The Debate Over Afghanistan—Newspapers Are Full of It

In his Week in Review piece wondering if Obama’s Afghanistan policy is akin to LBJ and Vietnam, New York Times reporter Peter Baker notes that the public mood is seeping into the media:

That growing disenchantment in the countryside is increasingly mirrored in Washington, where liberals in Congress are speaking out more vocally against the Afghan war and newspapers are filled with more columns questioning America’s involvement.

Newspapers are filled with what now? It doesn’t feel that way to me, but surely Baker must have some evidence. Which he does:

The cover of the latest Economist is headlined “Afghanistan: The Growing Threat of Failure.”

Richard N. Haass, a former Bush administration official turned critic, wrote in the New York Times last week that what he once considered a war of necessity has become a war of choice. While he still supports it, he argued that there are now alternatives to a large-scale troop presence, like drone attacks on suspected terrorists, more development aid and expanded training of Afghan police and soldiers.

A British magazine and a Times op-ed from someone who supports the war? That’s not exactly what I was expecting when I was told newspapers were “filled” with dissenting views.