Afghanistan in the Media

This past June, the conflict in Afghanistan became the longest-running war in American history. Casualties have climbed into the thousands, and the cost of the seemingly never-ending conflict against terrorists has risen to hundreds of billions of dollars. Until recently, however, mainstream news media has failed to question or even largely cover the conflict, an outcome contrasting sharply with the experience of the Vietnam War. American justifications for the initial invasion, coupled with a great sympathy for Afghan civilians among the media, have dampened investigative reporting until recently.
A Just War?
Ten years ago, American and British armed forces and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom, with the goals of ousting al-Qaeda and creating a democratic Afghan state. Steven Bloomfield, Executive Director of Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, told the HPR that there was very little public outcry against the sudden war because of the immediacy and shock of 9/11. “It was a retaliatory movement. There was such surprise and shock and trauma that there was a sense that lashing out was legitimized.” By contrast, Bloomfield argues, “That was never, ever legitimized in a war like Vietnam.”
Timothy McCarthy, adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, adds that the media failed to critically question the justification and rationale for the war. McCarthy asserts that members of the U.S. media were emotionally connected to the events of 9/11, potentially explaining their reluctance to challenge the morality of the conflict. Indeed, Bloomfield says, “It was the foreign media and the rise of Al Jazeera and some European news sources who brought more incisive questions to what was the accepted standard of American and European foreign policy.”
Recently, the U.S. media has become more critical. However, most questions today focus on either the possibility of victory or the justification of spending taxpayer dollars on war during a domestic fiscal crisis. McCarthy maintains, “Those are fine questions to ask. But they miss the point. The point is that, should we even be there?” Indeed, under a Just War framework of a morally sanctioned conflict requiring a both a just cause–like defense against aggression or protection of the vulnerable–and a just manner of action–including targeting only combatants and the proportional usage of force—the case for Afghanistan seeks week indeed. New media coverage increasingly reflects this analysis.
Afghan Women in War
The media’s portrayal of Afghan women further contributed to the popular justification for intervention. McCarthy notes that in the midst of the wars, “Laura Bush and a number of other people talked about the way this was helping to free the women of Afghanistan…that the war was some kind of feminist enterprise designed to liberate women from an oppressive culture.”
Kathleen Foster, director of the documentary, Afghan Women: A History of Struggle, adds that despite horrendous human rights abuses directed against women in Afghanistan, “Afghani women have been extremely active and for decades been fighting for their rights.” Groups like the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan organize against fundamentalist leaders, including those established and supported by the United States. The mainstream media rarely addresses this side of women’s rights in Afghanistan, however. McCarthy adds, “It plays very well into the rhetoric when you see a poor Muslim woman that we’re trying to save.” By inaccurately cloaking the conflict in Afghanistan with the women’s liberation movement, the media strengthens the perception of the just cause for war.
Media Coverage
In 2006, Sherry Ricchiardi of the American Journalism Review called Afghanistan the “Forgotten War.” Her article noted that only a few major news outlets consistently placed reporters in Afghanistan, despite the conflict’s import. Ricchiardi joined a growing chorus of voices criticizing the lack of consistent coverage of daily battles and engagements in Afghanistan. The Obama administration’s newfound focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009 led to a shift in coverage, with Ricchiardi asserting that, as fighting increased, “more of our troops were being killed in Afghanistan and it was a hotter war zone.”
Nonetheless, the Pew Research Center nevertheless reported that 2010 coverage of Afghanistan constituted less than four percent of total news coverage. Beyond periods of intense interest in surrounding events like Wikileaks’ release of related documents, mainstream media sources have focused comparatively little on the war in Afghanistan. Ricchiardi observes that from 2003 onwards, the Iraq War was simply more interesting than Afghanistan because more troops, firepower, and action made it more exciting, while post-Iraq public weariness has contributed to a lack of consumer interest in war-related stories.
Reporting in Afghanistan
Marvin Kalb, former Harvard Kennedy School Professor and co-author of the recently-published book “Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama,” notes that reporters in Afghanistan enjoy significantly different roles than their predecessors during Vietnam. Then, reporters would fly from Saigon to the battle zone, take pictures and mingle with soldiers, and fly back in the evening.  At 5 PM news conferences every day, U.S. officials would present their version of the day’s events. According to Kalb, “That generally contrasted with what the reporters were reporting.” This divergence created a credibility gap, and Kalb notes that, “the public ended up not quite believing the government.”
In Afghanistan though, news organizations and the Pentagon have arranged for journalists to become “embedded” with troops. Some criticize embedded journalism, arguing that it allows military officials to manipulate the news produced by reporters. Kalb disagrees, maintaining that the Afghanistan war gave “a whole generation of reporters who had no military experiences their first contact with American troops at war.” Nevertheless, the government has released conflicting reports. For example, in 2009, NATO’s reported that a military operation had killed nine armed insurgents, but later Afghan investigators revealed the casualties were innocent civilians. The close relationship between the military and the media may thus undermine reporters’ primary goal of uncovering the truth.
Media Coverage and Anti-War Activism
During the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of students mobilized to protest Vietnam. Helen Garvey started working for Students for a Democratic Society the day after she finished her final college exam, even helping to organize the 1965 ‘March on Washington for Peace in Vietnam’. Garvey notes that in 1964, “no one had heard of Vietnam. But then on other campuses, there were a lot of people being drafted.” Most Americans had a family member or friend in Vietnam, and media coverage of the conditions and fruitlessness of the fighting led to widespread resistance to the draft.
In contrast, the past decade has seen minimal anti-war mobilization, and public outcry against the Afghanistan War was muted until very recently. Now, even the national Occupy Wall Street protests have taken up the rallying cry, “End the wars, tax the rich!” Will renewed public consciousness about the wars result in increased large scale anti-war protests? Media coverage may determine the answer.
Photo Credits: Flickr (familymwr, The U.S. Army)