Yet over and over and over, it turns out that these anonymous government assertions -- trumpeted by our mindless media -- are completely false.  The Big Bad Guy allegedly killed in the strike ends up nowhere near the bombs and missiles.  Sometimes, the very same Big Bad Guy can be used to justify different strikes over the course of many years (we know we said we killed him four times before, but this time we're pretty sure we got him), or he can turn up alive when it's time to re-trumpet the Al Qaeda threat (we said before we killed him in that devastating airstrike, but actually he's alive and more dangerous than ever!!).  Just like the "we killed 30 extremists" claim or the "we got Al Qaeda's Number 3" boast, this is propaganda in its purest form, disseminated jointly by the U.S. Government and American media, and it happens over and over, compelling a rational person to conclude that it's clearly intentional by both parties.

In the last week alone, this pattern just asserted itself -- twice -- with regard to the air strikes in Yemen.  The first set of strikes, it was immediately leaked, was allegedly aimed at "the presumed leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Qaaim al-Raymi," yet it turned out he was not among the dozens of people killed, though "U.S. officials believe one of his top deputies [unnamed] may have been killed."  Then, after a second set of strikes on Thursday, it was claimed that "a Yemeni air raid may have killed the top two leaders of al Qaeda's regional branch," and an American Muslim preacher linked to Nidal Hasan, "the man who shot dead 13 people at a U.S. army base [Anwar al-Awlaki] may also have died."  

But while ABC News had identified "the presumed leader of al Qaeda in Yemen" as "Qaaim al-Raymi" when he was the target of last week's strikes, Reuters decided that the "top two leaders of al Qaeda's regional branch" were completely different people -- "Nasser al-Wahayshi, the Yemeni leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and his Saudi deputy, Saeed al-Shehri" -- and then excitedly announced that they "may have been killed" by this week's air strikes.  Whoever we claim we kill is the "key leader of Al Qaeda's operations"-- and it can change from day to day.  And now, it turns out,, the "radical cleric" who reportedly spoke at length with the accused Fort Hood shooter and thus packs the most emotional punch for Americans is not dead at all, but "is alive and well following reports he may have been killed in a Yemeni airstrike against suspected al-Qaida hideouts."

Just watch how this obvious propaganda tactic works again and again:

Last week's Yemen strike - ABC News, December 18, 2009:

The presumed leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Qaaim al-Raymi, has frequently appeared on internet videos, . . . Qaaim al-Raymi was considered a prime target of the attack Thursday but was reported to have escaped the attack. However, U.S. officials believe one of his top deputies may have been killed.

This week's air strikes in Yemen, Reuters, December 24, 2009:

A Yemeni air raid may have killed the top two leaders of al Qaeda's regional branch on Thursday, and an American Muslim preacher linked to the man who shot dead 13 people at a U.S. army base may also have died, a Yemeni security official said. Nasser al-Wahayshi, the Yemeni leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and his Saudi deputy, Saeed al-Shehri, were believed to be among more than 30 militants killed in the dawn operation in the eastern province of Shabwa, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki may also have died in the air strike which targeted a meeting of militants planning attacks on Yemeni and foreign oil and economic targets, he said. If all the deaths are confirmed, the air strike would appear to have struck a severe blow against AQAP, seen as the most dangerous regional offshoot of Osama bin Laden's network.

False - Associated Press, December 25, 2009:

A U.S.-born radical cleric is alive and well following reports he may have been killed in a Yemeni airstrike against suspected al-Qaida hideouts . . .

In addition to al-Awlaki, the top leader of al-Qaida's branch in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, and his deputy Saeed al-Shihri were also believed to be at the meeting, Yemen's Supreme Security Committee said. But Yemeni officials still have no access to the area, which is controlled by armed gunmen and supporters of al-Qaida, and could not confirm for certain who was killed in the attack.

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CNN - January, 2006 U.S. airstrike in Pakistan:

Ayman al-Zawahiri -- Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in the al Qaeda terrorist network -- was the target of a CIA airstrike Friday in a remote Pakistani village and may have been among those killed, knowledgeable U.S. sources told CNN. . . . the sources said there was intelligence suggesting he was in one of the buildings hit during the strike.

False - Fox News, January 31, 2006 - "Zawahiri, in New Videotape, Says He Survived Airstrike":

Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri said in a videotape aired Monday that President Bush was a "butcher" and a "failure" because of a deadly U.S. airstrike in Pakistan targeting the bin Laden deputy, and he threatened a new attack on the United States. A U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity in compliance with office policy, said there was no reason to doubt the authenticity of the tape.

_____________

CBS News, July, 2008 U.S. airstrike in Pakistan:

Ayman al-Zawahiri - the second most powerful leader in al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden's No. 2 - may be critically wounded and possibly dead, CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan reports exclusively. . . . CBS News has obtained a copy of an intercepted letter from sources in Pakistan, which urgently requests a doctor to treat al-Zawahiri. . . . The letter is dated July 29 - one day after a U.S. air strike that killed al Qaeda weapons expert Abu Khabab al-Masri, and five other Arabs in South Waziristan. . . . a counter-intelligence expert and other U.S. officials confirmed to CBS News that the U.S. is looking into reports that al-Zawahiri is dead.

False - NY Daily News, April 30, 2009 - "Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri calls the shots, says State Department":

Al Qaeda's No. 2 thug has "emerged" as its operational leader after seven years on the run with the same $25 million bounty on his head as Osama Bin Laden. Despite years of Bush administration claims that Ayman al-Zawahiri - an Egyptian doctor turned Bin Laden deputy - was on the lam with his boss and unable to exert control, the opposite is now true, a State Department report said Thursday. . . ."Although Bin Laden remains the group's ideological figurehead, Zawahiri has emerged as Al Qaeda's strategic and operational planner," the report added.

 ________________

January, 2006 missile strike in Pakistan, New York Times:

Two senior members of Al Qaeda and the son-in-law of its No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were among those killed in the American airstrikes in remote northeastern Pakistan last week, two Pakistani officials said here on Wednesday. . . .If any or all were indeed killed, it would be a stinging blow to Al Qaeda's operations, said the American officials, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized by their agencies to speak for attribution. . . . The airstrikes, which killed 18 civilians, among them women and children, have caused anger across the country . . . At least one of the men believed by the Pakistani officials to have been killed, an Egyptian known here as Abu Khabab al-Masri, is on the United States' most-wanted list with a $5 million reward for help in his capture. His real name is Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, 52, who according to the United States government Web site rewardsforjustice.net, was an expert in explosives and poisons. . . . The target of the raid, American officials have said, was Al Qaeda's No. 2, Mr. Zawahiri, but they have acknowledged that he was not killed in the attack and Pakistani officials say that Mr. Zawahiri failed to show up for the dinner that night.

