Q&A
Ahmed Rashid: A Deeper Look

Ahmed Rashid has covered Afghanistan for more than twenty years. He is currently the Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and The Daily Telegraph in London. He also writes for the Pakistan daily The Nation. In the course of his work, Rashid has witnessed some of the most important moments in recent Afghan history. He watched the coup unfold in Kabul in 1978 that began Afghanistan's disintegration. He saw Soviet tanks roll in a year later, sparking the devastating war that took a million Afghan lives. He was in Kabul when the city fell to the mujahadeen in 1992, and he witnessed the meteoric rise of the Taliban that followed. As of mid-October, Rashid's book, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, was third on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list. cjr interviewed him via e-mail in Pakistan.
 
What kinds of stories is the U.S. press missing about the ramifications of this war? Where would you suggest American journalists need more focus?
 
Since the bombing started, a great deal of reporting on the U.S. military strategy is difficult to assess because so little information is coming out of the Pentagon, and because no journalists are allowed on the Taliban side. The humanitarian crisis has been well-covered in the U.S. media, I think.

An area of reporting that is missing is a deeper look at the failures of U.S. policy over the past ten years in Afghanistan. The obvious facts -- for example, that the CIA trained many of these Arab radicals in the 1980s during the Afghan war against the Soviets -- is stated but not fully explored in the U.S. press. The fact that the U.S. supported the Taliban between 1994-97 through its proxies in the region, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, has been neglected. Because the U.S. government is keen not to revive bad memories and poor policies doesn't mean that the U.S. press should follow suit. There are lessons to be learned.
 
How can U.S. journalists explore the level of support for bin Laden in the Muslim world?
 
This is not easy at present, due to the extreme hostility being expressed by many Muslims toward the U.S. and also the deep polarization that exists in many Muslim societies between those who support the U.S. attack on Afghanistan and those who don't. But what has not been clearly defined, at least by the U.S. press, are the distinctions between the groups who are angry at the U.S. A majority of these people are anti-U.S. because they believe that the U.S. walked away from Pakistan and Afghanistan during the past ten years, and because of the Palestinian issue, but that anger is not being translated into support for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. On the other hand, there are those among the fundamentalists who are both anti-U.S. in general and pro-Taliban in particular.

The journalistic issue is not one of just exploring support for Osama bin Laden; it's a question of understanding and explaining the deeper sense of grievance and anger.

The list of grievances of Muslims in parts of the world should be more deeply explored with an eye toward the question of how U.S. policy has worsened or deepened the situation. At the same time, there is also very little reporting on the regimes of the surrounding countries (in Central Asia and the gulf) which, by and large, are authoritarian and suppress their own citizens, so that the people have grievances that are directly related to the failures of their governments. Talking heads are available and ordinary people can be found for this reporting.
The sudden interest in foreign affairs, Islam, and the region by the American public is an incredible opportunity for the U.S. media to revive foreign affairs coverage, both on TV and in print. All the U.S. media, especially TV, have wound down foreign affairs coverage, to the extent that there are very few correspondents now who specialize in particular regions and areas of interest. But now they have a chance to restore the budget for foreign coverage. They have the public's interest. This opportunity should not be lost.
 
How is this crisis being portrayed in the press in Pakistan, and in other nations in the region?
 
Despite the war in Afghanistan, a lot of the focus is still on the India-Pakistan rivalry in these two countries, as though this is the only conflict in the world that matters. The war on terrorism has been used by both nations to score points over the other, which is disheartening.

The press in Pakistan and India (the only two countries with a free press in the entire region) is very polarized. In Pakistan, the Urdu and English press is divided equally, as is the society, between those who are very anti-American and those who support the battle against terrorism.