News we missed

The American news media has often been accused of being nothing more than a cheering section for Bush and his Iraq war. It’s only been recently that any mainstream news media organisation has offered even weak criticism (apart from Faux News, of course, which cheerleads so loudly that all other war supporters look like opponents by comparison).

When two Brookings analysts, Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, published an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, the mainstream news media positively wet themselves with excitement at two “vocal war critics” who supported the war and Bush’s escalation of it. Trouble was, it was all a lie. As Think Progress pointed out, the two have an established record as vocal supporters of the war.

So when a group of honest-to-goodness soldiers in Iraq publish a New York Times Op-Ed piece that’s strongly critical of Bush’s Iraq war, you’d think the mainstream news media might pay at least a little attention, wouldn’t you? After all, soldiers like these are constantly sainted as heroes, right? So surely their on the ground, in the line of fire observations might carry a bit more weight than some pundit or journalist who’s never been to Iraq or, at most, who’s only done a carefully scheduled whirlwind visit. You’d be wrong.

The silence greeting the soldiers’ honest appraisal of the situation in Iraq has been deafening, as TPM’s The Horse’s Mouth pointed out. The soldiers directly contradict the propaganda from the Bush White House, and the mainstream news media seem determined not to allow anything to do that—just like many of them continue to promote the myth that the September report on Bush’s “surge” is coming from General Petraeus when, in fact, the White House will be writing it “with input” from General Petraeus.

If there’s no effective political opposition in America, maybe part of the reason is that there’s total lack of objective mainstream news media. It takes real guts to stand up and declare the emperor has no clothes. The soldiers essentially did that with their Op-Ed piece. The mainstream news media seem determined to make sure no one hears them.