Yesterday (3/10/10) there was  a House floor debate on Rep. Dennis Kucinich's push to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.  Kucinich's bill--which is based on the War Powers Act--was defeated, but it sparked hours of rare discussion of the White House's war policy ( in spite of the Washington Post's efforts to minimize the discussion as left-wing "venting").

The most dramatic moment came when Rep. Patrick Kennedy chastised the press corps for skipping out on the discussion:  "There's two press people in this gallery.... We're talking about Eric Massa 24-7 on the TV, we're talking about war and peace, $3 billion, 1,000 lives and no press? No press."

He added: "The press of the United States is not covering the most significant issue of national importance and that's the laying of lives down in the nation for the service of our country. It's despicable, the national press corps right now."

Watch the video:

The New York Times has a piece today (3/9/10) with the headline "Experts Urge Keeping Two Options for Terror Trials"--meaning both regular trials under the criminal justice system as well as newly established military tribunals. But who are these "experts," exactly? Well, they're "national security officials who served in the Bush administration"--though later on, "national security officials from both the Bush and Obama administrations" are also cited.

Balancing out this "expert" point of view are "conservatives," "supporters of military commissions" and "the Republican line"--all of which argue that the civilian court system is unnecessary and military tribunals should be exclusively used to try those accused of terrorism.

Conspicuously missing from this framing are those who argue that military tribunals are unconstitutional, and that even people accused of terrorism-related crimes are still entitled to the guarantees of the Bill of Rights--people like Judge Andrew Napolitano and, well, the Supreme Court. But apparently they don't meet the New York Times' criteria as "experts."

Sometimes the words journalists choose are revealing. Take the lead of a story in the Washington Post today (3/9/10) about congressional debate on the Afghanistan War:

Liberals in the House, who have spent much of the past year complaining that other congressional Democrats and the White House are insufficiently progressive, will get a chance this week to vent about one of their biggest concerns: the war in Afghanistan.

To say that lawmakers are "venting" is a short way of saying that they're wasting time with pointless complaining.

And what are they whining about, anyway? Nothing special--just whether or not the war complies with the law.

The resolution will invoke the 1973 War Powers Act, which Congress passed in protest of the escalation of the Vietnam War by a series of presidents without formal congressional authorization. It requires congressional approval for a president to put troops in a military conflict for more than 90 days. Congress passed a resolution authorizing military force in Afghanistan in 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks, and some congressional scholars doubt Congress can invoke the act now to force changes to President Obama's war policy.

As Robert Naiman wrote: "The Pentagon doesn't want Congress to debate Afghanistan. The Pentagon wants Congress to fork over $33 billion more to pay for the current military escalation, no questions asked, no restrictions imposed for a withdrawal timetable or an exit strategy."

The media don't seem to want to have a debate over Afghanistan either.

The New York Times features an op-ed today (3/5/10) by Gen. Merrill McPeak, a retired Air Force chief of staff, arguing against allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the U.S. military. It's not much of an argument, really--there's not much more to it than the assertion that "warriors are inspired by male bonding, by comradeship, by the knowledge that they survive only through relying on each other," and the claim--presented completely without evidence--that acknowledging that not all soldiers are heterosexual will "weaken the warrior culture." You can't really describe the piece as an attempt at persuasion--it's more a statement of prejudice and a demand that that prejudice be given respect.

McPeak's op-ed does mimic the form of an argument by beginning by stating a premise--but that premise is wrong. After asserting that the discussion over changing the military's anti-gay rules "should start with the question, 'What are armed forces for?,'" he continues, "Assuming the services exist to fight and win wars, those seeking fundamental change in the composition of combat units carry a special burden of proof." Elsewhere, he restates this idea by saying that the military services "have no higher responsibility than to organize, train and equip formations that are effective on the battlefield."

But the rationale for having a military is not to win wars; it's to keep your country free. (McPeak may recall that his oath as an Air Force officer began, "I will support and defend the Constitution..."--that's the military's actual highest responsibility.) Even if one believed that an ethnically cleansed military motivated by a racist ideology would be a more effective fighting force--with a stronger "warrior culture" and greater "unit cohesion"--that would in no way justify reorganizing the Defense Department along supremacist lines. No military is a democracy, of course, but a democracy can only have a military that is consistent with democratic values.

Which leads me to wonder: When President Harry Truman ordered the desegregation of the military, did the New York Times publish an op-ed from a retired officer arguing that only a racist military could be counted on to win wars? (Glancing through the New York Times' archives, I didn't see any, but they're somewhat awkward to search.) If they did publish such an op-ed, are today's editors proud that their institution included the racist point of view? If they didn't, are they sorry that their predecessors failed to be so inclusive?

