Zelnick and panel criticize U.S. efforts in Afghanistan

The United States government could do more to aid the people of Afghanistan, a panel of journalists, including Bob Zelnick, chairman of Boston University’s Department of Journalism, agreed last night. The panel also concluded American reporters face intense difficulties in reporting the complex aftermath of the war in Afghanistan.

In addition to Zelnick, the panel included Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, freelance journalists who showed footage from their recent trip to Afghanistan that documented destroyed cities, shelled buildings and a destitute orphanage.

‘If in fact the United States was serious about stabilizing Afghanistan, it could happen overnight,’ Fitzgerald told an audience of approximately 90 people at Northeastern University. But, he added, the government neglected the interests of Afghans while pursuing their political and military goals.

‘The U.S. could do a lot more in the simplest ways,’ Gould agreed, saying America was not doing enough to help rebuild Kabul and to make sure extremists and warlords are kept out of power.

Panelists agreed reporters in Afghanistan face the difficulty of explaining the complex situation there to American audiences.

‘Journalism … demands that you write things simply and clearly and things aren’t simple and clear here,’ said Steven Komarow, a USA Today correspondent who was featured in ‘Voices of Afghanistan,’ Fitzgerald and Gould’s video.

Zelnick praised American reporters, who he said performed admirably despite hardships.

‘I think the press acted heroically,’ he said. ‘There were more than a dozen reporters killed and wounded in the early days of this conflict.’

Disputes between journalists and the U.S. military, which Zelnick said grew out of the Vietnam War, also impeded U.S. press coverage.

‘There was a great social gulf between the press and the military, which has been continued in every conflict since Vietnam,’ Zelnick said.

In Afghanistan, ‘the order to maintain silence … is so severe that even the most senior and able reporters in the field are having trouble putting it together,’ Zelnick added.

Afghans featured in Fitzgerald and Gould’s video demonstrated hope amid the rubble of their country.

‘People have a lot of hope, but we also have destruction, and we have to rebuild from here,’ said one Afghan woman, free of the veil women were forced to wear under the Taliban regime.

‘The independent rebuilding is absolutely astonishing,’ Gould said, but ‘in terms of public infrastructure, virtually nothing is happening, despite promises.’

Zelnick tried to explain differences in the United States’ rhetoric of helping Afghanistan and the reality shown in Fitzgerald and Gould’s footage.

‘There’s not a tremendous amount of interest as to what happens to Afghanistan as long as it doesn’t become a terrorist base again,’ he said. ‘We have rather limited political objectives there, but important security objectives.’

Fitzgerald responded that it was in America’s interest to help the Afghan people develop their country.

‘I don’t think we can maintain our security interests there without a political involvement,’ he said.

Fitzgerald stressed most Afghans are not the extremists who have occupied their country since the U.S.-backed Islamic fundamentalists won the war against the Soviets in the 1980s.

‘Indigenous Afghan culture is very different from what produced 9-11,’ Fitzgerald said.

The panel discussion, moderated by former National Public Radio host Christopher Lydon, was followed by a question-and-answer session from the audience.

Obaid Nejati, a representative of the Afghan Civil Rights Foundation, objected to two aspects of American coverage of the nation.

‘They fail to take into consideration the ethnic realities of Afghanistan,’ he said, citing the widely reported statistic that ethnic Pashtuns were a majority in the country. While Pashtuns were the largest of four ethnic groups in Afghanistan, he said, they represented only 38 percent of the population, not a majority.

Nejati also took issue with American reliance on Pakistani input for American reports. He said these two flaws ‘contributed to the serious policy mistakes by the U.S. government.’