Here's a fun little quiz for visitors to this blog. Can you correctly identify which country is being referred to in the following quote given by a guest on a recent Morning Edition story:
"Our challenge in______________is...fundamentally to create an environment where governance and rule of law and economic development will also thrive."A) The United States (hmmm....governance, rule of law, economic development)
B) Venezuela (governance, rule of law, economic development)
C) Afghanistan (governance, rule of law, economic development)
If you answered Venezuela then you have been listening to NPR's busy Juan Forero way too much and you're wrong! However if you answered either the US or Afghanistan you get a passing grade. Unfortunately, on NPR all you'll hear about is how awful and corrupt the Afghanistan government is (which is true enough), but you'll hear precious little about how responsible the US is for the horrid state of affairs there. Of course NPR doesn't have time to go way back to the US creation of warlordism in order to oust the Soviets, or the US collusion with Pakistan in nurturing the Taliban, but you might expect a bit more depth on the role of the US in creating the Afghanistan disaster over the last 7 years. However that could be awkward, since a great source of information on the recent history is Sarah Chayse who found that it was impossible to do serious reporting on Afghanistan for NPR news.
4 comments:
Karzai (sp?) is kept in a can and not allowed to speak where I can hear him. Why?
Thanks for this one, man! US history with Afghanistan is a sad and neglected story. I especially appreciated that you included the part about Sara Chayse, a story I hadn't heard - amazing!
You gotta have some compassion for Afghanistan...those poor people and their country have been blown to bits by everyone.
A few years ago npr interviewed Sara Chayse. Her only comment on npr policies, when asked, was "we didn't see eye to eye"...or something to that effect.
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