TIME Magazine's Sad Advocacy For Afghan Nation Building

Just take a look at the cover that brought Richard Stengel great glee to introduce on Mo(u)rning Jo(k)e the other morning:

Gnarling on any rational person's teeth must have been their reaction to this nauseating cover, made even more pathetic by TIME's persistence to indicate how the Taliban will slaughter and annihilate every women in Afghanistan if the United States were to leave soon.

Furthermore, as the terrific Allison Kilkenny indicates, Rangel took umbrage with Joe Biden's opinion on how we are not in the business of nation building, making sure to draw attention to their "oh so powerful" cover.

What Stangel and his corporate propaganda magazine love to indicate is how "They are neutral, they aren't pro or anti war, but wanted to show the reality of the situation."

The much publicized release of classified documents by WikiLeaks has already ratcheted up the debate about the war. Our story and the haunting cover image by the distinguished South African photographer Jodi Bieber are meant to contribute to that debate. We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it. We do it to illuminate what is actually happening on the ground. As lawmakers and citizens begin to sort through the information about the war and make up their minds, our job is to provide context and perspective on one of the most difficult foreign policy issues of our time. What you see in these pictures and our story is something that you cannot find in those 91,000 documents: a combination of emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land and the consequences of the important decisions that lie ahead."

But Greg Mitchell has a great rebuttal to that fabricated viewpoint from Stangel:

I have to ask: In Time's mission to really "illuminate what is actually happening on the ground" has it ever put on its cover close-up images of 1) a badly wounded or dead U.S. soldier 2) an Afghan killed in a NATO missile strike 3) an Afghan official, police officer or military commander accepting a bribe from a Taliban war lord?

Not only that, but TIME's upcoming "pro-US and NATO choice to stay in the country" without saying that outright surely won't bring up the civilian killings by our forces or the continued rise of private contractor after contractor (on US taxplayer's dollars) engulfing the region.

In addition, TIME won't bring up how even their overall central point of "protection for the women" has been made even worse by US presence in the country. Bombs near or on civilian homes have not only lead to additional casualties, but, unsurprisingly, also the dispersing of women from their domiciles.

But oh, it's Taliban first, Taliban second, Taliban last, and Taliban only from this magazine's myopic perspective.

Describing just the continued immoral treatment of women by the Taliban is only a small percentage of modern day Afghanistan's intricate story, as some of us are cognizant of that. However, TIME is trying to sway the audience, who receive and trust the usual limited watered down information from a once respectable magazine, still on the fence on this insane war (further highlighted with the news of it being the deadliest month for US troops there).

Again, Mitchell highlights how Stangel and his clowns don't back up their track of providing what is "actually happening on the ground." Instead of a one-sided "Support National Building" report, here is what TIME could have also easily done:

-- A student in a high-tech classroom.

-- Workers streaming into a newly re-opened factory.

-- A poor black or Hispanic woman examined by a doctor in a first-class facility.

-- A returning soldier embraced by his wife and two kids.

-- Solar panels being erected on a huge office building.

But you sure won't see those examples placed on a cover of TIME magazine.

That would be just a little too liberal, too factual, and somehow too anti-war/anti-Pentagon for their liking.