The reputation of the New York Times has been falling fast in recent years due to its questionable editorial standards. The liberal bias of the newspaper has led to a situation where it has sacrificed objective reporting of events for brownie points in liberal circles. The falling standards of the ‘failing’ New York Times were once again on display when they provided a platform to an Islamic Terrorist from the Taliban.
In the opinion-editorial, the terrorist who happens to be the deputy leader of the Taliban proceeded to whitewash the crimes of his brethren and say laughable things such as “I am convinced that the killing and the maiming must stop.” The terrorist also said, “Our negotiation team, led by my colleagues Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and Sher Mohammed Abas Stanekzai, has worked tirelessly for the past 18 months with the American negotiators to make an agreement possible.”
Sirajuddin Haqqani stated, “We stuck with the talks despite recurring disquiet and upset within our ranks over the intensified bombing campaign against our villages by the United States and the flip-flopping and ever-moving goal posts of the American side.” In the oped, Haqqani also claimed that they were “forced to defend” against the USA and its allies does not mention the legitimacy of the Afghan government.
Haqqani is the leader of the Pakistan-based Haqqani Network comprised of fighters affiliated with al-Qaeda. He is wanted by the FBI and the United Nations for being “actively involved in the planning and execution of attacks” against US troops. He is also wanted in connection with a 2008 terrorist attack on a hotel in Kabul and an assassination attempt against Afghanistan’s president. The US announced a bounty of up to $10 million for information leading to his arrest.
The NYT appears to be ever willing to go to any length in order to oppose Donald Trump, the President of the US, and providing a platform to the Taliban to run their propaganda appears to be one an instance of it. The NYT’s conduct is in sync with that of the western press at large. For instance, the Washington Post described ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as an “austere religious scholar” after he was neutralized by US forces on the orders of Donald Trump.
Bloomberg News, owned by presidential aspirant Michael Bloomberg, glorified al-Baghdadi by describing him as someone who came from a small village and then achieved great success against all odds. The Western press’ glorification of terrorists and terrorism is something India encounters on a daily basis. They go to great lengths to whitewash the Jihad in Kashmir and call it a ‘freedom struggle’. It’s only now that the people in the West are realizing the extent of the moral depravity of its mainstream media.
The New York Times itself has peddled anti-India narratives regularly. In the past, NYT has exploited children’s deaths to malign Yogi Government’s crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses in Uttar Pradesh. In an op-ed about India that was centred around the CBI raids at the residences of Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy, the founder promoters of NDTV, the NYT’s reportage was a textbook case of distorting the truth.
NYTimes’ former Delhi bureau chief Ellen Barry had also indulged in white-washing the 2002 Godhra carnage where as many as 59 people were burnt alive in a train. She had also spread lies to insult the victims of Godhra carnage in her report on the Gulbarg Society verdict. NYT also encourages troll-like behaviour while reporting on democratically elected public representatives by attempting to trivialise the personal lives of female politicians.
