War pornographers

As a silent observer of the international journopuke brigade in El Salvador and Nicaragua back in the 1980s, I sympathize entirely with young Seema Jilani's outrage about the behaviour of their descendants in Kabul.

With a few brilliantly honourable exceptions most war correspondents do indeed spend their time in the bars of luxury hotels trying to get the hotel staff to procure women, or, if they are British journopukes, boys. The latter endeavour will presumably be easier in Kabul than it was in San Salvador and Managua.

In Central America only a couple of international journopukes got wasted, although there was severe attrition among the local journalists whose work the internationals would file under their own byline without attribution. At least in Afghanistan the drunken slags have good reason not to venture forth.

It was all summed up for me some years ago when Jon Snow was filmed - in the Baghdad Green Zone and wearing a flak vest - whining that he could not get out among the population. Since he knew that before he flew out, what possible justification was there for his being "on location" at all?