[Peace-discuss] NYT "Mystery" Op-ed Calls for More Afghan Civilian Deaths

[Robert Naiman]

[You can urge the NYT Public Editor to investigate here: public at nytimes.com]

On Thursday the New York Times made an astonishing editorial choice,
for which its editors owe the public an explanation: it published an
op-ed by an obscure and poorly identified author attacking General
Stanley McChrystal for his directive last July that air strikes in
Afghanistan be authorized only under "very limited and prescribed
conditions." The op-ed denounced an "overemphasis on civilian
protection" and charged that "air support to American and Afghan
forces has been all but grounded by concerns about civilian
casualties."

The author of the op-ed, Lara M. Dadkhah, is identified by the Times
merely as "an intelligence analyst." In the body of the op-ed, the
author identifies herself as "employed by a defense consulting
company," without telling us which company, or what her relationship
might be to actors who stand to lose financially if the recognition
that killing civilians is bad for the United States were to affect
expenditures by the United States military.

As Glenn Greenwald asks in Salon:

What defense consulting company employs her? Do they have any ties to
the war effort? Do they benefit from the grotesque policies she's
advocating? What type of "analyst" is she? Who knows... it's virtually
impossible to find any information about "Lara Dadkhah" using standard
Internet tools.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/nyt-mystery-op-ed-calls-f_b_468999.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/19/121312/180

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/488

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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

Change.org: End the war in Afghanistan
Timeline for Withdrawal and Political Negotiations
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/end_the_war_in_afghanistan_establish_a_timeline_for_withdrawal_and_begin_political_negotiations

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