On the heels of FDA revelations of filthy conditions at large production facilities, the Associated Press reports that USDA ignored whistleblowers who called attention to the problems.

Two former workers at Wright County Egg facilities, Robert and Deanna Arnold, said they reported problems such as leaking manure and dead chickens to USDA employees, but nothing was done. (AP)

Official comment on the Afghanistan battlefield reports released by Wikileaks would have us believe that they contain nothing new. But, many important facts never made it into the official reports, writes Noah Shachtman, who witnessed one of the battles. The reports, often providing little more than place, date and the number of enemies killed, leave out details that, Schactman acknowledges, include the most disturbing and important. He surmises, generously, that the lack of detail was unintentional.

In fact, from the early days of the Iraq war to the present battles in Afghanistan, war reports have whitewashed and manipulated the truth in order to better serve official US propaganda. Looking farther back, to the Vietnam war, we see reports, similar to these, that emphasized casualty figures--an emphasis that was intentional, high-level, and led to mass murder in Vietnam.

David Brooks in today's New York Times: I was a poseur in my youth as well.

Herodotus records a Delphic oracle warning the early Spartans against trying to subdue Arcadia “where men eat acorns”. When the Spartan military marched into Arcadia anyway, they met disaster. Acorn-foraging became a by-word for the ruggedness of the famously indomitable population in that remote mountainous region.

So I took notice when I came across this SIGACT among the nearly 92,000 Afghan war documents published yesterday. It’s a report of September 2007 from the remote province of Nuristan, along the Pakistan border. This region was the setting for Kipling’s “The man who would be king”. Here’s the part of the report that caught my attention:

There is a feud/civil conflict developing between 3 villages (Nanglam, Mashpah, and Malel) over pine nut foraging rights. 1 Afghan national has been killed, and 2 injured. Waliswol Muhammad Ali is attempting to mediate.

So how does anybody imagine that coalition forces can ever impose their will upon a population that is willing to fight to the death over pine nut foraging rights?

The nearly 92,000 secret documents from 6 years of US military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan, obtained by Wikileaks and published simultaneously today by the New York Times, Guardian, and Der Spiegel, bring to mind nothing so much as the Pentagon Papers published in 1971. They’re a very different kind of dossier, of course. The latter was an official Defense Dept. study of US involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. The current dossier is more random – and thus in many ways more enlightening - a trove of on-the-ground reports from military and intelligence operations.

But what it shares in common with the Pentagon Papers is this: It provides a devastating portrait of

• a disastrous guerilla war that the public had already turned decisively against
• military operations that both tactically and strategically are a mess beyond any reasonable hope of repair
• intelligence operations that are acquiring almost no accurate, much less actionable, information about anything
• American officials who appear to have no answers to the daily intractable problems they face in an increasingly unpopular occupation
• an Afghan population that has huge and legitimate grievances against heavy-handed US attacks
• an Afghan government that is corrupt, incompetent, and mistrusted in more ways than most of us could have imagined
• grossly untrustworthy Afghan army and police forces
• obscenely fraught relations with our untrustworthy “allies” in the region
• an enemy that is better armed and more adaptable and successful than the public has been told
• the history of a war that went to pieces far earlier than the US government had told the public
• specific details about military operations that contradict what the US public had been told in the past

In short, just as with the Pentagon Papers, it is nearly impossible to read through the current dossier and conclude that this occupation is winnable; that the US military ever has had a coherent plan; that the government that American lives are being sacrificed for is solid, trustworthy, or has integrity; that our forces really know what is going on in the country they’re bogged down in; or that the US government has been honest about what we face there.

So the publication of these documents could prove to be a turning point in US involvement in Afghanistan. The Pentagon Papers proved to Americans, even to people who hadn’t been paying close attention to policy debates about the Vietnam War, that they’d been deceived for years by their own government’s grossly misleading public assessments of the situation there. The publication of these New Pentagon Papers ought to produce the same result.