It's a good bet that in 60 years, the homophobic policies of the military will be seen in the same light as military segregation is today. And people looking back on the history of how it changed will see that the New York Times allowed homophobia to have its say. I doubt that this will be seen as a proud moment.

Mac Margolis, Newsweek's right-wing Latin America correspondent (Extra!, 1/10), has a small piece in the latest issue (3/1/10) that misleads in a big way. Under the headline "A Killer Deal for Russia," Margolis declares:

Russia's campaign to balance U.S. power and prestige around the globe has found a new and willing partner--Latin America--and Washington may be the unwitting facilitator.... Moscow is cutting deals across the region, selling the latest hardware, from rifles to fighter jets, in exchange for influence and access to the area's plentiful oil and gas reserves.

And the United States has only itself and its pesky ethics to blame:

Ironically, one reason for the budding East/West axis may be Washington's own rigid security agenda. The U.S. has imposed restrictions on arms sales to many nations suspected of being soft on terrorism or roiled by internal conflict. So, many on that watch list have turned to Moscow, which asks no questions. Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, for example, has snapped up some $4 billion in Russian weapons in recent years.

Reality check: The United States is by far the world's largest arms dealer, making $37.8 billion in arms deals in 2008--68 percent of the world's arms traffic for that year, according to the Congressional Research Service (New York Times, 9/6/09).  Russia was a distant third with $3.5 billion.

And the United States did not actually limit its weapon sales to peaceful nations.  Among countries "roiled by internal conflicts" that have bought U.S. arms in recent years are Colombia, Morocco, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Yemen, Armenia, Azerbaijan.... The list goes on.  Apparently unlike Moscow, Washington does ask questions--like, "Is your credit good?"
Update: See Extra!'s January 2010 cover story, "Newsweek’s Name-Calling Neoliberal: Meet Mac Margolis, Their Man in Latin America," by Peter Hart--just released online.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald has had a couple of posts (2/18/10, 2/22/10) on a New York Times op-ed (2/18/10) that urged the U.S. to not worry so much about killing civilians in Afghanistan. The piece was written by Lara M. Dadkhah, who is vaguely identified as an "intelligence analyst" and who notes that she is "employed by a defense consulting company." Greenwald's second post reports that Dadkhah actually works for Booz Hamilton, a very well-connected military and intelligence contractor.

Greenwald quotes from a response that media critic Charles Kaiser got from Times op-ed editor David Shipley when he asked about Dadkhah's op-ed: "We found Ms. Dadkhah from work she did in Small Wars Journal, work that was part of her Ph.D. dissertation at Georgetown." As Greenwald notes:

Shipley's answer strongly suggests that Dadkhah did not submit her op-ed unsolicited, but rather, the NYT purposely sought out an op-ed to urge more civilian deaths in Afghanistan....  Why would they do that?  Maybe tomorrow the NYT editors can actively solicit an op-ed urging the use of biological agents and chemical weapons on civilian populations in Yemen.  After that, they can search out someone to advocate medical experiments on detainees in Bagram.  Perhaps the day after, they can host a symposium on the tactical advantages of air bombing hospitals and orphanages as a means of keeping local populations in line.

Greenwald writes, "When Dadkhar reads things like this from today -- 'Airstrike kills dozens in Afghanistan . . . . Ground forces at the scene found women and children among the casualties' -- she presumably thinks:  'Yes, that's exactly what we need more of.'" One wonders if Shipley and the rest of the team at the New York Times felt a similar sense of satisfaction.

This Washington Post headline (2/13/10) caught my eye:

2008 Habeas Ruling May Pose Snag as U.S. Weighs Indefinite Guantanamo Detentions

You have to read the piece somewhat closely to understand what they're taking about. The terrorism case against one Guantanamo detainee was "ironclad" until a federal judge deemed it "too weak"--because some of the statements against the defendant had been "coerced." This has happened repeatedly--judges "'have gutted allegations and questioned the reliability of statements by the prisoners during interrogations and by the informants." This is bad news, we're told; "the government is likely to suffer further losses" in court.

You have to read almost to the end of the piece before you get a more direct view of things:

The government also relied on Hatim's interrogations and his testimony at military hearings, during which he is said to have admitted to training at an Al-Qaeda military camp. Judges have been skeptical of such statements unless the government provides evidence that the men were not seriously mistreated. In Hatim's case, the Justice Department did not dispute his contention that he was tortured in U.S. custody and that he made those admissions to avoid further mistreatment.

