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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. (Photo: flickr\/cc)<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cIn ten years or so, we’ll leak the truth,\u201d the\u00a0Dead Kennedys<\/a>\u00a0sang. \u201cBut by then it’s only so much paper.\u201d<\/p>\n But it might just score you a Pulitzer Prize.<\/p>\n Award bait and bragging rights are no doubt the principal goals of The Washington Post\u2019s self-congratulatory data dump, \u201cThe Afghanistan Papers<\/a>.\u201d 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\u2019 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\u2014that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was always an unwinnable, counterproductive mistake\u2014at the same time they were telling the American people that victory in the post-9\/11 \u201cgood war<\/a>\u201d was right around the corner. All we had to win was\u00a0win Afghan hearts and minds<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe [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,\u201d the Post reported. \u201cSeveral 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\u2014and at the White House\u2014to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Afghanistan Papers\u201d is a\u00a0bright, shining lie<\/a>\u00a0by omission. Yes, our military and civilian leaders lied to us about Afghanistan. But they could never have spread their murderous BS\u2014thousands of U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Afghans killed,\u00a0trillions of dollars wasted<\/a>\u2014without media organizations like the Washington Post, which served as unquestioning government stenographers.<\/p>\n Press outlets like the Post and New York Times weren\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n People like me.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0first<\/a>\u00a0of 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\u2019t have a clue about Afghanistan or the Afghan people. According to \u201cThe Afghanistan Papers,\u201d those men and women knew they were screwing up, wouldn\u2019t admit their ignorance and refused to bring in experts.<\/p>\n I went to Afghanistan to check things out for myself. It was obvious the U.S. didn\u2019t stand a chance there. \u201cThe principal goal of this adventure in imperialistic vengeance, it seems obvious, should be to install a friendly government in Kabul. But we\u2019re winning neither hearts nor minds among either the commoners or the leadership of the current regime apparent,\u201d I wrote from Afghanistan on December 11, 2001. \u201cAnd so we\u2019ve lost this war, not because they\u2019re good or we\u2019re not, but because of who we are. The American Empire can\u2019t spend the bodies or the time or the cash to fix this crazyass place, because in the final analysis, election-year W. was right\u2014we\u2019re not nation builders\u2026we ought to tally our dead, write up our losses, and count ourselves lucky to still be called a superpower.\u201d My piece, for The Village Voice, was titled \u201cHow We Lost Afghanistan<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n It was published eighteen years ago. But not in the Post. They didn\u2019t want to hear what lefties like me had to say.<\/p>\n They still don\u2019t.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n I went back to the country, traveling independently as an unembedded reporter, several times. I wrote\u00a0the first book<\/a>\u00a0about the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan,\u00a0the only book<\/a>\u00a0about oil pipeline politics in that country,\u00a0a book<\/a>\u00a0placing Afghanistan in the context of Central Asia, and\u00a0yet another book<\/a>\u00a0comparing the state of Afghanistan when Obama said we were pulling out\u2014another lie\u2014with how it was at the start of the war.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s hard to believe now but back in 2004 George W. Bush was popular and\u00a0being compared to Winston Churchill<\/a>; that was the year that the \u201cliberal\u201d New York Times and Washington Post\u00a0stopped running<\/a>\u00a0my work.<\/p>\n Major news outlets and book reviewers ignored my books. Editors refused to hire me. Producers wouldn\u2019t book me. Anyone opposed to the Afghanistan war was censored from U.S. corporate media.<\/p>\n Not that Afghanistan was ignored. It was the subject of countless analysis pieces and opinion articles in American newspapers\u2014all 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.<\/p>\n Nothing has changed. Whenever there is a foreign policy \u201ccrisis,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n So, 18 years and tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars too late, it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n