"The Afghanistan briefing: It’s getting worse"
Any reactions to the program?From PBS, a dynamite Frontline documentary designed to suit the moment: a new President who has promised to pay more attention to what’s happening in Afghanistan. At the risk of repeating something I’ve said a few times lately, Obama’s attention, while welcome, is certainly insufficient to turn around a declining situation in Aghanistan. A review of the Frontline documentary is here; the whole documentary, an hour’s television cut into more digestible chapters, is here. It is tremendously sobering viewing…(UPDATE)…and especially in the fifth chapter, has unsettling images of extreme violence, so viewer beware.
UPDATE: Watch this and ask yourself whether it portrays a challenge Lawrence Cannon can begin to comprehend. As a handy gauge, recall how much trouble he had deciding who is or is not a member of the Québécois nation.
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 12:12 p.m.
2 Comments:
I have yet to see the Frontline report, but I did read a highly critical analysis of the report elsewhere. Bill and Bob's Excellent Afghan Adventure is a blog written by a US Army veteran who volunteered to go to Afstan as a Police Mentor Team mentor. I'll quote the last paragraph of the review:
"Frontline's documentary is a great story of the Korengal, a poor study of Afghanistan on the whole, and an interesting primer on the Pakistani Taliban. As a briefing for a new president, it falls far short. As a briefing for Americans (its true audience,) it is deceptive. I don't know whether the deception was intentional, theatrically dramatic, or journalistically and intellectually lazy, but it is deceptive all the same. You never see 98% of the picture.
The whole review is here: http://billandbobsadventure.blogspot.com/2008/10/pbss-frontline-report-on-afghanistan.html
Frontline isn't known for its objectivity. This might be one of their Mockumentaries . . . selective editing and storytelling to achieve the end result you want
It is a show with an agenda on PBS which really has an agenda, so it might have to taken with some salt.
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