TIME magazine uses exploitive photo to pimp nation-building
Disclaimer: The following post contains graphic images
This morning, TIME Managing Editor Richard Stengel was one of the guests on Morning Joe because he drops by every week to unveil the new cover of TIME so my grandmother will know what it looks like when she decides not to buy it at the drugstore.
This latest edition’s cover is of a young Afghan woman who has had her nose and ears cut off by the Taliban. Stengel used the terribly sad image to argue that the US must stay in Afghanistan forever because, if we leave, women will become the victims of retribution.
Stengel also took issue with Biden’s assertion that we are not in the business of nation-building. Actually, says the guy with zero nation-building experience (playing on the Princeton basketball team – Go Tigers! – doesn’t count,) we are in the business of nation-building, and if you take issue with that reality, look at this poor girl – LOOK AT HER.
To my great surprise, Mike Barnacle sprang to life long enough to ask Stengel if the U.S. should permanently occupy every country that possesses a suffering population. What about Cambodia and Vietnam? What about Africa? In Congo, around 5.4 million people died in a single decade. Don’t they deserve Stengel’s sympathy? Furthermore, what about China and Saudi Arabia – two countries famous for their worker exploitation and human rights violations? Stengel dismissed those concerns, making the argument that we’re in the Middle East right now, so we should stay forever until all suffering has been alleviated with the healing power of our guns and bombs.
What is particularly aggravating about this latest TIME cover is that this is one of the only times a mainstream media outlet has lifted its self-inflicted censorship to show a victim of Afghan violence in a prominent way. Unfortunately, the editors at TIME didn’t show the world any of the horrific images of civilians who have become casualties of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of the region, or any photos capturing the tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children who have died during the Afghanistan occupation. Instead, Stengel and TIME decided to slap this poor girl on the cover as a way to pimp their nation-building bias, which by the way, nonpartisan Very Serious mainstream media publications aren’t supposed to have. Stengel was peddling an agenda like a lowly blogger.
Undoubtedly, there are those in the Taliban who seek to abuse and hurt women. That behavior is evil and should be condemned. The U.S. should seek to provide amnesty to endangered women wherever they live. However, obliterating the woman’s village in the spirit of “helping” to “liberate” her doesn’t make much sense. This latter scenario is what is happening far more often in Afghanistan.
Yet, the media hesitates to show the true consequences of war. For a long time, the Bush administration placed a ban on photographing military coffins, and though the Obama White House has since lifted that ban, the media appears to be complacent in shielding the U.S. population from the ugliness of occupation – unless, of course, it’s for the purpose of nation-building propaganda. In that event, TIME is willing to put a copy of a horrifically mutilated young girl in every household.
It’s not like the folks at TIME didn’t have a bunch of other photos available to help balance the narrative. Here are a few victims of Obama’s “Good War” that didn’t make TIME’s cut (warning: graphic images after the cut)
- A child injured in the airstrikes lies in a hospital in Farah province
An Afghan girl injured during an air strike in Garni village in western Farah province, recovers in hospital, on May 9, 2009. The United Nations said Monday that whoever was behind "significant" civilian deaths in heavy fighting and US air strikes in Afghanistan last week must be held accountable. (AFP/Reza Shirmohammadi)
Injured people by a NATO airstrike are brought to a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, Friday, Sept. 4, 2009
A wounded man is transported in a taxi to a hospital after an airstrike killed scores of people in Kunduz September 4, 2009.
And there are thousands of these images laying around. I’m sure the freelance photographers – even staffed photojournalists – would have been thrilled to have their work featured on TIME’s cover. Unfortunately for them, and the victims of U.S. and NATO air strikes, Stengel has an agenda, and that agenda involves ignoring the fact that the U.S. cannot bring democracy, nor stability, to a region by killing innocent civilians. And that’s all the U.S. is doing right now. Even General Stanley McChrystal admitted that the U.S. has killed an “amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat.” And for what? Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, said there are “less than fifty” Al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the Taliban have no navy. They have no airforce. The U.S. is literally now at war with an ideology that only becomes stronger as more civilians are killed and disfigured by the U.S.
Certainly, the victims of the Taliban must be helped, but a prolonged occupation isn’t the way to do that. It’s intellectually dishonest for Stengel and TIME to present this new cover without also depicting the total carnage inflicted upon civilians by the U.S.-led assault. Liberal media, my ass.
