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Time to once again open my life up a little in order to share the plethora of wealth I'm about to absorb. I'm going to be back in Iraq through September, so hop on board and check back every couple of days, I'll do my best to update as much as possible. Questions? dtate38@cox.net And check out the site I'm working with: http://www.billroggio.com Support independent journalism!
Saturday, September 11, 2004
September 11th can be a busy day here in Afghanistan. I sent Ahmet to cover President Karzai at a school at 0700 and the day was on. We had worked out the live coverage plan for the 9-11 ceremony in Kabul with no problems. Just meet there at 1400.
In the meantime, I wrote a story about Tarnak Farms, the former Al Qaida training facility outside of Kandahar. Last month I was able to convince the ANA to take me out there; kind of like a well guarded field trip. Anyway, I saved the video just for today and it eneded up selling to CNN. Of course good news. That means someone responsible has the video in their archives, which for historical purposes, is a big deal.
If you don't know, Tarnak Farms was Osama's laregst training facility. The U.S. blew the hell out of it, which makes for good pictures. We were able to crawl into the biggest piece of building left, which gave us a great vantage point. The compound itself is quite large, but was thoroughly impaired by U.S. bombs. I have some pictures that will eventually make it on the site (Kent!!). The're pretty interesting.
We made it to CFC-Afghanistan on time and got everything set with plenty of time to spare, so we asked to go to the PX. Oh yea baby!! I bought Chips Ahoy, Oreos, Tostito's with hot salsa and Sprite. Like heaven!! Real American junk food that's actually fresh!! Of course Ahmet had to be like my Mom and take forever to do his shopping, then bought the store. That put us dangerously close to some interviews I wanted to do live.
Then, we had major audio problems that were detected late because the audio check I asked for never got done. So here I have four soldiers serving that have 9-11 related life stories, expecting to be on live TV and we can't get mics to work.
Without getting into it, we scrapped out the interviews at the last second and was able to hit live on time.
The ceremony went fine and ended up being bought by ABC, but Recep and I had to get out of there and to the house for an evening live shot with Al Aribya. The first of three is at 1900, the last at midnight. Long freaking day.
One thing that came out of tonight was the true collision of eastern and western media. Just before the live shot, the Al Aribya producer and I got into a diagreement. Earlier in the day it was announced that western warlord, Ismael Kahn, had accepted a post in the government and was essentially replaced with a new govorner.
For those that follow the situation, they know this is a big deal. So Al Aribya is saying that Ismael Kahn was offered the job so he would drop out of running for president. He went on to imply that this is how the U.S. dominated politics play a part in Afghanistan.
The problem is two fold: First, Ismael Kahn is not, and has not, been a candidate for the president. Second, he is being offered a job versus getting himself and his followers killed by U.S. bombers tired of waiting for him to get with the plan.
What's the point of this ramble? No real big point, but a succession of many smaller points, all looking at the fact that journalists can see anything in a theory that they want to, even if the truth needs to be streched a little. Is hatred and disslike that blinding? One thing's for sure: For most Middle Eastern journalists I know, everything that goes wrong in the world has roots that strech all the way back to America, always.
In the meantime, I wrote a story about Tarnak Farms, the former Al Qaida training facility outside of Kandahar. Last month I was able to convince the ANA to take me out there; kind of like a well guarded field trip. Anyway, I saved the video just for today and it eneded up selling to CNN. Of course good news. That means someone responsible has the video in their archives, which for historical purposes, is a big deal.
If you don't know, Tarnak Farms was Osama's laregst training facility. The U.S. blew the hell out of it, which makes for good pictures. We were able to crawl into the biggest piece of building left, which gave us a great vantage point. The compound itself is quite large, but was thoroughly impaired by U.S. bombs. I have some pictures that will eventually make it on the site (Kent!!). The're pretty interesting.
We made it to CFC-Afghanistan on time and got everything set with plenty of time to spare, so we asked to go to the PX. Oh yea baby!! I bought Chips Ahoy, Oreos, Tostito's with hot salsa and Sprite. Like heaven!! Real American junk food that's actually fresh!! Of course Ahmet had to be like my Mom and take forever to do his shopping, then bought the store. That put us dangerously close to some interviews I wanted to do live.
Then, we had major audio problems that were detected late because the audio check I asked for never got done. So here I have four soldiers serving that have 9-11 related life stories, expecting to be on live TV and we can't get mics to work.
Without getting into it, we scrapped out the interviews at the last second and was able to hit live on time.
The ceremony went fine and ended up being bought by ABC, but Recep and I had to get out of there and to the house for an evening live shot with Al Aribya. The first of three is at 1900, the last at midnight. Long freaking day.
One thing that came out of tonight was the true collision of eastern and western media. Just before the live shot, the Al Aribya producer and I got into a diagreement. Earlier in the day it was announced that western warlord, Ismael Kahn, had accepted a post in the government and was essentially replaced with a new govorner.
For those that follow the situation, they know this is a big deal. So Al Aribya is saying that Ismael Kahn was offered the job so he would drop out of running for president. He went on to imply that this is how the U.S. dominated politics play a part in Afghanistan.
The problem is two fold: First, Ismael Kahn is not, and has not, been a candidate for the president. Second, he is being offered a job versus getting himself and his followers killed by U.S. bombers tired of waiting for him to get with the plan.
What's the point of this ramble? No real big point, but a succession of many smaller points, all looking at the fact that journalists can see anything in a theory that they want to, even if the truth needs to be streched a little. Is hatred and disslike that blinding? One thing's for sure: For most Middle Eastern journalists I know, everything that goes wrong in the world has roots that strech all the way back to America, always.
