@markknoller: Biden said every time America is attacked, “it only emboldens us to stand up and strike back.”

The following sentence:

The strike, which was carried out by at least one unmanned aircraft, was part of the Obama administration’s rising campaign to use drones to target militants who regularly stage cross-border attacks against foreign troops in Afghanistan.

If that is so certain — and I believe it — why does the author feel compelled to says “suspected U.S. missiles” in the previous statement?

Long out of practice in even attempting to write, I am reading a selection of Orwell’s essays (both the polemic and the trite review and in between) rather than expanding on my own declaration of opinion. Maybe I will learn something. The two volumes are what I might’ve once called provocatively titled: All Art Is Propaganda and Facing Unpleasant Facts. But now they’re just remedial guides for dealing with the world.

In the meantime, I share these selections from contemporary polemicists who I think did a good and more timely job: challenging both the silly dismay of some Democrats in what they seem to perceive as Obama’s betrayal (it isn’t one, he campaigned on escalating the Afghan war) and the others who find Obama’s justification of escalation as a proper way to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, consistent with what he cited himself in the course of his speech.

• From Consortium News, an online publication whose cornerstone is Bob Parry Whatever Mistakes We Have Made by Nicholas J.S. Davies)
• From Jonathan Schwarz’s Orwell-inspired A Tiny Revolution a brief observation: Going Backwards
• ‘Just War’ is Just Words by Ralph Nader

I collaborate with Husseini, providing technical support, and I also watch the shows. This morning I noticed that Clinton repeated a myth about the start of the Afghan war that the Institute for Public Accuracy, where Sam is the communications director, called-out in a press release earlier this week.

The appearance of both Clinton and Gates was pre-taped earlier in the week, otherwise I’m sure Sam would have tried to question her on it if she stopped for the press gaggle.

Sam did have some interaction with Senator Feingold which is now posted at The Washington Stakeout.

Husseini asked Feingold about the legitimacy of the Afghanistan war, Israel’s nuclear weapons (of which official acknowledgment might catalyze a different calculus in the US’s non-proliferation actions with regards to Iran, India, as well as, of course, Israel), and, in essence, how much due diligence was actually done in exploring the feasibility of Single Payer health care.

In January of 2003 I attended a press conference held by the Joe Foss Institute, commemorating the recent passing of their namesake and announcing the launch of a program where veterans were to go to schools and talk of their service in hopes of inspiring children to want to join the military. Foss was concerned that “there might be an exodus of draft age Americans in the event of war,” according to literature being handed out at the time.

The event, which included a luncheon that I missed, was reportedly attended by then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Representative William Janklow. I saw neither Wolfowitz nor Janklow; it is my understanding that Wolfowitz left before I arrived and I don’t know about Janklow. Honorary spokespersons for the effort included John Glenn and Oliver North, as well as Jack Kemp. They were made available to the press for a question and answer session.

The backdrop was a specious drumbeat for war with Iraq and I was skeptical of the most of the named figureheads of this organization’s effort. So were my producers, who worked daily to surface news about Iraq and policy critiques to widen the debate on the prospect of a war which had not yet started but seemed fated to some. (An aside: The body of work aggregated and produced by Peace Watch and others, including the Institute for Public Accuracy, where I also once worked, is evidence to me that there was reason to be unconvinced of claims before the war and that the lack of persistent skepticism in some media and on the Hill wasn’t merely a case “if we knew then what we know now.”)

When the press conference opened-up, I was allowed the first question.

I was already nervous and uncomfortable under hot lights in a black turtleneck and was now caught off guard at the invitation to be the first voice heard from the scrum. I squawked out my question, “What confidence should American youth have in these individuals, when it comes to examples of matters as far as life and death go….” I went on to paraphrase my understanding of Wolfowitz’s, Kemp’s, and North’s seemingly hypocritical relationship to the concept of honor-bound volunteer service to one’s country in wartime. I didn’t even touch the veracity of the claims behind the current push for war and the endorsement some had given it.

I didn’t say it so well, and I couldn’t have said it all, but this is what I had stacked-up as the evidence for my question:

My attention was primarily on the invited attended of Paul Wolfowitz, who reportedly attended and probably did so in his capacity as a DOD official, who was also among the vanguard of the neoconservative movement, who never served in war but was an architect of the looming war from his early participation in PNAC.

