November 16, 2005
Losing by Press in Afghanistan
This paper, by a Canadian historian in Paramaters, a military journal, is the best overview that I have seen in a long time on the current situation in Afghanistan. It is guardedly optimistic. Problems remain, but the author is clear eyed about them. The biggest problems are caused by the press' hunt for an Afghan Abu Ghraib, demanding Nuremberg or Bosnia style international trials, a media obsession with fighting a drug war in Afghanistan, and a continued belief that more boots on the ground are the answer. Really worth reading.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 02:15 PM
June 09, 2005
Press Bias, Fisk and Thucydides
This article by Keith Windschuttle is very interesting. He comes close to asking a question that has been on my mind ever since my first trip to Iraq in 2003. Why are reporters reporting the last war? It used to be generals who were accused of fighting the last war, but campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq were utterly new and weren't even similar to each other, let alone Vietnam. Windschuttle also makes some interesting points comparing Fisk's descriptions of bin Laden to British colonial descriptions of Arab leaders and details how press coverage has been skewed.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 02:07 PM
April 25, 2005
Marla
One Saturday in Iraq, on a busy stretch of road far from U.S. checkpoints, anti-democratic terrorists murdered an acqaintence of mine—Marla Ruzicka.
We met at the home of Eli Lake, a New York Sun reporter who regularly scoops the bigger media on national security and middle-eastern affairs. A few of us stepped outside to smoke and talk about Iraq, where each of us had been. She seemed incredibly intrepid; a short blonde who didn't like guns journeying into war zones to help the people that the cameras ignore.
She was anti-war and dedicated to helping people in Afghanistan and Iraq, facts that even Time manages to get right.
But the larger signifigance of her murder, which was missed by Time, is noted by the Belmont Club, a consistently interesting and intelligent blog. She was killed by a roadside bomb, the kind where the killer chooses a victim at distance and triggers the blast.
In the Vietnam era, liberals decried "push button wars." Now, when they are carried out by an enemy that many grandly call the "insurgency," they shrug.
In our one real conversation, she said that she was going back to Iraq. She was going back to help; she was a brave humanitarian. She was 28.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:35 AM