The government is trying to justify holding prisoners indefinitely based on evidence gleaned from torture. That is the "snag" referenced in the headline.

From one of today's New York Times stories (2/16/10) about the NATO/U.S. campaign in Marja, Afghanistan (emphasis added):

The heavy civilian toll highlighted the stressful and confusing nature of the fighting, especially in Marja, and of the difficulties inherent in conducting military operations in a guerrilla war, where insurgents can hide easily among the population.

Still, the deaths are troubling to the American and NATO commanders, who have made protecting civilians the overriding objective of their campaign--even when doing so comes at the expense of letting insurgents get away. The stream of news releases flowing from NATO headquarters detailing the episodes is testament to how seriously military commanders here take the problem.

Indeed, nothing demonstrates humanitarian concern more profoundly than numerous press releases.

Sam Husseini (1/15/10) recalls a great media quote from one of Martin Luther King's most powerful sermons, at the Ebenezer Baptist Church (4/30/67):

Been a lot of applauding over the last few years. They applauded our total movement; they've applauded me. America and most of its newspapers applauded me in Montgomery. And I stood before thousands of Negroes getting ready to riot when my home was bombed and said, "We can't do it this way." They applauded us in the sit-in movement--we non-violently decided to sit in at lunch counters. The applauded us on the Freedom Rides when we accepted blows without retaliation. They praised us in Albany and Birmingham and Selma, Alabama. Oh, the press was so noble in its applause, and so noble in its praise when I was saying, "Be non-violent toward Bull Connor"; when I was saying, "Be non-violent toward [Selma, Alabama segregationist sheriff] Jim Clark." There's something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that will praise you when you say, "Be non-violent toward Jim Clark," but will curse and damn you when you say, "Be non-violent toward little brown Vietnamese children." There's something wrong with that press!

Read the whole text, or hear the whole sermon listen to excerpts on YouTube.

A late December NATO attack in eastern Afghanistan reportedly killed nine people--or, according to NATO, nine militants. According to Afghans, nine young civilians. The first round of reporting showed that some outlets, as usual, were willing to take the U.S./NATO line at face value-- so long as that line was delivered anonymously, as in the December 28 New York Times:

A senior NATO official with knowledge of the operation said that the raid had been carried out by a joint Afghan-American force and that its target was a group of men who were known Taliban members and smugglers of homemade bombs, which the American and NATO forces call improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

According to the NATO official, nine men were killed. "These were people who had a well-established network, they were IED smugglers and also were responsible for direct attacks on Afghan security and coalition forces in those areas," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue.

"When the raid took place they were armed and had material for making IEDs," the official added.

Senior American military officials cautioned that such episodes tended to be complex and that because of the anger about civilian casualties, Mr. Karzai was under enormous pressure to speak out quickly, sometimes before investigations were complete. NATO will investigate the killings in conjunction with Mr. Karzai's staff, the official said.

A triumph for propaganda: assurances from "officials" that the raid killed exactly who they say it did, and the reminder that another version of reality may soon emerge from the Afghan side, due to "anger" that their politicians must react to. The Times account added:

But the conflicting accounts and Mr. Karzai's public statements underlined the tensions over civilian casualties that have become among the most contentious issues between the Afghan president and his international backers, as well as one of the most politically fraught for Afghans.

One has to think that maybe it's not "conflicting accounts" that bother Afghans. It could be their dead relatives.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank (12/6/09) thinks there's something wrong with left-wing critics of Barack Obama. As his lead put it:

Some parishioners in the Church of Obama discovered last week that their spiritual leader is a false prophet.

 Milbank starts with Michael Moore, who wrote an open letter urging Obama not to escalate the Afghanistan war. This makes no sense to Milbank, since Obama never said he'd withdraw troops. Well, yes. I suspect many of Obama's critics--maybe even Michael Moore--are aware of that.  Moore also supports single-payer healthcare, and wishes Obama would too. Does that mean that continuing that advocacy with Obama in the White House is a waste of time? Or is the idea that no one should ever advocate for any political cause that upsets the power structure?

Maybe that'd be OK with Dana Milbank. As he put it,  Obama is an "incrementalist....  His Afghanistan policy, likewise, is above all a pragmatic, nonideological strategy." Opposing that policy, then, is ideological and anti-pragmatic.