It’s really very simple, as anybody can attest who has ever seriously looked into a ‘scandal’ promoted by a right-wing news outfit: They do not scruple to lie, misrepresent, distort, deceive, selectively misquote, omit necessary context, and conceal critical information in order to score a partisan point. Nothing they say should ever be trusted without independent verification. Indeed my experience is that very rarely is it worth the bother even to try to verify their claims, so egregiously inaccurate and hyperbolic are their arguments. Such people view themselves as playing a role in the conservative propaganda machinery headed by Fox News and radio-ranting luminaries such as Rush Limbaugh. As such, they will fall over backwards to excuse even the most repulsively dishonest and manipulative behavior by their fellow partisans.

Almost incredibly, it appears that the Obama White House and much of the conventional media figured this obvious truth out only within the last day or so, after falling for yet another transparent fraud committed by the notorious huckster Andrew Breitbart. I would have thought that the last 19 years furnished ample evidence that right-wing media has little more than contempt for mamsy-pamsy standards of truthfulness and integrity – ever since it produced and flogged around a grossly misleading public opinion poll in order to boost the nomination of Clarence Thomas after he’d been accused of sexual harassment.

A case study

There shouldn’t be any doubt that right-wing media ‘scandals’ should be greeted with extreme skepticism, and yet the naďve continue to stumble along without ever taking a good hard look at how these frauds are perpetrated. So here is an example, chosen almost at random from the many daily ‘scandals’ flogged by right-wing blogs. Like so many other ‘scandals’ promoted by conservatives since 2008, this piece is transparently race-baiting. It has also been reproduced and quoted widely and uncritically. But above all, it’s marked by preposterously misleading assertions. The post is predicated entirely on the assumption that readers will not check the source material and discover its deceptions.

The author, William Tate, argues that the “Obama administration…faces a new [racial] bias claim” from the TARP Special Inspector General, Neil Barofsky. Tate would have us believe that Barofsky charges Obama with ensuring that GM and Chrysler dealerships were slated for closure based upon the race/gender of their owners.

Wonder of wonders, Tate is being deceptive. What follows are three obvious ways in which Tate has tried to mislead.

Today Gen. David Petraeus was being questioned by the Senate Armed Services Committee about the quagmire in Afghanistan. As John McCain bemoaned that the US was planning not to extend indefinitely the surge Petraeus had wanted (on which subject see yesterday’s PR blitz by the Pentagon about vast Afghan mineral wealth), the general suddenly gawped and fainted. The hearing was suspended for a day to allow Petraeus to recover. He claimed afterwards that he was simply dehydrated…as if there were no beakers of water around.

With this public relations catastrophe, it’s now much less likely that Petraeus will be able to convert his apparent presidential ambitions into reality. For one thing, it raises further concerns about Petraeus’ physical fitness. Anyhow it’s simply not presidential to faint when you’re being asked difficult questions about your job performance, especially for a general. And, yes, Petraeus is painfully aware that his failure to stem the tide in Afghanistan is going to be a huge obstacle in his further ambitions.

I’ve never bought the hype about Petraeus’ supposed military genius and capabilities.

This morning political commentators are all atwitter about James Risen’s NYT article about mineral reserves charted in Afghanistan by a USGS survey. In years to come these reserves could turn Afghanistan into another Saudi Arabia, we’re told. Bloggers have lapped this “news” up.

Risen presents the information as if he had a major scoop.

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

In fact, however, the survey was conducted between 2004 and 2007. Risen claims that it’s results were ignored until recently, when the Pentagon “came upon” the geological survey data while looking for ways to boost the country’s economy.

The Pentagon task force has already started trying to help the Afghans set up a system to deal with mineral development. International accounting firms that have expertise in mining contracts have been hired to consult with the Afghan Ministry of Mines, and technical data is being prepared to turn over to multinational mining companies and other potential foreign investors. The Pentagon is helping Afghan officials arrange to start seeking bids on mineral rights by next fall, officials said.

