War / Peace

"We all know truth is the first casualty of war. But which side in this conflict is the bigger liar?" writes Andrew Gumbel for the Independent. With al-Jazeera the only television reporting coming from the Taliban territory in Afghanistan and the Pentagon carefully spooning out information to US journalist, it's hard to know what's true. Gumbel looks at a few examples of what the Taliban said, what the Pentagon said, and what we now know.

A full page ad in the New York Times from the left/liberal Institute for America's Future is headlined "Sacrifice is for Suckers." It condemns corporate war profiteering saying that "in the days after the tragedy of September 11 ... lobbyists for GM, GE, IBM and other leading corporations were quietly approaching their friends in Congress, bearing a wish list with hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts and special favors. ... We must not allow the war profiteers to win permanent tax breaks by exploiting our national emergency..."

"How and when does journalism become propaganda?" asks Jasmina Teodosijevic-Ryan. "As a writer, broadcaster and media analyst from the former Yugoslavia, I have observed the process first-hand. It starts slowly, then spreads like a stain. The transformation from objective journalism to propaganda begins with the addition of adjectives when referring to the other side. The 'enemy' becomes 'merciless' or 'hate-filled.' Then comes the shaping, cutting and editing reports to benefit one side. 'Our' victims have names, faces and grieving families; they must be avenged. 'Theirs' do not exist.

Concerned about appearing sympathetic to the Taliban, CNN chairman Walter Issacson has ordered his staff to "balance" reporting on civilian destruction and images of Afghanistan casualties with reminders of Sept. 11 victims and video of the World Trade Center and Pentagon. "I want to make sure we're not used as a propaganda platform," Isaacson told the Washington Post. "You want to make sure people understand that when they see civilian suffering there, it's in the context of a terrorist attack that caused enormous suffering in the United States."