I didn’t read the interview but caught the story online. Did Stengel explicitly state that he was for maintaining the war effort? His piece online states that the image was not “for or against the war effort” and then follows it up with some lame blurb about providing context for what’s happening on the ground.
I was disgusted with the online piece. The interview sounds far worse.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100729/wl_time/08599200726900
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Matthew
29 Jul 10 at 11:58 am
Yeah, I meant to say I didn’t “watch” the interview.
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Matthew
29 Jul 10 at 11:59 am
He clearly stated the US was undergoing a nation-building effort, and we can’t leave because if we do, terrible things will happen to Afghan women. Of course, he skirted the obvious points that the occupation hurts women, air strikes hurt women, NATO missiles hurt women, and drone strikes hurt women. Additionally, he seems uninterested in the suffering of women in other countries. All of those statements and attitudes indicate he’s supportive of the ongoing occupation – for forever, maybe.
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Allison Kilkenny
29 Jul 10 at 12:44 pm
I have a good idea for a photoshop to show the stupidity of Time’s premise.
Put two pictures on a cover of Time. One is of the photo of the mangled girl that they used. The other is of one of the badly burned children that you have linked to.
The cover story: Instead of “What Happens if we leave Afghanistan” it would be “Which of these two things can America actually do something about?”
My problem – I don’t have photoshop. Note to self: Must get photoshop.
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Brett
29 Jul 10 at 8:53 pm
I think Mr. Stengel honestly cares about the plight of all Afghans, including women. I’m not disagreeing with the fact that there have been thousands of civilian casualties in Afghaninstan (and Iraq). I do believe that if you open a veritable Pandora’s Box you better find a way to close it. I will ask you a number of questions…
How many of you have spent any length of time on the ground in Afghanistan, particularly outside Kabul and the other cities? Do you TRULY have any clue what were to happen if we were to leave? And I’m not just talking over there-do you have any idea the implications here at home?
If you can’t speak intelligently you’re just playing armchair Diplomat or General. Would you appreciate General Petraeus walking into your place of employment and telling you how to do your job? Probably not, he can’t instantly tell you what needs to be done differently without knowing great detail about your work. I’m trying to draw an anology-does anyone get it?
Additionally, I hear everyone argue about the financial cost and the defense budget. I know the data-why don’t you take a look at the cost of all our entitlement programs versus the defense budget. Very interesting. I guess it’s better to keep paying out billions for welfare and unemployment to people without initiative (some are legitimately in need I know) instead of actually trying to do something worthwhile that benefits our national security and millions of Afghans.
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Sean
29 Jul 10 at 10:50 pm
Sean,
I’ve never been to Kabul, but In America, we citizens have a right and a duty to participate in goverment. That means we have a right and a duty to express our opinions about US foreign policy.
The generals have a duty to execute the policy we Americans want executed. They don’t get to decide it on their own.
I completely reject your assertion that our continued presenence in Afghanistan “benefits our national security”. There was some limited benefit after 9/11, but we’ve gotten all we can. I’ll allow that many Afghans benefit from our presence; corruption is siphoning off billions. I’ll even allow that some “real” Afghans are benefitting.
But I am no longer willing to expend the lives of US soldiers to help these people. It’s not worth it. Now, if you want to invade Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia then we might see some benefit to our national security, but clearly that is beyond our capability.
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Neil D
30 Jul 10 at 6:05 am
The most accurate analysis, I have come across, which explains what I had in mind.
Since the Wikileaks incident, the US administration is shying away from the leak as if they did not know about what was coming. The documents were from the US databases, and there was a soldier (Manning) who had already been detained for a s while and now charged with the leaking. Thus making everything look real.
This Time cover is part of the opinion building by the US pro-war fanatics, who want more funds, troops, ammunition, and power to send more troops into Afghanistan and also pull in Pakistan this time, so the war is longer than the next 4 years.
Instead the gullible American should be watching this video to understand what the heck is really going on there, and how miserably the Karzai Government has failed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7jAT0FAGBc&feature=autofb
In addition to this, Guardian released a video yesterday of the US soldiers in Afghanistan and the “hard” time they have to go through during war of “reforming terrorism” as they see it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2010/jul/29/afghanistan-war-us-military?CMP=twt_gu
History of Afghanistan says – Its NOT possible to invade them and change their life styles, as in the 19th Century the British were kicked out, and in the 20th Century the Sovets went through the same.