Milbank closes with this:

You'd think his supporters might applaud this sort of thoughtful, methodical leadership as a repudiation of the Bush style of government by political theory. Instead, they're using words such as "O'Bomber" to describe the president. MoveOn.org launched a petition drive against the policy. Code Pink, the group that heckled Bush officials for years, heckled Obama advisers on Capitol Hill last week. The liberal Web publisher Arianna Huffington told Charlie Rose that the policy "puts into question his whole leadership."

Moveon's petition is not  "against the policy"--their petition, if anything, supports it, since it only calls on Congress "to push the Obama administration to outline firm benchmarks and a binding timeline."

Code Pink is against the war; the fact that they're still against is a sign of their consistency.  Milbank might see the process by which Obama decided to escalate the war "thoughtful," but if resulting policy is one you oppose, you continue to oppose it. 

Arianna Huffington, likewise, is saying she opposes Obama's decision, based on a variety of factors. Milbank's point, at face value, is that these people should have all been clear-eyed about Obama's position. That's obviously true--and some of them were. But one gets the sense that his real point is that those to the left of Obama should just leave him alone.

Time columnist Joe Klein (12/3/09)was not altogether impressed by Obama's announcement of a 30,000 troop escalation in Afghanistan (an "iffy proposition," as Klein put it). But Klein's main point was that Obama should have justified the war differently: "Once you have made the decision to go, or to redouble your efforts, you must lead the charge--passionately and, yes, with a touch of anger."

Then he describes the better way:

Ronald Reagan would have done it differently. He would have told a story. It might not have been a true story, but it would have had resonance. He might have found, or created, a grieving spouse--a young investment banker whose wife had died in the World Trade Center--who enlisted immediately after the attacks ... and then gave his life, heroically, defending a school for girls in Kandahar. Reagan would have inspired tears, outrage, passion, a rush to recruiting centers across the nation.

It's hard to know what's creepier: suggesting that a president should lie to drum up support for a war, or suggesting he should do so to fight a war you're not so sure about in the first place.

Sometimes reading the corporate media is like receiving dispatches from an alternate universe--like the one Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan (12/02/09) lives in, where Obama "bucked overwhelming conventional wisdom" to send more troops to Afghanistan, in the face of a "stunningly large number of American thinkers, strategists and pundits who have been perfectly prepared to lose wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan." The version of Obama who was elected U.S. president on Kagan's Earth-2 realized that he "might be applauded for losing in the salons of Washington and New York, the American public would not look on defeat so kindly," so he stood up to "willingness of the intellectual and foreign policy establishments to accept both decline and defeat."

Meanwhile, back on this side of the dimensional portal, an overwhelming majority of the intellectual and foreign policy establishment--as represented by the opinion writers for the real-world Washington Post as well as the New York Times--support continued war in Afghanistan, with only a small minority suggesting that it's possible to bring home the troops (Extra!, 12/09).  In this world, it's the public that's skeptical of an endless pursuit of victory, with a majority of respondents in recent polling saying they oppose the war (e.g., CNN/Opinion Research, 11/13-15/09) .

It's fun to get a glimpse of Kagan's what-if world.  But maybe Washington Post opinion writers could spend more time writing about the real world, since it's the one the rest of  us live in.

A meeting of the minds between NBC host Chris Matthews and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius (Chris Matthews Show, 11/29/09):

IGNATIUS: The long period of analysis, very deliberative, robs this of passion. This is--he was going to be a wartime president now, and he has to sell the country on the idea that our young men and women are going to go there, fight and get killed.

MITCHELL: Yes.

IGNATIUS: And, you know, I think this, you know, this is not going to....

MATTHEWS: So too much Chamberlain, not enough Churchill.

IGNATIUS: Well, too much--too much college professor.

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, doing press for his new TV show on "conspiracy theories," made got some attention from (among others) Eric Roper at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Roper alludes to a "curious comment Ventura made in the Los Angeles Times this weekend"-- that MSNBC canceled his short-lived show when they found out that he opposed the Iraq War:

I was basically silenced. When I came out of office, I was the hottest commodity out there. There was a bidding war between CNN, Fox and MSNBC to get my services. MSNBC ultimately won. I was being groomed for a five-day-a-week TV show by them. Then, all of a sudden, weird phone calls started happening: "Is it true Jesse doesn't support the war in Iraq?"

Roper writes that MSNBC's decision would be an "odd one since they are considered liberal." Except for the fact that the same cable channel canceled its highest-rated program for the same reason, as FAIR noted in 2003:

MSNBC canceled Phil Donahue's talkshow after an internal memo (leaked to the All Your TV website, 2/25/03) argued that he would be a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.... He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The report warned that the Donahue show could be "a home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."