My friend Stephen, who really should be at home writing a book or in comfortable semi-retirement, is actually here:
As the only journalist to join NATO forces entering the town, I found it a ghost town abandoned by both the Taliban and its residents at the end of an eight-day coalition operation. The offensive was one of NATO’s biggest in the country since Operation Anaconda in 2002.
Embedded with a team of British troops and a detachment/“A–team” of U.S. special forces, I watched the Taliban being pounded these last few days with overwhelming force — vapour trails circled in the clear blue sky over the Helmand desert as B1 and B52 bombers backed by A10 tank busters, F16s, Apache helicopters and Specter gunships were used to kill hundreds of Taliban fighters.
If Stephen hadn’t been there, you might never had heard of this operation – independently and at first-hand. It’s called reporting.
2 responses to “Reporting from Musa Qala”
Embedding with British troops and the ‘A-Team’ isn’t ‘independently reporting’.
Stephen Grey’s report says “The aim is to reconquer a swathe of territory that the Taliban has dared to call its own.”
Those pesky Afghans…how dare they claim part of their (ahem) homeland as their own! I mean, the nerve of it!
Any independent news on the Musa Qala civilian casualties?
OK, I meant “anglophone, culturally compromised, militarily beholden, post-colonialist, corporate media agenda-serving” reporting.
Embedded journalism is as good as the journalists doing it, period. It comes with all the caveats you’d expect.
If you want to go into textual analysis, liberal media critics would read the line you quoted as undermining the publicly stated military aims by using the word “reconquer.” And as for the reference to Taliban daring…
And I’m sure you’re not implying that the Taliban are representative of Afghans?
Seriously though, I’d rather learn about Musa Qala from Stephen than from a press release.
BTW, you might like to read his book, Ghost Plane.