by David Walsh
July 15, 2010
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jul20 ... -j15.shtml
excerpt:
The visit by MSNBC news program host Rachel Maddow to Afghanistan in early July was as revealing as it was repugnant. Maddow is a principal voice of the liberal-left in the American media mainstream. When her program first aired in September 2008, the press made much of the fact that the she was the first “openly gay anchor” to host a prime-time news program in the US.
Maddow spent several days in Afghanistan this month, interviewing American officers and soldiers, touring Kandahar and Kabul, discussing counter-insurgency strategy and the overall state of the US military occupation. Whatever misgivings she might have about the ultimate fate of the American and allied effort in Afghanistan, Maddow solidarized herself fully with the occupation and the US military, endorsing the bloody suppression of the insurgency.
In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, there were those in the US and elsewhere who were deceived into thinking that the American invasion of Afghanistan had something to do with bringing terrorists and their Taliban sponsors to justice. Nine years of the conflict—with the location and fate of Osama bin Laden largely dropped and the number of Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan calculated, by US officials, to be between 50 and 100—have clarified the issues.
The US ruling elite seized on the 9/11 attacks and, in the name of the “war on terror,” stepped up its drive for global domination. The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan never had anything to do with democracy, freeing the Afghan people from oppression, or safeguarding the US population from future terrorist attacks.
The massive military operation has everything to do with the vast energy reserves in the Caspian Sea region, oil pipeline routes, and the general determination of the US ruling elite to implant itself in the strategically critical Central Asian region, both in its own interests and to thwart those of its rivals in Europe, Russia, China and elsewhere.
Maddow and the entire American liberal-left, however, accept the premise of the Bush and now the Obama administration’s argument that US forces are sincerely attempting to set Afghanistan on its feet. During her visit and in subsequent comments, Maddow never seriously challenged the official version of events or in any way expressed opposition to the war, now the longest in US history.
Her program of July 6th set the tone. She introduced the series by suggesting that she and her crew had come to Afghanistan “to try to figure out two things about the war:
One, does it make any sense that America’s military is still here and in such huge and still increasing numbers? If you take as given America’s goals here, is putting 105,000 troops here the right to way to achieve those goals? And second, what does all that mean for Americans who are here?”
But this is to exclude all critical thinking from the outset. Any serious journalistic investigation would begin with precisely an examination of “America’s goals,” or, rather, the goals of those who are prosecuting the war. Why should they be taken at face value? White House and Pentagon officials were notorious and widely despised for their deceit during the Vietnam War. And who is unaware that the Iraq war was launched in 2003 on the basis of a gigantic lie?
If Maddow buys the official propaganda, it is because she is predisposed to do so by her class position and political outlook. She feels at one with the American imperial project, as she made clear throughout her trip.
On her July 6 program, for example, Maddow asserted at one point, “You fight insurgents by killing and capturing them, sure.” Who uses language like this? Maddow has adopted the manner of speaking of the semi-criminal elements who came to prominence in the Bush administration and continue to thrive under Obama.
