Does the Press Know America Is at War?

When Lee Smith writes about the US press on Slate, it turns out that his comments apply even more to the European press and how they regularly put themselves on auto-pilot, reflexively criticizing Washington's policies and American society at every turn…

…the fact that so many press outlets were quick to assume the [al-Qaeda suspect] leak was yet another government blunder indicates that, unlike U.S. intelligence[!], our media is not learning from its mistakes.

In the almost three years since Sept. 11, the White House and U.S. intelligence have come under heavy fire for their errors, while the press has mostly been criticized for not being hard enough on either of them. Certainly, there's a time for the U.S. press to play the adversary—to challenge Washington and itemize its errors—but that's not its only role. The media can also choose to explain the government's actions rather than reflexively criticize—or cheer—them. But in order to explain, we have to assume that the White House is essentially a rational actor that can neither afford to lie out of habit nor to ignore its mistakes because it is too incompetent to correct them; rather, we need to recognize that there are circumstances under which a government is likely to deceive and err. Obviously, war is the No. 1 condition for both.

During every war, the government will sometimes lie to the American people and its allies, and it will almost always attempt to deceive or conceal information from its enemies. The Bush administration gambled that it could invade Iraq without revealing its real reasons for doing so [here, Lee Smith seems to be committing the same mistake that he is (rightly) criticizing his colleagues about] and without losing the support of the people who will ultimately decide whether venturing American lives and money was worth it. After all, we know we are at war, not just because the president told us, but because our enemies have done so in word and deed. So, there are two ways to look at our current predicament: 1) the government lied to get us into the Iraq war, and the inevitable result is a series of mistakes and miscalculations; or 2) Iraq is just a campaign in a war we were already fighting, and both lying and confusion are essential parts of all wars. However, the press seems to be confused because it's not really sure we're at war.

For instance, last week when the Iraqi government decided to close Al Jazeera's Baghdad office for a month to give the station a chance to reconsider its positions and policies, the New York Times ran an editorial condemning the government's action. "Thwarting Al Jazeera's news coverage will not halt the violence that has been tearing Iraq apart for the past 16 months. But it may … give [Allawi's] government a freer hand to abuse human rights and pursue personal political vendettas in the name of restoring law and order." The Times doesn't really think that Al Jazeera's watchful eye prevents Arab regimes from abusing the human and political rights of Arab citizens—or why didn't the network keep Saddam in check? No, this is the U.S. press on auto-pilot. Any decision that keeps someone from articulating their point of view, even if it abets violence and misreports facts, is censorship, and we're against it, even if it's just for 30 days. But does the NYT's editorial staff believe that if Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl had wanted to film George Patton's 3rd Army in its march through France, she should have been allowed to do so?