I know how it feels when the media won't give you a fair shake. So now I'm full of warm fellow-feeling toward the courageous freedom fighters who shot that 14-year-old Afghan girl for advocating education for girls, only to suffer under a deluge of
scorn and contempt locally and abroad.
“The Taliban cannot tolerate biased media.” The commander, who calls himself Jihad Yar, argues that death threats against the press are justified: he says “99 percent” of the reporters on the story are only using the shooting as an excuse to attack the Taliban.
You carry out a perfectly justified attempted murder against a dangerous heretic, and then you make death threats against the biased press that cover the story, and suddenly you're the bad guy?
Mullah Yahya agrees with Jihad Yar that the media and the Americans are side by side against the Taliban. “But I would blame the Taliban as well,” he says. “If they allowed independent media to visit Taliban-controlled areas, it could have a very positive effect on their coverage. In fact we have suggested this to their media department, but they’re only interested in kidnapping reporters, not in cooperating with them.
I thought journalists were supposed to be sensitive to other cultures. If kidnapping is part of their culture, who are we to object?
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4 comments:
On the other hand, the Taliban are reasonably reliable about turning you loose once the ransom is paid. Think of how in-depth the experience would be. Pulitzer material, no doubt.
In truth, though, the story is right: the Taliban don't get the media and vice-versa. Not only does the media need some confirmation for their claims, as the one reporter says. Also, if the Taliban wants its side of the story regarding the girl to get told, they ought to explain just what gives them the right to shoot girls who want to go to school. Was there a trial? Who was the judge who licensed her execution? We'll need his name.
I think we'd all like to know his name.
"they ought to explain just what gives them the right to shoot girls who want to go to school."
In a nutshell, spineless fathers and in general, men devoid of character, curiosity, intellect, or strength.
...they ought to explain just what gives them the right to shoot girls who want to go to school. Was there a trial? Who was the judge who licensed her execution?.
There you go, imposing revisionist, not to say blasphemist, Western concepts on these heroic freedom fighters.
They ain't got no trials. They don't need no judges. They don't have to show you any stinking procedures.
Eric Hines
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