NPR Drones and Disappearing Civilian Casualties

It took awhile, but on Tuesday morning (3-22-11) NPR finally got around to covering (covering up) the March 17th drone-slaughter of civilians in AfPak. On the positive side, the report did feature the dire mental health effects that drone strikes have on residents of the area, and Julie McCarthy did contact a shopkeeper who ends the report by explaining:

"If anyone thinks that people here are happy over the drone strikes, they are foolish....In fact, the drones are fomenting hatred against the government and turning the people against America. We are killed by drones and then labeled as terrorists."

However, the story is undermined from the start. Steve Inskeep kicks things off this way,

"An attack last week reportedly killed at least 40 people. Some WERE militants but most are DESCRIBED as tribal elders." [No mention of where the confirmation of "militants" came from or why those other dozens are only "described" as elders.]

From this modest beginning, Julie McCarthy goes full-in:

"The U.S. has been conducting a covert program using unmanned drones to target militants in Pakistan since 2004. According to the Long War Journal, an authoritative website, the large majority of the 2,000 killed since 2006 were from the Taliban, al-Qaida and affiliated groups."

This statement tells you a lot about the rigor of NPR's standards. If thoroughly enmeshed with US state security/military institutions means authoritative - then the Long War Journal (LWJ) is very authoritative. Take a look at its website where you'll find out that its managing editor Bill Roggio has close ties to the conservative Hoover Institute and The Weekly Standard, frequently embeds with the US and allied militaries, and "presents regularly at the US Air Force's Contemporary Counterinsurgency Warfare School on the media and embedded reporting" (oh, and he also "served as a signalman and infantryman in the US Army and the New Jersey National Guard from 1991 to 1997.") As the LWJ masthead indicates, it is a project of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies - which a glance at its "Who We Are" section (rogues gallery) reveals what kind of "authoritative" viewpoint one can expect from the LWJ:

"Our Leadership Council of Distinguished Advisors includes former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former State Department Under Secretary Paula Dobriansky, Forbes CEO Steve Forbes, former National Security Advisor Robert “Bud” McFarlane, former Ambassador Max Kampelman, Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), and former CIA Director R. James Woolsey."

No surprise then that the LWJ's snappy charts claim - absent of any hard evidence - that in 2010, US airstrikes killed 801 Taliban/al-Qaeda operatives and only 14 civilians. In all the searching I've done it is clear that hard evidence is extremely difficult to come by - and that estimated of rates of civilian casualties in US drone strikes range from very high (over 90%) to high (about 30%) to low (3.5% ) to the LWJ's very low 1.7%! Given that the US and Pakistani governments have every reason to low-ball civilian casualties - and given that the US military always denies civilian casualties unless confronted by hard evidence - only a propagandist for the US military would claim a source for the lowest number as "authoritative."

This opting for the lowest numbers of civilian victims of the US long, long, long war is nothing new on NPR, in fact it's their gold standard.

65 and a Half Men (Women and Children)

Here's a brief glimpse into recent activity at the NPR memory hole:

• How about that crazy General Caldwell running psy-ops in Afghanistan on US Senators?And the coverage on NPR? Anyone home?
• Somewhere else in Afghanistan a few (dozens) unarmed folks got wasted in a NATO operation. The response from NPR? Yawn.... Oh well, I guess since the Afghans burned their children to make the US look bad (at least according to that "special breed of soldier: the warrior-scholar") there's nothing to cover on this one...

Then again NPR doesn't have unlimited resources and has to focus on the stories that really matter...such as Ronnie Reagan's Hollywood buddy and Charlie Sheen's personal implosion....

Less Tea Drinking, More Drone Strikes

NPR's perky sock monkey has earned her own comic strip with her latest effort. All Ms. Martin's statements are straight from Monday's ATC "report" which is introduced by Audie Cornish. Hover over panels to see which ones have superpowered hyperlinks!

Good JSOC Monkey

On Thursday morning our favorite sock monkey had this to say about the US war in Afghanistan:

"Administration officials say this review isn't a referendum on the strategy itself, but a close look at how it's being implemented; a gut check on what's working and what's not. And there are things that are working. U.S. led operations in the southern part of the country have pushed insurgent groups out of key areas. Special forces raids have captured or killed hundreds of insurgent leaders in the past few months."

Yes, there are things that are really working in Afghanistan: airstrikes are working wonders, civilians are benefiting immensely, operations in the south are clearly driving somebody out, and JSOC (special forces) raids - well they are definitely working. Astounding really. And the evidence offered? Martin says,

"Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says some progress was inevitable."

This is the same Anthony Cordesman who weighed in on Mr. Holbrooke on Tuesday's ATC and summed up his work in Af-Pak as follows:

"Mahatma Gandhi, had he been involved, could not have done better."

Now why didn't I think of Mahatma Gandhi when I thought of Richard Holbrooke? I guess that what experts like Cordesman are for - and why NPR returns to him again and again.

Got History?

