A Convenient Memory: New York Times and the Orwellian Big Brother Propaganda Principle

[Orwellian_Ghost]

The Times Remembers the Dasht-e-Leili Massacre
September 2009 By Edward Herman

It is always interesting and enlightening to see the New York Times picking up a story belatedly and tracing through the reasons for its early neglect and later resuscitation. This often fits the Orwellian Big Brother principle of using a story only when it is politically helpful and suppressing it when it is inconvenient—forgetting, "and then, when it become necessary again it back from oblivion" (1984). My favorite case was the failure of the New York Times to mention the Salvadoran army death list of 138 left-wing and liberal politicians back in 1982, when the United States was supporting a "demonstration election" there and publicizing the death list would suggest unfavorable electoral conditions, but then mentioning that list in 1989 when the left was tentatively entering an election and the paper was anxious to put that election in a good light, contrasting it with the bad old days (Lindsay Gruson, "A Fingerhold for Dissent," March 17, 1989).

Of course, examples of this and other Orwellian processes abound. An important and notorious one was the almost complete suppression of the Reagan-era alliance with and support for Saddam Hussein—weapons supply, intelligence aid during the war with Iran, agricultural loans, protections against UN condemnations or more biting actions following his use of chemical weapons—after he was transformed into "another Hitler" on August 2, 1990 (he invaded Kuwait on August 1). Again, quoting Orwell: "The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia . He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia so short a time as four years ago." No denial in the U.S.-Iraq case, just a playing dumb about the earlier alliance along with a freshly minted intense indignation at the bad man.


Another fine case can be seen in connection with the recent New York Times front-page article and editorial on the Dasht-e-Leili massacre in Afghanistan (James Risen, "U.S. Inaction Seen After Taliban P.O.W.s Died," July 11, 2009; editorial, "The Truth About Dasht-e-Leili," July 14, 2009). This case harks back to November 2001 when, as asserted in a recent (July 14) editorial, "fighters under the command of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum stuffed surrendering Taliban prisoners into metal shipping containers without food or water. Many suffocated. Guards shot others to death. The victims are believed to be buried in a grave in the desert of Dasht-i-Leili in northern Afghanistan." The editors now denounce as a "sordid legacy" of the Bush administration its "refusal to investigate charges" of these killings. "There can be no justification for the horrors or for the willingness of the United States and Afghanistan to look the other way." But the truth of the matter is that when the Bush administration refused to "investigate charges" and "looked the other way" back in 2001 and 2002, so did the New York Times. The paper had no editorials or opinion columns on the case and only two news articles by John Burns even dealt with the Dasht-e-Leili massacre (a word that Burns doesn't apply to this case), neither published till August 2002.

...

Why is the paper changing its tune now? The editors are open about it. They say that "the administration is pressing Mr. Karzai not to return General Dostum to power. Mr. Obama needs to order a full investigation into the massacre" (ed., July 14, 2009). Now, the editors acknowledge that back in 2001 Dostum "was on the C.I.A. payroll and his militia worked closely with United States Special Forces in the early days of the war." But seven years ago John Burns quoted a Pentagon general saying that "there is no evidence that America troops were in any way involved in what happened at Shibarghan ." At that time General Dostum was doing what the Pentagon wanted him to do; now the Administration wants Dostum out of the way. And the news fit to print changes accordingly.

http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/22393

[leveymg]

1. There were reports at the time. I recall Amy Goodman did a long story on this,

including allegations that US troops were close-by during the massacre. Here are some more details: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/07/22/mass_graves/

As Newsweek reported in August 2002, the bodies were then piled into mass graves in Dasht-e-Leili, Afghanistan, near Shibarghan.

Earlier this month, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter James Risen advanced the story, revealing that the United States had resisted any war crimes investigation into the massacre, despite learning from Dell Spry, the lead FBI agent at Guantánamo Bay following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, that many Afghan detainees were telling similar stories of a mass killing. Spry directed interviews of detainees by FBI agents at Guantánamo Bay, and compiled allegations made by the detainees.

But what the Times did not report was that many of those same detainees also alleged to Spry's interviewers that U.S. personnel were present during the massacre, a potentially explosive allegation that, if true, might further explain American resistance to a war crimes probe of the deaths. In an exclusive interview, Spry told Salon that he informed Risen about the additional allegation that U.S. forces were present. Risen confirmed to Salon that Spry told him of the allegations, but said he did not publish them, in part, because he didn't believe them.

In late 2001, according to initial media reports on the massacre, Afghan warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum ordered hundreds and perhaps thousands of Taliban prisoners who had surrendered in the city of Kunduz into metal shipping containers. They were given little food and water over a three-day period and transported to a prison outside Shibarghan. They licked perspiration off one another to stay alive. Many suffocated. Others died when guards fired pell-mell into the containers. Murder by metal shipping container is apparently the mass killing technique of choice among some warlords in Afghanistan.

Risen's story in the Times earlier this month said the slaughter "may have been the most significant mass killing in Afghanistan after the 2001 American-led invasion." The Times added that American officials resisted a war crimes investigation because the warlord who allegedly orchestrated the mass killing, Dostum, was a paid CIA asset who had worked closely with U.S. Special Forces. At the time of the killings, Dostum was working hand-in-glove with soldiers from the Army's 5th Special Forces Group. During that phase of the war in Afghanistan, small numbers of Special Forces soldiers typically accompanied much larger numbers of U.S.-allied Northern Alliance forces on the battlefield.