Afghanistan: Passing Snapshot of a Down and Dirty War

What is wrong with the Afghan coverage this week — if you’re trying to make sense of the pictures — is 1.) fragmentation and 2.) inanity.

While the media sphere is giving inordinate attention to the triumphant images of US troops clearing out Marjah in Helmand Province, the news wires also document a pounding theTaliban delivered to tourist hotels in Kabul. When you net it out, the surge starts to look more like whack-a-mole.

But then, it’s hard to take the Kabul attack very seriously when the pictures many Western outlets are grabbing from the choice of scenes of rubble and carnage show Afghan boys entertaining themselves with a female mannequin pulled from the debris. What a find for them, given standards of modesty. And what a find for the newswires to sex up, for a day, at least, this otherwise endless and mind-numbing war.