This past week NPR had Quil Lawrence providing us with "history" lessons on Afghanistan - always a dodgy prospect on NPR. This series features a major hole in the narrative; the active, long-term role that the United States played in bringing Islamic extremism and terror to Afghanistan is both ignored and covered up.

On Monday's ATC Quil gives us the long history of imperial adventures in Afghanistan. He says this:"In 1978, a communist coup installed a pro-Soviet president. The tribes rose up, and the Soviets invaded. Andrey Avetisyan is Russian ambassador in Kabul....By the mid-'80s, the United States was aiding the Mujahedeen to the tune of half a billion dollars...." [This "mid-80s" claim is furthered with a time-line on the web version of the story.]

Then on Tuesday's ATC - in a report that does at least note that many of the depraved warlords of the post-Soviet civil war are now in the government that the US is backing - we hear only that

"The mujahedeen, a patchwork army of Islamist guerrillas, bolstered with copious funding from Washington, defeated the Soviet army in 1989. What they couldn't do was unite to govern Afghanistan."

There are several problems with the NPR narrative:

• It places the beginning of active US involvement in stoking conflict in Afghanistan in the mid-80s, when in fact the US was actively assisting Islamic extremists there starting in the early 1970s. As Robert Dreyfuss has documented, this policy was just one part of the US government decision to encourage and promote Islamic fundamentalist movements as a counterweight to nationalist movements in the Middle East and Central Asia.
• The NPR version also ignores the role the US played in luring the Soviets into the Afghanistan trap (as recalled by Robert Gates and Zbigniew Brzezinski), leaving listeners to conclude that the US was simply reacting to events that were out of its control.
• Finally, NPR presents the US as simply funding what mujahedeen forces existed, instead of accurately exposing how the US recruited, organized and supplied the most ruthless, criminal and fanatic elements for fighting in Afghanistan. The idea was to foster these Islamic terrorists as a way of attacking the Soviet Union. The fate of the Afghan people never figured into (and still doesn't) the geopolitical maneuverings of US foreign policy players. As this pre 9/11 article from The Atlantic notes:

  "...the CIA began providing weapons and funds -- eventually totaling more than $3 billion -- to a fratricidal alliance of seven Afghan resistance groups, none of whose leaders are by nature democratic, and all of which are fundamentalist in religion to some extent, autocratic in politics, and venomously anti-American."

Some might argue that NPR's oversight is not all that important to the current complications that the US/NATO finds itself entangled in. But understanding the cold-blooded, ruthless arc of US foreign policy is essential to a critical assessment of the current US occupation of Afghanistan. By ignoring this, NPR can present the current US mission in Afghanistan as having only noble aims, allowing Quil Lawrence to make this closing statement in his Friday ATC report on "the mixed report card" from Afghanistan:

"And many of even the harshest Afghan critics of the Obama policy think it would be a disaster for the U.S. to leave Afghanistan in the state it is today..."

Really?...

[click picture to view the original WWI version]

Good Sock Monkey

NPR has been sending crack reporter Rachel Martin to Afghanistan to accompany military bigwigs so that she can dutifully repeat what they say. And she doesn't fail.

On Tuesday morning she provided a positive account of her trips in Afghanistan with "Major General John Campbell...the U.S. commander in charge of the area in the eastern part of Afghanistan right along the Afghan-Pakistan border." She stated:

• "So as you can hear, clearly this is an issue that gets under Campbell's skin: corruption. And it's another part of the war that commanders are trying to get a handle on." [Of course, as always on NPR, the corruption they're talking about is Afghan corruption - since the Americans involved in the Afghanistan War are above reproach.]
• "But in other places where Campbell's troops are operating, they seem to have captured the momentum at least for the time being."
• "General Campbell is adamant. He says that they are making progress every day. He sees examples of this progress, but it's really a mixed bag."

On Tuesday afternoon she was reporting on her travels with an upbeat Secretary of War Gates, and all his remarks were supplemented with other military spokespersons: Lieutenant Colonel Vowell, Major General John Campbell, and General Petraeus. Here's a sampling of Martin's critical input:

• "Vowell says part of the reason violence is up is because the Pakistani military has pressured insurgents on its side of the border, and now they're being pushed over here into Afghanistan. Stirring up the hornet's nest is what some military officials call it. And Secretary Gates told U.S. soldiers in Kunar that it's working."
• "The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, said the Taliban still has areas where it can operate freely, but there have been gains."

In case you didn't appreciate positive spin on the war being promoted by Sec. Gates, Martin was on one more time Thursday morning to give airtime to the optimism of military geniuses of the Afghanistan War and then to restate their remarks. This report featured this truly astounding segment, where a sound bite of Gates recounting the "successes" and rosy future of the US war effort is followed seamlessly by Martin - to the point where it is hard to tell them apart:

[Gates]: "...And as a result, more and more Afghan people are able to live without being terrorized."
[Martin]: "That is just the first step. The next goal is getting Afghan forces to take responsibility for providing security one province at a time, and ultimately for the Afghans to take full control of the security situation by the end of 2014."

