So now the nation shifts to war footing. I don’t know how much war coverage I’ll link to here, probably more than I intend to right now.
The thing to remember when it comes to media coverage of war is that it’s impossible to tell how accurate it is at the time. Whenever you see reportage or even worse talking heads on TV saying something, you should immediately apply a plausability test. That’s true whether you’re watching CNN, reading the New York Times, or checking out the Frontier Post from Pakistan online.
Just this morning, some talking head on CNN was asked whether our bombing of power plants in Afghanistan was an attack on the Afghan people as well as the Taliban. He said that we probably used some kind of munitions that knock out power plants for a period of time rather than destroying them, so no, it wasn’t. Even if we did only temporarily knock out the plants, it still leaves people (and perhaps hospitals) without power until the plants come back online. Taking out enemy power plants is a valid tactic in a war. I just don’t think that people ought to sugar coat it and pretend like there aren’t human costs involved in using that tactic.
At this point, I hope that we remove the Taliban from power as rapidly as possible, and move Afghanistan toward having a legitimate government not made up of criminals and thugs (in other words, not the Northern Alliance). People were dying in war every day in Afghanistan before we struck, and that’s going to continue for awhile. This war might be worth it if we can put an end to that cycle of violence.
So now the nation shifts to war footing. I don’t know how much war coverage I’ll link to here, probably more than I intend to right now.
The thing to remember when it comes to media coverage of war is that it’s impossible to tell how accurate it is at the time. Whenever you see reportage or even worse talking heads on TV saying something, you should immediately apply a plausability test. That’s true whether you’re watching CNN, reading the New York Times, or checking out the Frontier Post from Pakistan online.
Just this morning, some talking head on CNN was asked whether our bombing of power plants in Afghanistan was an attack on the Afghan people as well as the Taliban. He said that we probably used some kind of munitions that knock out power plants for a period of time rather than destroying them, so no, it wasn’t. Even if we did only temporarily knock out the plants, it still leaves people (and perhaps hospitals) without power until the plants come back online. Taking out enemy power plants is a valid tactic in a war. I just don’t think that people ought to sugar coat it and pretend like there aren’t human costs involved in using that tactic.
At this point, I hope that we remove the Taliban from power as rapidly as possible, and move Afghanistan toward having a legitimate government not made up of criminals and thugs (in other words, not the Northern Alliance). People were dying in war every day in Afghanistan before we struck, and that’s going to continue for awhile. This war might be worth it if we can put an end to that cycle of violence.
Commentary
Previous post
Next post