No Antiwar Voices in NYT 'Debate' - Look back at Iraq features nine hawkish 'experts'

[swag]

FAIR Action Alert

The New York Times offered a look back at the Iraq War in its March 16 "Week In Review" section that leaned heavily towards pro-war voices.

The Times explained to readers:

"To mark this week's fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the Op-Ed page asked nine experts on military and foreign affairs to reflect on their attitudes in the spring of 2003 and to comment on the one aspect of the war that most surprised them or that they wished they had considered in the prewar debate."

The "experts" who were asked to weigh in all more or less supporters of the Iraq War, most of whom evinced no regret about their errors. The neoconservative American Enterprise Institute provided three columnists: Richard Perle, Fred Kagan and Danielle Pletka, all of them among the strongest advocates for the invasion. The Times also gave space to the Brookings Institution's Kenneth Pollack, another strong supporter of the invasion.

Featured as well were former Iraq envoy L. Paul Bremer and Paul D. Eaton, a retired general who served as a trainer of the Iraqi military early in the war. Former Marine Nathaniel Fick of the Center for a New American Security, who took part in the invasion of Iraq as a platoon leader, also weighed in.

Another columnist was Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who served as an on-air defense analyst for ABC News. Cordesman often warned of planning or logistics problems with the invasion, but nonetheless suuported the Iraq War: "I endorse this war, but I do so with reluctance and considerable uncertainty," Cordesman declared in testimony prepared for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (2/12/03).

The other columnist was Anne-Marie Slaughter of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, generally considered a "liberal hawk." Like Cordesman, Slaughter was less supportive of the Iraq War than other hawks. But in a column for the New York Times just prior to the invasion ("Good Reasons for Going Around the U.N.," 3/18/03), Slaughter argued that the Bush administration's decision to bypass a Security Council vote could work out once weapons of mass destruction were found, and the Iraqi people rallied behind the U.S.-led intervention.

None of the commentators selected by the Times to look back on the fifth anniversary of the war had been actual opponents of the invasion. And none of them conclude that the United States ought to stop occupying Iraq. Pletka's piece begins, "The mantra of the antiwar left--'Bush lied, people died'--so dominates the debate about the run-up to the Iraq war that it has obscured real issues that deserve examination." But the "debate" in the New York Times completely excludes the antiwar perspective, left-wing or otherwise.

In a separate piece for the Times, reporter John Burns wrote that "only the most prescient could have guessed...that the toll would include tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, as well nearly 4,000 American troops; or that America's financial costs, by some recent estimates, would rise above $650 billion by 2008, on their way to perhaps $2 trillion if the commitment continues for another five years."

Actually, one did not have to be unusually prescient to think that the Iraq War would be costly and would likely kill many thousands of civilians and combatants; millions of people around the world marched against the invasion to call attention to these very dangers. But by focusing the post-war debate so squarely on what pro-war "experts" think these days, one could certainly get the impression that no one knew better.

New York Times op-ed page editor David Shipley (7/31/05) has described the op-ed page as "a venue for people with a wide range of perspectives, experiences and talents," writing that he aims for "a lively page of clashing opinions, one where as many people as possible have the opportunity to make the best arguments they can." It's hard to see how Shipley can argue that his assembly of pro-war voices for the war's fifth anniversary merits that description.

ACTION:
Contact the New York Times and ask them why their March 16 Week in Review op-ed section excluded antiwar voices.

CONTACT:
New York Times public editor
Clark Hoyt
[e-mail]
[phone]

New York Times editorial page
[e-mail]

New York Times op-ed page editor
David Shipley
[e-mail]

[Breeze54]

1. Talk about one sided!! Gheeeh!

:banghead:

Letter on the way! :grr:

:kick: & Recommended

[swag]

2. What's weird to me is that the Op Ed editor worked closely with

Joseph Wilson on his now famous Op Ed, "What I didn't find in Africa."

Hasn't the NYT editorial board and public editor been forced to do enough handwringing on the awful Times stenographic reporting (read: Judith Miller) in the run-up to the war to realize that they're still badly missing the boat?