See, the first step of saving the Afghan people has been accomplished with the gentle boots on the ground of the super-careful, relationship-building US military. Good thing the US isn't leaving Afghanistan anytime soon - otherwise the poor Afghans would be terrorized all over again.

CONNECTING THE iDiOTS

NPR's web scribes, for the Friday ME story "US 'Connects the Dots' to Catch Roadside Bombers" tell us

"With his doctorate from Princeton, Army Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has become the prime example of a special breed of soldier: the warrior-scholar, trained in history and politics as well as how to fight wars. Now there's a variation on the theme: the warrior mathematician, adept in the complex modeling that has become a key part of military planning."

Hey, if it's all about scholars, war, and deep cover thoughts then who better than the CIA's best friend in journalism - Tom Gjelten. And why not honor Reporter Tom with another installment of his own dynamic, hyperlinked comic strip [click on each panel to visit the super-brainy links] :

Extreme Home Makeover: the NATO Edition

(For source of photo, click here.)

Sometimes you don't know whether to laugh or cry. This morning Scott Simon was checking in with NPR's Afghanistan bureau chief, Quil Lawrence. After hearing from Lawrence how "Afghan military commanders and government ministers...seem to be on the same page as the generals and the NATO officials..." Simon asked a good question, "And can you give us any insight into how regular Afghan citizens might be viewing this debate now?" That led to this from Lawrence,

"Well, I find that Afghans outside the government or that aren't working with the Americans are living in an absolutely completely different reality from the one that I hear described by U.S. generals, by NATO officials, by congressmen and U.S. senators who come here.

For example, down in Kandahar, where they certainly have seen fierce fighting and killed many, many Taliban fighters down there, but at the same time villagers down there have been evicted from their homes by the violence. They see that their homes are now - and their fields are still so littered with Taliban landmines and booby traps that the U.S. military has actually had to bulldoze or sometimes rocket their houses just to clear them."

Well, dang what do you know, seems like there's a new Nobel Prize winning strategy emerging in Afghanistan - kind of a 21st century update of "destroying the village in order to save it." And Simon's horrified reaction is...

"Might they reflect that the picture the U.S. is presenting at NATO meetings and elsewhere is just a little hopeful?"

A little hopeful? Sheesh...oh well, I guess he was saving his profound humanity for the Afghanistan dog hero that was accidentally euthanized. Notice, too how the web scribes for NPR describe thwarted attackers against NATO combat forces as "terrorists."

Warped Times and Time Warps

(image source)

Israel / Palestine

Amazingly, and almost three years to the day, NPR reprises its typically pro US/Israel coverage of the war on Palestinians with a piece that is essentially a repetition of the piece it ran three years ago. Back then it was the much-touted, amazing Bush inspired Annapolis conference for peace in the Middle East and Michele Kelemen was all over it with Aaron David Miller and Robert Malley representing the State Department far right view and the State Department center right view of the matter respectively. Guess what tonight's ATC piece on the Obama State Department's Unbelievalble 90-day Breakthrough for Israel featured? No really, go out on a limb and take a guess:

Kelemen: "Israeli officials say the package includes $3 billion in fighter jets, continued diplomat cover at the United Nations and a promise that the U.S. won't ask Israel to renew the settlement moratorium again three months from now. Woodrow Wilson Center scholar Aaron David Miller says it's a high price to pay but may be worth it."

and

Kelemen: "Rob Malley of the International Crisis Group has his doubts and is troubled by the apparent U.S. assurances that it won't push the settlement issue beyond the 90-day moratorium."

Can you say Groundhog Day?

Afghanistan

And then there's those crazy stopped clocks of Afghanistan. Exactly 17 months ago NPR and General McChrystal assured us that in 12 to 18 months we'd all know whether or not the Obama Nobel Prize winning Afghanistan Surge™ was working. Well it isn't - as any joker could tell you. But don't let past claims get in the way of NPR's hopeful assessments of the new endless war with magically shifting timelines:

First there's Julie McCarthy on ATC:

McCarthy: "Ambassador Holbrooke said...marks a turning point for American and allied forces fighting in Afghanistan...the United States will be in a transition mode with a target date of the end of 2014 for Afghanistan to take the lead for its own security....said it was important to make clear this is not an exit strategy, but a transition strategy....The U.S. and its allies would remain in Afghanistan past 2014. But for training and mentoring...The 2014 date marks the most concrete blueprint to end the war since the president took office. President Obama has set next summer as a starting point for the gradual drawdown of U.S. combat personnel. His envoy said July 2011 still stands."

Makes perfect sense to me (hee, hee).

And then Bob Siegel and Tom Bowman also on ATC:

Siegel: "Well, 2014, the deadline, is still four years off. What do people think there? Is there any way to judge if these forces can actually be ready to take over by that time?"

Bowman: "Well, it's possible. And four years is a long way off, of course, and that would give them time to build up their junior leaders especially. But be careful by the term they're using - takeover. I think even if all works as planned by 2014, and that's frankly a very big if, there will still be a lot of American troops here helping with training and especially logistics."

