There is no shortage of pundits like Robert Samuelson who demand cuts to Social Security and Medicare, usually in the name of balancing the budget. These political decisions are usually labeled "hard choices" in media discussions--as if politicians who favor making people pay more for their healthcare or cutting their retirement funds are only bravely doing what needs to be done.

Rarely discussed in the corporate media is what to do about the military budget, which has grown enormously over the past decade. Part of the debt deal requires some military cuts, though there is less there than meets the eye. (Listen to Bill Hartung explain it on CounterSpin.) And nonetheless polls have shown pretty consistently that military spending is an area where the public favors rather drastic cuts.

If cutting government spending is a political necessity, then surely cutting a bloated military budget is a no-brainer, right? Not for Samuelson, who recently wrote that even modest cuts to the Pentagon budget are unwise.

But to get a sense of what could be possible, consider this from Doug Henwood of Left Business Observer:

In 2000, we spent 3.7 percent of GDP on the military. The Pentagon didn't have to hold bake sales. We're now spending 5.4 percent. Merely going back to 2000 would save 1.7 percent of GDP, or $255 billion. If over the next decade we spent 3.7 percent of GDP instead of 5.4 percent, we'd save $3.6 trillion. That's close to what many of the deficit hawks are aiming for. Let the Bush tax cuts expire and bump up the top rate a few points and everyone could have free childcare and free college tuition!

Of course to do that would be un-American.

TalkingPointsMemo's Brian Beutler observes that Obama has basically announced that the military cuts on the table right now are as far as he's willing to go--better to cut Medicare benefits than the military budget.  And it is only a matter of time before some pundit somewhere uses this to illustrate Obama's "bravery" in tacking "entitlements" by tacking to the center in order to impress "independent" voters.

In a piece today, the Washington Post's Greg Miller reports on a CIA base that will be used to conduct drone strikes in Yemen:

The agency is building a desert airstrip so that it can begin flying armed drones over Yemen. The facility, which is scheduled to be completed in September, is designed to shield the CIA's aircraft, and their sophisticated surveillance equipment, from observers at busier regional military hubs such as Djibouti, where the JSOC drones are based.

The Washington Post is withholding the specific location of the CIA facility at the administration's request.

The existence of the base has been reported elsewhere--the New York Times noted on June 15 that an "American official would not disclose the country where the CIA base was being built." The Times pointed out that the shift to CIA control was important, since with "the operations under CIA control, they could be carried out as a 'covert action,' which can be undertaken without the support of the host government." Meaning the U.S. could bomb Yemen without the approval of Yemen's government, in the event that the current government were to fall.

The story seemed to have been broken by the Associated Press (6/14/11), which, like the Post, is not telling readers what it knows about the base:  "The Associated Press has withheld the exact location at the request of U.S. officials."

This is reminiscent of the Post's decision in 2005 to report on CIA secret prisons ("black sites") in Eastern Europe--without disclosing the location of those sites, where terrorism suspects were taken to be interrogated (Extra! Update, 12/05).

It obviously makes senses for any White House to want to keep its secret programs under wraps--particularly when there's a chance that laws are being broken, or civilians are being killed. (Recall that the U.S. Navy launched a cruise missile loaded with cluster bombs into Yemen in 2009, reportedly killing 41 civilians.)

It does not make sense, however, for news outlets to assist them in these efforts.

An analysis in USA Today (6/23/11) by Richard Wolf claims:

President Obama's decision to remove 10,000 troops from Afghanistan this year and a total of 33,000 by next September was deemed a step in the right direction Wednesday by a growing, and bipartisan, anti-war movement.

Really? I'm not aware of many people in the "anti-war movement" who have expressed that sentiment. And neither is USA Today, judging by the quotes that are included in the article. The piece notes that "Many Democrats called for a faster drawdown" and "Many liberal Democrats demanded more troops home sooner"-- naming Sen. Carl Levin, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Dick Durbin, and Sen. Patty Murray as expressing such sentiments.

The paper goes on to note that the "most liberal Democrats' patience are the least satisfied with Obama's timetable, " and then quotes Moveon.org and the Campaign for America's Future.  It's good to see the paper reporting on the dissatisfaction that exists among those to the left of Obama-- but there's no reason to suggest that such folks consider his policies a "step in the right direction."

The headline in today's Post, previewing Obama's speech tonight:

Obama’s challenge: Leaving, but not too quickly

Funny how it's not the other way around-- leaving too slowly would seem to be a larger political problem, given the state of public opinion.

