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Time cover a ploy to cover revelations on wikileaks

By Dr Firoz Osman

(source: Star Newspaper, Pg 9, 20/08/2010)

Unfortunately it was not simply a “case of human rights abuse”, as claimed by photojournalist Jodi Bieber in an interview with Shaun Smillie, on the Time cover picture of a disfigured Afghanistan woman (Star 13/08/10).

This publication was a deliberate ploy to shift the focus away from the devastating revelations of 90,000 documents by WikiLeaks, exposing American lies about bringing peace and democracy to Afghanistan, when in fact it has been running death squads.

Following the Dutch governments’ announcement to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, the warmongers developed a media strategy to deter other Nato allies from succumbing to domestic public pressure and retreat. Already 70% of Germans want their troops to leave as soon as possible, a country that has the third largest military presence in Afghanistan.

In a Gallup poll over 40% of Americans believe it was a mistake to invade Afghanistan in 2001, and 80% of the French are against increasing their countries military involvement there. Hence, in order to counteract the WikiLeaks expose, the timeous Time article appears to bolster the case for sustaining the invasion and brutal occupation. The author of the article accompanying the photo, Aryn Baker, Time magazine’s Afghan/Pakistan bureau chief, is married to an Afghan-American, Tamim Samee, who has stakes in a $100 million project advocating foreign investment in Afghanistan. He has run two companies, Digistan and Ora-Tech, that have solicited and won development contracts with the assistance of the international military, including private sector infrastructure projects favoured by U.S.-backed leader Hamid Karzai. Ten billion dollars have gone “missing” from many such companies. Aryn Baker’s, [and Bob Broom’s unwarranted criticism (Star 16/08/10)] is cynical ploy to exploit tragic plight of the Afghan women to justify the ongoing war crime. It will be to Jodi Bebier’s enormous credit if she were to revisit Afghanistan and photograph vulnerable women victims of war from both sides, despite the fact that it will never grace the cover of Time. Afghan women deserve far more than to be used as pawns in US war games. 

MRN