Now you understand don't you? The 12 to 18 month window was so we could get all geared up for the 3-4 year window, by which time we should be all set for the 10-50 year plan which NPR will no doubt explain. Also worth noting in this sad coverage was Tom Bowman's super empathetic coverage of the ruthless, cynical JSOC night raids that practically guarantee no end to the Afghanistan tragedy. When Siegel asks what's wrong with the night raids Bowman states:

"Well, this isn't a new complaint. But Karzai is rightly concerned about it. The night raids are more likely to get civilians killed, mistakes can be made. You go to the wrong house or the wrong compound. But the U.S. sees this as critical in their efforts to really bring the Taliban to its knees. A NATO officer I spoke with in Kabul says there have been more than 1,000 raids by U.S. Special Forces troops over just the past several months. Hundreds of Taliban have been killed or captured in those raids. So I think Karzai's complaints will, frankly, be dismissed."

Notice how completely Bowman accepts that the civilians are killed only by mistakes and how he asserts that "hundreds of Taliban have been killed or captured" with absolutely no confirming evidence. I challenge anyone to watch and/or listen to Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley discuss their investigations of these night raids and not be struck by their courageous reporting and humanity as opposed to NPR's lazy and crass attitude toward the misery and horror that the US is visiting upon Afghanistan.

Balanced and Favorable - Congratulations Sorya Sarhadi Nelson

Some of you may recall that - back in August of 2009 - Stars & Stripes broke the story of how the Pentagon was using the services of the Rendon Group to rate reporters who sought to embed in Afghanistan. NPR gave this story brief on-air coverage - two stories to be exact:

• On August 27, 2009 ATC JJ Sutherland reported the story from the perspective of two military spokespersons.
• On August 29, 2009 ATC Guy Raz did a decent interview with Charlie Reed the lead reporter on the story for Stars & Stripes.

At the time, I remember thinking that any truly public news organization would have reported on whether its own reporters had been subjects of the Rendon ratings. Given NPR's failure to seriously report on US/NATO atrocities in Afghanistan that was definitely something I was curious about. Instead of wasting my time with NPR apologist/ombudsman Alicia Shepard, I decided to file my own FOIA request (a first for me). After a bit of research into the process, I contacted USCENTCOM and included the following request:

"Pursuant to the federal Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, I request access to and copies of information contained in the reporter profiles provided to the US Department of Defense by The Rendon Group for profiling reporters seeking to embed with US forces in Afghanistan. I specifically am interested in profiles related to the following National Public Radio (NPR) reporters: Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, Tom Bowman, and Renee Montagne.

Through this request, I am gathering information on ratings provided to the US Department of Defense about reporters from National Public Radio who have embedded with US forces in Afghanistan. This information is of current interest to the public because the story of profiling reporters has recently broken and yet no mention of whether NPR reporters were profiled has been made public.

This information is being sought on behalf of the blog "NPR Check" for dissemination to the general public. My blog is a media critique of National Public Radio news. I post to it about 2-3 times per week and have been posting for over three years. The blog currently has about 250 readers per day."

Well, the wheels of government do turn slowly, but this Monday, September 27th, I finally received my FOIA documents and I'm posting them as Google Documents / PDF files that you can click on to read and then download if you like. The only alteration I made was in the letter to me; I removed my mailing address. The most striking comments come in the "Memorandum" from Rendon where it states:

• "Nelson's reports have largely been balanced and favorable."
• "She recently reported favorably on US military aid to victims injured in Taliban attacks as well as US military training of the Afghan police."
• "Based on her past reporting trends, you may expect Nelson to provide balanced or favorable coverage of her embed experience..."

Below are the documents I received (click on each to read):

1. Letter of response to my FOIA from USCENTOM.
2. Memorandum of "Media Analysis for Soraya Sarhadi Nelson" from Rendon to a Staff Sergeant in the Army.
3. Rendon Group profile of Soraya Sarhadi Nelson.

I will post another open thread in a couple of days - I've been enjoying the lively critiques and comments.

The Great Taboo

(If you want to purchase these cute little monkeys they are just $9.95)

On Friday's ATC Mara Liasson says one of the stupidest things I've heard on NPR in a while - which is saying something! Talking about the waning popularity of the BushLite Obama administration among more left leaning and progressive Democrats Liasson states,

"And there are other disagreements. On Afghanistan much of the Democratic base is opposed to the President's troop increase although the Christmas bomber may have taken some of the heat out of that sentiment."

In Liasson/Foxworld one's thinking seems to be limited to rather primitive stimulus/response equations, such as

Terrorist attempt [X] against a US target [Y] = more US military action [N] in Afghanistan [or Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan].

How else to explain the utter nonsense of her claim that progressives - who know that the Obama Afghanistan War is immoral, stupid, and ultimately destructive of real security - would change their minds based on one terrorist's attempt to bomb a US airliner? If Liasson had any clue about progressive/leftist voters she would realize that the attempted Christmas day attack contradicts the supposed rationale for stepping up the US war on Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, Liasson's comments reveal not just Foxified thinking but that of the mainstream media - and especially highlight its refusal to ever consider what creates and motivates acts of terrorism and/or violence against US assets.

