Just another daydream:Media ignores Afghanistan war

Just Another Daydream
Addie Conway, sophomore, becomes new opinion columnist and gives her opinion on Afghanistan. (Photo by Cristina Vasquez-Muniz)

Addie Conway
Opinion Columnist

President Barack Obama announced the withdrawal from Iraq on national television on Aug. 31.
Midway through his speech, Obama mentioned the war in Afghanistan which has been going on since 2001. The Iraq war has been going on since 2003. However, since the Iraq war, the news coverage on Afghanistan has dwindled away, to a mere 2 percent, according to NPR. Hang on. We’ve been involved in the Afghanistan war since 2001, so why not cover it?
I realized that while I was very well informed on the subject of the Iraq war, I had almost no information on the Afghanistan war. On the few occasions that we had discussed the current wars in school, the subject was always and only, the Iraq war-with hardly any mentions of the Afghanistan war, despite the fact that we had been there longer.
The reasons we invaded Afghanistan are relatively simple: the Taliban refused to stop hiding al-Qaeda members responsible for the 9/11 attacks, including one of its top members, Osama Bin Laden, prime suspect for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Nine years later, we still have not caught Bin Laden, our troops are still in Afghanistan even though 1,300 soldiers have died with the number still rising, and both media and people’s interest in the war have faded. Our reasons for invading Afghanistan were rock solid, and we had support from other countries, Australia and Great Britain.

Despite all of this, there’s been almost no media coverage on the Afghanistan war.

In fact, Obama’s speech was one of the few times I’ve heard mention of the Afghanistan war in the past few months, if not years. It’s almost a sign of disrespect-both to the troops and to the people of Afghanistan who have died in this war.

Our American troops are fighting for our safety, not only for themselves, but for us as well. The Afghanistan people, many of whom are innocent of any wrong doing, are being killed as well, with no media attention on it at all. Of course, there are people who want to hurt America, in both every and any way possible, with our most famous example being the 9/11 attacks.

Maybe, if we ignore this war long enough, it’ll cease to exist. After all, if you don’t see it, hear it, or speak of it, it doesn’t exist right? People rejoiced when the Iraq war was over, but what they may not have realized was that we’re still involved in yet another war. The troops are going immediately from Iraq to Afghanistan.

Therefore I have a proposal. Let’s recognize our troops for everything they have done and will continue to do for out country-the Land of the Free. Let’s stand up and get the media to notice our troops.

Leave a Reply