January, 2006 missile strike in Pakistan, ABC News:

ABC News has learned that Pakistani officials now believe that al Qaeda's master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert was one of the men killed in last week's U.S. missile attack in eastern Pakistan. Midhat Mursi, 52, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, was identified by Pakistani authorities as one of four known major al Qaeda leaders present at an apparent terror summit in the village of Damadola early last Friday morning. 

False --  LA Times, February 3, 2008:

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials now believe that the Egyptian, Abu Khabab Masri, is alive and well -- and in charge of resurrecting Al Qaeda's program to develop or obtain weapons of mass destruction.

 ____________

January, 2006 airstrike in Pakistan, New York Times:

Another Egyptian, known by the alias Abu Ubayda al-Misri, was also believed killed, the Pakistani officials said. He was the chief of insurgent operations in the southern Afghan province of Kunar, which borders Bajaur in Pakistan, the area where the airstrikes occurred, according to one of the Pakistani officials.

False - Fox News, April 9, 2008:

Abu Ubaida al-Masri, one of Al Qaeda's top operatives and the mastermind behind a plot to use liquid explosives to blow British passenger jets out of the sky, is dead, a U.S. official confirmed to FOX News Wednesday.  The unidentified official said it is believed that al-Masri died of natural causes, possibly hepatitis, in Pakistan, and are staying away from a report that he was killed in a January CIA predator strike.

 ______________

Summer, 2008 Predator strikes in Pakistan, Telegraph - "Al-Qa'eda's American-born propaganda chief may have died in predator attack":

Months of attacks by unmanned US predator aircraft have caused carnage among the middle ranks of terrorist leaders in the lawless lands along the border with Afghanistan . . . Their victims have included experienced Arab leaders and, it is now thought, Adam Gadahn, a former heavy-metal fan and so-called "killer computer nerd" originally from California. Nothing has been heard from him for months, leading intelligence experts to conclude that he may be dead.

False -- LA Times, June 14, 2009:

Adam Gadahn, a Southern California-raised man self-described as American Al Qaeda has released a new video in which he talks about his Jewish ancestry.

______________

July, 2009 airstrike in Pakistan, Fox News:

U.S. officials believe Usama bin Laden's son, Saad bin Laden, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan. Sources confirmed to FOX News late Wednesday that officials believe the younger bin Laden was killed by hellfire missiles from a U.S. Predator drone strike earlier this year.

Highly questionable - Middle East News:

A close friend of Osama bin Laden told Al Arabiya that he thought the al-Qaeda mastermind’s son was probably still alive casting doubt on reports by American media that he was killed in Pakistan. Yemeni national Rashad Saied, who stayed with bin Laden in Afghanistan before the September 11, 2001 attacks, said there is no proof to U.S. media reports last week that Saad bin Laden was killed in an American airstrike on Pakistan earlier this year.  "If Saad had been killed, al-Qaeda would have announced that," Saied told Al Arabiya. "They announced the death of many key figures in the organization before. It is considered a source of pride for them."

New York Times, December 23, 2009:

A teenage daughter of Osama bin Laden, who has lived with at least five of her siblings in a guarded compound in Iran since 2001, took refuge last month in the Saudi Embassy in Tehran . . . The status of another son, Saad, remained uncertain. American officials said last summer that they believed that Saad bin Laden had traveled from Iran to Pakistan and had been killed by an American missile fired from a drone. Omar and Zaina bin Laden said Saad was still in the Tehran compound when the missile attack was said to have occurred, but they said that they did not know where he was now or whether he was still alive.

_____________

I could literally spend the rest of the day chronicling events very similar to these.  A few caveats are in order.  It's not surprising that facts are sometimes difficult to obtain in the immediate aftermath of a strike, particularly in remote areas such as Western Pakistan and Yemen.  Sometimes, these air strikes do actually result in the death of the specific targets alleged to lead various Islamic radical groups. 

But far more often, these boasting claims regarding a controversial U.S. air attack or missile strike turn out to be completely false.  It's painfully obvious that these assertions are made to overwhelm, distort and suppress any discussions of the actual effects of the attack -- who the strike really killed, whether it was justified, legal or wise, whether we should continue to drop bombs in more and more Muslim countries.  Yet no matter how many times these claims prove to be false, American media outlets not only dutifully and mindlessly print them without challenge or skepticism, but also allow these claims to dictate their headlines and the overwhelming focus of their "reporting" on the attacks (U.S. Air Strike Said to Kill Top Al Qaeda Leaders).  As a result, Americans are innundated with false claims about things that never actually happened -- pure myths and falsehoods -- while the actual consequences of our actions (the corpses of innocent Muslim men, women and children being pulled from the rubble) are widely disseminated in the Muslim world, yet are barely mentioned by our media.  And then we walk around, confounded and confused, about how there could be such a grave disparity in perception among our rational, free and well-informed selves versus those irrational, mislead, paranoid, and primitive Muslims.

Because it's all done under the corrupt cover of anonymity, there's never any accountability (reporters will simply say that they printed this because their government sources whispered it in their ears -- so what choice did they have? -- and they'll keep the government officials' identity concealed to ensure they can never be questioned).  The whole process is blatantly designed not to convey what happened, but to obscure what happened and to prevent any discussion of its consequences.

Gregory Johnsen: Thanks so much for having me.

GG: So Yemen has been in the news far more so than usual over the last week because of reports of two sets of attacks in that country, one in the North on a rebellious Shiite group, and there's been reports that there's some Saudi involvement in those attacks along with some very sketchy reports of US involvement, I guess allegations by local villagers there of US involvement. And then there's at least two attacks in the South on what are being called suspected al-Qaeda sites, and it seems much more credible that the US has been involved to some degree there, and ABC News actually says that the US shot cruise missiles ordered by the President himself at these sites, but there are a lot of conflicting reports, and a lot of this is anonymous.

So what can you tell us about what we actually know about these strikes in terms of who was involved and what the results were?

GJ: With regards to the al-Qaeda strikes, we certainly know that the US was involved to some degree, whether the US was the lead partner or whether it was acting in sort of a supporting role in backing the Yemeni government is really difficult to tell for someone like myself or for other analysts just because no-one at the Pentagon and none of the Yemeni sources are really talking much. Our sources in Yemen really don't seem to know much on this. It does seem at least from the sources that I've seen of the strike that cruise missiles appear to be unlikely. A much more likely culprit would be the Hellfire or something along those lines.