After the Christmas Day bombing attempt, probably the biggest story of the week was the bomber who attacked the CIA in Afghanistan. Any curious person would want to know what motivated the apparently trusted attacker to infiltrate the US base and lethally target US/CIA operations. However, the stunning fact is how little attention is given in the mainstream media to the factors that motivate terrorists and irregular fighters who attack US forces. Glenn Greenwald has covered this taboo recently in two articles: the first regarding the Christmas Day bomber and the second on the CIA base bomber. Regarding the CIA bomber there's nothing unclear or hard to discern about his motives:

• Time magazine notes "The Jordanian intelligence sources who spoke to TIME speculate that al-Balawi had become enraged at the Americans for killing a high number of civilians in their hunt for al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders."
• CBS reports that the wife of the bomber stated that he "was outraged over the treatment of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison and the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan."
• The New York Times reports that the bomber's brother explained "that his brother had been 'changed' by last year’s three-week-long Israeli offensive in Gaza, which killed about 1,300 Palestinians."

So how does NPR cover this? Try a little searching and see if you can find any NPR news stories relating Abu Ghraib, civilian deaths, or the Gaza massacre to the actions of the CIA bomber who attacked the CIA. Here's what you'll find:

• Search "cia afghanistan" - lots of coverage of the attack.
• Search "cia afghanistan civilian casualties" - nothing regarding the attack.
• Search "cia afghanistan abu ghraib" - nothing regarding the attack.
• Search "cia afghanistan gaza" - nothing regarding the attack.

I guess these details don't quite fit in with the "they hate us for our freedom" conventional wisdom or with NPR's recent adulatory coverage of the CIA.

Civilians, Terrorists, and Cold-blooded Killers

(Image by wordle.net - click here for original)

I guess it's a challenge for a CIA-friendly news organization like NPR to decide how to report on an attack on a military base that kills CIA operatives. When the story broke in the evening on Dec. 30th the first reports out of Afghanistan referred to civilians being killed on a military base (which did seem odd). By Thursday morning, the BBC was already reporting that the dead were not "civilians" but CIA operatives. Given the CIA's history of murder and assassination, and its current role in military operations and extrajudicial killings in Af-Pak, you might expect that they would be referred to as paramilitary or irregular forces or simply CIA agent/operatives.

On Thursday morning, NPR's mouthpiece in Afghanistan, Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson still hadn't figured out that no civilians were killed in the attack on the military base in Khost. She told Steve Inskeep that the suicide bomber

"ended up killing eight American civilians here, killing one Afghan and wounding up to a half dozen more."

As the day wore on NPR's top-of-the hour (TOTH) news bulletins had stopped calling the dead civilians - but now the lethal suicide-attack inside a heavily fortified military base housing CIA operatives was transformed into...a terrorist attack! Newsreader Lakshmi Singh, at midday was stating,

"The CIA says 7 of its employees were killed and six others wounded in a terrorist attack yesterday in Afghanistan. The officers were working in a base in the southeastern province of Khost."

By Thursday afternoon (Dec. 31), the reporting on the attack had morphed into a somber tribute to the noble CIA and all that sacrifices if has made to keep the world safe. Mary Louise Kelly was given the assignment for ATC and she talked to Robert Siegel about it.

Siegel: "And what kind of work were they doing in Khost province?"

Kelly: "Well, the agency is not confirming any specifics....But it's safe to assume that they were doing what CIA types do in remote areas of the world, which is help identify enemy targets, also help recruit locals who can serve as CIA agents, perhaps what was they were trying to do here." [Silly me, I thought they tortured and killed people, propped up dictators, and helped overthrow democratically elected governments.]

Kelly later goes on to note that seven is a very high number of fatalities for the CIA to have in one day:

"...And it's interesting, you know, you walk into CIA headquarters today, walk into the original headquarters building and on the big wall on the left, as you enter, is a wall of stars. Each star representing one of the CIA officers who gave their life in service - was killed in action. Now on that wall there are 90 stars. Remarkable really when you think about how dangerous that line of work is and how long..." [I'm just guessing that Kelly is very familiar with the inside of CIA headquarters.]

Siegel interrupts, "It's a very small number for all these years."

Kelly responds, "Exactly. They've been doing it for six decades now. So, that helps, I think, give some perspective on how devastating it is to have lost seven in one day." They definitely have been doing it...and if there were one star for every poor soul killed as a result of CIA "service" there wouldn't be a wall big enough to put them all on.

And From the Left

NPR's supposedly liberal, left-leaning Dan Schorr weighs in on Obama's escalation of the war and occupation of Afghanistan on Weekend Edition Saturday:

Simon: "President Obama appeared at West Point, send 30,000 or more U.S. troops to Afghanistan by next fall. How would you characterize the speech?"

