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The beginning of Brian Williams' field trip to Afghanistan coincided with an upsurge of violence in the guerrilla war there. Afghanistan was Story of the Day as the military death toll for the United States reached 55 in October, the nation's most deadly single month there since the invasion in 2001. All three newscasts led with the ambush of a Stryker armored vehicle in Kandahar Province that killed seven soldiers from Fort Lewis. NBC's newscast split anchoring chores between Williams in the field and Today's Ann Curry in the New York studio. CBS also used a substitute anchor, Early Show's Harry Smith.

"After weeks of escalation here violence has now reached record levels," Richard Engel calculated on NBC. "The Taliban have been gaining momentum, especially since the failed elections this summer. There are more US troops to attack and the militants are using bigger bombs." On CBS, Mandy Clark added the ambushed Stryker soldiers to the commandos who died during a drug bust on Monday: "This record spate of violence--22 deaths in 48 hours--comes at a time of year when fighting in Afghanistan usually slows down as the falling snow closes off mountain passes." ABC anchor Charles Gibson repeated a theory from an unidentified member of the Pentagon brass that the Taliban's are "trying hard to influence this nation's decisions regarding additional troop deployments."

NBC News included the question of further troop deployment in its national opinion poll. Chuck Todd tracked the trends after a month of debate: support for sending reinforcements to the war has inched up, from 44% to 47%; opposition has declined markedly, from 51% to 43%. Astonishingly, the majority of NBC's respondents repudiates the idea of civilian control of the military. Those who believe that Afghan-based generals should decide on troop levels rather than Barack Obama, the Commander-in-Chief, make up a "whopping 62%."

In September Matthew Hoh, a State Department official and former officer in the Marine Corps, resigned from the foreign service in protest against the war in Afghanistan. "A Pollyannish misadventure," he called it. CBS' David Martin reported Hoh's contention that the US military presence there "greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Taliban insurgency." NBC anchor Brian Williams kicked off his reporting from Afghanistan from a secret location, a "special forces outpost" in an eastern province where American commandos train their local comrades. Williams visited an unnamed "bleak little town…no more than one or two streets wide," a short drive from the base, where Afghan commandos distribute food to the locals. "It all goes back to the Vietnam-era slogan Winning Hearts & Minds," was his foreboding reminder.

Andrew Tyndall 10/31/09 2:28:21 pm

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