The Post reports:

President Obama will face a stiff political challenge Wednesday in presenting his plan for a gradual end to the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. His prime-time address must remind a skeptical electorate and a concerned Congress that the country’s longest war remains worth fighting — and funding — for several more years.

Why is it that Obama must "remind" the public that the war is worth fighting--and not convince? You can't really remind people of something they disagree with.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai denounced once again U.S./NATO airstrikes that killed civilians. In this recent incident,  14 were killed, including 11 children. This prompted ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer (5/31/11) to call in ABC reporters to sort things out, leading to this exchange with Pentagon reporter Martha Raddatz:

SAWYER: He's talking to the Afghan people. But Martha, he put restrictions on what U.S. troops can do, what the NATO troops can do. How onerous are these?

RADDATZ: Well, he's trying to put restrictions on. I mean they simply have to carry out air strikes over there. It's a very rapid response. It's real-time intelligence. It's certainly flawed at some points.

But I've been on these missions. I've been on a combat mission in a fighter jet. I've seen all the very, very careful steps they take. They go through what's called the nine line. In fact, the mission I went on, some French soldiers were calling for them to bomb and the pilot and the weapons officer said, "We can't bomb, we think there's a school, we think there might be people in there."

So I think you will see a real fight over these restrictions, but the airstrikes and these night raids just simply have to continue if they're going to go after the enemy.

So bombing raids in Afghanistan "have to continue," for the sake of having a "rapid response" to "real-time intelligence." And Raddatz, who has "been on a combat mission," can assure you how "very, very careful" they are--why, on the mission she flew, they didn't bomb a target simply because they thought it was a school! This great care taken to not kill civilians sometimes gets more attention than the actual killing of civilians.

The piece helpfully included footage of Raddatz on her combat mission, gathering all the "facts" necessary to produce this kind of journalism.

On Sunday George Will wrote a strong Washington Post column about Obama, the  Libya War and the law:

In a bipartisan cascade of hypocrisies, a liberal president, with the collaborative silence of most congressional conservatives, is traducing the War Powers Resolution.

Enacted in 1973 over President Nixon's veto, the WPR may or may not be wise. It is, however, unquestionably a law, and Barack Obama certainly is violating it.

"Liberals are situational ethicists regarding presidential warmaking," Will explained, going on to suggest that George W. Bush would have been treated much differently than Obama. And Will had harsh words for John McCain:

"No president," says Sen. John McCain, "has ever recognized the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, and neither do I. So I don’t feel bound by any deadline." Oh? No law is actually a law if presidents and senators do not "recognize" it? Now, there is an interesting alternative to judicial review, and an indicator of how executive aggrandizement and legislative dereliction of duty degrade the rule of law.

So liberals are inconsistent, and John McCain is making an absurd argument about the Act being unconstitutional.

George Will's record on the War Powers Act, though, has been all over the map (not unlike his position--or positions--on the filibuster). Here's where he seems to have started:

September 15, 1983:

President Nixon was wrong to veto the War Powers Act, which Congress passed over his veto in 1973. A veto was too good for it. He should have mailed it back to Capitol Hill unsigned, with postage due, and with a note saying that although it always is entertaining to read Congress' opinions about constitutional construction, the Constitution clearly vests in the president the power to control the armed forces.

November 11, 1984:

Repeal of the War Powers Act. It is unwieldy, unclear and clearly unconstitutional as a derogation of the responsibilities of the commander in chief vested in the presidency and exercised by most occupants of that office. No president has yet quite complied with the act. Repeal would be the straightforward approach.

During the run up to the first Gulf War (11/15/90), Will seemed to be softening a bit, but his take still seemed pretty clear:

The War Powers Act is of dubious constitutionality and cumbersome formality, and the president's war of nerves with Iraq should not be undercut by a clock controlling when Congress must ratify or reject Desert Shield.

And then something seemed to switch. Under the headline "McCain's Honest Passion," Will expressed fondness (5/9/99) for McCain's anti-War Powers position during the Yugoslavia war, where he called on Bill Clinton to embrace his executive authority and wage as wide a war as he deemed necessary--including using U.S. ground forces.  The House of Representatives, on the other hand, wasn't so supportive--some Republicans cited the War Powers Act to oppose Clinton's bombing.

McCain was, in Will's estimation, getting things right:

McCain said he found himself in the "curious" but "not unexpected" position of defending the president's constitutional authority without the president's support. Although McCain thought his resolution constitutionally redundant, he offered it "in the forlorn hope that the president would take courage from it, and find the resolve to do his duty." Said McCain, "The president does not want the power he possesses by law because the risks inherent in its exercise have paralyzed him."