Schorr: "I would characterize it as being a statesmanlike speech trying to deal with two disparate problems. One of the problems is they need to send more troops to Afghanistan. The other problem is that that does not go down very well with a great many liberals in the Democratic Party [seriously, click on this link to see my Republican representative's stand on Afghanistan]. And what he's done in effect is to say here we come and there we go, 18 months later, hoping that he managed to get both groups. He may succeed, but not entirely.

Simon: "Of course the concern was raised by a number of people this week - in Congress, commentators - that if you a put time stamp on a commitment, it doesn't impress anybody and it allows the Taliban to say we'll just hold onto the ropes for 18 months, and for that matter, as some people suggested, it's hard to ask U.S. troops to risk their lives for that kind of exit."

Schorr: "Well, you're right. It's not really a very wise thing to do if you want to get the Taliban and al-Qaida out of there. You don't say just hang around, we'll be leaving in 18 months, it's not a very good idea. But he had a very sticky problem that what would work internationally would not work with public opinion at home, and he tried to straddle that.

With "liberals" like these who needs conservatives?

Propaganda Squared

A reader noted in the Q Tips section below that Tuesday's ATC featured Pentagon propaganda on the Green Berets. It's no secret that NPR do love it some counterinsurgency, including the Green Berets.

The piece from Jon Kalish was an unabashed, uncritical advertisement for a Green Beret commercial called Why We Fight Now. There was no critique of the Green Berets, just positive comments, an "explanation" of the filmmaker's motives, and a handy link to the 10 minutes of the film on YouTube (watch it if you can stomach it - it's a lazy, stupid, paean to warriorism).

Here's a taste of the NPR feature:

Kalish: The film is titled Why We Fight Now, a nod to the World War II series Why We Fight, produced by Hollywood filmmaker Frank Capra for the U.S. War Department.....Why We Fight Now has no narration and consists mostly of Green Berets talking about their work. It was directed by Mark Benjamin, a 62-year-old Manhattan filmmaker who might seem an odd choice for the job." [Actually there is nothing but narration, provided by Green Berets parroting a simple-minded world view and the worship of war and counterinsurgency which in NPRspeak is "talking about their 'work.' "]

Benjamin: "I've always been anti-war and never thought I would ever work for the military."

Kalish: On the wall in Benjamin's office is a poster of Che Guevara, but there's also a picture of a Green Beret handing a piece of food to a child in Afghanistan. Benjamin's political evolution is due in no small part to the terrorist attacks of September 11. He knew people who died and has made several films dealing with the day's repercussions."

Benjamin: "Because of 9/11, I became this liberal hawk. My own political perspective on global conflicts, democracy, capitalism, human rights everything changed. I certainly became more militant. I think we should go after terror wherever it is."

That's all we get. Not one bit of intelligent information or analysis. There is some chatter from an ex-Green Beret who now is a fellow at NPR-favorite war-tank, Center for New American Security, who liked the film (surprise!) and seemed surprised that the military is airing this pro-special forces rubbish (because it favors the Green Berets over other special forces!)

As always there was no mention of the sordid history of the Green Berets supporting dictators and torture states - such as the disgusting Karimov of Uzbekistan or the torture deaths of Green Beret prisoners in Afghanistan (yawn...) or the usual trail of torture, blood, and repression that US special forces leave in their wake all over the world.

In the comments section below the story Boulder Dude nails it: "So, what does one call Propaganda of a Propaganda film? Double Plus Good news?" Or as I see it propaganda squared.

An Afghanistan Strategy That Works

"But the big fool said to push on." - (click photo for graphic source)

Is Sorya Sarhaddi Nelson really and truly in Afghanistan? I've heard her interviewed the last day or so regarding the fortunes of of the US debacle in Afghanistan - in light of the non-runoff runoff and the "victory" of Hamid Karzai - and I can't say I've learned anything from it.

Nelson was on ATC Monday talking to Michelle Norris and this exchange occurred:

Norris: "With Hamid Karzai now declared the official winner of the presidential election, to what degree does that now solve the political uncertainty in Afghanistan?"

Nelson: "Well, for the West it gives them - in particular, President Obama - a green light to move ahead in redefining and setting an Afghanistan strategy that works, in terms of international involvement here. But the question remains whether Afghans will accept this government as a legitimate one. I think much can be forgiven, including the fraud, in a very lengthy and disappointing election process if in fact the new Karzai administration delivers services and delivers security, which is what people here are really wanting."

Keep that little nugget in mind as you read Tony Karon's brutal assessment of Sen. Kerry's mission to Afghanistan where he rather publicly retied the strings to the wayward US puppet - and was hailed as some kind of diplomacy wizard by "the spoon fed media."

Or consider Nelson's open ended optimism ("a strategy that works, in terms of international involvement there" and "whether Afghans will accept this government as a legitimate one") as you read just the first two or three paragraphs of Tom Engelhardt's depressing assessment of where things stand in Afghanistan and how the US is likely to proceed there.

Or consider Gareth Porter's Halloween article in the Asia Times about the US-warlord ties.

