War Propaganda: With Its Horrifying Cover Story, Time Gave the War a Boost. Did Its Reporter Profit?

[Hannah Bell]

Remember this cover?



The maimed face of 18-year-old Aisha, her nose and ears cut off as punishment by her Afghan husband for fleeing his home, made the cover of Time magazine last week and changed the debate over the country's military involvement in Afghanistan. Hitting stands just as a growing chorus of pundits and lawmakers had begun to question the costs, the goals and the point of the country's longest war ever, the gut-punch cover image, beneath a stunningly blunt coverline conspicuously missing a question mark — "What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan" — and accompanying story by Aryn Baker, the magazine's Afghan/Pakistan bureau chief, gave a boost to supporters of America's continued military involvement in the country.

But there was more than a question mark missing from the Time story, which stressed potentially disastrous consequences if the U.S. pursues negotiations with the Taliban. The piece lacked a crucial personal disclosure on Baker's part: Her husband, Tamim Samee, an Afghan-American IT entrepreneur, is a board member of an Afghan government minister's $100 million project advocating foreign investment in Afghanistan, and has run two companies, Digistan and Ora-Tech, that have solicited and won development contracts with the assistance of the international military, including private sector infrastructure projects favored by U.S.-backed leader Hamid Karzai.

In other words, the Time reporter who wrote a story bolstering the case for war appears to have benefited materially from the NATO invasion...

And what about Aisha, a new war emblem? While it's long been evident that women have suffered unimaginable horrors under customs practiced in Afghanistan, Aisha's brutal mutilation occurred in 2009, almost eight years into the American invasion.


http://www.observer.com/2010/media/its-horrifying-cover-story-time-gave-war-boost-did-its-reporter-profit?page=0




http://politicstheoryphotography.blogspot.com/2010/08/time-war-propaganda.html

[Wilms]

1. knr

[mdmc]

2. ..

[Distant Observer]

3. It is so horible that West is establishing a Taliban type movement in Libya

Unfortunately, the main characteristic of the Eastern Cyrenaican rebellion is NOT that there is al Qaeda, but that the cultural and religious passions or the oppressed region tends AGAINST any religious accommodation and tolerance.

It will be a sad day for the rest of Libya when the Cyrenaicans take power.