What we know of the two strikes is that one took place in the South in Abyan and another took place north of Sana'a in the tribal region known as Arhab after the tribe that lives there. The one in the north was probably at least for the US the most important strike: this was going after an individual who is very high up in al-Qaeda in Yemen's hierarchy, a man named Qasim al-Raymi; unfortunately for the US and Yemeni governments, Qasim al-Raymi escaped. They did capture a few individuals, including four would-be suicide bombers up in the north, and then the second strike in the south - this is the one that galvanized a lot public opposition to the strikes in Yemen.

This is the one where there were a number of civilian casualties took place during the raid.  The Yemeni government said it killed anywhere between 24 and 30 al-Qaeda individuals, other independent account have the death toll as high 63 with the number of women and children, and the pictures of these casualties have been posted onto different jihadi forums and different websites.

GG: Let me ask you about the evidence of a possible use of missiles in the strike. I understand that you think cruise missiles are quite unlikely in light of the evidence you've seen, and that Hellfire missiles are possible. How likely are you able to say that actual missiles were used in that attack, and if they were Hellfire missiles or something comparable, is that something the Yemeni government would be capable of launching on their own without US involvement?

GJ: The Yemeni government at least since August has been involved in this sixth round of the war up in the north, and that included a number of daily bombing raids where the planes sort of launched from the Sana'a airport and carried out sorties up in the north. So certainly, dropping bombs in the south in Abyan is something that the Yemeni government is quite capable of doing. So, whether the US only provided intelligence or, as The New York Times reported, US provided intelligence as well as firepower - it's really difficult to say.

GG: Obviously there's, I guess, an interest on the part of the Yemenis not to have it known that the US has been involved in these attacks because of perceptions on the part of the citizenry there that that's a violation of their sovereignty and anti-Americanism, and the like. Can you think of any reason, legitimate reason why the US government would refuse to tell Americans whether or not we're involved in military action within that country?

GJ: Yeah, I think the track record of US-Yemeni relations here is extremely important. So if you go to November 2002, this is when the CIA launched an unmanned drone that then carried out a targeted strike on the head of al-Qaeda in Yemen at the time, a man named Abu Ali al-Harethi, and this was one of the initial drone strikes in the war on terror. Immediately after that, the Bush administration - this attack took place on November 3 2002 - someone in the Pentagon leaked this to US newspapers.

This was the way the Bush administration I believe really needed an early victory on the War on Terror and they were trying to use this example to bolster their Republican allies for the midterm elections, which were going to take place on November 5, so two days after the strike. And this leak caused a great deal of problems for the Yemeni government back at home.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh felt as though he had been sold out by the US for domestic political concerns. And since then, Yemen's cooperation with the US against al-Qaeda has really gone downhill. Yemen started focusing on other things; they weren't as forthcoming in sharing intelligence and giving the US access to prisoners and things of this nature; and so for the Obama administration, certainly it's in their best interests to put a Yemeni face on these strikes and to make sure that they're the silent partner behinds the scenes helping the Yemeni government, that they're not too obvious in their actions.

And this also I think, if the US was too obvious, could come back to bite them, because then al-Qaeda can easily turn this to its rhetorical advantage by saying things like, oh, President Abdullah is only a paid agent of the Americans who is doing whatever it is the Americans want, and so if you're a true Muslim, you'll follow us.

GG: Well, I guess the question then becomes how do you weigh that interest in maintaining secrecy with the, I guess you could call it a right - I would call it a right - of American citizens to know whether or not their government is essentially engaged in a secret war. If in fact we are shooting missiles, whether with the cooperation or at the request of the Yemeni government or otherwise, in Yemen, isn't that something that if it remains concealed is essentially a secret war? Isn't there a compelling argument to make that if your government is engaged in a war that it's something at least in broad strokes you have the right know?

GJ: I'm not sure a secret war is the right characterization. Certainly the US has been very open about its desire to combat al-Qaeda in Yemen. It's just what guise this takes the form of, that's the question. So, President Obama, would he announced his Afghan strategy,  also mentioned Yemen and Somalia by name as places where al-Qaeda was establishing a base, and where the US was looking to confront them.  And a number of US generals and US diplomats have been to Yemen over the past couple of years really pressing the Yemeni government to take the fight to al-Qaeda. And so it's more of I would say an underreported war than it is a secret war.

GG: I guess then the question becomes, if, as ABC News says, the President ordered missiles strikes within Yemen - and that's something that the government isn't announcing or even responding to in terms of inquiries, there's certainly a substantial secrecy to that aspect of what we're doing, and I guess then that ought to be weighed against the interest in putting a Yemeni face on the attacks as you said.

But let me ask you this: with regard to al-Qaeda in Yemen: everyone seems to agree that there is an al-Qaeda presence in Yemen, but the problem with the term "terrorist" or "al-Qaeda" is that it's had a very elastic meaning. You could sort of analogize it to Iraq, where "terrorist" or "al-Qaeda" could mean anyone that the government fights against and doesn't like, or it could mean a very localized al-Qaeda -- like al-Qaeda in Iraq -- that cared more about Iraq than, say, attacking the United States within our own borders, or it could mean real al-Qaeda, very similar to or linked with the group that actually was responsible for the 9-11 attacks.

How would you characterize what is being called al-Qaeda in Yemen in that spectrum, and how significant of a threat it is really to the United States, not within Yemen, but outside of Yemen and in the homeland?

GJ: Well, let me talk about it this way, if I can. This is the second incarnation of al-Qaeda in Yemen. Immediately after September 11th, we had what I like to term the first phase of the war against al-Qaeda. This lasted essentially from, say, the USS Cole attack in 2000 and really the September 11th attacks in 2001, up through November 2003. So, in this phase, the US and Yemeni governments partnered very closely. There was the drone strike in November 2002 that I mentioned earlier, and this was largely, at least for al-Qaeda, a reactionary war.

Throughout the 1990s, al-Qaeda had often thought of Yemen as sort of a refuge where they could come, relax; the Yemeni government ignored them as long as al-Qaeda ignored the government and didn't carry out any attacks. It was essentially what could best be called a tacit non-aggression pact between the two. Now, after September 11th, that of course all changed; President Saleh was very worried that Yemen would be on the US hit list, and so he cooperated quite closely with the US government after the strike in November 2002. One year later, the Yemeni government arrested Abu Ali al-Harethi's replacement, so really by November 2003, al-Qaeda in Yemen had been largely defeated by the US and Yemeni governments.

Then there's a period from about November 2003 to February 2006 where there's very little, almost no al-Qaeda violence in the country. Then in February 2006 there's a prison break of 23 al-Qaeda suspects including the individual I mentioned earlier, Qasim al-Raymi, as well as an individual named Nasir al-Wuhayshi. Both Qasim al-Raymi and Nasir al-Wuhayshi had spent time with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, trained in the camps there; Nasir al-Wuhayshi was actually a lieutenant, a personal aide to bin Laden - he fought with bin Laden at the Battle of Tora Bora before eventually moving to Iran and then being extradited back to Yemen where he stayed in jail until he escaped.