A week earlier the House, with an incoherence produced by the timidity of careerists, voted against declaring war, against supporting the air war, against withdrawal of U.S. forces, against use of ground troops without congressional approval and against stopping what they will not support. Many House Republicans embraced what McCain considers the War Powers Act's unconstitutional presumptions about the limits on presidential war-making.

Will went on to argue that "many House Republicans, claiming an authority Congress neither possesses constitutionally nor cares to exercise, embraced the Act."

Like George Will said, liberals need to figure out where they stand on the War Powers Act. Otherwise they just seem wildly inconsistent.

The Washington Post today (5/10/11) has a perplexing article by Aaron Davis about U.S. troops leaving Iraq. Here's the lead:

BAGHDAD -- The United States' pleas for Iraq's government to decide "within weeks" whether American troops should stay beyond a year-end deadline to leave will not be met, Iraqi politicians say, complicating plans for the U.S. military withdrawal.

If the deadline to extend U.S. troop presence is not extended, then (if I'm to understand what the words mean) U.S. troops have to leave, as they're planning on doing. How does that "complicate" anything? There's a political problem in Iraq, in that most people don't want U.S. troops to stay, and politicians there are struggling with how to satisfy that public demand for ending the occupation. Some political leaders seem to want U.S. troops to stay in some form.

So the lead didn't make much sense to me, but the fifth paragraph makes things a bit clearer:

A growing chorus of military strategists in Washington would like a deal allowing at least some continued U.S. military presence in Iraq. Amid the broad unrest across the Middle East, they say, a U.S. foothold in Iraq is critical to help ensure stability in that country and to keep Iran and other potential aggressors in check.

So the "complications" are that U.S. elites want to stay in Iraq, and Iraqis don't want U.S. troops there.

I was struck by the contrast between two passages I came across recently:

Misurata's population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people--including combatants--have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22--less than 3 percent--are women. If Gadhafi were indiscriminately targeting civilians, women would comprise about half the casualties.

--Alan J. Kuperman (Boston Globe, 4/14/11)

In a report to be published in tomorrow's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers have concluded that air strikes [in Iraq] by U.S.-led coalition forces have killed mostly women and children. Thirty-nine percent were children, while 46 percent were women.

--Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com, 4/15/09)

After nearly two months of NATO bombardment, the Libyan government's warfare in Misurata may have become more indiscriminate--a reminder of the often inhumane consequences of "humanitarian intervention." But it's striking to see what degree of violence against civilians is treated by U.S. corporate media as a compelling reason to take military action against an official enemy--compared to the much greater level of civilian killing that passes without much notice when it is committed by the United States itself.

Certain features of the White House story about the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound were irresistible to the media: A fierce firefight. The feared terrorist leader crouching behind his wife as the Navy SEALs approached, before resisting or possibly even reaching for a weapon. And on and on.

Of course, those details have been substantially altered by the White House, if not scrapped altogether. And thus we started to see headlines like this one in the New York Times: "Raid Account, Hastily Told, Proves Fluid." As that story put it:

a classic collision of a White House desire to promote a stunning national security triumph--and feed a ravenous media--while collecting facts from a chaotic military operation on the other side of the world.

If by "classic," the Times means to say that the government often misleads or lies about its accomplishments--well, no argument here. And demonstrating their sense of humor, the Times account included this:

"There has never been any intent to deceive or dramatize," a military official said Thursday, asking that he not be named because of ground rules imposed by the Department of Defense. "Everything we put out we really believed to be true at the time."

We never meant to mislead anyone--but don't quote me on that!

Judging by what some reporters are saying,  early accounts are often simply wrong.  On CNN's Reliable Sources (3/8/11), host Howard Kurtz and former CNN Pentagon reporter Jamie McIntyre had this exchange:

KURTZ: And there was a conference call with White House officials, and you're trying to assemble as much as you can. You assume these people know what they're talking about.

MCINTYRE: But you know, Howard, this was an avoidable misstep, because anyone who has covered the military for any period of time, or anyone who is briefed on military operations, knows that initial details on an operation are almost always wrong. And if they had simply been cautious about caveating the fact that they didn't have all the details, or that they might change, and by the same token, if the reporters are careful to say in the past, we know that often these initial details are not right, it wouldn't have looked nearly as bad.

So reporters either "assume these people know what they're talking about," or just know that "initial details on an operation are almost always wrong." If it's the latter, it would seem to me that most reporters carry that knowledge around without sharing it with readers or viewers. In fact, a network correspondent once told me almost exactly the same thing that McIntyre is saying here. I remember being shocked, because the reporter's work betrayed no such skepticism towards official claims.

