Page 281 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

Afghanistan and 9/11 271

Rather than pushing the Secretary of Defense on the issue of potential mass
starvation of thousands (or even millions), reporters were generally intent on
asking tactical questions about American military superiority and the success of
"Operation Enduring Freedom." A short excerpt from one Q & A session be-
tween reporters and Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers reveals a lack
of combativeness and skepticism in the face of this "bread and bombs" cam-
paign:
QUESTION: General, the bomber aircraft-first, were ships used today? And
were bomber aircraft, both bombs and cruise missiles used again today as they
were yesterday?

MYERS: We will use some Tomahawk missiles today from ships. And there
were no cruise missiles used from the bombers.
QUESTION: And, Mr. Secretary, might I add, are U.S. and British forces at-
tacking Taliban troop concentrations as well as air defense and airfields and
other sites?
RUMSFELD: There have been some ground forces targeted.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, the issue of air superiority, can you say whether or
not that's been achieved? And do you have any sense of whether or not the
Taliban has been cut off from communicating with its forces?
RUMSFELD: I think it would be too soon to say that the Taliban air defense
and aircraft and airports have been fully disabled. That is not the case. We have
not got enough battle damage assessment to answer the question, but I suspect
that when we do get it, we'll find there's some additional work to be done.95
While a single reporter later briefly addressed the U.S. cutoff of food to millions
of Afghans, the issue was quickly dropped after Rumsfeld cynically dismissed
the problem by explaining that the few people who did get rations "would be
appreciative."96 The lack of sustained skepticism in the face of official potential
humanitarian disaster revealed much about reporters' lack of commitment to
adversarial, critical reporting on the food drop issue, and on the war in general.

Media Blackout and the Embedding Solution
In retrospect, it seems clear that the mainstream press was prohibited from, and
refused to, engage in in-depth, on-the-ground reporting in Afghanistan. Numer-
ous complaints were made that reporters lacked the access needed to accurately
report on the conflict. Paul Friedman, Executive Vice President of ABC News
complained that after the first few days of military action, "we-and therefore
the American public-really have no idea how it's [the war] going, what's being
done in our name and what effects it's having."97 As with the first Gulf War,
reporters were mostly prohibited from getting close to the battlefield in Afghani-
stan. Many throughout the press presented the embedding "solution" as the best