So. I watched a new National Geographic special last night about the "Lost Treasures of Afghanistan" which looks at the efforts to get archaeology going again in Afghanistan. Some may remember the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas. And others may remember the "Bactrian Gold". The program talks about these things, all well and good.
What is not good, however, is a rather glaring omission.
The program mentions the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; The resistance of the Mujahadeen; the Soviet withdrawl, and the Civil War and the subsequent rise of the Taliban and how the Taliban instituted a very strict intrepretation of Islam, and what that meant for women, why art had to be hidden, the disappearance of the Bactrian Gold, the destruction of the Buddhas, etc...
All with pictures and news reel footage of Soviet soldiers, Afghan Mujahadeen, exploding statues, kikuris cutting up paintings, women being shot in the head...and so forth.
And then....the program sort of starts talking about what's going on now in Afghanistan, and the its rather obvious that the Taliban are no longer in charge, and they're referred to in the past tense, and absolutely no explanation of how that came about.
Not. A. Word.
Even the National Geographic's website manages to spare a sentence:
"The Taliban was forced from Kabul after the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan in late 2001."
I wasn't looking for a history of the campaign. But even that sentence is more than the program provides.
I am really getting tired of this. Chris Muir's satire got it so right. (Look at the cartoon for 3/23/2005.)
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