When you look southwards outside of our office into Times Square, there is a subversive billboard right above a sign selling “DYNOTOPIA, ” a saga about an era which may have come and gone, depending on your point of view. A sentiment from the more recent past has the feel of being a dinosour right above it: It’s a line from John Lennon’s famous song, “IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE LIVING LIFE IN PEACE.” The billboard is all white and unsigned, and unmistakably a gift from Yoko Ono who has plastered peace sentiments in the “crossroads of the world before.” This year, even as we lurch into what is supposed to be a “Season of Peace,” that invitation to the collective imagination seems more of a flashback to another time.

JUSTICE, NORTHERN ALLIANCE STYLE

What is happening in Afghanistan, is, alas, not so unimaginable given the forces involved and the shockingly disengaged position of the United States military which is watching it all happen, and encouraging. I didn’t expect that this enemy would be it handled with kid gloves. And I am hardly sympathetic or supportive of the Taliban’s crimes and oppressive rule. But surely, the reporting on this phase of the “mop-up” of the war should consider what this chapter of the conflict must look like to the people around the world who were asked to support freedom over terror, and a war whose goal was to deliver “justice.” Yet those values and considerations are missing in much of the media coverage. While we debate the legality of media tribunals, hundreds of soldiers who gave themselves up are receiving capital punishment without any trials or tribunals.

These sentences seem to have the tacit approval of the people running the war. Those signals are everywhere including in quote from one of those unnamed “officials” that the Washington Post loves to cite. Today, on its front page, a Pentagon strategist explained yesterday’s bombing of a so-called Taliban/Al Qaeda headquarters. (The Taliban denied losing any of its leaders in that raid.) His words: “WE WHACKED THEM”

Whacking them may be what war is about, but that’s when the war is raging, not after its over. Much of the reporting seems to be cheering on human rights abuses with desensitized coverage and reporting which avoids legal and moral imperatives, those qualities which supposedly separate US from THEM.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE TIMES

Listen to this language in the New York Times today.

REMINDER: these words, describe people, human beings, who under every covenant of war have a right to be treated according international laws and customs as enunciated in Geneva conventions and Red Cross guidelines.

“Wreteched cargo”

“The Prisoners, crawling and writhing like turtles in a pet shop were the sorry by product of the Northern Alliance’s most recent victory.

“It was a defeated army, this, all rags, and filth, and lowered heads”

These words jumped out of Dexter Filkin’s dispatch from Khulm Afghanistan. It is a story about men about to die, about to be shot through head if recent practice is any guide. Executed. Liquidated. The New York Times headline sanitizes this with these words: “AFTER DEFEAT, JOURNEY TO UNCERTAIN FATE.” Uncertain?

WHO IS ACCOUNTABLE?

The Red Cross, an organization generously supported by millions of Americans has been issuing appeals that go largely unheard and unreported. The UN doesn’t want to get involved and says the Red Cross has the responsibility. And the Red Cross keeps talking but no one is listening. Around and around we go, while the world watches footage of hundreds of bodies strewn about the yard of that fort in Mazari-i- Sharif. ABC broadcast the images yeterday on World News Tonight. I have yet to read a detailed report on what happened there, how it started, and whether the bombing that wounded 5 Americans by mistake were called for.

Peter Pflaum sends along a BBC report and comment: “Another CIA screw up - poor and too little too late planning for management of prisoners - the presence of Americans set off the rebellion.”

Here is part of the Beeb’s graphic account: “What followed was a mixture of farce, tragedy and bloody combat.

“Some bodies had their hands tied behind their backs.

“Some of the Hazaras stopped to take the boots off the feet of the slain foreigners, forcing commanders to bring out sticks to beat their men back into battle.

“Sources last night said that the special forces had not joined in the attack against the Taliban’s position, but had called in the air strikes. It was not clear whether the body of a CIA agent killed on Sunday by the prisoners had been retrieved from the compound. The riot broke out when the prisoners spotted the CIA agent and another colleague, witnesses said. The second man, Dave, apparently shot dead three Taliban before escaping.”

Can you image what would have been the media response if the situation had been reversed, if Northern Alliance forces, or G-d forbid, US forces, were treated this way?

AN APPEAL FROM HUMAN RIGHTS WATCHOn Monday, Human Rights Watch issued an urgent appeal that went largely unheeded. Read this and tell me where else you have read it:

“ISLAMABAD, Nov. 27 2001 — Human Right Watch (HRW) on Monday called on the United States and the Northern Alliance to guarantee the humane treatment of surrendered or captured Taliban soldiers in the northern Afghan city of Konduz this weekend. HRW said fair screening procedures were needed to determine who should face prosecution later for serious violations of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“The announcement follows reports of a revolt by Taliban prisoners in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif in which hundreds are reported to have been killed.