Utter nonsense. In 2007 the Afghan government touted the survey to the world. In the time since then, it has been working to attract international developers for its copper and iron reserves – which appear to be the most valuable and accessible ones. Already in 2007 a Chinese company won a competition to lease the largest copper mine, agreeing to pay the Afghan government $400 million per year in taxes.

It’s hard to conceive that in the foreseeable future Afghanistan will be able to derive more than a few billion dollars per year in taxes/mineral royalties by exploiting its reserves to the fullest possible extent. For comparison, the current Afghan GDP is thought to be around $16 billion. In 2007, the UNODC estimated that opium accounted for half of the country’s ‘licit’ GDP, or about $4 billion. So mining is not going to turn Afghanistan into a rich state much less eliminate the opium trade.

Risen and his sources are trying to sell us a pipe dream.

This ought to go down well in rural Kentucky, far from his suburban base. Rand Paul implied this morning on ABC that sometimes coal miners just have to die. That’s the upshot of Paul’s perverse assertion that Americans shouldn’t be so ready to blame the mining corporations for disasters that occur in their mines. After complaining that the White House is unfairly blaming BP for its massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Paul added:

And I think it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault. Instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen. I mean, we had a mining accident that was very tragic and I’ve met a lot of these miners and their families. They’re very brave people to do a dangerous job. But then we come in and it’s always someone’s fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.

As a simple matter of fact, it always is someone’s fault when mining disasters occur. Mines are artificial. When they become deadly, it must be due to human agency. Nearly all deadly mining accidents in recent times are due ultimately to poor adherence to mining regulations, precisely because it costs money to uphold safety standards. No mining deaths are acceptable or excusable. Finding where fault lies in a mine disaster is exactly what the government should be doing, not looking the other way fatalistically.

Many commenters today have focused on Paul’s bizarre defense of BP, while nearly ignoring his even more shocking statement excusing the killing of coal miners. As environmentalists have warned for years, oil spills are a nearly inevitable part of offshore drilling (however badly BP screwed up in this case). It is not inevitable however that coal miners must die – at least not unless profits are put before safety. The notion that it’s a normal cost of business for a certain number of miners to die comes directly from the coal barons themselves. Even more than Paul has drunk deep from the oil companies’ wells, he has most shockingly imbibed the full ideology of the most ruthless coal corporations.

Attention, pet owners: You are the beneficiaries of an extraordinary gift.

Five acres of serene, forested land in Oklahoma have been donated for a memorial sanctuary where, at no cost to owners, every pet that has fallen ill or died due to dangerous pet food will be remembered with a personalized memorial stone. The sanctuary, named "Vindication," is located at Keystone Lake in Oklahoma and is expected to open this June. The donor hopes that Vindication will comfort grieving owners.

At last we have a good reason to make some calls urging the Democrats in Congress to pass one of their craptacular health care "reform" bills. Radio ranter Rush Limbaugh has vowed to leave the US if the legislation is enacted. Although passage of meaningful and necessary reform would be delayed for years if one of these hollowed out bills becomes law, at least the country might be spared the continued presense of this despicable man.

Curious in any case that Limbaugh promises to head to Costa Rica, which has a very successful socialized health care system. The country has benefited recently from a boom in health care tourism, especially with regard to US citizens because of the high cost of private health care in America.

Until about six years ago in the US we shared a broad consensus that torture was reprehensible, unjustifiable, illegal, and un-American. Then the public learned that the Bush administration allowed, then that it ordered the cruel treatment and torture of prisoners overseas. Hundreds of years of consensus suddenly began to unravel as Bush’s supporters sought to excuse these horrors. Led by Dick Cheney, who holds that the application of water torture against suspected terrorists is “a no-brainer”, Republicans boldly advocated for increased use of prisoner abuse. Reputable pollsters now regularly ask the US public whether they support torture, something which is prohibited under federal law as well as international treaties.

