In the headline “How can America bomb this tragic people” Robert Fisk is using his headline with a rhetorical question stating that it wasn’t all of the people of Afghanistan it was a small minority of them. Fisk uses the phrase “tragic people” in order to make you feel sorry for the country as he believes that most of the Afghans haven’t done anything wrong. He writes the headline in order to get America to change their minds about bombing Afghanistan by writing this to bring out their emotions.
The picture that is juxtaposed with the article first article suggests that the Americans are technologically advanced over the Afghans and that the Americans would be and is ready for action with a quick and ready response to any more attacks that Afghanistan might spring upon the Americans. The man in the plane has a very upright final posture suggesting that he is confident and ready to go and defend his country. As the man is in a British Harrier this photograph is suggesting unity between nations and that if America was ready than so was England. As the man has his thumbs up he is revealing that everything is good and that he is happy to go with no regrets.
In the picture that is juxtaposed with the headline “How can the U.S bomb this tragic people” there is a sense of war and suffering in everyday life. This photograph suggests that if America did attack, the country would have no means of protection. The photograph is set with two young children climbing on an old army tank, this is suggesting that the apparatus of war have become absorbed into the landscape and has become part of every day life. In the area surrounding the photograph the land is decaying and is destroyed the country is not technologically advanced and that it would not take a lot for America to destroy the entire country. They certainly would not put up a strong competition for the Americans.
In both headlines there are two conflicting views as to what to do about Afghanistan. They are both confident and sure as to what they ought to do. For example the headline “and they’re right” suggests that he believes that only his view is correct. Harold Evans writes how the people of America agree with the bombing and how they know of the consequences and the suffering they will cause and they still agree to attack. Evans believes that the Americans have thought things through, and he believes that the Americans should start preparing to bomb Afghanistan. In the first paragraph of the article Evans writes how president Bush has “unfurled the flag”. He uses the term flag, as a cliché so it has no real meaning it is just a phrase.
Robert Fisk writes how as America is one of the most powerful nations he believes they have an unfair advantage over Afghanistan. He writes “America wants its own band of justice” meaning that America always has to go one step further to prove that they are more powerful and by doing this they are breaking up the countries that they do attack and bomb. Robert Fisk is worrying about the effects it could have on Afghanistan and because Afghanistan is already poor if the country was bombed than the consequences could destroy the nation of young children and innocent families both young and old, if America went too far they could even end up destroying the whole country.
In both articles both the reporters use a lot of adjectives in their articles to create a vivid sense of reality, for example when Robert Fisk writes about America being powerful he instead of just writing that he writes that America is ‘extraordinarily’ and he uses words like ‘Unbelievable’ which gets his point across leaving it in the readers mind. Harold Evans refers to the Afghan people as ‘Demented fanatics’ this phrase would stay with you in your mind because it is a harsh phrase that means a lot it is also an offensive term that you would remember because the only way to say the phrase ‘Demented fanatics’ is in a harsh tone of voice.
Many people would argue for bombing Afghanistan and many would argue against. There are a lot of conflicting views as to what should be done about either bombing Afghanistan or not. Harold Evans and Robert Fisk have written down their conflicting beliefs trying to get the country to believe what they do, and they have come to their own decisions. I have concluded that the headlines on these particular articles show what the writer believes at the beginning of the article with clear self-explanatory headlines. I have also explained the use of language written down in order to explain clearly what both the writers believe. My comparison of the two articles proves that not only people agreed with the bombing of Afghanistan they also thought it was the morally correct thing to do, however there were a few minority of people that thought it was wrong to bomb a country with such a poor defence mechanism as Afghanistan.