So from February 2006 up to today, we have this second phase of the war against al-Qaeda in Yemen. And this is when al-Qaeda has really become a threat, because they've certainly learned from the first phase. They changed a lot of their tactics, and since February '06 up until now, they've done a very good job of really building a durable infrastructure that can sustain and withstand the loss of key leaders, so when you assassinate cell leaders, you don't find the organization crumbling down around himself. And in January of 2009, they moved from being what you could call a local chapter of al-Qaeda just based in Yemen, into more of a regional franchise, this al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, which is the name that they use today.

Since then they've really been working to almost match their actions to their rhetoric, so their rhetoric says that they want to be an organization that can carry out attacks throughout the region, that is, throughout the Arabian peninsula. And so you've seen this; they've targeted Saudi Arabia's counter-terrorism chief, Mohammed bin Nayef, for assassination, they've launched other attacks into Saudi Arabia that were foiled before they could take place. But this is the real danger that they present right now, is not just in Yemen, but using Yemen as a launching pad for attacks throughout the region.

GG: You say attacks throughout the region - is there evidence of any substantial plots against the United States itself that have originated with al-Qaeda in Yemen?

GJ: In September of 2008, they launched an attack on the US embassy there is Sana'a, and certainly the organization's rhetoric. They're quite forthcoming - they published a bimonthly journal, they put out numerous audio tapes, they put out numerous videos. One of their more recent videos shows them having kidnapped and then executed a Yemenese security official, having the governorates of Ma'rib - which is really an al-Qaeda stronghold, a place where the Yemeni government has very little power, and so certainly, the US remains the major target. But as they said, just the other day after the two strikes in Arhab and Abyan, their aim is to attack not only the external enemies - the crusaders, the Americans, the Europeans and so forth - but also the internal enemies, that is those people allied with the US.

GG: I understand that within Yemen itself, which has all sort of conflicts internally, and lots of violence between various factions, that what is called al-Qaeda in Yemen has committed pretty heinous acts against other citizens of Yemen, and even against neighboring Saudis. I guess my question really was:  is there any evidence of any credible or significant plots originating from al-Qaeda in Yemen that have been directed against the United States? Not rhetoric, not "death to America", but actual plots?

GJ: Outside of the Arabian peninsula, you mean, not necessary inside the Arabian peninsula?

GG: Right. I don't mean if we have a presence in Yemen or in Saudi Arabia, I mean against the United States itself.

GJ: The homeland, if you will?

GG: Right.

GJ: At this point al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula doesn't seem to have the logistical and infrastructure capabilities to have what took place in Afghanistan, what was planned there as well as in Germany. But it's really difficult to know. I mean, this is an organization that, when they first got their restart, if you will, in February 2006, they were building up from ashes, they're essentially like the Phoenix rising up from the ashes. This is an organization that started out with nothing and in just under four years, has really made themselves into quite a powerful organization, an organization that is really so strong and so entrenched in Yemen, that there's not going to be a short war between the US and Yemeni governments against al-Qaeda - it's going to be a really hard slog, and so I think the worry for US policy makers is, well, maybe today there isn't an immediate threat from al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula against the US homeland, or the US mainland; in a year or two years, it's really different to suggest that that wouldn't be the case.

GG: You mentioned earlier that the strike at the al-Qaeda sites did not in fact result in a hit on the principal al-Qaeda target, but there were civilians killed, there were probably some al-Qaeda fighters killed, but not the primary one who was targeted. So, in terms of our efforts to limit or even eradicate the strength of this group in Yemen and in the region, what do you think are the effects of attacks of this sort on al-Qaeda's strength?

GJ: I think it's important for the US to realize that it's not going to defeat al-Qaeda in Yemen tomorrow, or next month, or even next year. Like I said, al-Qaeda right now is just too strong and too entrenched in Yemen. There really is no magic missile solution to the problem. It's going to be a very long and a very different fight.  And military strikes like the one that we saw last week, they really need to come at the end of the process, when al-Qaeda has been isolated from the population, when its rhetoric has been discredited, not at the beginning of the process, when al-Qaeda members are still seen as pious individuals defending their faith.

And that, for me, is the mistake that the US made, not necessarily in partnering with the Yemeni government to go after these individuals. Certainly, you have to do that, but just in having the chronology of the attacks wrong.  They didn't do the proper field work, they didn't do the proper groundwork to undermine al-Qaeda to the degree that these attacks would be seen as a good thing by the Yemeni population. Instead, they're been seen as a bad thing and as something that al-Qaeda, at least in my view, will be able to use these strikes and to really replace and offset any of the losses that they may have had. It's really, for al-Qaeda, a recruiting field day.

GG: And describe a little bit why that is. Actually, before you do that, let me ask you: that dynamic that you just described, which is when we engage in these kind of isolated strikes that are detached from or at least that precede more non-military efforts to transform the population and discredit al-Qaeda in terms of their rhetoric and their arguments -- that dynamic of military strikes actually being counterproductive  because it turns the population against the United States and makes them more receptive to the al-Qaeda message:   is that something you think is unique to Yemen, or is that something that is fairly universal wherever al-Qaeda is found?

GJ: Well I can really only speak to the Yemeni case with any degree of expertise, but certainly in Yemen, this is something that is universal throughout the country. That is, anywhere that you're going to do this sort of military strike without the proper groundwork and preparation work, you're going to run into the same problem, where it's going to be very, very counterproductive. And if you expand the net of who is al-Qaeda - and it's important I think to remember in Yemen, there's almost what, I think could best be called an Islamist spectrum.

That is, a number of people who view Islam as a political matter and who, at least in the West, it would be very easy to look at them, and they look like al-Qaeda and they sort of say many of the same things that al-Qaeda says, but they're not necessarily al-Qaeda. And in Yemen, al-Qaeda only occupies one point along this spectrum. And so if you want to broaden the war out, and target all of these people, or say that they're all al-Qaeda, then you're opening yourself up to a war that you can never end, because you're just fighting way too many people in Yemen. So the idea is to narrow this point of who exactly is al-Qaeda to as small as it can be possibly be before you attack.

GG: Just a couple more questions, but I'm finding this really interesting. The response to the argument that you've articulated, that strikes like this, when carried out in this manner, are counterproductive because they actually strengthen al-Qaeda, is that there's really no other viable alternative, that if the President is told by intelligence agencies or the military that they have a fairly good idea that there are dangerous al-Qaeda fighters in a certain area that can be killed with a strike, that he can't very well simply let them go, that he can't just ignore those reports, and so an attack of this kind to wipe out whatever ones we see is something that's both tempting -- really I guess a responsibility, in terms of looking at what his obligations are as the President.

