Last night's broadcast of the PBS NewsHour (11/29/10) offered a discussion of the WikiLeaks documents. Who were the guests? As Judy Woodruff announced: "We turn to two former national security advisers with extensive experience in making and carrying out U.S. foreign policy. " That would be Carter's Zbigniew Brzezinski and George W. Bush's Stephen Hadley. The discussion was about as illuminating as one might expect.

Hours later on the Charlie Rose show, guest host Jon Meacham featured a typical Charlie Rose discussion: two reporters from the New York Times and former Clinton State Department aide Jamie Rubin. The Times reporters more or less retold stories they are reporting in the paper, so it was left to Rubin to hurl accusations against WikiLeaks:

I think the widespread dissemination of pretty much everything that the U.S. State Department does is an attack on the U.S. ability to operate in the world.  It's not on one policy, like I'm against Iraq War or I'm against the Afghan War.  It's an attack against the American government's ability to conduct its foreign policy, meaning America's being attacked in a cyber attack by a particular group of individuals who are trying to harm American foreign policy and therefore America, and therefore, in my opinion, harm the interests of the West.

Rubin went on to add:

And ironically, the State Department are the people who are trying to do the job that the WikiLeaks founder says he's trying to do, which is world peace.  It's not going to happen if the State Department can't make secret agreements sometimes with foreign leaders.

I wasn't aware that the State Department's job is to create world peace. But Jamie Rubin worked there, so he'd know better.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen uses WikiLeaks as a jumping off point to talk about George W. Bush's new book and the run-up to the Iraq War (11/30/10):

As my colleague, the indefatigably indefatigable Walter Pincus, has pointed out, Bush manages to bollix up both the chronology and the importance of the various inspections of Iraq's weapons systems so as to suggest that any other president given the same set of facts would have gone to war. "I had tried to address the threat from Saddam Hussein without war," he writes. On that score, he is simply not credible.

The accumulating evidence at the time showed that Iraq lacked a nuclear weapons program and did not have biological weapons either. As for its chemical weapons program, while harder to ferret out, it not only no longer existed, but even if it had, it was insufficient reason to go to war. Poison gas has been around since the Second Battle of Ypres. That was 1915. "The absence of WMD stockpiles did not change the fact that Saddam was a threat," Bush writes. Heads he wins, tails you lose.

The late 2010 version of Richard Cohen is certainly up to speed on the pre-war Iraq intelligence. Unfortunately, the 2003 Richard Cohen wasn't, as he most memorably wrote about Colin Powell's UN presentation (2/6/03):

The evidence he presented to the United Nations--some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail--had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool--or possibly a Frenchman--could conclude otherwise.

In that column, Cohen acknowledged the nuclear evidence was weak, but the chemical/biological weapons case was "so strong--so convincing--it hardly mattered that nukes may be years away, and thank God for that."

He also wrote that at the UN presentation, "when the by-now hoary charge was made that a link existed between Al-Qaeda and Baghdad, it was Powell who made it--and it hit with force." So a hoary charge sounded convincing coming from Colin Powell. Is the idea that Powell's just a better liar than Bush?

Today's New York Times piece (11/29/10) on the re-election of a governor of Okinawa who opposes the U.S. military base there seems to treat the views of the People Who Live There as one thing to maybe think about, and an annoying, in-the-way thing at that, with residents' resistance  described, variously, as a "wrench," a "thorn" and a "headache".  (Overall, the piece reads a bit like the reaction of the Japanese national government to Hirokazu Nakaima's re-election as "one manifestation of public opinion." Yes, elections are that.)

Majority local opposition to the base is noted second, after the Japanese prime minister's view that the base is "a critical deterrent against regional security threats--a message driven home by North Korea's deadly artillery strike on a South Korean islet on Tuesday." Can you "drive home" something that isn't true? Sounds more like the Times thinks the deterrence capability's crucialness is a fact, not a "message," and that the artillery strike just proves it. One could just as easily point out that the U.S. presence there could be part of what keeps North Korea on edge. The fact that South Korea can conduct mock invasions and war games with the assistance of the most powerful military on the planet might not seem like peacekeeping to everyone.

Also, I guess the Okinawan governor's opponent's proposal that the base be moved out of Japan altogether is "strident" by definition, since the paper doesn't point out any way he was particularly loud or shrill about it. He has the wrong opinion; that makes him a screamer.

