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 t
was probably just a matter of time. The Washington Post tried;
really it did. But ultimately, like Bill Clinton, it couldn't restrain
its loathing of the "military-industrial complex." The
first crack appears to be two articles by Post foreign-service
correspondent Molly Moore that the paper prominently displayed on
Page One. They express in exquisite detail the callousness and brutality
of American forces — albeit with no evidence to show for it.
Witness Moore's
February 13 piece, "Fleeing
U.S. Bombs, Villagers Found No Place to Hide," about an
alleged American airstrike in October.
It's long and
horrifying, with more carnage than a Sam Peckinpah movie.
"In an
instant," began Moore, "a missile sliced through the front
end of the trailer. Witnesses said the explosion that followed scattered
the arms, hands and feet of children across the road." She
added, "Thirty minutes later, as rescuers struggled to carry
the last of the injured and dead into a nearby house, two rockets
slammed into the room where most had been taken, survivors said.
Some bodies were thrown into a nearby stream, the rest buried under
heaps of rock and dirt."
Then come the
heart-wrenching, damning quotes. "'The Americans say they can
see anything on the ground,' said Fazal Rabi, 30, who said he lost
12 family members in the attacks, including two sons and a daughter.
'These were children. We are not Mullah [Mohammad] Omar or Osama
bin Laden, we are poor farmers.'"
This tale may
be true. But for all the horrific descriptions of shattered bodies,
homes, and vehicles — along with two photos by Moore herself,
there's absolutely no reason to believe so.
Physical evidence?
While not admitting so explicitly, Moore reveals there isn't any.
"Today, the room where the last rockets hit is nothing more
than a heap of rocks and dirt in the midst of an otherwise undamaged
house," she writes. "Its mud walls are intact, sheep and
cattle are penned safely in the courtyard, and debris from the attack
has been carefully gathered by the house's owner."
The description
is intended to provide irony by contrast, as with: "Omaha Beach
today may be the most peaceful spot on earth." But Moore's
description really shows is that even in a country wracked by poverty
and two decades of war, just a few months after an alleged bombing
attack there's nothing to show for it but a heap of rocks and dirt
and unlabeled debris.
Oh, and there
was a tractor with a hole in it, said the reporter. Aha!
Moore tries
to make the Army spokesmen in her story something akin to an Enron
executive too inept to take the Fifth. Yet they speak wisdom nonetheless.
In October, in first denying the village was attacked, Joint Chiefs
of Staff Chairman Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers said: "I
don't know exactly what you're talking about. But every instance
of those kind of allegations, we can usually spot bomb craters near
things."
Bingo! There
are still places in Vietnam that look more cratered than the face
of the moon. But the high-explosive bombs and missiles that struck
this Afghan town are so darned smart they can instantly wipe away
evidence that they ever hit, right down to filling the holes.
What of forensic
evidence? There are more flying body parts in Moore's piece than
in Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. Page One carries one of her
photos described as showing an Afghan displaying his child's injured
foot. Now, in a country that practically has more land mines than
residents, missing feet are commonplace.
What's remarkable
is that though the foot is but a tiny part of the photo (Moore's
decision as photographer) and newspaper photos aren't very clear,
the appendage looks healthier than what you see on Desenex commercials.
Mostly the photo depicts lots of smiling Afghan men.
And where are
all those bodies? The closest we're offered is another Moore photo,
this one depicting an apparent shrine of indeterminate age made
of sticks and colorful cloth.
And that's
it. The front-pagePost piece is based entirely on anecdotes
from tribesmen in a country where the national motto should be "duplicity."
The villagers could be lying on behalf of the Taliban or for a warlord
particularly eager to see Yankee go home so he can conquer the neighbors.
So why is this
article even in one of the nation's most influential newspapers,
much less on Page One?
It may help
to know that just two days earlier, February 11, Moore's front-page
story was: "Villagers
Released by American Troops Say They Were Beaten, Kept in 'Cage.'"
"Several
of the 27 former prisoners, who were released Wednesday, said U.S.
soldiers treated them so harshly that two men lost consciousness
during the beatings while others suffered fractured ribs, loosened
teeth and swollen noses," she wrote.
Then the quotes.
"'They were beating us on the head and back and ribs,'"
said Allah Noor, 40, a farmer and policeman for the new government
who said he suffered two fractured ribs at the military base where
the men were imprisoned. 'They were punching us with fists, kicking
me with their feet. They said, "You are terrorist! You are
al Qaeda! You are Taliban!'"
Again the evidence
was entirely anecdotal. Again the accompanying Moore photo shows
the opposite of what her story claims. Six alleged beating victims,
including Noor, are casually sitting around a living room.
Always sensitive
to depicting both sides, Moore again allowed American authorities
to deny, deny, deny. But then, what else would you expect of beating
beasts?
Still, there
were those lines that just don't read right. "The next morning
the U.S. soldiers tore off the men's clothing," wrote Miss
Moore, "and ordered them to put on blue uniforms, the detainees
said. At one point, Akhtar Mohammad, 17, said he lost consciousness."
Really? From
having his clothes torn off or from wearing blue?
Now it just
might have been helpful if Miss Moore had told her readers that
two months earlier the Justice Department released a copy of "a
captured al Qaeda training manual [that] had instructed those held
prisoner to tell journalists that they had been beaten."
The wording
in quotes is how it appeared in — by golly! — the Washington
Post (by a different reporter) the day after Moore's beating
piece appeared. Perhaps Moore thought mentioning the
handbook would disrupt the flow of her piece; if so, she was
right.
Now the stones
tossed into the river are creating circles, though for now mostly
in the paper itself. The Post ran a lengthy editorial based
in part on Moore's reporting, and the Post's syndicated columnist
Richard Cohen has written a "Say it ain't so!" hand wringer.
Okay Richard, it ain't. Or at least there's no reason to believe
so; while there is reason to believe Moore is omitting vital details.
A paper with
Janet Cooke as part of its legacy certainly knows the value of demanding
evidence from reporters. And while nobody ever expected the Washington
Post to play cheerleader in this war, playing it straight shouldn't
seem to be too much to ask, either.
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