As we get ready to head into August, it will soon be the one year anniversary of the disaster in Afghanistan. We at NewsBusters will be using August to recount just what happened last summer and what the media’s been ignoring since. But it’s also important to note what’s happening right now.
Allies still stuck in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan
There are still U.S. allies stuck in Afghanistan, people who helped this country and now have been abandoned. According to the head of a veterans group rescuing citizens stuck in that country (as well as Ukraine), it’s still the case. Bryan Stern is the co-founder of Project Dynamo. Per their website, the goal of the organization is “saving Americans and Afghan allies who are fearing for their lives as the Taliban regains control of Afghanistan.”
Stern appeared on Fox News, Thursday and said, “We still get a bunch” of requests to get allies out of the country: “They don’t have visas, but they are also in trouble because they helped us for 20 years.” Will the rest of the press cover this?
Taliban killings
It was PBS alone that reported on Wednesday a new UN report about slaughter in the Taliban’s Afghanistan. Judy Woodruff briefly explained, “The United Nations says that Afghanistan has seen some 700 killings since the Taliban seized power nearly a year ago.” She added that the report “highlights a crackdown on press freedoms and on women's right to education.” The networks on Wednesday and Thursday ignored the grim news.
The website UN News explained that the total death toll is even higher:
While the report acknowledges steps taken by Taliban authorities to reduce violence, UNAMA still recorded 2,106 civilian casualties, with 700 killed, and 1,406 wounded. Those causalities are mainly attributed to targeted attacks by the terrorist group which identifies itself as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province, against ethnic and religious minority communities.
Taliban threatens war columnist
Finally, there’s the story of a well-known war columnist who was forced at the threat of prison to retract her stories about the Taliban. Here's Wednesday's New York Post:
A prominent war journalist said she was threatened with jail if she did not tweet an apology to the Taliban over an article that accused Afghanistan’s Islamist rulers of forcing teenage girls into marriage and sex slavery.
...
“Tweet an apology or go to jail, said #Taliban intelligence,” O’Donnell tweeted.
“Whatever it takes: They dictated. I tweeted. They didn’t like it. Deleted, edited, re-tweeted. Made video of me saying I wasn’t coerced. Re-did that too.”
O’Donnell tweeted that she was now out of Afghanistan.
All of this — these ongoing disasters that happened after Joe Biden abandoned Afghanistan — could be covered by the mainstream media. But, for the most part, they have no interest in embarrassing the Democratic president.