WikiLeaks document dumps are largely what media want to make of them. There's one conventional response, which goes something like this: "There's nothing new here, but WikiLeaks is dangerous!"  But there's another option:  "There's nothing here, except for the part that confirms a storyline we've been pushing." In  those cases, WikiLeaks is deemed very, very useful.

That was the case with the last batch of WikiLeaks documents, when the New York Times wrote a long piece about what the documents alleged about Iran's involvement in the Iraq War. Journalist Ali Gharib wrote about that issue (and talked to CounterSpin about it too). You get a similar feel from the Times' treatment of Iranian weapons in today's edition (11/29/10).

"Iran Fortifies Its Arsenal With the Aid of North Korea" is the self-confident headline, and the piece (co-authored by William Broad, James Glanz and David Sanger) seems remarkably certain about this intelligence:

Secret American intelligence assessments have concluded that Iran has obtained a cache of advanced missiles, based on a Russian design, that are much more powerful than anything Washington has publicly conceded that Tehran has in its arsenal, diplomatic cables show.

The Times' account seems to rely almost entirely on one cable in the WikiLeaks archive-- a "detailed, highly classified account of a meeting between top Russian officials and an American delegation."  The Times wastes no time in conveying the danger:

The missiles could for the first time give Iran the capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe or easily reach Moscow, and American officials warned that their advanced propulsion could speed Iran's development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

At issue are 19 missiles that Iran allegedly bought from North Korea. It's hard to know how definitive this evidence might be. (There are likely many secret documents pertaining to Iraq's WMDs that proved to be entirely incorrect; because something is secret or confidential does not mean it's uniquely candid or truthful.) The Times does not seem at all skeptical about the story, but there's one thing they won't do: publish the actual cable:

At the request of the Obama administration, The New York Times has agreed not to publish the text of the cable.

So the paper will publish a story that reiterates the most explosive allegations in the cable, but not the cable itself. This is curious.

Luckily WikiLeaks did publish it. And the most interesting thing one learns is that the Russians were deeply skeptical of the U.S. allegations about these missiles:

Russia said that during its presentations in Moscow and its comments thus far during the current talks, the U.S. has discussed the BM-25 as an existing system.  Russia questioned the basis for this assumption and asked for any facts the U.S. had to provide its existence such as launches, photos etc.  For Russia, the BM-25 is a mysterious missile.  North Korea has not conducted any tests of this missile, but the U.S. has said that North Korea transferred 19 of these missiles to Iran.  It is hard for Russia to follow the logic trail on this.  Since Russia has not seen any evidence of this missile being developed or tested, it is hard for Russia to imagine that Iran would buy an untested system.  Russia does not understand how a deal would be made for an untested missile.  References to the missile's existence are more in the domain of political literature than technical fact.  In short, for Russia, there is a question about the existence of this system.

In other words, not only were the Russians not convinced that Iran had purchased these missiles, they weren't sure that these missiles even existed.

The cable went on to note that the U.S. view is that the Iranians might be buying a system that doesn't work in order to adapt the technology to its existing missiles:

The U.S. repeated its earlier comment that Iran and North Korea have different standards of missile development than many other countries, including the U.S. and Russia. North Korea exported No Dong missiles after only one flight test, so it is not unimaginable that it would build and seek to export a system that has not been tested.  This is especially true for North Korea because of its need for hard currency.  In the U.S. view, the more interesting question is why would Iran buy a missile that has not been tested.  One possible answer is that Iran has recognized that the BM-25's propulsion technology exceeds the capabilities of that used in the Shahab-3, and that acquiring such technology was very attractive.  Iran wanted engines capable of using more-energetic fuels, and buying a batch of BM-25 missiles gives Iran a set it can work on for reverse engineering. This estimate would be consistent with the second stage of the Safir SLV using steering engines from the BM-25 missile.

Of course it's possible that the North Koreans actually sold Iran missiles that they can use to strike Europe. Or they didn't do any such thing. Or that they sold them missiles that don't actually work. But the Times seems to be going with the first story, based on secret documents that, when you actually read them, suggest strongly that the other two possibilities might be correct. In light of this, the decision not to publish the cable makes a lot more sense: You can make strong allegations about an official enemy without letting your readers see the less than overwhelming evidence.

