News from Iraq: All “al Qaeda,” all the time

Here’s a letter below that I sent to the Public Editor of The New York Times. It references an important write-up by Glenn Greenwald on how suddenly the enemy is always "al Qaeda" -- clearly a deceptive ploy to shore up the remaining supporters of the war. Greenwald followed it up today. I hope others will keep applying the pressure – on the Times, the Washington Post, CNN, the networks. Scatablog, ever ahead of the curve, warned about the phrase “al Qaeda in Iraq” as a propaganda device in September 2006 (“News flash! Republicans test-market new meme, mainstream media regurgitates it”)

Subject: Now it's always "al Qaeda"

Prominent blogger Glenn Greenwald has rightfully identified a gravely serious deceptive practice recently embraced by Times reporters and editors: in order to provide rhetorical cover for the military “surge” in Iraq, they are dutifully adopting the new U.S. Government convention of falsely calling everyone we fight in Iraq “al Qaeda.” As Greenwald points out, this notion was discredited a long, long time ago, even by Bush himself.

This is so utterly contemptible as journalism that the “New York Times” is becoming a sick joke of a newspaper in the eyes of decently educated people. Despite occasional figleaf editorials that provide the pretense of some independence and liberalism, when it counts the New York Times will obediently pass on the latest propaganda dreamed up to maintain a bare pretense of a rationale for this terrible war. It's Judy Miller redux. Apparently the Washington Post and CNN are playing right along, too. It is impossible to exaggerate the sheer, dripping contempt that such reporters and editors deserve.

Why does a once-great institution allow itself to be torn down from within? It is a very sad thing to see. It's sadder, though, for the thousands who are killed or maimed because the so-called "4th Estate" refuses to do its job.