If this isn't the right strategy right now, what else is it that needs to be done before military strikes make sense? I mean, you talked about it in sort of vague terms of convincing the population, isolating al-Qaeda, discrediting them, but in terms of what the United States can and should do within this country, what does that really mean?

GJ: Let me deal with the first part first, and that is that the US has been down this road before. I mean, the US and Yemeni governments as I laid out a little bit earlier, essentially defeated al-Qaeda in Yemen - they killed all the people, they arrested all the people, they incarcerated them. But the problem didn't go away; it went into hibernation, if you will, for a couple of years. But now we're in the situation where we just have to kill these people again or arrest them again. And so if you keep doing this, you're going to just be fighting new incarnations of al-Qaeda every few years.

So what I would argue needs to take place is that this sort of military approach needs to be coupled with a development approach - it has to be a multifaceted counterterrorism approach to what's going on. So the US can do a lot of things. The US can work in development, it can attempt to peel as many of the young individuals who are being driven, at least in Yemen, by poverty, by lack of employment, by lack of other options to join al-Qaeda. It can do a lot by partnering with the Yemeni government to sort of put out its own propaganda, because whether or not the US realizes it, it's in a propaganda war with al-Qaeda in Yemen, and it's losing, and losing very badly.

For instance, I was just in Yemen in August of this year, and Sheik Mohammed Al-Moayad, who is a Yemeni who has been lured to Germany soon after the September 11th, was eventually extradited to the US and brought up on charges of supporting al-Qaeda and Hamas - he was eventually cleared of the charges of supporting al-Qaeda, but convicted on the charges of supporting Hamas - he stayed in the supermax prison out in Colorado for a number of years before Attorney General Holder let him go. I was in Yemen when he came back, and this was something that all Yemenis, everyone from the president to al-Qaeda, had been calling for his release for a number years, and when the US finally released him, the US embassy didn't put out a single statement. They didn't say anything - there was just silence.

It would have been I think incredibly easy for the US to write an op-ed and place it in the official daily Al-Sawra in Yemen, which would have went a long way towards explaining that the US, like other countries, makes mistakes, but the US tries to learn from its mistakes. I think when it comes to this, when it comes to public diplomacy in Yemen, the US tends to be all defense on no offense.

GG: Let me just quickly ask you about that. So, this was a Yemeni prisoner who was kept, not in Guantanamo, but who was actually put into the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.  Is it fair to say that the perception that he was wrongfully imprisoned, or unjustly imprisoned, or was mistreated in terms of his imprisonment, was both a propaganda instrument for al-Qaeda as well as a source of anger towards the United States within Yemen?

GJ: Absolutely, and the reason that he wasn't sort of incarcerated within Guantanamo was that as part of the extradition agreement between Germany and the US, that Germany extracted a promise from the US that a) it wouldn't lead to the death penalty, and b) that it wouldn't put him in Guantanamo Bay. In the Yemeni press, in the Arabic press, he's known as the father of orphans, because of his charity work, and of course as the case developed, it was seen that the one informant upon which the FBI based their entire case, was a bit of a charlatan and a bit of a fraud. He eventually lit himself on fire outside of the White House in November of 2004 after his attempts to shake down more money from the FBI failed.

So this is someone that certainly al-Qaeda used to great rhetorical advantage in its own propaganda; this was often an issue that President Saleh brought up with different US ambassadors to Yemen, as well as on his trips to the US.  This is something that had a great deal of resonance within Yemen from the north to the south, from the east to the west, and US silence, by just releasing him and not saying anything, was a tacit admission of guilt, and in my mind at least, the US missed a golden opportunity to explain itself to the Yemeni people, and to show how the US is learning from its mistakes.

GG: And is the same thing true with regard to the Yemeni prisoners who are in Guantanamo, several of whom have just been released, but most of whom continue to be imprisoned in Guantanamo?  Does that too play a similar role in terms of al-Qaeda's use of these sorts of things to drum up anti-American sentiment?

GJ: It's probably different with regard to the prisoners in Guantanamo, because most of them aren't as well known as this particular sheik...

GG: Right.

GJ: ...who had a very long and vigorous history as a charitable worker in Yemen. It is known that many of the Yemenis in Guantanamo do appear to be innocent; they appear to have been caught up in this drag net after September 11th. But there are also a number of Yemenis there who the law of averages as well as what we know about them would suggest them to be individuals who if released would rejoin al-Qaeda. And so for US officials, for US investigators, this is really a difficult task, especially almost eight years after Guantanamo was opened, to separate the guilty from out from the innocent, and the perception, at least in Yemen, is that many of these individuals, particularly the ones that are deemed to be a low-level threat or no threat at all, is that they're prisoners of their own citizenship - that the US government doesn't trust the Yemeni government, and because it doesn't trust the Yemeni government, it won't release them.

The Yemenis in Guantanamo are not that different from the Saudis in Guantanamo. The only difference is that the US government trusts the Saudis, and so it's released the vast majority of them back to Saudi Arabia, whereas it doesn't the Yemenis, and so it hasn't released them.

GG: Let me ask you quickly about that, and if I'm taking too much of your time, just let me know, but I just have a couple more questions.

GJ: Sure.

GG: The notion that the US doesn't trust the Yemeni government in terms of release of Guantanamo detainees - why is that? Is the Yemeni government actively hostile towards al-Qaeda, or is there still that sense that you described earlier, sort of a détente between the two, that the government is willing to live with al-Qaeda provided al-Qaeda doesn't attack the government, and that to the extent the government is actually hostile to al-Qaeda, it's because they're pressured by the US to do so? What is the posture of the government to the al-Qaeda elements in their country?

GJ: Well, this gets at really one of the fundamental problems I think in the war against al-Qaeda in Yemen. And that is, that the view from Washington is so different from the view from Sana'a.  So in Washington you see all these al-Qaeda individuals, and they're all al-Qaeda and they're all guilty. But when you get to Yemen, the Yemeni government has to deal with this: many of these al-Qaeda members are tribesmen, they're their cousins, they're their brothers, they're their uncles and so on.

And so the Yemeni government tries to take a more nuanced approach, which is also, at least in the US, often viewed as sort of a schizophrenic approach, if you will. So the Yemeni government tries to peel as many of these individuals off through these tacit non-aggression pacts, saying things like, well, you don't have to give up your ideological beliefs, or anything like that, but don't carry out any attacks here, and we'll leave you alone. And then the Yemeni government, when forced, it goes after the al-Qaeda individuals who are actively carrying out attacks in Yemen. Every time there's a suicide attack, for instance, in Yemen, the Yemeni government reacts quite forcefully, quite quickly, and usually does a very good job of tracking down the cells.

