The 20th century has developed a relationship between conflict and mass media. One of the most obvious outputs of this relationship is propaganda, viciously used for injecting a conflict and then turning it into fateful wars. US propaganda through powerful media campaigns in world wars, Cold War era, European radio in Romania, US media after 9/11, media campaign against Iraqi WMDs, can be the best quoted examples.
Certainly, the West has used media for warmongering for its vested interests during most part of its history but its track record for handling media in case of its own home grown insurgency is indeed laudable.
The Good Friday Agreement, also known as Belfast Agreement, was reached at and signed on Good Friday in 1998 to end to the war in Ireland against the British rule. That agreement was also the culmination of the efforts of media that had been striving for years to find such a solution. I think it is time we reach at such an agreement for the Afghan situation.
JAWAD RAZA KHAN
Islamaba
