[Peace-discuss] The U.S. Government Lied about the Afghanistan War, They Couldn't Have Done It Without Media Lapdogs

[David Johnson]

December 12, 2019 

 
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/12/the-u-s-government-lied-about-the-a
fghanistan-war-they-couldnt-have-done-it-without-media-lapdogs/> The U.S.
Government Lied about the Afghanistan War, They Couldn't Have Done It
Without Media Lapdogs

by  <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/j2lk4jrlkqajsdlvj/> Ted Rall 

"In ten years or so, we'll leak the truth," the Dead Kennedys sang. "But by
then it's only so much paper."

But it might just score you a Pulitzer Prize.

Award bait and bragging rights are no doubt the principal goals of The
Washington Post's self-congratulatory data dump, "The Afghanistan Papers."
As the headline implies, the 2000 pages that a court-ordered the Office of
the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction to release to
Jeff Bezos' newspaper paints a Robert McNamara-esque portrait of
not-so-best-or-bright Bush and Obama Administration bozos privately
admitting what they knew all along-that the U.S. invasion and occupation of
Afghanistan was always an unwinnable, counterproductive mistake-at the same
time they were telling the American people that victory in the post-9/11
"good war" was right around the corner. All we had to win was win Afghan
hearts and minds.

"The [I.G.] documents also contradict a long chorus of public statements
from U.S. presidents, military commanders and diplomats who assured
Americans year after year that they were making progress in Afghanistan and
the war was worth fighting," the Post reported. "Several of those
interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government
to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military
headquarters in Kabul-and at the White House-to distort statistics to make
it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case."

"The Afghanistan Papers" is a bright, shining lie by omission. Yes, our
military and civilian leaders lied to us about Afghanistan. But they could
never have spread their murderous BS-thousands of U.S. soldiers and tens of
thousands of Afghans killed, trillions of dollars wasted-without media
organizations like the Washington Post, which served as unquestioning
government stenographers.

Press outlets like the Post and New York Times weren't merely idiots used to
disseminate pro-war propaganda. They actively censored people who knew we
never should have gone into Afghanistan and tried to tell American voters
the truth.

People like me.

I was among the tiny minority of journalists and commentators who opposed
the Afghanistan war from the very beginning. Nine days after 9/11, I
published the first of my cartoons pointing out that Al Qaeda was in
Pakistan, not Afghanistan, so there was no moral or legal justification for
invading. As the war dragged on I pointed out that the men and women in
charge of the war didn't have a clue about Afghanistan or the Afghan people.
According to "The Afghanistan Papers," those men and women knew they were
screwing up, wouldn't admit their ignorance and refused to bring in experts.

I went to Afghanistan to check things out for myself. It was obvious the
U.S. didn't stand a chance there. "The principal goal of this adventure in
imperialistic vengeance, it seems obvious, should be to install a friendly
government in Kabul. But we're winning neither hearts nor minds among either
the commoners or the leadership of the current regime apparent," I wrote
from Afghanistan on December 11, 2001. "And so we've lost this war, not
because they're good or we're not, but because of who we are. The American
Empire can't spend the bodies or the time or the cash to fix this crazyass
place, because in the final analysis, election-year W. was right-we're not
nation builders.we ought to tally our dead, write up our losses, and count
ourselves lucky to still be called a superpower." My piece, for The Village
Voice, was titled "How We Lost Afghanistan."

It was published eighteen years ago. But not in the Post. They didn't want
to hear what lefties like me had to say.

They still don't.

Afghanistan was not a passing fancy for me. I wrote hundreds of essays and
drew hundreds of cartoons urging an end to the madness. It was lonely. Even
Democrats liked the Afghan war; they called it the right war while Iraq was
the dumb one.

I went back to the country, traveling independently as an unembedded
reporter, several times. I wrote the first book about the U.S. invasion of
Afghanistan, the only book about oil pipeline politics in that country, a
book placing Afghanistan in the context of Central Asia, and yet another
book comparing the state of Afghanistan when Obama said we were pulling
out-another lie-with how it was at the start of the war.

What was my reward for being right while everyone else was wrong? Hundreds
of death threats. Getting fired by my client newspapers and magazines. It's
hard to believe now but back in 2004 George W. Bush was popular and being
compared to Winston Churchill; that was the year that the "liberal" New York
Times and Washington Post stopped running my work.

Major news outlets and book reviewers ignored my books. Editors refused to
hire me. Producers wouldn't book me. Anyone opposed to the Afghanistan war
was censored from U.S. corporate media.

Not that Afghanistan was ignored. It was the subject of countless analysis
pieces and opinion articles in American newspapers-all of it pro-war
propaganda. There were thousands of television and radio stories about the
Afghan war on radio and television. Corporate media repeatedly trotted out
the same retired generals, former CIA officers, and random right-wing
warmongers for quotes and analysis. Never, ever did they invite critics or
opponents of U.S. interventionism in Afghanistan to share their thoughts
with readers, listeners and viewers.

Nothing has changed. Whenever there is a foreign policy "crisis," you will
never read or hear or see someone completely opposed to U.S. involvement
given a voice in the media. Certainly not in the Post.

So, 18 years and tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars too
late, it's nice to see the media finally shame these scumbags and their
government handlers. But they ought to save a big portion of the blame for
themselves.

 <https://www.facebook.com/CounterPunch-official-172470146144666/> Join the
debate on Facebook 

More articles by: <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/j2lk4jrlkqajsdlvj/>
Ted Rall

Ted Rall, syndicated writer and the cartoonist for  <http://anewdomain.net/>
ANewDomain.net, is the author of the book "
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1609806352/counterpunchmaga>
Snowden," the biography of the NSA whistleblower. 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20191212/7bceb38c/attachment-0001.htm>