EDITORIAL: Forgotten war

‘ ‘ ‘ In southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province on Sunday, Taliban insurgents stopped a bus,… ‘ ‘ ‘ In southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province on Sunday, Taliban insurgents stopped a bus, pulled out about 50 passengers and beheaded up to 30 of them. Many of the passengers were women and children. ‘ ‘ ‘ The attack was the latest sign of the Taliban’s growing influence in Afghanistan. In the region that generated the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States, militant Islamists are regaining control and working with a broader insurgency, making the threat of another attack a much greater possibility. ‘ ‘ ‘ Violence in the war-torn country has reached its highest levels since the United States invasion in late-2001. Last month, Francesc Vendrell, a European envoy to Afghanistan, said, according to The New York Times, that conditions in the country are at their worst this year. The increasing number of civilian casualties caused by U.S. and international forces has also created ‘a great deal of antipathy’ among the Afghan people. ‘ ‘ ‘ An Aug. 22 U.S. airstrike on the village of Azizabad, for example, killed 33 civilians, according to U.S. military officials. In September, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates expressed his ‘personal regrets’ for the deaths of civilians, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. But the loss of innocent life has hurt the United States’ already deteriorated image. ‘ ‘ ‘ Last week, the Times reported, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that Afghanistan is experiencing a ‘downward spiral.’ And yet, based on the Bush administration’s current lack of action and the news media’s sparse coverage, no one seems to be noticing. ‘ ‘ ‘ Amid news exposure of Iraq’s growing success, its declining death rate and strengthened government, Afghanistan has been left on the back burner. An article in the latest issue of the American Journalism Review analyzing the news media’s coverage of the war in Afghanistan stated that Iraq has largely overshadowed Afghanistan in the news. Unfortunately, Operation Enduring Freedom has become the United States’ forgotten war. ‘ ‘ ‘ The article cited a study by Project for Excellence in Journalism, which revealed that ‘stories on Afghanistan accounted for 0.9 percent of the overall news hole in 2007, a year when bombings were increasing sharply and a record number of U.S. and coalition troops were killed.” ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Furthermore, news reports about Afghanistan are usually buried inside newspapers. The article about Sunday’s attack was on Page 5 of the Times, the article about Vendrell’s comments appeared on Page 11 of the Sept. 15 edition of the Times, and a Sept. 3 follow-up article about the Aug. 22 airstrike was on Page 10 of the Times. ‘ ‘ ‘ The American public reflects a similar level of apathy with regard to Afghanistan. According to Google Trends, the term ‘Iraq’ was searched more often than ‘Afghanistan’ from 2004 to 2008. ‘ ‘ ‘ The news media’s and Americans’ apparent disregard for Afghanistan has much to do with the way the Bush administration has dealt with the conflict. The sense of urgency with regard to Afghanistan has been lost. Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the United States focused most of its efforts, energy and assets on Iraq, making a future victory in Afghanistan seem close to impossible. ‘ ‘ ‘ With only a few months left until the end of his presidency, it’s time for President George W. Bush to address the chaotic and gruesome realities in Afghanistan before it’s too late.