Newsweek to American Public: You Can't Handle the Truth

Posted on September 28, 2006

In a striking display of cynicism, condescension or something else entirely Newsweek decided that the American people can't handle the truth about Afghanistan: that the Taliban is taking over again. The Newsweek covers for Asia, Europe and Latin America show a fierce looking young man pointing a rocket-propelled grenade launcher at the reader, while the headline blares "Losing Afghanistan." The story inside details how the Taliban is slowly taking over as the U.S. backed government falls apart.

A recent piece by Anderson Cooper on CNN showed how the poppy business is booming in Afghanistan. 90% of the world's heroin comes from the poppy fields of Afghanistan. Yet the U.S.-backed government won't destroy the poppy fields (which would be quite easy) and put the farmers to work growing another, legal, crop that could replace the income lost from the poppy fields. Corruption is rampant said the police who were interviewed on camera for the piece, and the higher-ups are paid off by the drug lords. The poppy problem is just one aspect of the failed war in Afghanistan.

These facts are being kept from the American people. Instead, Newsweek runs a puff piece on celebrity photographer Annie Lebovtiz. Yes, she's incredibly talented as a photographer, but that's not the point. Newsweek clearly thinks Americans are too dumb to understand serious foreign policy articles, or someone put the word out that having an Islamic extremist on the cover with the words "Losing Afghanistan" would not be appreciated by certain people in the run-up to the mid-term elections.