Then we had Oliver North, a man who had been convicted of crimes with regards to the Iran-Contra scandal, which reminded us of the government’s potential to institutionally deceive the public about its foreign policy and military activities. The convictions against North were later overturned on technicalities, not for lack of evidence, but for the eerily convenient inability of the DoJ to execute a prosecution of a White House official by the book.

And Kemp, to me, had a George Bush-like track record in the military. Serving in the reserves he had a relatively easy burden compared to those activated and later drafted as the Vietnam War began to heat up; it seemed convenient that he was dismissed from service for having a bad knee. No risk of being activated, excluded from being drafted.

That might have been unremarkable, except that he then went on to play professional football while the war raged, before running for Congress. Now here he was, riding on that credibility as part of an effort to encourage others to join the military as a war built on even more transparent distortions and lies than Vietnam was looming, while the largest popular protest against an American war was shaping-up before it was to start.

It didn’t come out of my mouth that well, but that was where I was headed.

The room fell silent for an awkward moment.

Gus Grant, the chairman of the Foss institute, was MCing the event and responded with a coverall response, trying to save anyone from feeling obligated to directly answer my question. “Let me say I’m very proud of everybody at this table and all of their achievements.”

The luncheon attendees clapped in praise of this retort.

I was taken aback — had Grant just lumped John Glenn in with Oliver North? (I wasn’t thinking of Jack Kemp much.)

Glenn seemed amused, possibly by my obviously nervous question and by the response as well.

North just turned red and pursed his lips for a moment.

And I felt like I was about to collapse.

But then Kemp bit.

He spoke up and spoke directly to me and said he’d like to answer my question, but after the press conference. He said he’d like to talk to me directly, he’d be around. It almost seemed friendly, but with a look as if to say “you’ve got it all wrong, son.”

Now my focus was exclusively on Kemp. My actual question had not been answered, and they had moved on, but Kemp had promised to be available. I was still nervous, but looking forward to him sharing his point of view.

But then half-way through the press conference he got up, he said he had to leave for a prior engagement or something like that. He apologized to Grant with nary a glance towards me and he hurried out. I chased him through the lobby of the Press Club as he walked briskly to the elevators. I asked the question of his military service again, if he’d clarify. As I caught-up he simply said “I served. I served, I served in the military.” You can hear the elevator chime on the tape. Kemp stepped into the cab and the elevator doors snapped behind him.

“But not on active duty, and how could you go on to play pro football if you weren’t fit for war?,” I should have asked.

Just as I could’ve been sharper in expressing my grasp of the facts and the rationale of my query, the original question as asked might have been disarmed completely by Kemp. If only he weren’t running away from me hadn’t been apparently disingenuous about his availability and wanting to set the record straight.

It was surely “gotcha” journalism, but I think it was an appropriate attempt to sting — risking being proven remarkably wrong with a direct and detailed answer from the very subjects of my inquiry — and current events further justified challenging the qualifications of advocates of militarism.

At the time of my questioning we had just seen Kemp’s alma mater, the US House of Representatives, forfeit their power and responsibility to declare war and hand it over to President Bush. The same broadcast that aired my encounter with Kemp also included Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee talking with Peace Watch about her attempt to repeal that move, but barring a miracle cross-aisle flip (which did not happen), we had seen the majority of this body join the ranks of the “chickenhawks.” Kemp, North, and Wolfowitz simply seemed way out ahead of them.

For a public figure to advocate a path others should take, his own fidelity to that idea, particularly when he had opportunity to demonstrate it, is fair game for inquiry and challenge. Kemp did not seem to think so that afternoon. Those who don’t demonstrate such action when it comes to war, but advocate war and others to fight are what some call “chickenhawks.” On that day Jack Kemp appeared to be trying to outrun that label rather than face it straight-on.

You may parse the term anti-American differently than I, and if it is truly that subjective, I think that only gives more cause to use the term sparingly. To me the terms signifies a general disdain for all things American: Americans, American culture, the actions and policies of the US government. I’m not convinced that is accurate in the case of Muqtada al-Sadr. When you can isolate the sentiment to some subset of those categories a more accurate term can almost always be found, or qualifiers need to be deployed.

One of the additional instances was on May 2. I posted a “tweet” shortly after I heard it. My recollection is that in this case it came from a presenter, not in the voice of a reporter in the field. I visited the NPR site and went through the Morning Edition stories for that day and I cannot find the use in the only story in that day’s archived line-up about Iraq. It was a discussion about an interview with a member of Sadr’s militia.