[Breeze54]

4. They are sloooow learners apparently but I just gave them a

'what for' and 'what' IS' dressing up and down!! :P I hope they read it!
I was to the point but used some sarcasm and I also included a calender
of events for them to send reporters to go cover for March 19th events! ;)

[Breeze54]

3. Letter sent to all three of them/ n/t

[Breeze54]

5. I got a reply from the NYT. Generic letter but here are some other responses...

Letters

The Iraq War: 5 Years and Counting

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/opinion/l18iraq.html?scp=7&sq=&st=nyt

Published: March 18, 2008

To the Editor:

Thank you for including the essays of the “experts on military and foreign affairs” on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war and occupation (Op-Ed, March 16). The request for what surprises they’ve encountered since the start of the war exposed some of the callous indifference to the cause they once championed so tirelessly.

It is perfectly clear that the neocons of the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute will not only dodge any responsibility for their role in this catastrophe but be perfectly happy throwing their complicit administration under the bus as well.

It is astonishing that Danielle Pletka could seriously propose that the Iraqis have no “freedom gene” (since they couldn’t or wouldn’t submit willingly to an armed occupation?).

Like children playing with matches as the fire rages around them, they’ll blame the trees with a straight face.

William Bronson
Brooklyn, March 16, 2008

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To the Editor:

You enabled the Iraq war with your cheerleading reportage, and you continue to provide a forum for its blinkered defenders, Richard Perle, Frederick Kagan, Danielle Pletka, Kenneth M. Pollack and L. Paul Bremer III.

They were wrong at the beginning, and continue to be wrong. They hide their defective judgment behind excuses that someone stabbed them in the back, or that they were in good company in their disproven beliefs, and argue that we should forget about their history of failure and take their advice now.

They are an insult to public discourse, but you continue to enable them.

Edwin M. Walker
Nashville, Tenn., March 16, 2008

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To the Editor:

Your retrospective on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war this week was a dispiriting collection of self-serving pieces, mostly from writers who were pro-war in 2003. I would be more interested in hearing from those who were sidelined in 2003 because they predicted a difficult path and recommended caution.

History has established their authority to speak on the subject. Why not ask, “Where do we go from here?” Some suggestions for contributors: Scott Ritter, Howard Dean, Al Gore and Gen. Eric K. Shinseki.

Marita Pettit
Loveland, Ohio, March 16, 2008

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To the Editor:

After reading the reflections on the invasion of Iraq, I must conclude that those most responsible for overly optimistic prewar analysis and egregious misjudgments and who urged the Decider to attack Iraq seem five years later only to have learned to distance themselves from responsibility for the disastrous consequences of their advice. They should be ashamed.

Michael Magney
Elko, Nev., March 16, 2008

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To the Editor:

Re “Five Years” (Week in Review, March 16):

John F. Burns writes that “back in 2003, only the most prescient” could have imagined the Iraq invasion’s terrible costs five years later.

It was not extraordinary prescience that led people across the political spectrum to dread this misguided adventure. It was a hard-headed knowledge of foreign affairs; an understanding of the history of colonialism in the non-Western world; familiarity with the military challenges of fighting the likely insurgencies; a determination to succeed in Afghanistan; reluctance to wreak further havoc in the Middle East; and a healthy skepticism with regard to government propaganda.

As we enter the sixth year of war without end in Iraq, the naïve pundits and politicos who dragged us into this mess can no longer get away with accusing the war’s opponents of indifference to instability, or tyranny, or W.M.D., or whatever the cause du jour is from one year to the next.

You are obligated to tell us how long this exercise in American strategic buffoonery will continue. How will we pay for it? Who will fight it in the coming years?

What is the specific government plan to create peace and love among Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites?

Melissa Macauley
Evanston, Ill., March 16, 2008

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To the Editor:

I was struck by the journalists’ attitude, as described by John F. Burns, while watching the bombing on the night of the American invasion in 2003. He writes, “As they must have to many Americans watching the live television coverage, those missiles and bombs seemed, in the headiness of that moment, to be fit retribution for a ruthless dictator.”

For those many thousands, if not millions of Americans who had marched against this invasion in the months leading up to that night — an invasion well anticipated and feared for the destruction it foretold — there was not this “headiness.” Many Americans, not acknowledged by the media or reported on, knew this invasion for what it was and feared the consequences in death and destruction.

That people look back now acknowledging this war as the mistake that it was indicates that this disastrous miscalculation can easily happen again, perhaps in Iran in the next few months. There are many warnings that war and this military approach to “problem-solving” lead only to more problems.

Obviously, the cold war didn’t teach our leaders how to use diplomacy — and time — to accomplish what war can never do: enable the people within a country to work for the benefit of their own societies.

Priscilla Ciccariello
Sag Harbor, N.Y., March 16, 2008

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I'm glad others wrote and chastised them!!