Murphy's Law

The idea of embedding reporters within U.S. military forces has raised controversy as to whether it sacrifices journalistic objectivity. But an embedded editor? Even worse, an editor embedded with his son’s brigade as it fights the war? Throw all objectivity out the window.

Yet this is exactly what the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did, sending its managing editor, George Stanley, to the battlefields, to tell us what to think about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that his son volunteered to fight. It seems an ill-advised move for the newspaper, all the more so when you read what Stanley has to say.

The long, four-day series of articles is, at times, embarrassing, and at its heart a boy’s view of war. America’s soldiers, including Stanley’s son, are wonderful, noble and damn near saintly. The enemy is “fierce … clever … and ruthless,” Stanley writes, “stewing in a cauldron of hate that smells of spilled blood and death. … They hate Nick [Stanley’s son] … and all the fine men and women I’ve met here who want to bring the rule of law to people of goodwill in Afghanistan.”

It’s a comic book view of war, with no room for nuance. Stanley never bothers to address the fact that we are not at war with a nation state, but are attempting to wipe out a rogue band of Islamic extremists. And because he doesn’t, he never considers the question of whether it made any sense to invade Iraq. That would be hard for him, on an emotional level, since his son volunteered to fight in Iraq. Indeed, Nick Stanley was a chemical weapons specialist, which might be one reason why his father never addresses the fact that the rationale for invading Iraq – its supposed “weapons of mass destruction” – turned out to be nonexistent.

Stanley’s criticism of the Iraq War consists only of questioning the George W. Bush administration’s rejection of Gen. Eric Shinseki’s recommendation to use 300,000 troops in Iraq, and its decision to instead use a far smaller army, which arguably led to the loss of American lives. But, of course, no troops would have been needed, and no lives lost, if we had never invaded in the first place. Many who voted for President Barack Obama agreed with his assessment that this war was unnecessary. Stanley simply ignores the issue.

Instead, his entire series is a call for more soldiers and better equipment for the U.S. military. In the abstract, it’s hard to disagree. But his concerns arise in the context of two wars that have been extraordinarily, if not ruinously, expensive for this nation. Some experts estimate the total cost of the Iraq War alone at more than $3 trillion. Strategic leadership is needed to assure that this country doesn’t overreact – and overspend – as it scours the world in search of a small band of al-Qaida terrorists.

Our government’s leadership has spoken, and Obama has set a deadline of 2011 for ending the war in Afghanistan. Stanley proceeds to undercut this idea, telling us every soldier and Marine he talks to wants to stay there as long as necessary to “finish the job.” Well, yes. And football players always want to go for it on fourth down rather than take the safe bet of kicking a field goal. That’s why you have a coach. The American tradition of civilian oversight of the military has long assured that cooler heads on the sidelines determine strategy. But the managing editor of a major American newspaper apparently thinks our soldiers should make such decisions.

As gung-ho as Stanley is to continue the longest war in our nation’s history, he never offers any analysis of where the money should come from to send more soldiers and equipment to Afghanistan. Wisconsin U.S. Rep. David Obey has suggested legislation to enact a war tax. Stanley is good at casting guilt on America’s leaders for not spending more on war, but missing in action when it comes to discussing Obey’s idea or any financial solution to the wars’ massive cost.

Stanley’s sloppy analysis of Iraq never bothers to make any distinction between al-Qaida and the separate phenomenon of al-Qaida in Iraq. His analysis of Afghanistan offers an entire sidebar on the Taliban suggesting it is in bed with al-Qaida, without quoting any expert or offering any sources whatsoever. Needless to say, he never considers the view of experts who contend al-Qaida and the Taliban are distinct groups with different goals and aims.

Stanley is at his most poignant describing his love for his son,

Spoken like an impassioned father. And a totally compromised journalist.

The JS War Story That Never Ran

In the years Stanley has served as JS managing editor, he's had a major impact on how the newspaper covers these wars. Indeed, back when I was a reporter for the paper, he killed a story I did on Iraq.

The paper had published an earlier story I did in April 2003. It traced how neoconservative thinkers, many funded by the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, had created the intellectual framework for the war. I received e-mail from around the world about the story and was interviewed by a Moscow radio station; in the years since, the story has been cited by numerous publications.

In the spring of 2004, I went to my direct editor, Paul Sevart, and then-national editor Carl Schwartz (both are no longer at the paper). I proposed doing a follow-up story on Iraq, focusing on how well neoconservative theories were working out in Iraq. As part of the story, I would also interview the entire Wisconsin congressional delegation to get their views on how the war was going and how the theories behind it were working out. Sevart and Schwartz gave the go-ahead.

But once I turned in the piece, Sevart let me know that Stanley had hit the ceiling about the story. I went to Schwartz to ask if he had any suggestions on how it might be improved or changed. He refused to even address the question and told me I had to talk to Stanley.

So I did. Stanley had been heavily involved in my first Iraq story, requesting many changes and additions before it ran. But when I asked him how I might improve the story to make it work, he began hemming and hawing. It’s a complex situation in Iraq, he noted. We won’t fully know the reasons for the war until the historians take a look at this, he added. It’s the only time I was ever told to hold off reporting until the history books were written.

So I tried another tack. Maybe, I said, I could chop the story down to simply a piece getting all members of the Wisconsin delegation on the record with their views of the war. After all, no one had done such a story. That might work, Stanley responded, saying he’d think about it.

That was nearly six years ago. I guess he’s still thinking about it.

Here’s the never-published story I wrote. I should note this was my first draft, and such stories normally went through considerable editing and changes. One of the things I learned in reporting this story was the limits of the U.S. military. Shinseki’s recommendation of sending 300,000 troops to Iraq would have been difficult to do, all the more so while still maintaining troops in Afghanistan.

The pragmatic way to marshal such forces is through international cooperation. James Dobbins, special envoy for Afghanistan under President George W. Bush, noted that in Kosovo and Bosnia, the U.S. maintained a leadership role while providing just 16 percent of the manpower and costs. In chasing after al-Qaida, which has links to “dozens of countries,” as Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan suggested to me, an international coalition might have been a far cheaper and more effective way to go.

Taken to its extreme, Stanley’s series seems to suggest that true patriotism means being willing to spend whatever it takes to win in Afghanistan and Iraq, even if it leaves America hopelessly in debt to China. With the benefit of hindsight, after nearly seven years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, there would be reason to question this as a newspaper’s editorial view, much less as pure reporting. But I guess when the managing editor is the writer, no one gets to question that viewpoint.

And for something completely different, might I recommend our new column, Wine Notes? Former restaurateur John Burns finds the best deals – and best wines – for sale in this metro area. It’s truly refreshing.