|
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
November 14, 2001
Steve
Perry
Afghanistan,
the Puzzle Palace
David Vest
The Great Unificator
Harry
Browne
Preventing
Future Terrorism
November 13, 2001
Peter Mahoney
Veteran's
Day, 2001
Rep. Ron
Paul
Expanding
NATO
Is a Bad Idea
November 12, 2001
Robert Jensen
Goodbye to
All That...
Patriotism
Nancy
Oden
My
Day at the Airport
CounterPunch Wire
East Timor
10 Years
After the Massacre
C.G. Estabrook
Instead
of Terror
Alexander Cockburn
Wide World
of Torture
November 11, 2001
Douglas
Valentine
Homeland
Insecurity: The Politics of Terror in America
November 10, 2001
Grover Furr
Seeking an Opposition
to the Afghan War
Bruce
Kyle
Anatomy
of a Green Smear:
Backstabbing Nancy Oden
November 9, 2001
Karen Snell
Torture By
Proxy
John Troyer
A
New Kind of Activism
Tariq Ali
Q &
A About the War
Michael
Colby
Schoolgirl
Gets Booted
for Anti-war Views
November 8, 2001
Mokhiber/Weissman
The
Cipro Rip-Off
Mitchel Cohen
The Smear Campaign
Against Nancy Oden
Steve
Perry
American
Roulette
November 7, 2001
Bahour/Dahan
Placebo Peace
Plan
Tom Turnipseed
Bush
Gives Billions
to His Oil Buddies
Cockburn/St. Clair
Greens, Airports
and
National ID Cards
Dr. Susan
Block
Ayatollah
Asscroft
Brian J. Foley
Bombing Campaign
Not "Self-Defense" Under International Law
November 6, 2001
Mark Scaramella
Where's
That Red Cross Money Going
C.G. Estabrook
Our Torturers
Sheperd
Bliss
Scott
Nearing on War
Rep. Ron Paul
Underwriting
the Taliban
Tariq
Ali
The
General Who
Came to Dinner
Evan Ravitz
Stop the War
Through
Direct Democracy
Steve
Perry
Hunger
in Afghanistan
November 5, 2001
Patrick Cockburn
Living
in the Minefields
David Price
Terror
and Indigenous People
November 3, 2001
Declan McCullagh
Nancy Oden Interview
Daniel
Wolff
The
Memphis Blues Again
Mark Weisbrot
War on Civilians
Dave Marsh
How
the RIAA (and the FBI) Cheat Musicians
Robert Jensen
Speaking
Out Against
War on Campus
November 2, 2001
CounterPunch
Wire
Green
Party Leader Detained at Maine Airport; Prevented from Boarding
Any Plane
Alexander Cockburn
FBI Eyes
Torture
November 1, 2001
Dean Baker
Dying
for Patents
Sami Amarah
US Attempts
to Recruit
Russian Vets of Afghan War
Molly Secours
Where
Are the Voices of Reason? Let the Women
Be Heard
William Blum
Unleashing the
CIA
October 31, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
Terrorize
the Poor,
Subsidize the Rich
Chris Clarke
Thank God
for Berkeley
Steve
Perry
The
Silent Genocide
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
November
13, 2001
Reporters Have to Press
Harder About Afghanistan
By Robert Jensen and Rahul
Mahajan
At at time when U.S. journalists could hardly
have fallen in line more quickly and completely with government
officials, it's ironic that the most common criticism of the
news media has been that they have "gone negative"
and been too critical in their reporting on the Afghanistan
war.
The problem isn't that journalists have
been asking too many critical questions but that they have not
asked enough of the right critical questions. The Northern Alliance
entrance into Kabul doesn't change the importance of those questions.
We all have a stake in this. A more independent
press would better serve the most hawkish Americans as much
as the doves. As citizens in a democracy, we all need the most
complete information possible if we are to participate meaningfully.
For more than a month after Sept. 11,
reporters rarely challenged administration claims about the
need for war and the initial war effort. In television interviews,
it was often hard to tell government spokespersons and journalists
apart. In recent weeks, as the administration's conduct of
the war in Afghanistan and handling of the anthrax crisis at
home made some critical questions unavoidable, reporters have
started asking officials - in extremely polite fashion - for
explanations.
At the moment, however, most of the questions
have been about the wisdom of particular tactics: Has the United
States been bombing too much or too little? Should the United
States launch a ground offensive? Going unasked and unanswered
are more basic questions.
For example, international relief workers
have made it clear that the U.S. bombing, which temporarily
halted food distribution and continues to disrupt that work,
risks precipitating an enormous humanitarian disaster as winter
approaches. The retreat of the Taliban to their southern stronghold
reduces, but does not eliminate, the problem.
However the conflict plays out in weeks
to come, the question remains: Why has the United States taken
such risks with the lives of the 7.5 million Afghans estimated
to be in danger of starving?
It's not that the U.S. news media have
made no mention of this issue, but that journalists have downplayed
its importance and refused to press when officials brush off
the questions with nonresponsive replies.
What if journalists were really committed
to reporting all the news, instead of the news filtered through
U.S. government spokespeople? Then perhaps the call for a bombing
halt last month by Mary Robinson, the United Nations high commissioner
for human rights, which was echoed by numerous other UN officials
and private aid agencies, would have been a big story. It was
- in the foreign press. In the United States, it was either
ignored or buried.
That lack of attention has real effects.
In Great Britain, more than half the people support a bombing
halt, perhaps in part because they have heard much more in their
news media about the impending humanitarian catastrophe.
This is not an argument for advocacy
journalism, but simply for independent journalism. An independent
press must be a reliable source for all relevant information.
To be that, an independent press must be skeptical and critical.
No matter what one's position on the war - pro, anti or confused
- we all should want, and demand, such independence.
Journalists say that is indeed what they
do, but the evidence so far suggests that skepticism has yet
to be applied to basic ethical questions about this war.
The argument for a journalism that presses
harder is rooted in the idea that in a democracy, we the people
actually have a role in determining policy and don't simply
follow the leaders. That means people need an independent source
of information from a press that does not accept the statements
of government officials as gospel.
Most people would agree with that during
peacetime, but many argue that such journalism is a luxury we
can't afford during wartime. Just the opposite is the case.
If anything, a critical press is even more important during
war because so much is at stake.
So let's stop sniping at journalists
when they do ask critical questions, and press them to go even
deeper. It may be that not only the vitality of our democracy
but the lives of many innocent Afghans depend on it.
Rahul Mahajan
serves on the National Board of Peace Action, and is author of
the forthcoming "The New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism"
(Monthly Review Press). Robert Jensen is a professor
of journalism at the University of Texas and author of Writing
Dissent (Peter Lang). Both are members of the Nowar
Collective. They can be reached at rahul@tao.ca.
|