The problem for the US is that there's no sustainability in this from the Yemeni government. That is, when there's not a suicide attack, the Yemeni government is very hesitant to take the fight to al-Qaeda, and so it just tends to be a difference in how you view the threat from al-Qaeda.

GG: Right. Can you talk a little bit - and I'm sure it's complicated, more so than would allow you to give a summary answer, but to the extent you can - can you talk about the role that both Saudi Arabia and Iran play in some of the instability and some of the internal conflicts within Yemen? Are they really as active as reports suggest? Has that been overplayed? What's the interest of those two governments in what's happening in Yemen?

GJ: Right. Let me just give you, if I can, just a brief overview of Yemen. Because when you talk about Yemen, I think it's really easy to become overwhelmed by all of the problems that Yemen is facing. So I tend to think of Yemen as almost having three layers of crises. That is, on the top, there's this elite rivalry, struggle for power that's going on behind the scenes over what happens when President Saleh leaves the scene. He's been in power for more than 30 years.

In the middle, there's this trio of security crises. There's the al-Qaeda crisis which we've talked about a great deal; there's this al-Houthi rebellion up in the north; and then there's the threat of secession from the south. And this middle layer is really what's grabbing the majority of the headlines. And then at the bottom, you have what could almost be called the foundational problems of infrastructure within the country, that the government is losing money because its oil is running out, it's running out of water, rampant corruption, unemployment, a high birth rate - there's just a laundry list of problems.

And so, the al-Houthi crisis is certainly something that the government views as being an existential threat to itself. It's been going on since 2004, which was when the conflict first started but the roots of the conflict go way back into Yemeni history back into the 1960s and particularly into the 1980s and 1990s. Saudi Arabia has been very active in the conflict, not only in the 1980s and 1990s, but since fighting really broke out in 2004. However, in November of this year, this is when Saudi Arabia became overtly involved, and that is, Saudi Arabia started bombing some of the Houthi positions, it started taking the attack to the Houthi fighters. There have been reports that the Houthis have put that the Saudis have actually started to bomb into Yemen.

The Yemeni government has often claimed that the Houthi are proxies for Iran. This is a little misleading, and this gets into some of the local politics of Yemen, and that is, the Yemeni government always feels that in order for its own domestic crises to be taken seriously, that it has to link them to larger regional and Western concerns. So every time that Saudi Arabia or the US starts to publicly voice concerns over the growing Iranian presence, then Yemen links the Houthi to Iran and says, look, we have our own Shiite problem, here in north this is an Iranian proxy, they're trying to do what Hezbollah did in Lebanon. But really, besides that posturing by the Yemeni government, there's been very little evidence to suggest that the Houthis are a proxy for Iran, or that Iran is actively involved in the military side of the conflict.

GG: I think I'm a little more concerned about the White House's secrecy about what's happening in Yemen than you seem to suggest earlier, although I understand there are legitimate reasons. But whatever else is true, I think hearing from someone whose knowledge is as in-depth as yours is about Yemen can only help inform the public debate. I found it very illuminating and I appreciate your taking the time to talk to me.

GJ: Well thanks so much for having me.

GG: My pleasure.

[Transcript courtesy of Thames Valley Transcribe]

Gregory Johnsen of the Near Eastern Studies Department at Princeton University is one of the nation's most knowledgeable experts on Yemen, and is my guest today on Salon Radio to discuss the situation in that country (we recorded the interview yesterday before news of the latest attack).  He was quoted this week in a relatively impressive Time article explaining that air strikes of this sort are counter-productive as they serve to strengthen Al Qaeda's popularity and recruiting efforts in Yemen -- even if they result in the death of some Al Qaeda fighters.  I had planned to conduct a 10-15 minute interview with him, but his dispassionate, fact-based expertise was so in-depth and illuminating (at least to me) that it ended up lasting a little more than 30 minutes.  I would highly recommend that anyone interested in these events and what the U.S. is doing in that country listen to what he has to say.

I say that despite the fact that he expressed a couple of views with which I rather emphatically disagree (he justified, for instance, the White House's refusal to discuss the role played by the U.S. in these strikes on the ground that disclosure would harm our relationship with the Yemeni Government).  He also persauded me (as several commenters here also argued) that I should have been much more skeptical than I was about the anonymous ABC News report claiming that last week's attack in Southern Yemen was a "cruise missile strike" ordered by Obama himself -- not because the report about U.S. involvement is untrue (it very well may not be), but because the facts are woefully insufficient to assume the ABC report to be true.  

Whatever else is true, public debates and judgments can only be improved by exposing oneself to the sort of objective, expert-level factual analysis of the kind Johnsen provides.  Suffice to say, the reaction that many will have to these reports -- we killed Bad Al Qaeda Terrorists, so these strikes are good -- is seriously misguided.  To listen to the interview, click PLAY on the recorder below, or go here for the MP3 file.  A transcript is here.

________________

So according to Welch, Obama "lied" because he used the word "report" to describe what the CBO does and because he suggested the CBO's projections are reliable.  What, then, does that say about numerous Reason editors and writers, who wrote the following back when Reason loved the CBO because it was reporting that Obama's health care proposal and other policies would increase the deficit?  Using Welch's "reasoning," it must mean that Reason's staff is filled with outright liars:

Reason Editor Peter Suderman, July 10, 2009:  "I won't dispute that Medicare is popular, or that politicians -- even Republicans -- don't usually criticize it, but it hasn't exactly been an unqualified success. On the contrary, as the CBO reports, the program's fiscal future looks dire."

Suderman, Reason, July 27, 2009:  "In response to the Congressional Budget Office's report that current health-care reform proposals were unlikely to solve the country's long-term budgetary problems, the Obama White House put forth a plan to reduce spending it hoped would prove to be a 'game changer'."

Ronald Bailey, Reason, April 7, 2009:  "A 2007 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study reported the results of a hypothetical 23 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions (the Waxman-Markey bill proposes a 20 percent cut by 2020). The CBO found that 'giving away allowances could yield windfall profits for the producers that received them by effectively transferring income from consumers to firms' owners and shareholders'."

Veronique de Rugy, Reason, February 10, 2009:  "How bad is the stimulus bill just passed by the Senate? . . . . Don't take my word for it. In a report to Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) laid out in plain English—well, economic language—that the Senate bill would eventually cause not a stimulus but a recession in 'the longer run'."

