There’s one quote from the New York Times investigation on U.S. drone strikes that has stuck with me after reading — “Publishing a military document only allows you to see through its eyes in the sky — and from everything I had now learned through my years of reporting on America’s air war, that view alone is usually a dangerous one.” I thought this description of the reporter’s methodology succinctly sums up the value that on-the-ground journalism can offer, but I also think there’s an interesting moral question here: The U.S. government necessarily operates with “eyes in the sky” — the Pentagon and similar actors are focused on preserving American interests on the global level of geopolitics, and therefore very infrequently stoop down to showing concern over the life-and-death situations of individual, ordinary people. This is not just true in the Middle East, but in places like Ukraine (and maybe Taiwan soon, too) — the government will usually operate with some level of realpolitik that eschews our ideological values (concern about human rights, etc) in favor of pragmatic, strategic interests. The only way we’re reminded about individual stories on the ground — especially when they concern human rights abuses — is through the work of journalists.
But when journalists do expose what conditions are like on the ground, I wonder what our response should be as the audience. For other types of investigative reporting — child sex abuse in the Catholic Church, for instance, or officials mismanaging the Flint water crisis — there’s often a clear policy response and remedy that public officials are subsequently pressured into enacting. But when it comes to the U.S. government’s actions, especially when it comes to national security and foreign policy matters, there seems to be little recourse except for us as readers to express our horror, make small fixes, and continue the same policies as before for the sake of pragmatic interests. Which is all to ask — should journalists in situations like these play a role not just in exposing issues, but also discussing solutions?
On a separate note, I was blown away by the New Yorker article — the framing device of focusing on a single character through a very long saga made the story much more compelling than jumping around between characters or simply telling the story from the perspective of the various actors involved in Afghanistan (U.S. government, Taliban, etc). One detail that jumped out at me was this paragraph: “After the [U.S.-led ]bombing, Mohammad’s brother travelled to Kandahar to report the massacres to the United Nations and to the Afghan government. When no justice was forthcoming, he joined the Taliban” — that one detail explains much better than any policy exposition or geopolitical analysis why America’s presence in Afghanistan was ultimately so unsuccessful.
For better or worse, the New Yorker article humanizes the Taliban. Rather than framing the group as terrorists and jihadists, Gopal describes how the Talibs, in many cases, are just normal Afghans who don’t define their identity as Talibans, but as farmers or religious students. As difficult as it is to read about the normal lives of people who believe in repressing women’s rights — among other terrible things — I’m glad it’s something Gopal offers up for our consideration.