Right here on November 12, we asked what the New York Times means when it talks about "centrism"-- specifically when it comes to Beltway deficit reduction plans. The Times framed the proposal from deficit commission co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson as offering the Obama White House an opening to move to the center. That piece, written by Jackie Calmes, was updated by the very same Jackie Calmes today (11/29/10), as she reported on two pending deficit reduction plans from the liberal/progressive side. As she wrote:

Liberal organizations will unveil debt-reduction proposals of their own in the next two days, seeking to sway the debate in favor of fewer reductions in domestic spending, more cuts in the military and higher taxes for the wealthy.

The "liberal" plans call for additional stimulus spending on infrastructure, a healthcare public option, a tax on Wall Street speculation, deeper cuts in military spending.  This is apparently in contrast to some of the "centrist" plans, which do not include a public option or a Wall Street tax, but do include tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.

Again, the problem here is terminology and ideology. The corporate prefers "centrism" in most cases; in this particular example, a plan that seems objectively conservative is labeled "centrist" because a (conservative) Democrat and a (conservative) Republican came up with it. In contrast, plans that would seem to feature policies that are popular with the public at large are "liberal," and should be evaluated in contrast to the "centrist" vision.

From Sunday's Washington Post (11/28/10):

FBI Foils Elaborate Bomb Plot in Oregon

Given the circumstances of this particular case (covered in great detail by Glenn Greenwald),  I think the Post meant either "FBI Concocts Elaborate Bomb Plot in Oregon" or "FBI Foils Its Own Elaborate Bomb Plot in Oregon."  Even the Post's own account explained in the lead that this was "a sting in which the FBI worked extensively with the man and assembled the fake bomb that he twice tried to detonate Friday night."

From one of the Washington Post's stories about WikiLeaks:

A senior U.S. intelligence officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be identified, said: "No one should think of American diplomats as spies. But our diplomats do, in fact, help add to our country's body of knowledge on a wide range of important issues. That's logical and entirely appropriate, and they do so in strict accord with American law."

The source is anonymous because he must remain...anonymous. Got it.

New York Times reporter Matt Bai apparently really, really cares about the budget deficit-- so much so that he's done reporting suggesting that the rest of us care about it as much as he does. He's also demonstrated his concern by writing an outrageously misleading article about Social Security and the deficit (the Times had to correct one of the article's more misleading assertions; Bai falsely claimed that a Democratic congressmember called the Social Security trust fund "make-believe money").

Today (11/24/10)  Bai is tackling the furor over TSA airport screening, which is apparently proof that Americans in the age of Obama distrust Big Government. You see, liberals interpreted the elections of 2006 and 2008 as proof that Americans are "ready to embrace a more expansive government." I don't recall that being anyone's rallying cry, but never mind. Bai's point is that even in liberal circles there is an understanding that Americans prefer small government, deficit-cutting:

Consider a survey last month conducted by the Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg for the liberal Campaign for America’s Future, which the group has cited to buttress its case that voters are prone to accept liberal arguments. Even in this poll, 76 percent of voters agreed that the top priority in Washington should be to "reduce the size of government and the deficit." And a plurality of voters (50 percent) said they were more worried about government spending and taxes than they were about government failing to invest in job creation.

Bai could be referring to this poll from October, but it's more likely that he is referring to this one, which was released this month. Neither one really delivers the message as clearly as Bai is claiming.

Did an overwhelming majority of Americans really think that cutting spending and attacking the deficit should be the top priority? Not really. In the poll, respondents were asked to react to three very leading statements.  76 percent agreed with this:

Politicians have spent the country into bankruptcy, with federal deficits going through the ceiling. This debt held by China weakens the country and the economy. Priority number one is to reduce the size of government and the deficit. We have to balance the budget by making major cuts in big spending programs now, not later. That will free up our citizens and bring America back.

But when the same people were asked whether we need to "put the middle class first," 84 percent agreed. And 80 percent agreed with this: "To get America back, we need a government that works for middle class Americans -- fostering good jobs and education." It's hard to draw many conclusions from those results, especially since the deficit does not emerge as voters' top priority when they're asked to rank their priorities in other polls.

And if panic over the deficit was a top priority, then why is there this headline in the poll report : "Mandate: fighting for middle class/jobs wins over spending/deficits."  That was how the pollsters labeled their finding that 52 percent of voters wanted politicians in Washington fighting special interests and corporations and working to create jobs. 42 percent wanted someone to rein in spending. A question about whether the government should "do more" or is "doing too much" was basically a wash. And more voters favored rebuilding infrastructure over cutting the deficit (52-42).

