the afghan government invited us to bomb them

UPDATED

• Original letter to BBC
• BBC reply (1)
• BBC reply (2)

Inevitably, the Soviet government portrayed its invasion as an act of humanitarian intervention initiated at the “request of the [Afghan] government”. (Pravda, April 27, 1980) The aim was “to prevent the establishment of... a terrorist regime and to protect the Afghan people from genocide”, and also to provide “aid in stabilising the situation and the repulsion of possible external aggression”. (Lyahovsky & Zabrodin, p.48)

Quoted in an alert by Media Lens Invasion - a comparison of Soviet and Western media performance

How close we are...

Dear Sarah Montague

In your interview this morning with General Peter van Uhm, he made the following claim:

‘A lot of people ask me that question [was it worth it], but I keep reminding them of the question why we went to Afghanistan. And it was the government of Afghanistan who asked for help. The United Nations supported that, and in the end Nato stepped in with ISAF.’

This is false, or at the very least, highly misleading - as you must be aware. The government of Afghanistan did not invite the United Nations in to ‘help’ until the end of December 2001, by which time the country had already been devastated by nearly 3 months of Nato’s bombing. The initial Nato invasion was not on the government’s invitation – indeed, the Afghan government made an offer to hand Bin Laden over to a 3rd country for trial in order to prevent the bombing, but the US refused to enter into negotiations. Nor was Nato’s action sanctioned by the Security Council – in other words, it was almost certainly in violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, and therefore almost certainly illegal.

Why did you not challenge General van Uhm on this issue, or at least attempt to clarify the point? Listeners have been left with a very misleading impression.

I would be very grateful for a response, and will be submitting a formal complaint through the BBC’s complaints page.

Yours [*]

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Sent through complaints page:

In Sarah Montague's interview with General Peter van Uhm, she failed to correct his claim that we went into Afghanistan because the government of that country 'asked for help'. Either she is unaware of the real facts, or she is happy for such a false claim to be put out on air without correction. Please clarify which of these is the case.

Van Uhm made the following claim:

‘A lot of people ask me that question [was it worth it], but I keep reminding them of the question why we went to Afghanistan. And it was the government of Afghanistan who asked for help. The United Nations supported that, and in the end Nato stepped in with ISAF.’

This is false, or at the very least, highly misleading. The government of Afghanistan did not invite the United Nations in to ‘help’ until the end of December 2001, by which time the country had already been devastated by nearly 3 months of Nato’s bombing. The initial Nato invasion was not on the government’s invitation – indeed, the Afghan government made an offer to hand Bin Laden over to a 3rd country for trial in order to prevent the bombing, but the US refused to enter into negotiations. Nor was Nato’s action sanctioned by the Security Council – in other words, it was almost certainly in violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, and therefore almost certainly illegal.

Sarah Montague should have challenged General van Uhm on this issue, or at least clarified the point. Listeners unaware of the real facts - or who do not recall them - have been left with an incorrect description of the facts. On such an important issue, that is unacceptable.

(Ms Montague may be interested to know that Pravda and other Soviet media outlets also reported that the government of Afghanistan had invited in the Soviet invaders. The Russians - and no doubt the rest of the world - would be as amused by the idea that Nato was invited in, as we were by their fiction )

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The first response from the BBC was a response to any question and no question:

"Thanks for contacting us regarding the Today programme.

We understand you are unhappy with the programme’s presentation.

It’s very difficult to find presenters who will meet with everyone’s approval and expectations. The range of tastes and opinions held by our audience is so diverse that it’s inevitable some people will dislike or disapprove of certain presenters.
Programme contributors are appointed on the basis of their experience and talent, but judgements are often subjective and we would never expect everyone to agree with every choice we make.

We appreciate your views and we’d like to assure you that we’ve registered your comments on our audience log. This is the internal report of audience feedback which we compile daily for all programme makers and commissioning executives within the BBC, and also their senior management. It ensures that your points, and all other comments we receive, are circulated and considered across the BBC.

Thanks again for getting in touch.

Kind Regards

BBC Complaints"

So I told them it wasn't that I was unhappy with the programme's 'presentation', I was unhappy that a falsehood had been allowed to go unchallenged.

3 months after the original complaint, I get this:

Dear EK

Reference CAS-267780

Thank you for your e-mail and further comments regarding ‘Today’ on 3 August. Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response and are sorry you've had to wait on this occasion.

We’re sorry that our previous response did not address your concerns regarding Sarah Montague's interview with General van Uhm. We forwarded your complaint to Dominic Groves, one of the output Editors for the 'Today' programme, who explained in response that:

We can’t challenge everything guests say on the programme. If we did it would be impossible to keep the interviews to time or to shape them so that the presenters can ask the most pertinent questions. In this case General Peter Van Uhm was invited onto the programme to reflect on the role of Dutch troops in Afghanistan.

There were many issues to cover - and only limited time available. The statement mentioned by the complainant raised historical questions which would have taken the interview into a different area of discussion. We wanted to focus on the decision by the Dutch to pull out of Afghanistan and what it meant for the conduct of the war in the future.''

Nevertheless, if you believe a serious and specific breach of the BBC's Editorial Guidelines has occurred here and you wish to pursue this complaint further, you can contact the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit, within 20 working days, and they will carry out an independent investigation...

Kind Regards

Stuart Webb
BBC Complaints
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

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So is it not 'pertinent' to ask why the General is lying about why we are in Afghanistan?

Ironic that we use the same excuse as the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan. Ironic, as Chomsky has pointed out, that unlike the Soviets, we have no reporter brave enough to refer to the Afghan occupation as just that - an occupation. And ironic that it was the BBC who were responsible for bringing to the attention of the KGB the efforts of Vladimir Danchev, the Soviet Union's brave reporter, to get the message out to listeners that the 'rescue operation' was in fact an occupation. (See this account for details)

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