This was a well-planned assault, closely watched by elite planners at Washington. For reasons that are entirely  unclear, they delivered a highly misleading account to reporters and the public. They've made their corrections--or at least adjustments--but think about how often this might be happening, in Afghanistan or elsewhere. An airstrike reportedly kills civilians; the Pentagon issues a denial.  How often do reporters treat those denials with sufficient skepticism?

Salon.com's Justin Elliot has a good piece about media adoration for the Navy SEALs, focusing on an NBC report.

Lest anyone think that report is a weird outlier, here are some quotes from the May 3 broadcast of ABC World News (you can watch it here, if you must):

DIANE SAWYER: Tonight, details are surfacing about that super-human force that took down bin Laden, the Navy SEALs known as Team Six. A force so elite you cannot apply to join their ranks, you are just silently recruited.

**

CHRIS CUOMO: You know, Diane, as impressive as the details of the bin Laden operation are, you really start to appreciate how special these SEALs are, when you learn that taking out bin Laden was just another day at the office.

**

CUOMO: A superhero has nothing on these guys.

**

CUOMO: The only thing missing seems to be the ability to leap a building in a single bound.

**

CUOMO: But for all their physical abilities, what Marcinko says really sets a SEAL apart, their most deadly weapon is their mind.

**

CUOMO: You know, we keep comparing them to superheroes, but they're different from superheroes in a very important way. They're subtle. They're known for their reserved, unassuming nature. So, they carry out missions with calm. Now, Diane, why? Well one big reason is that so the enemy does not know what it's up against until it's too late.

During an interview on CNN last night (5/1/11) with New York firefighter and 9/11 first responder Kenny Specht:

BLITZER: Did you ever give up hope, Kenny, that the U.S. would kill bin Laden?

SPECHT: No, but I'd be lying to you, Wolf, I'd be lying to you if I thought about it every night. No, I didn't give up hope. That's all we had. That's all we had. It's like anything else, though. It's just sometimes we think that when it's not spoken about anymore, we wonder really what's being done.

I mean, we're in a quagmire, for lack of a better term, in Afghanistan. I hope to God that tonight is one large step to maybe wrapping up operations in Afghanistan.

BLITZER: Kenny, I'm going to interrupt because I think I've lost contact with you. But I want you to--I want you to stand by, Kenny, if you can. Stand by for a moment because Peter Bergen is joining us now, our national security contributor.

(Thanks to reader Blake Wood for the tip. See something that should be written up? Send us a note:  fair@fair.org)

Readers of the Washington Post can see this headline in today's edition (4/25/11) about the U.S. drone airstrikes:

Debates Underway on Combat Drones

But there is no actual debate in the article. Reporter Walter Pincus cites a British military study that calls the use of missile-firing drones "a genuine revolution in military affairs," adding that the "use of unmanned aircraft prevents the potential loss of aircrew lives and is thus in itself morally justified."

Pincus goes on to explain:

At a Washington conference of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) last week, the issue of drones was also widely discussed.

That "wide discussion" would seem to have involved drone proponents from the CIA and the military. Those quoted by the Post were:

--"Lt. Col. Bruce Black, program manager for the Air Force Predator and Reaper aircraft."

--"former CIA director Michael V. Hayden," who explained that drone pilots "can call up computer maps that show the potential effects of each weapon." Hayden explained that teams can ask for an attack's likely impact on the ground--which is apparently called "the bug splat."

--"Retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula, former Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance," who apparently talked about "potential problems with public perceptions."

--"Col. Dean Bushey, deputy director of the Air Force Joint Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center," who explained that drone pilots train like conventional pilots.

There are plenty of questions to ask about a government policy of assassination by remote-controlled drone aircraft--including whether or not this is even legal. The Post's "debate" would seem to exclude anyone who doesn't think this is a sound policy.

"Gadhafi Troops Fire Cluster Bombs Into Civilian Areas," declares a New York Times headline (4/15/11). The lead of the story makes clear that these weapons are considered in many countries to be illegal:

Military forces loyal to Col. Moammar el-Gadhafi have been firing into residential neighborhoods in this embattled city with heavy weapons, including cluster bombs that have been banned by much of the world.

The story, by C.J. Chivers, goes on to explain why these weapons have been banned:

These so-called indiscriminate weapons, which strike large areas with a dense succession of high-explosive munitions, by their nature cannot be fired precisely. When fired into populated areas, they place civilians at grave risk.

Then it gives a graphic description of the human toll of these weapons:

The dangers were evident beside one of the impact craters on Friday, where eight people had been killed while standing in a bread line. Where a crowd had assembled for food, bits of human flesh had been blasted against a cinder-block wall.

