Lara Logan: "I can’t stand, that there is a major lie being propagated"

CBS' Lara Logan, who was viciously raped by a gang of Egyptian thugs in February of 2011, is holding nothing back when it comes to U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Laura Washington of the Chicago Sun-Times brings us the details:

Lara Logan, a correspondent for CBS’ “60 Minutes,” delivered a provocative speech to about 1,100 influentials from government, politics, media, and the legal and corporate arenas. 

...

Her ominous and frightening message was gleaned from years of covering our wars in the Middle East. She arrived in Chicago on the heels of her Sept. 30 report, “The Longest War.” It examined the Afghanistan conflict and exposed the perils that still confront America, 11 years after 9/11.

Eleven years later, “they” still hate us, now more than ever, Logan told the crowd. The Taliban and al-Qaida have not been vanquished, she added. They’re coming back.

“I chose this subject because, one, I can’t stand, that there is a major lie being propagated . . .” Logan declared in her native South African accent.

The lie is that America’s military might has tamed the Taliban.

“There is this narrative coming out of Washington for the last two years,” Logan said. It is driven in part by “Taliban apologists,” who claim “they are just the poor moderate, gentler, kinder Taliban,” she added sarcastically. “It’s such nonsense!”

Logan stepped way out of the “objective,” journalistic role. The audience was riveted as she told of plowing through reams of documents, and interviewing John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan; Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and a Taliban commander trained by al-Qaida. The Taliban and al-Qaida are teaming up and recruiting new terrorists to do us deadly harm, she reports.

She made a passionate case that our government is downplaying the strength of our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a rationale of getting us out of the longest war. We have been lulled into believing that the perils are in the past: “You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight. In your arrogance, you think you write the script.”

Our enemies are writing the story, she suggests, and there’s no happy ending for us.

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Logan even called for retribution for the recent terrorist killings of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other officials. The event is a harbinger of our vulnerability, she said. Logan hopes that America will “exact revenge and let the world know that the United States will not be attacked on its own soil. That its ambassadors will not be murdered, and that the United States will not stand by and do nothing about it.”

A "harbinger of our vulnerability"... under Obama... is the indirect message being spoken.

Interesting tale not likely to get much air time.

Doesn't fit the meme.

Comments

[Tregonsee]

We had things like this a few years ago in Iraq before the surge. They were all over the front pages and the lead item on every network broadcast. Reid even announced, to great acclaim, that we had lost. Well, they will be back on January 21st next year.

[Tim Chesterton]

Logan even called for retribution for the recent terrorist killings of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other officials. The event is a harbinger of our vulnerability, she said. Logan hopes that America will “exact revenge and let the world know that the United States will not be attacked on its own soil.

Are you endorsing her words, Rick? I find it hard to square the words 'retribution' and 'revenge' with the teaching of Jesus.

[Rick]

I am not endorsing her desire for revenge or retribution... My focus was on a member of the media in effect calling this administration liars...

And how her peers are largely silent about it...

[tim aka The Godless Heathen]

Leave the dirty work of 'retribution' and 'revenge' to us heathens. We can handle the “eye for an eye” stuff.

But where have a heard - “A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.” Can’t remember…little help?

[Rick]

Well tim... I think I know...