Tom Brokaw says war against terrorist undercovered by TV networks

[peterh]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/02/10/entertainment1854EST0782.DTL

Tom Brokaw is getting a renewed appreciation for how difficult it is to find Osama bin Laden during the NBC anchorman's trip this week to where the war against terrorism is being fought.
He traveled to the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan for a report televised on "Nightly News."
"It was breathtakingly beautiful but absolutely forbidding in terms of geography," he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "There were 100,000 places to hide in a five-square mile area."

He did make one accommodation for safety, particularly when it concerned his visit with Musharraf, the target of several assassination attempts.
"If he had invited me to go for a ride in his motorcade, I think I would have declined," he said.



Now, I sure there are various ways to interpret this, but my take is that someone whispered into Tom’s ear and suggested that it would be a great idea if the media might start to de-emphasis the quagmire and shift the peoples attention to what we originally set out to do…absent the illegal detour…..

[lovedems]

1. Ah yes, we must make it look like an impossible mission has been

accomplished! Look how hard it was but we still got OBL.

The set-up has started.

[Just Me]

2. Huh? "Undercovered"? We hear the word "terrorism" every single freakin'

DAY!!!! It's the new brainwash trip word, TERRORISM, TERROR, TERRORIST, don't think, don't speak, do as I command!!! Is this guy for real? What is he doing? Is he freakin' brainwashed?

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. Perhaps some kind of apology or excuse

why UBL hasn't been captured." There were 100,000 places to hide "

What he seems to be saying is that the press has never really shown the public just how difficult it is to find somebody there.


Well, how long did it take them to find that olympic bomber guy or the unibomber? My guess is they will NEVER get Osama. The whole thing just makes bush look like a bigger (is that possible?) ass for ever
claiming that he could "smoke him out".

[UpInArms]

4. let's just look at the logistics

for a moment -

we sent how many troops into Afghanistan?

10,000?

we sent how many troops into Iraq?

150,000+

So what are you supposed to find?

Saddam.

[Voltaire99]

5. Mr. "Greatest Generation" does his war tourism thing

I suspect you're right about his intentions, Peter.

Brokaw is the clown prince of right wing media war-making, and among US journalists probably only follows Judith Miller and Michael Kelly in having the most blood on his hands for helping to promote the Iraq War.

[radfringe]

6. just a heads up - 60 minutes is doing a piece

about Afghanistan this Sunday --- called THE FORGOTTEN WAR

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. Someone needs to tell Tom

that all they need to do is look for a 6 foot+ tall Arab male, who travels by donkey, with his own kidney dialysis machine. Even in the rugged terrain of the Afghan mountains, he's not hard to pick out of a crowd.

[CRK7376]

10. Not exactly....but close...

I spent time there too, where Brokaw tromped around and other places in that country, and it is incredibly beautiful in some ways, especially if you are mountain freak like me. It's also a misreable place. No doubt about it, there are 1000s and 1000s of caves there to hide in and we searched a bunch. There are also lots of tall Afghanis over there. Yeah most peak at 6feet, but I dealt with many that were taller than I am and I'm 6'1" But you can bet ole BL is definitely having to be very very careful in his movements....

[dbt]

8. Brokaw seriously needs to bite me!

The man ain't been capable of an independent thought since he looked deeply into Reagan's eyes and fell in love.

:argh:
dbt

[ComerPerro]

9. Yeah because I never turn on the TV and hear someone say

"Orange Alert"

"Alert Level"

"Terror"

"Al Qeada"

or anything like that.


Sheesh.

[Bozvotros]

11. Don't forget "Bora Bora"

Where Rummy decided not to disturb their friends in Pakistan and let a cornered OBL and lots of Al Qaeda slip away by air transport.

I think the US public would be interested in knowing how badly Bush-Rumsfield blew this opportunity. I seem to remember hearing non-stop about how Clinton missed opportunities to get OBL, much of which was pure RW horseshit. But when the incompetent Bush-boy sends ten thousand troops in, corners the bad guy and then lets him fly away untouched, no one needs to hear about that.

Clinton got blown. Bush blows.

[JawJaw]

12. Hideaways

Saw an intersting documentary on the BBC a while back about central Asia.

During a trip through Tajikstan, the presenter was explaining how these remote mountains have been used by bandits for thousands of years. The terrain is so mountainous that you can't even hear where you're being shot from (due to the echoes), let alone see your assailant!

[leesa]

13. No Tom, what you didn't cover was that the "war on terrorism" is a

bunch of bogus crap designed by the military industrial corporatists to make gobs of money.

[Mr.Green93]

14. the "war on terror"

is a criminal matter not military