Central to the new enthusiasm for torture and cruelty – aside from a culture that celebrates sadism and an utter disregard for the rule of law – is the quaint notion that such abuse will be meted out only to foreigners. Torture’s cheerleaders imagine, or would have others imagine, that an impenetrable bulwark of some sort protects Americans from suffering similar abuse at the hands of our own government. That’s historical naivete on a grand scale.

But it’s also wrong as a matter of law. We’ve known or should have realized that long ago. Furthermore, it’s wrong too as a matter of fact. It turns out that two US citizens who voluntarily acted as whistleblowers to the FBI were, for that reason, imprisoned by the government, held incommunicado and without charge, and subjected to the now standard forms of prisoner abuse.

Now that many prominent Republicans are denouncing the McCarthyite smear campaign against DOJ attorneys being orchestrated by Keep America Safe, Liz Cheney and William Kristol are scrambling to recast themselves as innocuous good-government types. Indeed. Their attacks were simply misunderstood, they say. KAS never meant to impugn the loyalty or “values” of the lawyers hired by the Obama administration, its leaders began to claim late last week. Instead they just wanted DOJ to release the lawyers names. Later, when the names had been released, it turned out that they just wanted DOJ to explain whether those attorneys were working on any issues related to Guantanamo prisoners. It’s just a call for transparency, you see, not at all a political hatchet job - as Kristol helpfully explained in his characteristically dismissive tone:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that another left-wing advocacy group, Human Rights Watch, is circulating a letter condemning what the letter describes as “a shameful series of attacks on attorneys in the Department of Justice who, in previous legal practice, either represented Guantanamo detainees or advocated for changes to detention policy.” The Human Rights Watch letter mischaracterizes the “attacks” as saying “that the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees.” In fact, the main issues in the debate have been whether Congress and the public are simply entitled to know who these lawyers are, and the question of whether former pro bono lawyers for terrorists should be working on detainee policy for the Justice Department.

In other words, Cheney and Kristol hope to wriggle free of the McCarthyism charge because the KAS ad smeared the DOJ attorneys with innuendo, which is after all subject to interpretation. Unfortunately for KAS, however, its campaign also dealt in deliberate lies as I pointed out last Thursday here. At the time I emailed KAS spokesman Aaron Harison asking him to explain the assertion in question. Though he’s a veteran of John McCain’s rapid-response team from the 2008 election, Harison still has not responded to my query more than three days after I sent it to him.

Lies must be awkward things to walk back.

The knee-jerk analysis of Instapundit is generally so slipshod as to merit no notice, but this op-ed is remarkable by even his own low standards. Glenn Reynolds argues that whereas the vast majority of Americans think the federal government lacks the consent of the governed, nearly two-thirds of our political rulers imagine that they do have this consent. And the other third who don’t “presumably, are comfortable being tyrants.” He construes a revolutionary scenario from this alleged chasm in perceptions (which somehow he likens to Schlitz beer), though Reynolds holds out hope that America can be “transformed” now without violence.

The chasm into which he thinks the country’s political structure is tumbling, however, is a figment of his own illiteracy.

The proudly homophobic new Attorney General of Virginia, Kenneth Cuccinelli, didn’t waste much time in trying to force Virginia’s public colleges and universities to eliminate the protections against discrimination that they’ve extended to sexual orientation. The Washington Post has obtained a letter dated March 4, 2010 that he sent to every public institution of higher learning. In it, Cuccinelli advises them that they lack the authority to foreswear such bigotry without explicit approval from the state’s General Assembly and from him. Since the Assembly has considered and rejected attempts to extend anti-discrimination protections for sexual orientation to all state employees, says Cuccinelli, by adopting their own policies the colleges and universities are flying in the face of the Assembly’s deliberate acceptance of bigotry against homosexuals.