A rather interesting exchange between the White House spokesman and a reporter caught my eye yesterday. It was the eve of Bradley Manning’s arraignment and we had dedicated much of the show to the issue of whistle-blowers, examining the growing crackdown against whistleblowers by the US government. Specifically, President Obama’s unprecedented war on whistleblowers — from Bradley Manning to John Kiriakou — critics seem to be aggressively targeted while the White House turns a blind eye to abuses.

As Kevin Gosztola writes, “the war on whistle blowing isn’t only about whether classified information is released or not. There are journalists who are victims of this. The war is not limited to federal employees who decided to blow the whistle on crimes, misconduct or something they knew that they felt needed to be public.”

Carney began yesterday’s briefing by praising the aggressive reporting from journalists who have died covering the unrest in Syria: Marie Colvin, Rémi Ochlik and Anthony Shadid. This echoed similar sentiments by Vice President Joe Biden, as well as the State Department. During the briefing, ABC News’ Jake Tapper challenged Carney on the White House’s double standards. Carney was giving hollow praise to reporters overseas doing things for which they’d be persecuted here.

And kudos to Tapper for actually challenging the administration on its actions. The Obama administration charged more people — six — under the WWI-era Espionage Act for alleged mishandling of classified information than all past presidencies combined. When Carney responded with the typical waffling and hedging that you would expect from a press secretary, Tapper didn’t stand down. This is how the press should behave with any administration and politician. Adversarial is part of the job. I only hope other reporters remember that.

If you’ve stayed half-awake through America’s mighty “War on Terror,” you may have concluded that our war in Afghanistan has little purpose. This would be incorrect. “The purpose of the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Pakistan and Yemen and whatever Islamic countries we forgot to mention is to create Islamic terrorists. It’s hard work! You need to piss on a lot of dead Afghan soldiers and bomb a lot of kids at wedding parties and, of course, burn great piles of Qurans, in the garbage, if you’re going to get four or five dudes riled up enough to try to blow up a mailbox outside an embassy or something.”

On a serious note: The demonstrations that have spread across Afghanistan highlight the intensity of local anger over the perception of foreign forces as flouting Afghan customs and insulting their culture. Remember that Monday’s Koran burning followed an incident last month in which U.S. Marines were seen on video urinating on three corpses in Afghanistan.

These kinds of events are no doubt outrageous enough to spark anger in their own right. But it’s important to understand the broader context as well. The growing anti-Western sentiment isn’t simply a knee-jerk reaction to insensitive mistakes like the burning of the Muslim holy book - or even the despicable actions of a few rogue Marines. Instead, the sentiment is a product of years of misguided U.S. policies in Afghanistan. Policies that include controversial night raids, a vast network of U.S.-operated detention centers, support for “allies” like Abdul Raziq - alleged to be involved in corruption, drug smuggling, mass murder and torture - propping up Afghan militias accused of human rights abuses… the list goes on. 

These policies offer some insight into the long-brewing anti-Western sentiment in Afghanistan, but there are negative consequences for the U.S. beyond upsetting a few foreigners caught up on our longest war. It’s called blowback, and Afghanistan is the textbook example of the unintended consequences of misguided foreign policy. The Afghan people were left to deal with the blowback from the mujahideen fighters who had been supported by the largest publicly known U.S. covert operation since Vietnam. Over the next few years that process would give rise to the Taliban and morph into the threat the U.S. faces today. In fact, America’s new public enemy No. 1 in Afghanistan, Jalaluddin Haqqani, is one of it’s own making.

John Hanrahan recently wrote for the Nieman Foundation for Journalism that “we should learn the ‘blowback’ lessons from those earlier days and bear in mind that our actions there today —night raids, attacks, support for a corrupt government, internment without charges of a couple thousand Afghans in Bagram prison, etc. — can again produce negative future consequences for both the beleaguered Afghan people and the United States.” 

It’s a lesson worth remembering today.

On a final note: If you want to read Gareth Porter’s latest piece on stalled Afghan war talks. Here’s the link: Karzai Demand on Night Raids Snags U.S.-Afghan Pact

Covering #OWS, #D12