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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 9/25/10

The American Way: Spreading Democracy to Afghanistan, One Journalist's Arrest at a Time

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By Dave Lindorff


US-led forces in Afghanistan sure did a bang-up job this week at promoting the concept of Western "democracy."


The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the puppet intelligence agency of the Afghan government, between them, arrested and held three journalists. Rahmatullah Nekzad, a freelance reporter for Al Jazeera and the Associated Press, Mohammed Nader, a staff correspondent and cameraman for Al Jazeera, and Hojatullah Mojadadi, an Afghan local radio station manager, were all held without charge for the "crime" of allegedly having developed contacts with the Taliban. Nekzada and Nader were held by US forces for three days. Mojadadi was held by Afghan authorities for six days.


The three were finally released thanks to international pressure and following demands for the release of the two NATO-held journalists made by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.


The US military was upset with the fact that AP and Al Jazeera stringer Nekzad had developed contacts with Taliban forces. Actually, in the initial press announcement from NATO forces, they said that he was a "suspected Taliban media and propaganda facilitator, who participated in filming election attacks." That is to say, he managed to get over to the "other side" in a guerrilla war, to let the outside world see what is going on in Afghanistan. Nader was accused of propagandizing for the Taliban.



Explaining their detention of the two men, the ISAF said, "The insurgents use propaganda, often delivered through news organizations, as a way to influence and, in many cases, intimidate the Afghan population. Coalition and Afghan forces have a responsibility to interdict the activities of these insurgent propaganda networks."


Afghan government sources gave no explanation for the detention of radio station manager Mojadadi, and eventually all three men were released with no charges even filed against them.


The timing of these arrests--right in the midst of the country's highly touted but thoroughly corrupt legislative election, which the Taliban were seeking to disrupt--makes it clear what the US was really up to: preventing honest coverage of the whole sham, which is largely for US domestic consumption to make it look like all the money and blood is accomplishing something.

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Dave Lindorff, winner of a 2019 "Izzy" Award for Outstanding Independent Journalism from the Park Center for Independent Media in Ithaca, is a founding member of the collectively-owned, journalist-run online newspaper (more...)
 

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