Even for corporate "news," the hypocrisy on Afghanistan is a nadir

I know that I'm far from the only one who saw this coming, during the corporate media hysterics over the withdrawal of U.S. ground forces.

As the United States withdrew militarily from Afghanistan in August, US TV news interest in the plight of the country’s citizens spiked, often focusing on “the horror awaiting women and girls” (CNN Situation Room, 8/16/21) to argue against withdrawal (FAIR.org, 8/23/21).

Four months later, as those same citizens have been plunged into a humanitarian crisis due in no small part to US sanctions, where is the outrage?

...Since November 1, well into the worsening crisis, FAIR identified only 37 TV news segments from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox and MSNBC that mentioned “humanitarian” in the same sentence as Afghanistan. That’s 37 segments in seven weeks.

For perspective, as the US withdrew in August, journalists from those shows mentioned “women’s rights” in the same sentence as Afghanistan more often—42 times—in just seven days. Today, as those women and girls face starvation, the deeply concerned TV reporters are virtually nowhere to be seen. - FAIR

A superlative takedown of the contemptible pro-war cowards in corporate media

My take is that this won’t have a lasting political impact. But I’m noting that I could be wrong, and that the last time corporate “news” media behaved this despicably, pandering to the most misinformed and gullible segment of the population, Trump ended up in the White House.

Mainstream coverage of Kabul’s fall and its aftermath has been anything but circumspect. Attempts to weigh the benefits of America’s withdrawal (e.g., the humanitarian gains inherent to the cessation of 20 years of civil war) against its costs have been rare; attempts to judge Biden’s execution of that withdrawal against rigorous counterfactuals have been rarer still. Instead, ostensibly neutral correspondents and anchors have (1) openly editorialized against the White House’s policy; (2) assigned Biden near-total responsibility for the final collapse of the proto-failed state his predecessors had established; and then (3) reported on the potential political costs of Biden’s actions, as though they were not actively imposing those costs through their own speculations about just “how politically damaging” the president’s failures of “competence” and “empathy” would prove to be...

One can critically report on concrete failings in the Biden administration’s withdrawal plans. But one cannot presume Biden’s responsibility for every negative consequence that follows from ending a misbegotten war and deserve the title journalist. By privileging the victims of American military withdrawal over those of American military engagement — while presuming the U.S. president’s capacity to decisively shape events in foreign lands — the media has rendered itself objectively pro-war. In allowing personal attachments to dictate its humanitarian concerns, mainstream reporters have concentrated moral outrage on an injustice that the U.S. can’t resolve without resort to violence (the Taliban’s conquest of Afghanistan), while enabling mass indifference to a much larger injustice that the U.S. can drastically mitigate without killing anyone (the global shortfall of COVID-19 vaccines). - New York Magazine

Is the U.S. war in Afghanistan really going to end?

Depends on how you define "end," I guess.

But will the U.S. be leaving, really? By “the U.S.” of course, I refer to the massive number of private military contractors currently “working” in Afghanistan. In 2010, the contractors outnumbered the troops 2-1. By January 2021, there were more than 18,000 contractors in country. More than 3,814 of them have died over there, almost twice the number of U.S. troop casualties. They are almost invisible to the mainstream news media, and are there for the profit: Not just for themselves, but for the companies seeking to cash in on Afghanistan’s vast natural resources.

“But despite periodic reports and series on contractors by ProPublica and others, the mainstream U.S. media does not regularly pay attention to contractors,” reports The Washington Post. “As a result, they’re subject to political manipulation. These dynamics have contributed to what journalist Dexter Filkins has called ‘The Forever War.’ Which means that U.S. contractors could help sustain hostilities in Afghanistan, even after the U.S. pulls out its troops.” - Truthout