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Will Americans soon sour on Afghanistan?
I can recall the days of the Vietnam War, and how this country was fractured. Back then the opposing sides weren't called Liberal or Conservative; they were call Doves or Hawks. There were massive demonstrations and acrimony prevailed on both sides.
The media back then had not yet become drunk with power. They hadn't realized how citizens had become like sheep and could be manipulated so easily. War correspondents actually took their lives into battle to cover the action.
Nightly newscasts brought the war into the living rooms of America and news executives quickly discovered the power of coverage; a feeding frenzy of interest and a new found power of news. Instead of 24-hour cable news stations, the three networks expanded their nightly news to satisfy the need for information. The art of demonizing was discovered too.
The war initially was called Ike's war, since he sent in Military Advisors in the late 1950's. But he left office and quickly it became JFK's war in the headlines. When LBJ assumed the role of Commander-In-Chief, it was highly debated whether it was LBJ's war or McNamara's war. It didn't matter the media discovered a venue for controversy.
General William Westmoreland took over from General Creighton Abrams. The media did not like Westmoreland and wanted to lay the blame of failure at his feet. Westmoreland didn't care for the media and blocked every attempt to investigate the war. Acrimony and demonizing took to new levels - on both sides.
During the war there was a reported incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, which allowed the war to expand and tens of thousands of additional troops were committed to Southeast Asia. It turns out the incident never took place and the domino theory' of if Vietnam fell, other countries would too" was just as bogus.
The war chased President Lyndon Johnson from office and members of his own party Senator's George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy and to some extent Vice President Hubert Humphrey - turned on him and made his life miserable.
Finally the war ended under President Richard Nixon, but special interest groups in the media discovered they had new power and could sway influence. That brought in prestige and big money for news department executives.
The next big test for power came when Ted Koppel anchored ABC's Nightline and covered the 444 days of the Iranian seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran. More accolades for the media, more money for the industry and more power was assumed.
Koppel also managed to con Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos into calling an early election in 1986, which swept Coraqzon Auino into power. Now the media had their teeth sunk into something they would never let go.
The quick surgical strikes in Grenada, Kuwait, and Iraq (Dessert Storm and Dessert Shield) were covered but they were successful and without need for reporters to look under rocks to see the crawly creepy creatures lurking in the night.
The principles of those wars were "acceptable" to the media. General's Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkoph were heroes, not to be demonized but to be adored. Some of the glamour quickly and assumed power vanished while certain members of the media were not happy to see that slip away.
Then came 9/11 and all of the questions about who knew what and when did they know it; why our intelligence failed us and who was in charge? The media feeding frenzy started anew.
When the Congress approved the invasion into Iraq, the Defense Department reluctantly approved the imbedded reporters to give a first hand account. Some people had learned a history lesson from Vietnam. Not everyone.
There were reports that no regime change would take place' and the invasion forces were on the lookout for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Everyone knew there were weapons because President Clinton said so, his advisors said so and Saddam Hussein bragged that if America invaded, he would unleash the mother of all weapons against the American troops."
Well, like the Gulf of Tonkin incident, there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction. The media had a smoking gun and a gullible public to feed 24 hours of constant demonizing. After Bush landed on the carrier Abraham Lincoln, with the sign "Mission Accomplished," the media set the cross hairs on Bush's head and never let up.
Once again the media was in charge and the country would be fractured. Bush was not going to seek the office again but the Republican candidate, John McCain, suffered defeat because the public had tired of the war and no longer wanted body counts on a daily basis.
Now former anti-war candidate Barack Obama is President and Commander-in-Chief Obama - with Democratic majorities in the Congress. Have you noticed the war in Iraq is scarcely in the news any longer? Remember during the campaign? It was difficult to determine who would have the troops out quicker: Senator Obama or Senator Hillary Clinton. Each claimed President Bush was wrong and our troops belonged back in the United States.
Today, the left-leaning media doesn't know how to handle this. It has failed to daily update the citizens and report that 141,000 American soldiers are still protecting the fragile and questionable Iraqi democracy. They also bury the fact that 114 of our soldiers have died so far this year in that country.
Public opinion and media attention about Iraq were always based on two factors; whether Americans felt the removal of Saddam Hussein was wise and necessary - or misguided and wrong.
In May 2003, after a quick, successful American invasion, a Gallup poll revealed that 79 percent of the public supported the war - despite our not finding weapons of mass destruction. But by December 2008 - and more than 4,000 American fatalities later at the end of the Bush presidency - only 34 percent, still felt the war had been worth the cost.