Can anyone in her right mind still pretend that there is a US-led Afghanistan strategy that works, or that the Afghan people (whoever that vague constituency is) will come around to welcome the US-Karzai-NATO occupation?

Ok, So It Took Eight Years

I think it must be a record for me: two positive notes about NPR news in one week. I was pleased - and frankly surprised - that NPR gave a prime slot of Thursday's ATC to an interview with Matthew Hoh, the Iraq war veteran and recent State Department official in Afghanistan who resigned his post as a protest of the US mission in Afghanistan.

I think this must have been a first for NPR, featuring someone who is not just quibbling with the "tactics" or "strategy" of a US war - but is questioning the whole project.

I realize that it is long, long overdue, but I'm also aware that NPR could have just ignored this story.

The Art of Enhanced Distraction

On Friday I was staying late at work and before leaving heard this promising start to a story on All Things Considered:

"This week, we've been reading a vivid narrative in the New York Times by the journalist David Rohde. He was held captive for seven months by the Taliban. He was moved frequently from house to house all over remote parts of Pakistan. And one detail in this story made us particularly curious."

Holy cow! I thought, NPR is going to allude to the three rather stunning observations contained in Rohde's articles which Glenn Greenwald so aptly wrote about a few days ago:

1. The actions of the US in killing countless civilians (especially Muslims) in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine have "galvanized the Taliban."
2. The US practice of holding detainees in abusive conditions "for years without being charged" has also has strengthened the Taliban.
3. How much more humanely Rohde was treated by his captors compared to the treatment meted out to similarly innocent captives at the hands of US military and intelligence agencies. As Rohde notes, his captives gave him bottled water, let him walk outside, and "never beat me."
   

In my head I was already composing the positive post I'd put up on this blog about NPR taking on this obvious - but still controversial - angle.

Alas, I couldn't have been more wrong. What was that "one detail" which made the collective "us" at NPR so curious?

"Rhode got a letter from his wife through the International Red Cross. How in the world did the Red Cross deliver him a letter when no one knew where he was? Well, the online magazine Slate found out for its "Explainer" column. Here's Andy Bowers with the answer."

Granted, the operations of the Red Cross in trying to contact hostages is pretty interesting - as The Guardian noted way back in 2004 (and MSNBC) and McClatchy detailed in 2008. And it's not a closed issue as this 2009 Newsweek article on ghost detainees reveals. Seems like those stories never gained much traction for the journalists at NPR news.

Interestingly, another Red Cross angle found its way into a Greenwald analysis today - Netanyahu's declaration that hiding prisoners from the Red Cross is a war crime (!?). Could there be two more polar opposite attitudes revealed by comparing Greenwald's work to NPR's? In one the focus is on the hypocrisy of those in power and the ways in which their deceit and misdeeds make the world more violent and dangerous for all of us. In the other, there is a perverse effort to focus on the most trivial and distracting details - even when such details are painfully ironic.

This Is What a Double Standard Looks Like

If you've forgotten the great Iranian bogey man of 2007, who could blame you? At the time NPR was acting as a Pentagon-to-radio live feed of completely unsubstantiated claims that Iran was behind every attack on US forces in Iraq (e.g. Feb 2007, April 2007, early May 2007, late May 2007, June 2007, and Dec. 2007). There was never any concern for evidence, no matter how ludicrous the Pentagon's claims were - NPR just dutifully repeated the accusations.

So now Iran has had several dozen people (including high ranking Revolutionary Guard leadership) killed in a suicide bombing carried out by the Baluchistan-Pakistan based group Jundallah and is claiming that the US was involved - and not just Iran is making such claims. On Tuesday's ATC, Melissa Block interviews RAND expert (uh-oh), Christine Fair, looking for answers. Block notes,

"There have been charges in the press and statements made by Pakistani officials that the US is somehow tied to Jundallah - supporting them, in some cases with money, with arms, in other cases what's described as arms-length support. What are those allegations based on and is there any truth to these charges?"

Not a bad question. And here's Fair's answer:

"Well, I have no ability to assess whether or not there's truth to these charges....the Americans, we have a presence in Baluchistan...[on] the Pakistani side...Baluchistan houses the military bases where we launch Predator attacks, so this is where the suspicion enters."

That's kind of funny, because actually suspicions enter due to some pretty weighty indications that it's true - Asia Times, the UK's Telegraph, the New Yorker, and ABC News. But Fair is not done, she continues,

"The allegation is that the Americans would like to poke at Iran in the way in which it has poked at us in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan...there is an ability and there is certainly a motive. Whether or not there's evidence is another story."

Notice how cleverly the "allegation" about the Americans is now based on the FACT that Iran..."has poked at us in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan..." I must say it's a strange use of the word "poke" - be careful if Christine tries to friend you on Facebook!

Melissa Block, of course, makes no challenge to the allegation that Iran has done similar things to the US. Instead she simply recoils from the very idea that the blameless US could EVER do such things,

"That's quite a hot allegation - the idea that the US would have ties to an extremist group based in Pakistan, that has close ties to al-Qaeda."