“We now have seen what can happen when you take such a large group of people prisoner,” an HRW researcher in Islamabad, Sam Zia-Zarifi, told IRIN. “We are concerned about both the prisoners and their keepers,” he said. He called for greater cooperation between the international community and the Northern Alliance.

“In a press statement, HRW said that the Taliban fighters in Konduz included two commanders - Mullah Dadaullah and Mullah Fazil - who were implicated in some of the worst human rights abuses in recent Afghan history.

“The need to set up a justice mechanism to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity is no longer a theoretical issue, it’s an urgent priority,” HRW’s Asia director, Sidney Jones, said. She noted that the most immediate need was to ensure that prisoners were treated humanely, but that it was also critical to establish procedures for separating people suspected of grave crimes from those who had simply volunteered or been recruited to fight for the Taliban. The fighters in Konduz reportedly included many young men who had volunteered after 11 September. ”

Bear in mind that many of those fighting for the Taliban and the Northern Alliance were children pressed into the war, untrained, and often the victims of the worst carnage.

ANOTHER JOURNALIST DEAD, MANY SAY: “WE ARE OUT OF HERE”

Many journalists are pulling out of the North of Afghanistan, after the death yesterday of Ulf Sroemberg, a Swedish photo-journalist and the eighth journalist killed. There has also been a kidnapping of Ken Hechtman, a Canadian freelancer who was reportedly being held in chains for ransom by bandits. The Swede was killed in a robbery and many journalists are being targeted in the same manner by criminal gangs.

What is it like to cover this conflict? Here is a report from Globalvision News Network partner, the Pakistan News Service about reporting from he town in which our Swedish colleague was murdered:

JOURNALISTS IN THE CROSSFIRE

” KABUL,Nov 27 (PNS): As Northern Alliance troops were driving Taliban soldiers out of northern Afghanistan, an official at the Allianceís Foreign Ministry in Khoja Bachoudin told us the key city of Taloqan about 40 miles to the south had been liberated.The Taliban had been chased out of town and out of the region.

“When we asked if we could go there, we were told: No problem. The official scribbled out the permission slip that would allow to us pass their checkpoints en route to Taloqan. That night, I discussed it with my producer and camera crew. We consulted with our fixers,the local translator-liaison-arrangers who are indispensable in Third World countries.We learned that the road to Taloqan was heavily mined, and parts of it might even be under Taliban control still - contrary to what we had been told. We took a vote and elected not to go.Two days later, the team from another U.S. network drove to Taloqan - at night, no less - and narrowly missed being caught in a roadside firefight.

By the time the media moved en masse to Taloqan a few days later, there was still fighting going on inside the city. The news that four journalists were killed on the road from Jalalabad to Kabul today tragically demonstrate the perils of reporting the war on terrorism from inside Afghanistan.

The biggest problem foreign journalists face in Afghanistan is relying on the guidance and protection of the Northern Alliance. And, simply put, its officials cannot always be depended on and what they say cannot be taken at face value - either out of arrogance, self-deception, macho posturing or simple errors of judgment. They tend to exaggerate their prowess and even the number of troops they have.

In any war zone, foreign reporters have to rely first on their instincts, then on the fixers. knowledge and, finally, on the goodwill of the host country or group.But in Afghanistan, each of these is flawed. Reporters’ instincts are typically based on conventional ideas of warfare.The brand practiced in Afghanistan is much more volatile, anarchic and brutal than what Westerners are accustomed to.

“The fixers who I met were often whimsical and uncommunicative, of dubious loyalty (most were sanctioned by and believed to be kicking part of their salaries back to the Foreign Ministry). Few were proficient with the English language, which also did not inspire confidence. To my knowledge, no one had previously worked with foreign journalists.

“Northern Alliance not to be trusted As for the Northern Alliance, found officials and military commanders to be unsettlingly prone to elliptical or ambiguous remarks,and,when it came to questions about Alliance troop strength and efficiency, misleading or even wrong.After the three journalists were killed in an ambush at Qala Qatar while riding on an Alliance armored vehicle at the invitation of a local official, I vowed never again to trust their assurances about safety and security.

“Reporters used to be considered non-combatants, essentially off-limits. Not anymore. And especially not in Afghanistan where the Taliban reportedly announced that journalists with the Northern Alliance would be treated the same as the enemy soldiers.

“The dilemma for us is that we all want to cover the story, or else we would not have accepted the assignment, but it is inherently risky. The fixer who was with the journalists killed at Qala Qatar told me the local commander strenuously warned them the trip was dangerous.They said,”Good. Then it might make a great story,’ he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

LET US HEAR FROM YOU

Enough death and horror for one day. I am a bit late today in posting this column because I am just back from a very informative American Press Institute conference. More on that later.

Please keep your items and letters coming. Email me: dissector@mediachannel.org