Your Country, Our War : The Press and Diplomacy in Afghanistan

Based on extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan and eight years of interviews, this book reviews the dynamics between Afghan and U.S. journalists, and the global diplomatic power of the American press within the context of the post-9/11 era. Journalists are actors in international relations, mediating communications between governments and publics, but also between the administrations of different countries. American and foreign officials simultaneously consume the work of U.S. journalists and use it in their own thinking about how to conduct their work. As such, journalists play an unofficial diplomatic role. However, the U.S. news media largely amplifies American power. Instead of stimulating greater understanding, the U.S. elite, mainstream press can often widen mistrust as they promote an American worldview and, with the exception of some outliers, reduce the world into a tight security frame in which the U.S. is the hegemon. This has been the case in Afghanistan since 2001, particularly as emerging Afghan journalists have relied significantly on U.S. and other Western news outlets to report events within their government and their country. Based on eight years of interviews in Kabul, Washington, and New York, Your Country, Our War demonstrates how news has intersected with international politics during the War in Afghanistan and shows the global power and reach of the U.S. news media, especially within the context of the post-9/11 era. It reviews the trajectory of the U.S. news narrative about Afghanistan and America's never-ending war, and the rise of Afghan journalism, from 2001 to 2017. The book also examines the impact of the American news media inside a war theater. It examines how U.S. journalists affected the U.S.-Afghan relationship and chronicles their contribution to the rapid development of a community of Afghan journalists who grappled daily with how to define themselves and their country during a tumultuous and uneven transition from fundamentalist to democratic rule. Providing rich detail about the U.S.-Afghan relationship, especially former President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai's convictions about the role of the Western press, we begin to understand how journalists are not merely observers to a story; they are participants in it. Journalists are actors in international relations, mediating communications between governments and publics, but also between the administrations of different countries. American and foreign officials simultaneously consume the work of U.S. journalists and use it in their own thinking about how to conduct their work. As such, journalists play an unofficial diplomatic role. However, the U.S. news media largely amplifies American power. Instead of stimulating greater understanding, the U.S. elite, mainstream press can often widen mistrust as they promote an American worldview and, with the exception of some outliers, reduce the world into a tight security frame in which the U.S. is the hegemon. This has been the case in Afghanistan since 2001, particularly as0emerging Afghan journalists have relied significantly on U.S. and other Western news outlets to report events within their government and their country. 0Based on eight years of interviews in Kabul, Washington, and New York, Your Country, Our War demonstrates how news has intersected with international politics during the War in Afghanistan and shows the global power and reach of the U.S. news media, especially within the context of the post-9/11 era. It reviews the trajectory of the U.S. news narrative about Afghanistan and America's never-ending war, and the rise of Afghan journalism, from 2001 to 2017. The book also examines the impact of the0American news media inside a war theater. It examines how U.S. journalists affected the U.S.-Afghan relationship and chronicles their contribution to the rapid development of a community of Afghan journalists who grappled daily with how to define themselves and their country during a tumultuous and uneven transition from fundamentalist to democratic rule This book reviews how news intersects with international politics and discusses the global power and reach of the U.S. news media, especially within the context of the post-9/11 era. It is based on years of interviews conducted between 2009 and 2017, in Kabul, Washington, and New York. The book draws together communications scholarship on hegemony and the U.S. news media’s relationship with American society and the government (i.e. indexing and cascading; agenda-building and agenda-setting; framing; and conflict reportage) along with how national bias and ethnocentrism are fixed phenomena in international news. Given the longevity of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and the Afghan news media’s dramatic proliferation since 2001, Afghanistan provides a fascinating case study for the role of journalists in conflict and diplomacy. By identifying, framing, and relaying narratives that affect the normative environment, U.S. correspondents have played unofficial diplomatic and developmental roles. They have negotiated the meaning of war and peace. Indirectly and directly, they have supported Afghan journalists in their professional growth. As a result, these foreign correspondents have not been merely observers to a story; they have been participants in it. The stories they choose to tell, and how they tell them, can become dominant narratives in global politics, and have directly affected events inside Afghanistan. The U.S. journalists did not just provide the first draft of history on this enduring post-9/11 entanglement between the United States and Afghanistan—they actively shaped it. Hamid Karzai vs. the New York Times -- 9/11 and the American Press -- Afghanistan in Americans' imagination -- Afghanistan's Press -- The modern Afghan journalist -- U.S. correspondents in Afghanistan -- Your country, our war -- The diplomatic dimension of news.