Of course, Matt Bai can use the TSA controversy to make any argument he wants. But you shouldn't cite a poll to make your point when that poll offers ample evidence that undermines your argument.

Yesterday (11/22/10) Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post wrote a column headlined "Obama's foreign policy needs an update," where he worried that the White House suffers from a "lack of grand strategy - or strategists. Its top foreign-policy makers are a former senator, a Washington lawyer and a former Senate staffer. There is no Henry Kissinger, no Zbigniew Brzezinski, no Condoleezza Rice; no foreign policy scholar."

The irony inherit in complaining that Obama's foreign policy is too old-fashioned and in need of some of the old Kissinger magic should be obvious enough. Less clear is why anyone would single out Condoleezza Rice like this; was the Bush administration's foreign policy uniquely strategic?

But the calls for Obama to get himself a Kissinger seem to be a regular feature of the Post's op-ed page.

--David Ignatius (7/8/10):

The two modern American masters of Machiavellian diplomacy, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, both practiced their art at times comparable to this one -- with the country suffering from reversals in war and loss of confidence in its political leadership.

So it's an interesting thought exercise to imagine how a national security adviser with the secretive, back-channel style of a Kissinger or Brzezinski would play America's diplomatic hand now. Mind you, I'm not suggesting what policies these two would actually recommend today but, instead, what a more creative diplomatic approach might produce in a time of difficulty.

When I say "creative," what I partly mean is devious. Both Kissinger and Brzezinski did not always state publicly what they were doing in private.

Ignatius did acknowledge that "Not all of Kissinger's machinations were successful." Well that's one way to put it. He added:

But if ever there were a moment when a battle-fatigued United States needs a wily strategist to explore options, this is it. Just who could play this role among the administration's current cast of characters isn't obvious, and that's a problem President Obama should address.

And then here's David Ignatius again, a mere nine months earlier (10/8/09):

I have been looking for a "doctrine" because, frankly, strategic thinking has been this administration's weak spot. A pragmatic president has surrounded himself with pragmatic advisers -- a retired Marine general as national security adviser, a former senator as secretary of state, a career intelligence officer as secretary of defense. None are grand strategists on the model of Henry Kissinger or Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Patrick Cockburn has a wonderful piece in the Independent (11/23/10) on the hazards of embedded journalism that is a must-read. He points out:

"Embedding" also puts limitations on location and movement. Iraq and Afghanistan are essentially guerrilla wars, and the successful guerrilla commander will avoid fighting the enemy main force and instead attack where his opponent is weak or has no troops at all. This means that the correspondent embedded with the American or British military units is liable to miss or misinterpret crucial stages in the conflict.

Much of the British and American media reporting in Afghanistan since 2006 has been about skirmishing in Taliban strongholds such as Helmand and Kandahar provinces in the south of the country. Problems are often reduced to quasi-technical or tactical questions about coping with roadside bombs or lack of equipment. Until recently, there was little reporting or explanation of how the Taliban had been able to extend their rule right up to the outskirts of Kabul.

Cockburn also writes about how embedding can lead journalists to draw false conclusions about certain military tactics, like the conventional wisdom about the "troop surge" in Iraq winning the war, and will do the same in Afghanistan:

There is a more subtle disadvantage to "embedding": it leads reporters to see the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts primarily in military terms, while the most important developments are political or, if they are military, may have little to do with foreign forces. It has become an article of faith among many in the US that the American military finally won the war in Iraq in 2007-08 because it adopted a new set of tactics and sent 30,000 extra troop reinforcements known as "the surge". US troop casualties fell to nothing and Iraqi casualties dropped from their previous horrendous levels. This explanation was deeply satisfying to American national self-confidence and rescued the reputation of the US army. In the months before the 2008 presidential election, it became impossible for any American politicians to suggest that the "surge" had not succeeded without attracting accusations of lack of patriotism.

Yet the developments that ended the worst of the fighting in Iraq mostly had little to do with the US, which was only one player in a complex battle. The attacks on the US military came almost entirely from Sunni Arab insurgents , but by 2007, the Sunni were being heavily defeated by the predominantly Shia security forces and militias and could no longer afford to go on fighting the Americans as well. Al-Qa'ida had overplayed its hand by trying to take control of the whole Sunni community. The Sunni were being driven from Baghdad, which is now an overwhelmingly Shia city. Facing the annihilation of their community, the Sunni insurgents switched sides and allied themselves with the Americans. In this context it was possible for the US to send out penny packets of troops into Sunni areas which were desperate for defenders against Shia death squads and al-Qa'ida commanders demanding that they send their sons to fight.

