Yesterday, U.S. Representative Lynn Woolsey identified a dark irony of the nearly-nine-year war in Afghanistan: American soldiers are fighting to prop up a government that denies the very freedoms we say we’re fighting for.
Woolsey was talking about the decision by President Hamid Karzai to ban news coverage of some Taliban attacks. The Taliban, in response, criticized the censorship, though they were heavy censors during their own time in power.
Woolsey said,
“We cannot passively accept this decision by the Karzai government to impose a gag order on the media. I urge Secretary of State Clinton and Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke to raise this issue at the highest levels. At a time when Americans are sacrificing so very much, when they’re being asked to send their sons and daughters to risk their lives halfway around the world, we owe them nothing less than the unvarnished truth about this war. Now is the moment for more information, not less; the bad news as well as the good news.”