Fair uses this naivete to rehash an equally "hot allegation" about Iran being a sanctuary for al-Qaeda (where have I heard this scenario before?), "I think that's a strong argument for why we wouldn't be doing it...Iran has been accused of harboring al-Qaeda leadership so it had the strong incentive to characterize these as al-Qaeda."

Are We Going to Win This War on Terrorism or Not?

(source of graphic)

Reader Benoit Balz points out, in the Q Tips below, the Pentagon friendly propaganda put out on Sunday morning by that Tea Party-animal himself, Jeff Brady. Brady is covering the recent deaths of 8 soldiers in Afghanistan and its impact at Ft. Carson in Colorado. He reports:

"A few days earlier at a press conference, Major Daniel Chandler said the affected unit over in Afghanistan is keeping its spirits up. He said surviving soldiers know their dead colleagues helped to win that particular battle. [Chandler] 'There were a lot of heroes on that day and they're really rallying around themselves and morale in the 4th brigade combat team is high and it's getting stronger.'"

Later in the story Brady talks to a college student whose father was in the army. Brady tells us, "She chose to focus on the sacrifice the soldiers made. [Student] 'I'm more thankful than anything...I'm thankful that somebody at least went over there and did it.'

Brady raps things up by talking to a priest in the area - the rightwing Father Carmody - who tells Brady, "People around here want to make sure that they didn't die in vain, and what I mean by that is, 'Are we going to win this war on terrorism or not?'"

I realize that it must be difficult for any news organization to cover the issue of US military personnel killed in combat. There is the tragedy of young people being violently killed and there are considerations to make for the feelings of the families and friends of those who have died. But could NPR ever - even just once - not use the trite and empty rhetoric of heroics, sacrifice and gratitude to talk about the war dead? Has NPR ever interviewed surviving family members who denounce the leaders and policies that have squandered the lives of their loved ones? When was the last time you ever heard members of Gold Star Families for Peace or Gold Star Families Speak Out interviewed on NPR? Have you ever heard on NPR from men or women who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan and then have become resisters of conscience?

It is worth reading the comments under the story at the NPR site. This one really nails it:

"WE SHOULD NEVER 'QUIETLY MORN' THE SNUFFED OUT LIVES OF EIGHT YOUNG AMERICAN SONS, BROTHERS, FATHERS - WE SHOULD SHOUT OUT OUR RAGE AND FRUSTRATION WITH A WAR WE CAN'T WIN AND A PAST PRESIDENT WE CAN'T INDICT - GET OUT NOW"

Unfortunately, hoping for such an angle from Jeff Brady (or NPR) is pretty hopeless; when covering an antiwar protest of over a thousand people, he gave all the coverage to a tiny contingent of pro-war counter demonstrators.

Honest Debate - NPR Style

Last Saturday Scott Sermon made this claim about the US war in Afghanistan:

"There is honest debate now about whether the United States should commit more troops to Afghanistan, or withdraw them."

I'm not sure where Simon was hearing "an honest debate" - definitely not on NPR. A case in point was this Friday's ATC which featured a report from Don Gonyea on Obama's coming decision about troop levels in Afghanistan. Following the Thursday feature on Iran (see below) where NPR opted for a thoroughly discredited former UN inspector over one whom history has vindicated - NPR turns to the same playbook, aiming as low as possible in seeking an "expert" to weigh in on whether President Obama will, as Robert Siegel says, "approve a huge troop buildup there."

Most of the piece features über-Neocon Eliot Cohen attacking the possibility that Obama might not follow the advice of General McChrystal to send 40,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan. The most unbelievable statement from Cohen was the following:

"If people come away from this thinking, well, the reason why he cut down the request from 40,000 to 25,000 is to make this more palatable for Nancy Pelosi, he has just created another set of problems for himself. And what's worse, he's created problems for our soldiers in the field."

Gonyea doesn't question or challenge this slur from a man who, in an homage to aggression, wrote in the WSJ in November of 2001, "the U.S. should continue to target regimes that sponsor terrorism. Iraq is the obvious candidate, having not only helped al Qaeda...." In April of 2002, Cohen also signed on to this kind of rubbish that contributed to the death of over 1,000,000 Iraqis and 4000 US soldiers:

Furthermore, Mr. President, we urge you to accelerate plans for removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. As you have said, every day that Saddam Hussein remains in power brings closer the day when terrorists will have not just airplanes with which to attack us, but chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, as well. It is now common knowledge that Saddam, along with Iran, is a funder and supporter of terrorism against Israel. Iraq has harbored terrorists...and it maintains links to the Al Qaeda network.

It is truly mind-blowing how NPR and the corporate media operates. No matter how dishonest, inaccurate, corrupt and servile history has proven certain characters to be - there is not only no accountability for previous behavior, but these figures are featured again and again as objective and disinterested experts. All Gonyea felt necessary to tell us about Cohen was this innocuous introduction: "Eliot Cohen is a professor at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington." How charming...