But the same sort of tactics cannot be replicated in Afghanistan, where conditions were very different. Despite this, until a few months ago, it had become the accepted wisdom of American opinion pages and television talking heads that the US army had found an all-purpose formula for victory in its post-11 September wars. The author of victory, the present US commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, became America's most popular, prestigious and unsackable military officer. The failure hitherto of "surge" tactics to work in southern Afghanistan has begun to undermine this faith in the new strategy, but American and British policy is still modelled on the "surge": foreign forces backed by Afghan troops will gain control on the ground; they will then hold it and prevent the Taliban coming back; and, then, finally, they will hand over power to Afghan soldiers, police and officials sent from Kabul.

It is unlikely ever to happen this way. As in Iraq, military actions on the ground in Afghanistan don't make much sense separate from political developments. The Afghan government is notoriously crooked and is regarded by most Afghans as a collection of racketeers. All the media reports of small unit actions whose ultimate purpose is to install the rule of Kabul in southern Afghanistan make little sense since the government is so feeble that it barely exists. In some 80 per cent of the country the state does not exist.

"The reality of the war in Afghanistan," one diplomat told me, "which embedded journalism never reveals, is that 60 per cent of the Afghan government soldiers sent to Helmand or Kandahar desert as soon as they can. They are mostly Tajiks terrified of being sent to the Pashtun south. They are taken from the training camps and put on buses and the doors are locked before they are told where they are being posted." But it is these same terrified soldiers, often not even speaking the language of local people, who are at the heart of Nato's plan for victory in Afghanistan.

If you had concluded that the Afghan War was in disarray, the front page of the New York Times today probably didn't do much to change your mind:

Taliban Leader in Secret Talks Was an Impostor

By DEXTER FILKINS and CARLOTTA GALL

KABUL, Afghanistan — For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.

But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.

More interesting to me was the acknowledgment that the Times was holding back information about the identity of the Taliban impostor at the request of U.S. officials:

Last month, White House officials asked The New York Times to withhold Mr. Mansour's name from an article about the peace talks, expressing concern that the talks would be jeopardized — and Mr. Mansour's life put at risk — if his involvement were publicized. The Times agreed to withhold Mr. Mansour's name, along with the names of two other Taliban leaders said to be involved in the discussions. The status of the other two Taliban leaders said to be involved is not clear.

Of course it's impossible to say for sure what may have happened if the Times had reported these details, but it's at least plausible that the the whole fraud could have been exposed sooner.

The Irish economy is in need of a $100 billion bailout, thanks in large part to the bursting of its housing bubble. But for years the Irish model was lionized by U.S. pundits. ThinkProgress blogger Matthew Yglesias digs up a 2005 piece by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman that said:

There is a huge debate roiling in Europe today over which economic model to follow: the Franco-German shorter-workweek-six-weeks’-vacation-never-fire-anyone-but-high-unemployment social model or the less protected but more innovative, high-employment Anglo-Saxon model preferred by Britain, Ireland and Eastern Europe. It is obvious to me that the Irish-British model is the way of the future, and the only question is when Germany and France will face reality: either they become Ireland or they become museums. That is their real choice over the next few years – it’s either the leprechaun way or the Louvre.

Because I am convinced of that, I am also convinced that the German and French political systems will experience real shocks in the coming years as both nations are asked to work harder and embrace either more outsourcing or more young Muslim and Eastern European immigrants to remain competitive.

As an Irish public relations executive in Dublin remarked to me: “How would you like to be the French leader who tells the French people they have to follow Ireland?” Or even worse, Tony Blair!

Luckily for Tom Friedman, his job doesn't seem to rest on whether or not he's right about anything.

In today's New York Times (11/22/10), Kim Severson covers the annual protest at the U.S. military training facility formerly known as the School of Americas. The point of the story, though, is that the protests aren't such a big deal anymore (the headline: "Fort Benning Protest Dwindles, if Not Its Passion.")

The dismissive tone was evident in the very first sentence:

The annual November protest here at the gates of Fort Benning used to really be something.

The "smallest crowd ever" turned out this weekend for the Fort Benning protests--leading the Times to kid that "the times, they are a changing."

The bizarre, repressive police tactics were noted near the end of the article:

A few hours later, as a parade was ending, the police showed up in force, riot helmets stacked on car hoods and plastic handcuffs looped onto uniforms. They funneled the crowd from the legal protest area through a narrow pathway to the street and told anyone who stopped to keep moving.

