Two current Washington Post pieces on Afghanistan are prototypes of balanced U.S. war reporting. One minimizes a huge U.S. loss in moral standing, the second exaggerates U.S. and coalition victories.
The first piece, by Washington Post staff, is: Anti-American Riots Erupt in Kabul After Traffic Accident.
A U.S. military cargo truck, driving a downhill road into Kabul, had a break failure, smashed 12 cars, killed one person and injuried six (other reports say some Humvees hit a traffic jam because of reckless driving). Angry people at the incident cite clashed with the police. Throughout the city there were all day riots. Offices were sacked and embassy personal fled into bunkers.
The piece has some 20 paragraphs. The first one says the accident triggered rumors that American troops killed a number of Afghan civilians who gathered at the scene. The second graph reports the U.S. to deny such.
Then follow lots of words of various actions and official reactions and some boring old bits on Karzei. Most of this is balderdash to drive readers away from finishing the piece.
Only in graph seventeen a U.S. spokesman says that U.S. forces fired into the air "as a show of force."
And in the next one we learn what really happened:
On the evening news, two TV stations showed what appeared to be U.S. troops in vehicles firing into crowds.
Most readers will never reach that paragraph and the following two which describe the worst damage. CARE’s office did go up in flames and a big new luxery hotel lost all its windows to gun fire.
Those readers who read only up to 85% of the installation are left with an impression of unreasonable and unthankful Afghanis rioting with limited damage just because of a traffic accident. They will not learn the important fact that the U.S. troops did fire into the crowd, that because of this being on TV the incident is a huge public relation desaster and that the very example for Kabul development, the new Serena Hotel, was hit and is, for now, out of business.
What a way to inform the public.
The second piece, through Associated Press, is titled Coalition Aircraft Bomb Taliban Site. It is exaggerating enemy losses. The lead is:
Five Canadian soldiers were hurt and up to six militants killed in a gunbattle Monday, while U.S.-led coalition aircraft bombed Taliban militants meeting in remote southern Afghanistan, reportedly killing dozens, officials said.
Fact is, only one enemy body was found after the shoot out, and up to five other corpses were believed to have been taken away. One would think that insurgents, retreating under fire, have other priorities than to carry away dead bodies.
In the U.S. bombing, which took place elsewhere, some mud huts were flattened. The U.S. speaks of dozens of Taliban killed. A regional vice puppet, the "Provincial deputy governor", echoes an U.S. spokesman and says 50 were killed "including Taliban commanders".
There is only one problem. Nobody has reached the place yet to make such an assessment. The U.S. has had no people on the ground and the govenors police force still has to reach the site.
So how did they know the numbers? Point is, of course, they do not have any real numbers. Maybe they bombed a farm house, maybe they killed some chicken, maybe they killed some Taliban.
No one knows, but it is sold as a huge victory. The war is going well and it will soon be won.