Saturday, October 31, 2009

Still Not a Fan of the Afghan War Right Now


Despite the relatively puff pieces that talked up very very very limited local Afghan successes, I was not swayed by the NBC News' Afghan War Pep Rally last week that seemed to take over their National News Show.
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The War's Proponents, which escorted Brian Williams' around by his nose in a most uncharacteristic way, had to tread a very tight line. They went out of their way to show successes versus the last time NBC was there (1 or 2 years ago) - and how good the US is doing (yeah us!)... But they also had to show why more troops were desperately needed because we were losing right now (need help ASAP!)
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The most Alice Through the Looking Glass Moment came when Brian Williams intelligently asked what the difference was between the Taliban and Al Queda. The military commander said, that when we invaded we did so only to drive Al Queda out of Afghanistan and they were two entirely different groups. But in the last few years they have joined forces and we have to defeat them both. Brian Williams nodded intelligently, but did not ask the obvious follow up, "Why are they united now?"
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It is because they are united now against an occupying power, us!!!
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I was embarrassed by lack of follow through and what was obviously propaganda shown to the US population in exchange for access to good footage. It was not worthy a news organization that is usually as good as the one headed by NBC's Brian Williams.