[Peace-discuss] You lie -- about Afghanistan

[C. G. Estabrook]

The much-predicted demise of newspapers can't happen too soon, so it seems to 
me, if we want a well-informed citizenry.

It was a 19th-century gibe that "newspapers are half advertisements -- and the 
rest lies between them."

But the lies can be subtle -- and usually lie (sorry) in the unstated 
assumptions (unstated, they're harder to refute).  But occasionally they break 
cover.

Take this morning's Afghanistan article on the front page of the NYT, the 
country's agenda-setting paper (and its agenda is put in place by its executive 
editor Bill Keller, a right-wing Democrat).  It was written by long-time foreign 
and military reporter, Thom Shanker.

Half-way thru, we find the following, a complete paragraph:

	"The military's counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan
	is focused on protecting the population
	and preventing the Taliban from destabilizing the country."

The Obama administration's transparently false propaganda assertion is presented 
as simple fact.  If it weren't about killing people, the only reasonable 
response would be disbelieving laughter.  But instead members of the political 
class in the US take that as one of their assumptions in the coming "debate 
about Afghanistan."

I'm sure I could find in this same newspaper 45 years ago (the Kennedy-Johnson 
administration) -- I'm sure I read it there then -- the equivalent assertion:

	"The military's counterinsurgency effort in South Vietnam
	is focused on protecting the population
	and preventing the Viet Cong from destabilizing the country."

It was of course a lie both times.  And both times it wasn't even presented as 
controversial.  --CGE

===

PS--There's actually some news in this article, or may be.  It comes in the 
penultimate paragraph (where any information of importance is usually found in a 
NYT article), viz.

    "Mr. Obama said Monday that the public should 'not expect a sudden 
announcement of some huge change in strategy,' and he pledged that the issue was 
'going to be amply debated, not just in Congress, but across the country before 
we make any further decisions.'"

We can conclude from this that the administration and its friends in the media 
are moving heaven and earth to see that there will be as little debate as 
possible on war in Afghanistan "not just in Congress, but across the country." 
The healthcare "debate" and the town meeting demonstrators have been a godsend 
to the administration for that purpose.

But there may be something to Obama's denial of "a sudden announcement of some 
huge change in strategy."  He may be saying in his covert way that the 
administration has already determined, in Grant's words, "to fight it out on 
this line if it takes all summer" -- and that means many more troops.

===

PPS--In the final paragraph, a Pentagon spokesman casually refutes the 
distinction between "combat troops" and "trainers," on which Obama based his 
claim that he wasn't lying when he said he'd bring the troops home from Iraq. 
("I meant *combat* troops"...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/world/asia/16mullen.html

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