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Unforeseen developments inside Afghanistan have derailed the projections made by the United States and Pakistani military strategists that Mulla Omar-led Taliban regime may be crushed under a political and military rebellion within first few days of US aerial strikes over Afghanistan. It proceeds to state that attempts to convince the warlords to change side have failed. Whenever I see a report like this, my first question is "What is the bias of the news source, if any?" So I switched to the front page and checked out some other articles. All the stories I read did present both points of view, i.e. the Taliban and the US sides, but the Taliban side was presented first and in greater length, and in a fashion which suggested that they had greater credibility. For example, there were the Taliban claims to have shot down a US helicopter last weekend during the armed raid made by our Rangers. Here's their coverage of that. Now it has to be kept in mind that the Taliban have been caught lying repeatedly, and it's happened again. They let a crew from CNN film the wreckage. Someone on Plastic noticed an inconsistency in the details; the only two helicopters which could have created that wreckage, if it was genuine, were heavy lift helicopters which would not have been used in an operation like that. The most likely conclusion is that the wreckage came from two different helicopters and was put in place by the Taliban as a fake-job; it's difficult to say where it did actually come from, but it wasn't where they said it was. But you see no sign of that in the coverage on New International. Reading that you come away with the impression that the Taliban really did shoot one down and the US is covering up. All the other articles I read had a similar slant. So I come back to this specific article, and I have to conclude that what we see is a half-empty cup being declared "full" as opposed to "empty" (or "half full"). This particular author seems to give every benefit of the doubt to the Taliban. I don't think it is conscious distortion. This reporter is in Pakistan, and naturally he's looking at the war from the point of view of his nation, which until just recently was the major backer of the Taliban in Afghanistan. In fact, it was Pakistan itself which fostered the Taliban as a means of removing what is now known as the "Northern Alliance" from power in Afghanistan in the mid 90's, and it is still Pakistani government policy that whatever the future may hold for Afghanistan, it's not going to be a government primarily made up of the Northern Alliance. I think it's natural that a Pakistani journalist in that situation would tend to see the Taliban as being strong; perhaps even as being stronger than it really is. (Here's an example of how another newspaper in Pakistan views the situation in general.) As with some other people who have declared that this campaign has already failed, I think this guy is jumping to conclusions a bit too soon. (discussion in progress) Of course, my point of view is biased, too, and in the other direction. |
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