspaper regularly available in his bailiwick. I would have been disappointed if he had been.
