WASHINGTON, 8 November — As the Bush administration carries out the fifth week of its military campaign in Afghanistan, Congress was expected to vote yesterday to authorize $27.5 million for a “Radio Free Afghanistan.”
Observers say the move is beginning to resemble the ideological struggle of the Cold War. And just to prove the point, while speaking to Eastern European leaders Tuesday, President Bush compared Afghanistan’s Taleban regime to the totalitarian governments that ruled their countries.
On Capitol Hill, Congressman Ed Royce, R-California, also took up this theme, arguing to his colleagues that Radio Free Europe was persuasive during the Cold War, and that a similar station is needed now for Afghanistan.
“Since 1996, I’ve been trying to get this up and running, and I’ve had opposition from the State Department. I believe that if we had used the opportunity at the time for people to know the truth about the Taleban, they would not have been able to consolidate their power on Afghanistan and then create those terrorist training camps, and allow Bin Laden and other groups to use those camps to train and prepare. So I think it’s essential that we put into play what we know works.”
State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, says Radio Free Afghanistan could be very useful — if it doesn’t pull money away from broadcasters already reaching Afghanistan. There already is, for example, the Voice of America in Pushtu.
Congressman Royce argues that VOA’s mission is to give a picture of America, while Radio Free Afghanistan would be more like a local opposition station, which could respond to Taleban propaganda.
VOA’s new director, Bob Riley, says there is an unfortunate impression on Capitol Hill that VOA is not effective. “This is one of VOA’s finest hour,” he argues.
Riley says VOA is doing everything possible to get the US message out. “We have increased our broadcasting in the five Afghan-related languages: Farsi, Pushtu, Dari, Urdu and Uzbek, and also in Arabic, in order to explain more comprehensively the purposes, and the rationale, behind US policy, and to give these people the news.”
Bush administration officials are doing their part to support the cause. After a slow start, they are now speaking more often on VOA and other stations. And the administration has brought back into service, retired ambassador Christopher Ross, a fluent Arabic speaker, to help out in Arabic communications. Ross made his debut on the influential satellite station, Al-Jazeera, last weekend, to respond to the latest videotape by Osama Bin Laden.
All US ambassadors around the globe are also giving interviews and writing articles.
