In case you thought the WikiLeaks story might change everything: The forthcoming Time magazine (out tomorrow) has a cover photo of a disfigured Afghan woman with the headline “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan.”
The implication would seem to be that the Taliban will commit similar atrocities without the presence of U.S. forces. You can see the cover (and a portion of the story) here.
Something tells me that no one at a the magazine’s editorial meeting suggested a “What Happens If We Stay in Afghanistan” cover headline, which would have been accompanied by a photo of the corpse of an Afghan child killed in an airstrike or a house raid.
Time magazine editor Rick Stengel explains the cover decision in some detail, writing that the cover subject “posed for the picture and says she wants the world to see the effect a Taliban resurgence would have on the women of Afghanistan, many of whom have flourished in the past few years.” The accompanying story, writes Stengel, addresses “how Afghan women have embraced the freedoms that have come from the defeat of the Taliban.”
Stengel voices his concern about the effect the cover might have on children, but decides in the end that
bad things do happen to people, and it is part of our job to confront and explain them. In the end, I felt that the image is a window into the reality of what is happening–and what can happen–in a war that affects and involves all of us. I would rather confront readers with the Taliban’s treatment of women than ignore it. I would rather people know that reality as they make up their minds about what the U.S. and its allies should do in Afghanistan.
Of course, what Time is depicting is only part of “the reality of what is happening” in Afghanistan.
Stengel notes that the”much publicized release of classified documents by WikiLeaks has already ratcheted up the debate about the war,” and that Time is trying “to contribute to that debate. We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it.“
He writes:
As lawmakers and citizens begin to sort through the information about the war and make up their minds, our job is to provide context and perspective on one of the most difficult foreign policy issues of our time. What you see in these pictures and our story is something that you cannot find in those 91,000 documents: a combination of emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land and the consequences of the important decisions that lie ahead.
The idea that the way to respond to the WikiLeaks documents is to highlight atrocities by the Taliban is precisely what CBS correspondent Lara Logan called for. It’s also propaganda.
UPDATE: woodward bernstein notes in comments:
this incident occurred while the us was in afghanistan.shouldn’t the time headline reflect that?
The attitude towards Afghanis seems to be the same as Lord Farquaad from “Shrek”: “Some of you may die. But that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.”
Anyway, about the women there… According to Noam Chomsky, “the leading women’s group in Afghanistan” was “calling for the overthrow of the Taliban and urging that this could be done from within, without devastating attacks on the country, which were driving millions of people to the edge of starvation.”
“We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it.”
If that’s not a textbook definition of “disingenuous”, then Barack Obama’s the personification of Dr. King’s dream, and not his nightmare.
These bastards don’t give a rat’s ass about Taliban victims. They were foursquare for the victory of these selfsame “freedom fighters” against The Evil Empire ™ twenty years previous, weren’t they? And weren’t the same atrocities occurring then?
TIME and the corpress en masse support the war for readily apparent reasons: the resource wealth, potential pipeline routes and geostrategic benefits that 9/11 provided an excuse to flex US military muscle to secure.
At some point, as with Vietnam, they may decide that it’s just not gonna happen, and will holster their agitprop pens (keyboards, whatever).
Obviously, that moment has not yet arrived.
I’m in shock. I just got done reading a Time article saying the Gulf oil disaster is not a big deal, then came here to this.
Growing up, I read Time to keep up on the news, and used to wonder what life was like for people in the Soviet Union who only had Pravda, and had to read between the lines to know the truth.
No need to wonder any more.
Although Afghanistan is not Iraq, the prognosis is similar: civil war and imposed fundamentalism. Of course, if we stay, there will be civilian casualties as well as civil strife. The real Time headline should have been “We Helped Turn Afghanistan into Holy Hell and We Have No Idea What To Do Next.” But that’s hard to fit on a magazine cover.
I am immediately reminded of how david rockefeller once in a speech specifically praised “…the newyorktimes, the washington post, and time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promise of discretion for almost 40 years..It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.” I’m not sure what year he said that. I read this quote recently after searching for “fascism” and from the following article:
“Neo-fascism in America” by Jim MacGregor- was reprinted and can be found at
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7553.htm
That was some handful of years back. By now I suppose rockie doesn’t even bother thanking them. They all must be so giddy together….that now everyone is… simply all comfortably on board ….with their own yachts, offshore homes and sweetly larger bank accounts. do you think? the editors and owners of media, i mean.
After reading MacGregor’s well-referenced article, I thought, byjeesuz, these iraq and afganistan wars and all the rest of our military madness!.. is still henry kissinger! and now i see, think i see, david rockefeller! bilderberger/ banks :wars and homeland (in)security.. for profit and ruin only! wow. kissinger. rockefeller. bushes. clintons. obama. new world order, no democracy, no free press or truth or thinking. that’s all. everything is theirs, that’s all. everything’s fine. everything in suffering fascist order!
i feel better.
Is Time Magazine still partly owned by an oil corporation? This goes way back, as I do, but as I recall it once was?
this incident occurred while the us was in afghanistan….shouldn’t the time headline reflect that?
I’ve noticed that the NY Times’ coverage of the Wikileaks whistleblowing has had a pro war bias too.
Well we went in to attack and push out the terrorists from the bases they were training in to attack and kill us.Mission accomplished.Then mission creep snuck in, and now we are nation building.Mission will NEVER be accomplished i fear.American boots will leave sooner or later.The Taliban fanatics will stay.Im afraid we are trying to pound the very rocks of Afghanistan into submission.This is a tough nut to crack.I hope the tide will turn as I am sure all of you do.But to say as some here seem to be saying that “we” are in the same category as the Taliban is ludicrous.We came to do what we must, and later to do that which we believed could help to cure the festering evil.The Taliban comes to kill, maim,and enslave.Free will ,or freedom to choose is anthem to them.The people here who defend them by attacking America would find their throats cut without mercy from these animals.Then they would hide in a civilian home only to be killed in an airstrike.And “blame America” would ratcheted up again.Democracies are simply not built for long wars.It wears on peoples consciences.Our enemies are real here.We need to remember that.They will use any weapon(nuclear?)to kill as many of us as they can.Collateral damage is a knee slapping joke to them.
What seriously undermines the editor’s assertion of trying to create dialogue is the lack of a question mark in that headline.
There is no question…only the answer: war.
michael e, you meant anathema, didn’t you. I’m so glad you don’t like that word.
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