Ronald Bailey, Reason, September 29, 2009:  "About half of all growth in health care spending in the past several decades was associated with changes in medical care made possible by advances in technology," declared a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report last year."

Ronald Bailey, Reason, December 23, 2008:  "But will comparative effectiveness research really reduce health care spending, as Daschle claims? Not by much and not soon, according to a 2007 report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if the research is limited to comparative clinical effectiveness. . . . The CBO report makes it clear that comparative clinical research won't significantly cut health care costs." 

When it suits them -- meaning when the CBO issues negative findings about Obama's domestic policies -- Reason holds up the CBO as an authoritative oracle not to be questioned.  Three weeks ago, Reason's Nick Gillespie warned of "massive premium hikes" based on "the CBO's latest assay of the Senate's health-care reform plan."  In March, Reason's Jacob Sullum cited CBO decrees to warn that "federal deficits will total $9.3 trillion during the next decade if Congress implements President Obama's fiscal proposals."  Just last month, Suderman himself cited the CBO's conclusions to argue that health care reform was not deficit neutral.  In September of this year,  Suderman claimed that the CBO had contradicted Obama's statement that "nobody is talking about reducing Medicare benefits" and wrote:  "this sort of direct contradiction from an agency as respected as the CBO isn't going to do much to calm seniors' fears."  The same month, even Welch himself cited CBO reports -- using the verb "analyzed" -- to argue that Obama "lied" in his claims about health care.

For the first half of the year, Obama's right-wing opponents heaped praise on the CBO's authoritative stature because, back then, the CBO was reporting that the Democrats' health care proposals would increase the deficit.  These same individuals then completely and shamelessly shifted gears once the CBO began reporting that the revised iterations of the proposal would actually decrease the deficit.  And the "principled non-partisan libertarians" at Welch's Reason led the way in this rank intellectual dishonesty. 

Just look at how glaring this dishonesty has been.  In order to accuse Obama of being a "liar" for relying on what the "CBO reported," Welch cites Suderman's article from this month maligning the CBO as unreliable and speculative. In Reason's current issue, Suderman wrote:

[T]he agency’s authority is belied by the highly speculative nature of its work, which requires an endless succession of unverifiable assumptions. These assumptions are frequently treated as definitive, as if on faith. In practice, this means the CBO is not merely an impartial legislative scorekeeper but a keeper of the nation’s budgetary myths, a clan of spreadsheet-wielding priests whose declarations become Washington’s holy writ.

Suderman went on to rail against "the CBO’s woeful record in both budget forecasting and estimating 'revenue and expenditure feedbacks'."

But back when the CBO was reporting that the Democrats' health care proposals would increase the deficit -- reports which became the central weapon of health care reform opponents on the Right -- look at what the very same Suderman, writing in the very same Reason, said on June 29, 2009, about the CBO:

But thanks to some inconvenient analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and increased public worries about government spending in general, reform efforts are now in disarray . . . That would be the Congressional Budget Office, a straight-laced bureau whose job is to ground congressional fantasy in budgetary reality. And when it comes to health care, fantasy was more or less what the reformers were hoping for.  Unfortunately for them, says George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen, "CBO scoring is biased toward the certain and the real and the measurable." That attitude led the office to decline to score some of the untested cost-saving measures included in the bill.

As soon as the CBO began issuing reports that undermined rather than bolstered Reason's desire to sink all health care reform, the CBO was instantaneously transformed from (a) "a straight-laced bureau whose job is to ground congressional fantasy in budgetary reality" and which "is biased toward the certain and the real and the measurable" into (b) an agency whose "authority is belied by the highly speculative nature of its work," which is "keeper of the nation’s budgetary myths" and plagued by a "woeful record."  And its embittered, clichè-ridden, deeply hypocritical Editor-in-Chief is reduced to screaming "LIAR!" at Obama for saying things about the CBO which his own magazine has repeatedly said when it suits them.  I've long thought, and still do think, that Reason has several excellent writers, and produces very good articles on a variety issues, but under Welch's editorial stewardship, it is everything except the sober, non-partisan, libertarian beacon of intellectual honesty it purports to be.

* * * * * *

While reading various articles to write this, I came across this amazingly revealing post from Ezra Klein, written on June 8, 2009, about the public option:

Most observers now think that some form of public plan will survive in the final bill. The question is what form of [public] plan? . . . . For most of you, this is the big one. The inclusion of a strong public insurance option has become, for most observers I know, the single most recognizable marker for victory. If the public plan exists, liberals have won. If it's eliminated, or neutered, then conservatives have triumphed.

Back in June -- when most people, according to Klein, believed the final bill would have a public option -- the progressive consensus was that the existence of the public option would single-handedly determine whether progressives won or lost (Klein himself wasn't necessarily adopting that view, only saying that "most of you" have done so).  Yet now that the bill will have not merely a "neutered" public option, but no public option at all, the exact opposite decree is issued by the progressive establishment:  this public-option-free health care bill is the single greatest achievement since LBJ or, perhaps, even FDR, rendering all progressive opposition to it immoral and insane (see here for a perfect example of this shift).  What accounts for that reversal?

 

UPDATE:  In July, Welch and Gillespie wrote a Washington Post Op-Ed attacking Obama's domestic agenda, which included this passage:

According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, more than 80 percent are concerned that health-care reform will increase costs or diminish the quality of care. Even as two House committees passed a reform bill last week, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office warned that the proposal "significantly expands the federal responsibility for health-care costs" and dramatically raises the cost "curve." This sort of voter and expert feedback can't be comforting to the president.

So just five months ago, the very same Matt Welch -- who yesterday accused Obama of telling a "lie" all because he cited a CBO "report" as authoritative -- himself praised the "expert feedback" of the "nonpartisan" CBO to warn that Obama's health care plan would increase deficits (h/t L Boogie).  How does a magazine editor justify to himself such a flagrantly dishonest and inconsistent record as this?  

Today, The New York Times' media reporter Brian Stelter profiles al-Hajj, who is now an on-air correspondent for Al Jazeera.  The article recounts the details of al-Hajj's detention, his description of his torture, and the physical and psychological wounds he still suffers from his treatment at the hands of his American captors.  All things considered, the article is a decent effort to explain what happened, and Stelter deserves credit for bringing some desperately needed attention to this story.  Nonetheless, the article contains some rather striking and revealing passages, beginning with this:

Among Al Jazeera’s viewers in the Arab world since the 9/11 attacks, perhaps nothing has damaged perceptions of America more than Guantánamo Bay. For that reason, Mr. Hajj, who did a six-part series on the prison after his release, is a potent weapon for the network, which does not always strive for journalistic objectivity on the subject of his treatment. In an interview, Ahmed Sheikh, the editor in chief of Al Jazeera, called Mr. Hajj "one of the victims of the human rights atrocities committed by the ex-U.S. administration."

