Questions Not Asked
Issues not raised.

By Victor Davis Hanson, author most recently of Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power.
December 04, 2001 8:30 a.m.

ne of the more frustrating experiences of the ongoing war is the dearth of intelligent, in-depth questioning on the part of our media — especially television reporters, news anchors, and hired on-camera experts. Do our news people know anything of culture, history, or literature? Are they all trained in "Mass Communications"; did they without exception major in "Radio/TV"?

Or does their obtuseness reflect a desire to be politically correct, culturally relative, or overly polite? The failure to ask intelligent questions surely cannot be due to us, the American audience, because we appreciate bluntness, intellectual honesty, even eccentricity across the spectrum — from the refined Mr. Rumsfeld to the scrappy Bill O'Reilly. Why then do our television reporters accept what they are told and rarely think for themselves?

We are informed that millions in the Muslim world watch al Jazeera, "the Arab world's CNN." Reports show clips of its ultramodern newsroom. Their telejournalists are interviewed and without cross-examination proclaim their affinity with the values of free exchange and real, Western-style reporting. Western professors brag of its "cutting-edge" talk shows, like The Opposite Direction. American networks gladly announce reciprocal news arrangements. And so when it comes to the real nature of al Jazeera, the American people are told everything that is irrelevant — and nothing that is either important or true.

Is al Jazeera really a news organization at all — or instead an ideological and largely government- (if not self-) censored infomercial of Muslim propaganda? Just because the sheiks of Qatar allow it to broadcast without a censor, with a Kalishnikov in the stationhouse, does not mean it is in any way free.

Terrorist attacks on Israelis are not covered by Arab reporters on-site in Haifa, in the manner of a NBC journalist sticking a microphone into the face of a Serbian or Afghani civilian hit by an American bomb. Does Mr. Mubarak face the equivalent of a celebrity like Mike Wallace, Tim Russert, and Bob Schieffer, all eager to catch him in a lie? Do secular novelists debate mullahs and castigate fundamentalism in front of millions?

High-tech, imported broadcasting technology does not make television — any more than a man with a tie who reads the news is the equivalent of Peter Jennings or Ted Koppel, whose stock and trade is to root out government, corporate, or religious laxity, hypocrisy, and perfidy, and therein gain both themselves and their stations fame, respect — and market share. Talking heads on al Jazeera who henpeck among themselves about their own degrees of anti-Americanism do not represent real diversity of opinion.

Cannot our reporters simply ask al Jazeera a few basic questions: "Do Muslim clerics ever mix it up with rowdy secular intellectuals, resulting perhaps in the type of abuse rightfully heaped on Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson? Do feminists engage imams over the air? Do reformists critique the sheiks of the Gulf, and make the case before millions that it is high time for real democracy from Kuwait to Qatar? Do Copts, Christians, Kurds, and Shiites, in the manner of American minorities, issue on-the-air critiques, grievances, and demands to the majority culture? Do al Jazeera's reporters on the ground broadcast back images of those cheering in Kabul, the annihilation of the Taliban, or clipped beards and piles of discarded burqas?" Our public interrogators must press home the point further still — asking whether there is real habeas corpus on the West Bank; if "parliaments" in Iran, Kuwait, or a Palestine really vote as they do in Europe or Israel to disband their governments; and if there are Christian preachers at work in the heart of the Muslim world as there are imams in Europe or America.

If not, why not?

Nightly we are harangued by assorted spokesmen from the Palestinian Authority, ambassadors from various Middle Eastern countries, and sympathetic Arab intellectuals who all politely — or at times quite viciously — critique American foreign policy toward Palestine, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and most of the Islam world. Yet why cannot one single reporter ask any of them whether there is a truly free election in their country — and then press on to determine whether there is a real legitimate and free opposition to Mr. Arafat, Mr. Mubarak, or to King Abdullah — and if not, why not?

We Americans give billions collectively to Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine as well as to Israel — but if we are to be in the subsidy business, it is one thing to banter with a free and constitutional allied dependent, and quite another to pay for ankle-biting from illegitimate autocracies who are at best neutrals, and sometimes downright hostile. I do not mind an occasional lecture from a freely elected Mr. Sharon — but 100 million dollars a year to help subsidize crowds in Nablus who cheer on news that thousands of Americans were incinerated by murderers from the Middle East?