Protesters, some yelling, “This is what Democracy looks like,” veered from the path. In a quick swirl of activity that took many by surprise, a dozen people were arrested, including news crews from Russian Television and two radio reporters.

They were put in a city bus and taken to the Muscogee County Jail. Bail was set as high $5,500.

Today's story might lead one to wonder if the Times ever devoted much space to past SOA Watch activism at Fort Benning-- you know, back in the good old days.

Searching the Nexis news database, it's hard to find much. A November 21, 2005 article focused on counter-demonstrators: "Annual Protest Draws Ire of Those Supporting Troops" was the headline. Locals, readers were told, "have endured the annual protest with increasingly clenched teeth," and "have come to see it as a slap of disrespect to the soldiers from the base who are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq." Odd, then, that today's article conveys the message that locals are mostly disappointed with the low turnout, since they make money selling water and food to SOA protesters.

In 2000, the Times had a photo of the protest, but it did not seem to be connected to an actual story. A more thorough report the year before spent a lot of time talking about the changes to the school's curriculum--the message being that whatever abuses may have been linked to the school were a thing of the past.

If the SOA protests were ever "really something," the Times sure wasn't telling its readers much about them.

There's a lot to say about Ethan Bronner's Week in Review piece in the New York Times (11/21/10). The headline says a lot on its own: "Why America Chases an Israeli-Palestinian Peace." This is ironic, at the very least, given the role the U.S. has historically played in making peace quite difficult. And the current "peace" talks include the a U.S. deal to give, as Bronner explains, Israel a 2-for-1 deal on new fighter jets.

What's really galling about the article, though, is this:

It is worth noting that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been largely drained of deadly violence in the past few years.

The "past few years" would conceivably include late 2008 and early 2009, when Israeli forces invaded the Gaza Strip. About 1,300 Palestinians were killed (most of them civilians).

Since deaths in Gaza can be forgotten, what violence really matters? Bronner gives an indication when he refers to the threat of "future violence" as a rationale for the Obama White House's increased focus on Israel-Palestine negotations:

Ten years ago, when peace talks led by President Bill Clinton at Camp David fell apart, the second Palestinian uprising broke out, leading to exploding buses, suicide bombings and harsh Israeli countermeasures. Thousands — most of them Palestinians — were killed.

It's clear, then, that Palestinian violence is the real worry. And Bronner is mangling this history; as Seth Ackerman wrote in Extra! (7-8/02), the breakdown in the Camp David talks in July 2000 did not precipitate the second Intifada, which did not break out for another two months: "The Intifada began on September 29, 2000, when Israeli troops opened fire on unarmed Palestinian rock-throwers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, killing four and wounding over 200."

Of course this isn't a new thing for the Times. Jim Naureckas wrote here recently about a Times op-ed by Martin Indyk which argued that "violence is down considerably in the region." As Naureckas pointed out:

According to the Israeli human rights group [B'tselem], there have been 100 Palestinians killed by Israelis in the time period following Israel's December 2008 assault on Gaza; the assault itself killed 1,397 Palestinians, a large majority of whom were either minors or non-combatants.

The civilian trial of terrorism suspect Ahmed Ghailani, who was linked to the U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, was unsatisfying to those who believe that accused terrorists should not be tried in civilian courts. To them, the scoreboard tells the story: Ghailani was convicted on one count, and acquitted on over 280 other charges.

The newspaper headlines today lay out the problem:

USA Today (11/19/10):

Detainee's Acquittals Spark Debate Over Civilian Trials

Washington Post (11/19/10):

Verdict in Terror Case a Setback for Advocates of Civilian Trials

A more rational media system would discuss the verdict primarily as a result of the U.S. government's decision to torture detainees like Ghailani, who has been held at "black sites" and Guantanamo Bay. As Glenn Greenwald noted (Salon, 11/18/10):

Last month, the federal judge presiding over the case, Lewis Kaplan, banned the testimony of a key witness because the government under George Bush and Dick Cheney learned of his identity not through legal means but instead by torturing (and also possibly coerced the testimony of that witness).

The manner in which the government pressed the case against Ghailani was closely linked to these torture allegations. It's hard to have a serious conversation about the case without acknowledging this. And the fact that the trials excluded evidence allegedly obtained through torture is, as Greenwald argued, proof that the justice system was functioning properly.