A new article by Bleeding Afghanistan authors Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls was published in the November/December 2006 issue of Extra!, a hard-hitting bimonthly magazine of media criticism published by the media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). The article is entitled “The Propaganda of Silence: Losing interest in Afghanistan’s plight” and featured an excerpt from Chapter 6 of Bleeding Afghanistan. The statistics on media coverage have been updated for the publication.

Copies of Extra! are available on newsstands across the US.

For more information, visit http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4.

Continue reading

The occupation of Afghanistan is unraveling, but Bush and Rumsfeld just won’t face up to it.

Published on Alternet.org on Wednesday November 1, 2006. Click here to read.

The following is an excerpt from “Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence” (Seven Stories, 2006) by Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls.

Once touted as a success in the “War on Terror,” Afghanistan has now deteriorated into increasing violence with the return of warlords, a flourishing drug trade, and ongoing women’s oppression. Additionally, us/NATO bombing raids still claim civilian lives and their brutal “hunt and kill” tactics have ironically resulted in a resurgence of the Taliban. Despite the NATO takeover of “security operations” this summer, Western troops in Afghanistan are more unpopular than ever and per soldier are just as likely to be killed as in Iraq.

But this descent into violence is a predictable outcome of …

Continue reading

CONTENTS

FOREWORD by David Barsamian

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: HISTORICAL CONTEXT

1. Destroying a State: U.S. Policy Before September 11, 2001

PART 2: REGIME CHANGE AND IT’S CONSEQUENCES

2. Bombs, Threats, and Torture: Afghanistan Becomes a U.S. Target

3. Replacing One Brutal Regime with Another:
The Return of the Warlords

4. A Client “Democracy”: Reshaping Afghan Politics

PART THREE: RHETORIC VERSUS REALITY

5. “Liberation” Rhetoric and Burqa Obsessions:
Objectifying Afghan Women

6. The Propaganda of Silence: Impunity and the Mass Media

7. Power, Prestige, and Pipelines: The Uses of Afghanistan

EPILOGUE

From the Belly of the Beast: Activism and Solidarity

NOTES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Continue reading

David Barsamian is founder and director of Alternative Radio, the independent award-winning weekly series based in Boulder, Colorado. He is a radio producer, journalist, author and lecturer. He has traveled extensively across Afghanistan. He wrote the foreword to “Bleeding Afghanistan,” which is reprinted below.

Most Americans have been inside their own burqas when it comes to Afghanistan. The level of knowledge about the country is minimal. When it comes to U.S. involvement, the level of ignorance and amnesia is astounding.

Five years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and effected “regime change,” James Ingalls and Sonali Kolhatkar break what they call the “propaganda of silence” with their acutely timed Bleeding Afghanistan. The Taliban are in resurgence and “anti-American anger is boiling over.” How are these developments explained by Washington, its satraps in Kabul, and the corporate media? The problems are caused by …

Continue reading