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

[C. G. Estabrook]

But the action people should take is the rejection of US policy in AfPak.  An 
apology from the NYT doesn't do much for that.  What might it say? "Oh, right, 
we shouldn't talk about killing civilians as the policy proceeds..."

A growing recognition of what the policy is, over against the lies of the 
administration & the NYT, might be a worthwhile goal.  Otherwise, you're just 
contributing to the sort of debate Chomsky describes:

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the 
spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that 
spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives 
people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the 
presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the 
range of the debate."


Robert Naiman wrote:
> In my experience - others who have a different experience, feel free
> to share - in order to motivate action, one must focus on the
> particulars of the case. A paramount goal in writing this piece was to
> motivate people to write the New York Times Public Editor to urge that
> he investigate this particular case. I doubt that if my theme was,
> "this is exactly the same behavior that the New York Times always
> demonstrates, and always will demonstrate, from now until the end of
> time," it would impel people anyone to take action...
> 
> By the way:
> [You can urge the NYT Public Editor to investigate here:
> public at nytimes.com]
> 
> On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:58 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:
>> I don't understand the surprise. Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times,
>> is a DLC Democrat who has always supported the Long War & US policy in the
>> Middle East (like Obama & Co.).  The question has always been, is it being
>> pursued effectively?  That's just the issue being taken up in this op-ed.
>>  --CGE
>>
>>
>> Robert Naiman wrote:
>>> [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
>>>
>>> --
>>> 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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