And it strongly suggests that the use of cluster bombs deserves to have serious international consequences:

The use of such weapons in these ways could add urgency to the arguments by Britain and France that the alliance needs to step up attacks on the Gadhafi forces, to better fulfill the United Nations mandate to protect civilians.

After all this, the story gets out of the way an awkward fact that complicates this presentation of the use of cluster bombs as proof that Moammar Gadhafi is an international outlaw whose bloodthirstiness must be countered by an intensified military campaign by the civilized world:

At the same time, the United States has used cluster munitions itself, in battlefield situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in a strike on suspected militants in Yemen in 2009.

Oh--so these "indiscriminate weapons" that "place civilians at grave risk" have been used by the United States as well? But only in "battlefield situations," far from civilians, right? Well, not exactly. The U.S. was criticized by Human Rights Watch for using cluster bombs in populated areas in Afghanistan, killing and injuring scores of civilians (Washington Post, 12/18/02). Amnesty International (4/2/03) called the U.S.'s use of cluster bombs in civilian areas of Iraq "a grave violation of international humanitarian law." (See FAIR Action Alert, 5/6/03.) NATO employed cluster bombs in its bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo War, with one attack killing 15 civilians in the town of Nis (BBC, 5/7/99); more than 2,000 unexploded munitions from cluster bombs are estimated to remain on Serbian territory, continuing to endanger civilians (AFP, 3/10/09).

The "suspected militants" attacked by a cluster bomb in Yemen in 2009 turned out to be "21 children and 20 innocent women and men" (NewYorkTimes.com, 12/9/10)--all killed in the U.S. attack.

You can be sure that none of these examples of U.S. use of cluster bombs in civilian areas prompted the New York Times to suggest that they justified military attacks on the United States in order to protect civilians. And you'd be hard-pressed to find any descriptions in the Times of the "bits of human flesh" resulting from any U.S. military action.

As for cluster bombs being "banned in much of the world," that includes Britain. But as WikiLeaks revealed, the U.S. colluded with the British government to circumvent the ban and allow U.S. cluster bombs to remain on British soil. WikiLeaks also disclosed that the U.S. has been lobbying for countries to keep cluster bombs legal, arguing that they are "legitimate weapons that provide a vital military capability" (Guardian, 12/1/10).

One of the questions about U.S.-led war in Libya is the scope of the conflict. Some rebel forces seem to want more U.S. military action. The Washington Post reports today (3/29/11) that this is already happening. Under the headline "U.S. Deploys Low-Flying Attack Planes," Greg Jaffe explains:

The U.S. military dramatically stepped up its assault on Libyan government ground forces over the weekend, launching its first missions with AC-130 flying gunships and A-10 attack aircraft designed to strike enemy ground troops and supply convoys.

The use of the aircraft, during days of heavy fighting in which the momentum seemed to swing in favor of the rebels, demonstrated how allied military forces have been drawn deeper into the chaotic fight in Libya. A mission that initially seemed to revolve around establishing a no-fly zone has become focused on halting advances by government ground forces in and around key coastal cities.

The obvious implication is that the United States is involved more deeply that we've been led to believe. And the Post has known this for some time:

The Washington Post learned of their deployment last week but withheld reporting the information until their first missions at the request of U.S. military officials.

Why did the Post keep this information from readers? The Post adds:

Military officials consider AC-130s and A-10s well suited to attacks in built-up areas, although their use has led to civilian deaths. Unlike fighter jets and bombers, which typically carry 500- or 1,000-pound bombs, the AC-130s and A-10s deliver more discriminate but still devastating machine-gun fire.

The article adds that "AC-130s were used to great effect during the two U.S. offensives in Fallujah, a stronghold of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq in the early days of the Iraq war." If this is a preview of what is to come, it is an ominous development.

How can you tell that your country has gone to war again? Here are at least two signs.

--The same military official is on every Sunday morning chat show:  Yesterday  Joint Chiefs chair Mike Mullen was on CBS's Face the Nation, NBC's Meet the Press, Fox News Sunday and ABC's This Week.

--You can watch TV reports about the astonishing accuracy of your weapons: On CNN last night, courtesy of Pentagon correspondent Chris Lawrence:

American Tomahawk missiles can be reprogrammed in flight. If there was a risk of civilian casualties, operators could change the target after launch. But the Navy did not use that ability, confident it was aiming at military targets. Moammar Gadhafi says the strikes killed civilians. But a defense official told us if you don't have to reprogram your missile, you're very confident in what you're hitting.