"The problem, though, is that huge numbers of people [are].... forming their long-term views in the initial stages of the reporting."

The above assertion in Glenn's column is merely that: An assertion; and a speculative, tendentious one that evinces a contempt for the typical news consumer that he often criticizes when he detects it in other journalists.

No evidence is offered to support it, and if the assertion proves to be false, the entire diatribe against the first-responder media coverage of the episode collapses.

In fact, I think Greenwald's citations of "rumors, speculation and falsehoods" deal with secondary details of the event and, furthermore, time has already shown many of the "rumors, speculation and falsehoods" have actually been accurate.

The meat and potatoes of the story were quite accurately and quite quickly reported by the media: 12 dead, 31 others wounded, the perpetrator correctly identified, the precise location of the slaughter reported accurately, the massacre brought to a halt by gunfire from a police officer....

I admire Glenn's work, and almost always agree with the vast majority of his commentaries, but his holier-than-thou attitude to almost every human activity out there in this imperfect world is beginning to wear thin.

Picking apart the actions of human beings functioning in an imperfect and often chaotic world is easy---there's a Yiddish word for it that I'm sure Glenn is familiar with: Kibitzer. The world has a surfeit of them.

If you don't know the meaning of that word, look it up.

Glenn won't have to.

1. The problem is not so much "sending our military into Muslim countries" as it is leaving them there after they have succeeded in their military mission.

Even with the minimal force Rumsfeld insisted on for the Iraq invasion, the military achieved its military objectives swiftly and with almost surgical precision. The egregious miscalculation was assigning the military the task of re-constituting Iraq as some sort of oasis of democracy in the politically barren desert of the Middle East---that mission was ludicrous on its face.

In Afghanistan the military toppled the Taliban regime with alacrity as well but, again, nation-building became the new mission; nation-building requires occupation of a foreign land; occupation of a foreign land produces resentment in the indigenous peoples of those lands. Hence, the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Military organizations per se, not just ours, exist to destroy, not to create. "Counter insugency" missions are just a euphemism for killing indigenous inhabitants of foreign countries. US civilian policy makers must understand that, or the US is doomed to be stuck in an eternal, recurring loop of Vietnams, Iraqs and Afghanistans.

2. The fundamentalist Muslims do indeed hate Western cultural values, especially those epitomized by the hegemonic "popular" culture: examples being Hip Hip and Rock music, sexual freedom, especially of women, women's equality, secularism (if that could fall under the rubric of popular culture.) In this hatred, the Islamic fundamentalists share the same wadrobe as our own Christian fundamentalists.

More than the political differences, more than the resentment of the recent historical treatment of Muslim nations by the West, it's these religious--straight from Allah--precepts that recruits the lunatics who willingly wrap their torsos in suicide vests and saw off the heads of living captives--remember David Pearl--with kitchen utensils and post their deeds on You Tube.

Got to go to work....maybe more ranting later.

1. Irrespective of my views on the correct course of action regarding US involvement in Afghanistan, I find it at minimum inappropriate for a serving US General to be making public speeches advocating any--any!--particular course of action when there is an ongoing debate within the USG about what that course should be.

This General should be holding his counsel private; his audience, uniformed military superiors, civilian government policy-makers, and the president.

Why Gates hasn't put a muzzle on this guy baffles me. Harry Truman would have fired his (the General's) ass forthwith as soon as the General decided to join the public lecture circuit.

2. My limited understanding of how these things work is that the elected civilian leadership establishes goals, then consults the uniforms on strategy and tactics for accomplishing those goals.

In the current debate, one is unsure what is being debated. Are we debating strategy and tactics or are we debating goals?

If the former, the military's views are crucial; if the latter, the military doesn't even belong at the conference table.

3. It is incumbent on the Executive Branch to unambiguously inform the public as to what is being debated: Goals? Strategy? Tactics?

Another thought-provoking, important piece of work by Greenwald.

This is crap.

If Walsh literally is the editor of Salon.com, she should bury her head in the sand and hope nobody notices this garbage.

I've got an old, inefficient air conditioner that could sure use replacing, and maybe the fridge, too...not to mention this ancient, electric hot water heater I'm stuck with.

WTF, how about a complete energy saving update for everyone.

OUT WITH THE OLD & IN WITH THE NEW!

This program serves only to give fodder to those opposed to any government intervention in the marketplace---the program is a caricature of ill-conceived, grossly unfair, smug, simplistic liberalism run amuck. (And perhaps a brilliant lobbying campaign by the auto manufacturers?)