It seems most likely that I heard the use in the presentation of news headlines by Carl Kasell (the headlines are a part of the broadcast which is not apart of the show per se, and not publicly archived as thoroughly as the show itself). Less likely, but not ruled out (as stories do sometimes seem to get tweaked before they’re rebroadcast for the second time on the East Cast or for the West Coast), perhaps I did hear it in this story and it got edited out.

In fact, the May 2 story was a reasonable piece that judiciously used qualifying terms and appears to be an honest attempt at figuring out what the “Sadrists” are all about. It effectively pokes holes in the idea that Sadr or his followers are truly “anti-American.”

But then, this morning, May 5, I heard the term used again by Tom Bowman in a news piece (again, not archived with Morning Edition and only select audio eventually shows up in the “News” section of the NPR web site).

I’m sure there are more than these three instances in the span of time between Brian’s first notice of the use and today.

This may seem to be nit-picky, but I think this is symptomatic of a broader problem where motivation is ascribed to subjects without due qualification or substantive evidence. Sometimes it comes in the form of accepting stated motivation (say from official spokespersons) other times it comes in the form of the inaccurate use of language. Both phenomenon are, at best, lazy and at other times malicious.

In this case, given the evidence of the nuanced reporting that can sometimes be found in the more in-depth segments of the show, I’m going to go with “lazy.” It seems to be shorthand slang to fit into those seconds-long spots in the brief newscasts. But it is inaccurate. If we return to Brian’s comment, that Sadr is not “anti-American” but “anti-occupation”, we find in his complaint a solution — the equally short but more accurate term “anti-occupation.”

There’s another problem of inequity, which I don’t have time to get into: That of a general trend of accepting the stated motivation of certain actors — say President Bush — and not accepting the stated motivation of others — let’s say, Osama bin Laden, in spite of evidence that both are just as believable, or that the accepted position actually isn’t supported whereas the stated motivation not accepted might be the most supported by evidence. But that’s worthy of an essay of its own and I’m hardly the first one to highlight these issues.

So CBS News did an investigation – asking all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records, for veterans and non-veterans, dating back to 1995. Forty-five states sent what turned out to be a mountain of information.

And what it revealed was stunning.

In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.

This comes during the same weekend as the group Iraq Veterans Against the War hold their Winter Soldier summit just outside of DC. Veterans who have signed-up with the group are gathering together to share with each other, and the media, critical anecdotes from their experiences in the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Post story notes counter-demonstrators accuse the event of being too vague and unverified, but The Real News reports on IVAW’s verification process.

Meanwhile, a group called “Eagles Up!” brought a few hundred people to the National Mall in support of the wars. This coming week will bring anti-war demonstrators to the Capitol for a Wednesday rally on the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

Catholic anti-war demonstrators marched on the White House today, setting off at noon from St. Matthew’s Cathedral. Today’s action was part of their observation of Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent and a tradition with a theme of repentence.

A flyer being handed out quoted Pope Benedict XVI as saying “Christ needs apostles ready to sacrifice themselves. He needs witnesses and martyrs.” This kind of quotation seems to be in line with other citations of church authority and scripture that this group uses to explain its non-violent activism.

Many of the participants also participate in a weekly Friday mid-day vigil outside the White House that has gone on since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

They were led by Art Laffin, a long-time activist and organizer with the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. I’ve spoken with Laffin on a couple of occasions, including while doing a piece for Free Speech Radio News on the Friday vigil and the 3rd anniversary of the Iraq War, and I later witnessed him take part in a large march to the Pentagon that week. Laffin recognized and greeted me as he passed.

I encountered the march returning to my office during my lunch break. I was leaving the vicinity of the Lafayette Park as they approached, so I did not witness what happened after they arrived. Often this group engages in civil disobedience (I witnessed them engage in CD more than once, including during the previously mentioned march and on the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombings this year), but I hadn’t heard of any such plans this time around.

In Lafayette Park, on the North side of the White House, you could see signs of the processions imminent arrival if you knew what to look for. The uniformed Secret Service and Park Police seemed to have a few extra personnel on Pennsylvania Avenue and around the park. An elderly man sat down on a bench. He wore jeans and a reasonable jacket, but carried a priest’s cassock to pull over his other clothes, presumably to join the demonstrators.