So cannot one honest American reporter ask, "We know of Mr. Sharon, Mr. Netanyahu, and Mr. Baruk — but who are the corresponding rivals in Palestine for Mr. Arafat's job?" Both states are, after all, at war; yet one elects, the other does not — and not one American reporter asks why this is so. We, the American people, need to be told why our critics should be listened to, when none of them are the products of a free society — not a novelist, not a journalist, not an ambassador.

Cannot reporters on the scene, such as Ms. Amanpour or Ms. Banfield, put the military campaign in Afghanistan — just one time, just for a second or two — in some sort of historical context? Our informants so often instead use the phrase "some believe." Then the inevitable follows (fill in the blanks): "Some believe that civil war will arise immediately following the Taliban surrender"; "Some believe that American bombing has continued to hit civilians"; or "Some believe that American causalities inevitably will begin now to mount." But we need to know exactly who are these mysterious and never identified "some" — for we suspect the "some" are none other than the glum reporters themselves.

In fact, the real truth of this war constitutes unbelievable news — inasmuch as the present campaign so far stands as one of the most amazing and lopsided victories in the annals of battle — in sheer operational terms reminiscent of the victorious Ten Thousand suffering a single casualty at Cunaxa, Alexander the Great a few thousand while destroying the Achaemenid Empire, or Cortés's fewer than 1,000 at the fall of Tenochtitlán. The facts of the Afghani War, both militarily and in its long-term historical significance, are quite stunning — comparable to anything found in either Creasy's or Fuller's classic compendia of great battles. As I understand the conflict, it could be summarized something like the following:

A surprised and unprepared United States, after a vicious and deadly attack on its shores, took on an enemy some 6,000 miles away with only a brief three-week period of logistical and tactical preparations — in the face of powerful opposition from the Muslim world, real skepticism of our European allies, and a strong vocal minority at home. America initially had no reliable allies in the region, no port of embarkation, and no free air space.

The enemy knew the countryside; controlled all the main cities; was ensconced among civilians; and mounted an effective propaganda campaign dubbing us invaders, Westerners, infidels, and worse. Veterans of warring with such people, from the Russians to the English, warned us of our peril to come in snowdrifts, caves, and street-to-street shooting. A cacophony of domestic voices daily chirped that we were fighting neither an identifiable enemy nor a hostile state per se — and so had no way of knowing when the war was, in fact, to be over.

Our indigenous allies on the ground in Afghanistan were fractious, poorly supplied — and, after years of fighting, in control of less than ten percent of the country. The geography was rugged and mountainous, the weather uncertain, and the urban population initially hostile — and we were forced to fight during the holy month of Ramadan, with the promise that our attack would result in more Americans killed by terrorists on our own shores, a Muslim world in open war against us, and our enemies made into popular folk heroes for decades to come. Anyone who peruses an old stack of Time or Newsweek issues will come across little but pessimism from the purportedly grim months of September and October — the constant theme being how the odds all favored our enemies, with stalemate at best the likely outcome well into next spring.

The result? In less than two months the United States of America completely devastated its enemies, destroying them on the battlefield, in their homes, and in transit. Its allies have grown, not shrunk — and now control nearly the entire country. Civilians were joyous, not angry, at being freed from the Taliban. Worldwide hostile demonstrations evaporated on television, and did not flood the airwaves; neutral ambassadors queued up to visit the White House, rather than railing at the U.N. Millions did not starve as warned, but are being fed and clothed right in the very midst of a deadly war.

Every bit as astounding as the dazzling success of the military campaign was the cost — so far very few civilians killed, fewer than a dozen Americans so far lost to accident and hostile action, and the military far stronger after, than before, the bloodletting. Critics who forecasted or even welcomed American defeat were left speechless, and their reputations as both pundits and seers completely ruined.

Surely all this is a story of the ages — How? and Why? and By whom? Is it not at least more important than tales broadcast to us about the lonely lion at the Afghan zoo, stray shrapnel in the posterior of an American journalist, and interviews with other reporters about properly stylish winter attire?