Second was how the changing public mood affected politics. In October 2002, the Republican-controlled House and Senate, with plenty of Democratic support, voted overwhelming to authorize the Iraq war.
At the time, Congress cited 23 reasons why we should remove Saddam. The majority of these authorizations had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction.
Yet as the subsequent occupation became messy and costly, and Democratic support evaporated. In both the presidential campaigns of 2004 and 2008, running against what was now Bush's war was seen as wise move in Democratic politics.
From all that, we can draw more conclusions about the present media silence and absence of public protests over the Iraq war. As long as Obama is commander-in-chief, and as long as casualties in Iraq are down, there will be no large public protests or much news about our sizable Iraq presence. The costs always seem to determine how the Iraq war was covered.
But in case you missed it, anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan, the so-called "Peace Mom" who rose to fame several years ago when she protested against the Iraq War outside former President Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch, was back at it again this week.
But this time she was protesting President Obama's vacation in Martha's Vineyard. "The reason I am here is because ... even though the facade has changed in Washington D.C., the policies are still the same," Sheehan said at a rally/press conference outside the school where the press has set up shop on the island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Once again Sheehan was protesting our two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I write about this only because almost all of the major daily newspapers and major television networks failed to mention it to their readers or viewers.
I think that is because everyone in the news media was not pleased with her presence. While Sheehan was once the darling of the news media, she is now viewed as a has-been. In fact, ABC's Charlie Gibson covered her constantly when she traveled to Crawford, Texas to lead her anti-Bush rallies; but now Gibson says, with a sigh, of her anti-Obama efforts, "Enough already." Interesting.
But Sheehan no longer has the following she once had, when thousands joined her in Crawford and across the country. Sheehan said she was protesting Obama's continuation of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. She reiterated that she did not support Obama during the campaign last year. (She also ran as an independent against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and won 16 percent of the vote.)
"We are here to make the wars unpopular again," Sheehan said. And then she added: "Martha's Vineyard is a lot nicer than Crawford, Texas."
Afghanistan is much more complicated. So far this year - for the first time since our 2001 removal of the Taliban from power - more Americans have been killed in that country (172) than in Iraq (114). The Obama administration recently sent more troops into Afghanistan to reach our highest level yet at 32,000.
Yet so far there have been none of the public protests that we used to see in connection with Iraq. Why? Over the last few years, we have become used to the idea that Afghanistan was "quiet." Indeed fewer were killed there in most years than in some of the bloodiest single months in Iraq.
Democrats also ran on the notion of Afghanistan as the "good war." It was the direct payback for the Taliban's involvement with Osama bin Laden. It garnered United Nations support. And it had been neglected by Iraq-obsessed, neo-con George Bush.
Many anti-war candidates also thought the "good" Afghan war was largely over, while the "bad" Iraq one was hopeless - as already "lost" in the words of the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Also, Afghanistan is landlocked, backward, with a harsh climate and little natural wealth and was always the harder challenge for fostering constitutional government. Iraq has ports, a central location, vast oil riches, flat and open terrain, with an educated population.
So now we have public confusion about both wars. We have George Bush's "wrong" war, which is largely won and Iraq's democracy fairly stable. But the good war in Afghanistan is becoming Barack Obama's war and is heating up with more American troops, more American casualties and very little political stability.
If the past is any guide to media and public reaction, some predictions seem warranted. Obama will enjoy far more patience, since the anti-war left and a liberal media will go easier on the president.
Yet if casualties continue to climb, the American people will soon sour on Afghanistan, as they did on Iraq. Then Obama will be blamed in the media, for a war that Americans used to think - as once in the case of Iraq - was necessary and just.
President Obama should be reminded of what happened in the media to Presidents' Johnson, Carter, and Bush: " If you don't learn our history , you are doomed to repeat it. "
JP Bender is a retired award winning investigative reporter with 35 years experience in the profession. He now spends his retirement living in Maryland with his children and grandchildren. He still reports on issues of national interest, while his peers claim he does not fully understand the meaning of the word“retired.”
Great article. Very comprehensive. The liberal media news isn't worth listening to. Our armed forces deserve our support and prayers, regardless of how we feel about the war. They are there doing the job they signed up to do. God bless them.
Thanks Grammy, your comments are always welcome. A lot of people fail to consider your point of view - the troops. They would rather engage in political retorhic. JP
I suspect that the only time this old world will be "run right" and have a chance is when the Lord comes back to rule and reign for 1000 years.... I vote in every election and try to stay intelligently informed AND not discouraged - interesting times we live in, aren't they? Thanks for helping to keep us up to speed! Marijo
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