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Originally Posted by Tronic
Is the media biased? Possibly. But then tell me, which media is not biased? Now for your second point, I disagree that there is a bad image against Afghanis; the American image which I see projected is the US Army helping the common Afghanis by assisting in tackling the fanatical Taliban. I think most Americans understand the words Taliban and Al-Queda as the negative forces, rather then "Afghanis". And as for bad image against muslims in general; it is hard to judge whether it is due to bad image projection by the media or the recurrence of terror strikes and world wide arrests of terrorists who all have that one religion in common.
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I never made any claim that American media was unique in this way, I know it is not. My point was simply that American media is biased in a certain direction. I also pointed out what sort of propaganda is generally disbursed when it comes to shaping opinions on the Middle East, Islam, Afghanistan terrorism and their relationship to each other. The vast majority of Americans, and indeed perhaps westerners, have been conditioned to believe that Afghanistan is a medieval society which is a hotbed of terrorism and if these people are not invaded, occupied and "civilized" or killed off then it's going to be hell on earth for the west.
The "very very great feeling" that Karzai claims America has for Afghans are likely meant to be the above reasons which are supposedly motivating the American nation to continue to occupy Afghanistan since he insists Osama is nowhere in Afghanistan. Karzai also dropped a hint one of the benefits of the US occupation is that the Pak-Saud taliban caliphate was kicked out and secular democracy restored.
Anyway back to my statement regarding the multifaceted media campaign which is currently pro-war with regards to Afghanistan and Pakistan soon perhaps. As I mentioned there are obviously many different mindsets within the US. You have liberals, conservatives, right wingers, nationalists, leftist globalists, atheists, pan-secularists if there is such a word consisting of zealots who want to bring "democracy" to every corner of the globe in a fashion similar to a missionary does.
Now each one of these groups have regular, customized propaganda morsels dished out to them through the various individual "competing" media outlets which serve their regular news along with war propaganda which can consist of stories about how important it is to build secular institutions in Kabul for the pan-secularist, the right wing armchair general will learn how wonderfuly efficient US special ops are in hunting down taliban commanders, the atheist will come across some good news with regards to some madrassa being replaced by a coed kindergarten and feminists will delight in stories where burka clad women have been "liberated" from lives as beasts of burden and can function in society on equal terms. Very very seldom is it that one sees any respect for the indiginous values of the Afghan people. The emphasis is on forcing change and remodelling the place top down and bottom up to be nice and civilized and compliant and whoever resists this glorious mission will die.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tronic
Hey, and Karzai's an Afghani! And maqsad, can you kindly tell me that at present, which country looks up to Afghanistan? And Afghan way of life? I'm sure that is something which even most Afghanis despise and are trying to improve. And please don't bring in Afghani traditions here; Afghan present way of life (that of mere survival) and Afghan culture and tradition are two very different things.
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The further you go from Afghanistan itself the more the distaste grows for Afghans and their way of life. They are hated now in Iran also but do have some amount of respect in Pakistan partly because the western half of Pakistan is almost a clone copy, culturally , topographically, linguistically and even genetically speaking of Eastern Afghanistan. This contempt is growing in Pakistan, partly due to the Pakistani media's exploitation of the negative side effects of terrorism that is blamed on Afghanistan and NWFP/Baloch based separatist groups. Needless to say American media has also capitalized on and fuelled contempt against "the bad ones in Afghanistan" especially since 911.