It's amazing that the NYT would claim that Al Jazeera's description of the Bush administration's conduct as it concerns al-Hajj and other detainees -- "one of the victims of the human rights atrocities committed by the ex-U.S. administration" -- departs from precepts of "journalistic objectivity."  How can the lawless detention, brutal torture, numerous detainee deaths, obvious targeting of unfriendly media outlets, and explicit renunciation of the Gevena Conventions be described in any other way?  The breach of "journalistic objectivity" comes not from calling this conduct what it is, but from refusing to do so -- from obfuscating what took place by using soothing euphemisms and according equal deference to the plainly false denials of those who did it, such as what takes place in these passages Stelter wrote:

Asked about questioning about Al Jazeera, a Pentagon spokesman said members of the media "are not targeted by U.S. forces, but there is no special category that gives members of media organizations immunity if captured engaging in suspicious, terror-related activity." The spokesman added that all detainees were treated humanely while in custody.

Are the Pentagon's denials true?  Stelter doesn't say, instead merely passing on al-Hajj's allegations and the governments' denials.  Using the standard definition of American journalism, resolving conflicting claims and stating the actual truth is a violation of "journalistic objectivity."  Journalists only neutrally pass on claims, not report which ones are true.  That's why Al Jazeera's doing so with regard to the Bush administration's conduct is so offensive to The New York Times.

Notably, however, The New York Times itself, in news articles, has repeatedly accused other countries of engaging in "human rights atrocities," often using that exact phrase to do so:  see, for instance, here (America intervened to stop "atrocities" in Somalia, Haiti and Kosovo); here (accusing Peru of "human rights atrocities"); here (accusing Central American militias of being "guilty of wartime human rights atrocities"); here (referencing "human rights atrocities" in Bosnia); here (describing "human rights atrocities" by Sri Lanka); and here (detailing "human rights atrocities" by Serbia)  Apparently, it's a perfectly acceptable "objective" journalistic practice to describe a government's actions as "human rights atrocities" -- just as long as it's not the U.S. Government being so accused.  What a strange concept of "journalistic objectivity" The New York Times has adopted.

Even more amazing, the newspaper accusing Al Jazeera of deviating from "journalistic objectivity" itself explicitly bans the use of the word "torture" -- when describing what the U.S. Government did, that is, even as it uses that word promiscuously to describe similar conduct by foreign governments.  When interviewing al-Hajj, Stelter faithfully followed the NYT's language ban, resulting in this illuminating exchange:

When a visitor mentioned "enhanced interrogation techniques," an American term that characterizes harsh treatment of detainees, Mr. Hajj interrupted the interpreter and said, in Arabic, "instead of torture?"

"We are giving the wrong impression" with that term, he said. "We as journalists are violating human rights because we are changing the perception of reality."

When Stelter -- as a journalist -- used the warped, U.S.-government-approved euphemism to describe torture, al-Hajj interrupted him and had to explain what should be obvious to any journalist:   namely, that media outlets like the NYT (and The Washington Post and NPR) who do that are themselves distorting reality and thus enabling human rights abuses.  Along those same lines, this sentence from Stelter's article is also incredibly revealing and ironic:

Mr. Hajj's story is well known to Al Jazeera viewers, but not to most Americans.

This is absolutely true, and it's amazing if you think about it.  Americans love to believe that the differences in perception between themselves and the Muslim world are due to the fact that Americans are rational, well-informed, free and advanced, while those in predominantly Arab or Muslim countries are propagandized, irrational, primitive, conspiratorial, and misled (here's a classic case of that self-loving view from The New Republic's Michael Crowley today, fretting that anti-Americanism is so high in Pakistan not because of what we do [God forbid] but because those Muslims are so paranoid and irrational that they insanely fantasize that we're up to all sorts of nefarious things).

Yet the al-Hajj case shows how often exactly the opposite is true.  That the U.S. Government imprisoned Muslim journalists without any charges of any kind is, as Stelter says, very well known in the Muslim world.  Indeed, as Rachel Morris wrote in her superb piece for the Columbia Journalism Review about this case, "al-Haj has become a cause celebre in the Arab world."  The Muslim world is very well-informed about what the U.S. Government did -- and continues to do -- with regard to the due-process-free imprisonment of Muslim journalists.

By stark contrast, the American public is, as Stelter notes, almost completely ignorant of what our government has done in this regard.  And why is that?  Because the same media that fixates endlessly on the imprisonment of American journalists by other countries all but blacked out any reporting on what we did to al-Hajj (again, other than columnist Nicholas Kristof, who is commendably as concerned by the American imprisonment of foreign journalists as he is when other governments do it to ours).  As I documented back in May, a Nexis search of media outlets finds that "Roxana Saberi" -- the American journalist detained for three months by Iran and then quickly given a trial and appeal -- was mentioned 2,201 times during the first two months of her ordeal alone; by contrast "Sami al-Haj" was mentioned a grand total of 101 times during the first six years of his lawless detention at Guantanamo.  The short imprisonment of an American journalist by a hated nation merits a full-on media blitz from the American press; the imprisonment of a foreign journalist by the U.S. Government merits almost nothing.  Indeed, Stelter's own paper ran countless stories on Saberi, but other than this very brief 2002 mention of an Al-Jazeera statement regarding al-Hajj, it did not publish a single news article mentioning his imprisonment until he was released.

So just consider the record here.  The New York Times will frequently label what other governments do as "torture" but steadfastly refuses to use that term for what the American government did.  It promiscuously accuses foreign countries of "human rights atrocities" but self-righteously objects when that term is applied to our own government even after it abducts, disappears, lawlessly imprisons, and tortures people even to the point of death.  It accords extreme deference and respect to the claims of government officials even when those claims are patently false.  In other words, The New York Times' journalistic practices create -- either by design or effect -- the false impression that torture and human rights abuses are things that other governments do, but not our own.  Who is it exactly, then, who is departing from "journalistic objectivity"?

 * * * * *

I'll be on MSNBC this morning with Dylan Ratigan at 9:00 a.m. EST discussing health care (segment canceled).

 

UPDATE:  One other point:  after detailing the way his life was devastated by what was done to him -- seven years imprisoned with no charges and multiple acts of torture -- Stelter mentions that al-Hajj "is helping to prepare legal action against former President George W. Bush and officials of his administration."  Unfortunately for al-Hajj, though, while many other countries have acknowledged wrongdoing, conducted criminal investigations, and compensated torture and detention victims of the "War on Terror," the U.S. is a country that vigorously resists all such efforts at accountability or even disclosure, even for the most gruesome injustices perpetrated by our government.