Now, as they lose the battle, the blame comes on to Pakistan, which is not just a blame but a way to create more hatred within Pakistan for the USA, and this will be a never ending problem if not taken care of by the American people.
I am sorry, but after all of this – 9/11 appears to be fake and orcharasted by the Free Mason CIA, rather than the stupid Arabs who were fixed for it.
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Syed Ali Raza
30 Jul 10 at 8:15 am
@Sean
If you’re using ‘welfare’ in its broadest sense, to include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, etc., then yes, it exceeds defense spending by a good measure. If you’re talking about what is commonly referred to as welfare (giving poor people money for nothing), then you’re way off – it only accounts for about 1% of the budget. And, if you add up current defense spending, past defense spending (veterans benefits, healthcare, etc) and the interest on the debt accrued during our massive deficit-spending defense buildup, the total defense budget is more than 50% of the total budget, far exceeding entitlement programs.
Also, there aren’t many people saying that nothing should be done in Afghanistan, and I actually take issue with the article’s claim that the only thing we’re doing there is killing civilians (there are thousands of Afghan children currently studying in schools opened after the fall of the Taliban who would disagree), but the main thrust is still salient – we’re likely creating more enemies than friends in Afghanistan right now, and that’s not making us safer anywhere.
I think it’s a danger to just walk away at this point, but current strategy might not be working (indeed, judging by the recent leaks, and even the pre-leak data showing a startling rise in insurgency, it’s obvious that it isn’t). If a responsible media were to publicize the civilian cost of this war (i.e., those killed in US/NATO air strikes, raids, drone attacks, etc) as much as they do the Taliban insurgency and American casualties, the public discourse that’s supposed to work in this country (where a civilian stands as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, as intended by the founding fathers) might stand a chance at effecting meaningful policy change.
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Conrad S. Bane
30 Jul 10 at 8:49 am
Well if you ask my views, I am quite clear Afghanistan has always been target of foriegn agendas. For once people should start think abount afghan people rather than what their national security demands. Further why do afghans live the way they do! It’s there way of life. If now an American thinks an afghan should live the freedom as American define it then, they might as well stay there forever because that’s what it is going to take. US has a strange way of making friends, attack and occupy nations to make them firends.
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Irfanam
30 Jul 10 at 9:51 am
@9/11 denier syed:
Your assertion of 9/11 being fake and CIA orchestrated is shameful and idiotic.
If you expect reasonable Americans to advocate for peaceful co-existence then you will have to abandon this fantasy.
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Neil D
30 Jul 10 at 11:31 am
@Nell D I never expect anything from Americans accept military invasions and support to dictators like Zia & musharaf in Pakistan. Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan attacks. I wonder who is next on the list!
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Irfanam
30 Jul 10 at 11:43 am
You need not worry, Irfanam, about being next on the list. You have defeated us. Just look at the pictures above and see fruits of your victory.
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Neil D
30 Jul 10 at 12:23 pm
@Nell D so it’s stop resistance or your people will die and we will blame you for it! Making sense to anyone
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Irfanam
30 Jul 10 at 12:32 pm
When discussions moved to national security frameworks and who-did-what-to-whom accusations, emotions raged and finger-pointings ensured. The civilians and the common people are forgotten. Their lives and welfare are of no concern to ‘big picture’ guys.
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KC
30 Jul 10 at 12:39 pm
[...] the total carnage inflicted upon civilians by the U.S.-led assault. Liberal media, my ass.Source:http://allisonkilkenny.com/2010/07/time-magazine-uses-exploitive-photo-to-pimp-nation-building/ Posted by Paola Fuentes at 14:50 Labels: ass time, civilians, liberal [...]
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Una opinión más: TIME magazine uses exploitive photo to pimp nationbuilding
30 Jul 10 at 5:50 pm
Out of curiosity, did anyone else notice the similarities between the Time article supporting US involvement in Afghanistan and Hearst’s newspaper articles supporting a US invasion of Cuba to liberate it from Spain? I’m not going to get into an argument of whether we should be in Afghanistan or not, but I find it a little sad that the public is getting jerked around by the press yet again. You’d think we’d learn by now.
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ThatJeff
30 Jul 10 at 9:02 pm