It occurs to me that we cannot even really have a Pentagon Papers event in this country anymore. Sure, Wikileaks releases gained a decent amount of attention, but the real evidence for this comes in the past week. Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis wrote an 84-page report detailing his experiences in Afghanistan, which are at odds with the official narrative. Much like the Pentagon Papers on Vietnam, Davis’ report claims that the top military brass has been lying to the public about the state of the war.

The ACLU filed suit in federal court yesterday seeking to force the White House to turn over records related to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the US citizen assassinated in a drone attack in Yemen last year.

It’s a sad commentary on our media that the President had to answer questions yesterday about drones for the first time, and the questions didn’t come at a White House press briefing or major print interview, but in a virtual YouTube town hall with members of the public. FDL’s Kevin Gosztola covered this at The Dissenter last night, but there’s more to say about the disconnect between the concerns of the media and the concerns of ordinary Americans in that.

Billed as the “first-ever completely virtual interview from the White House,” YouTube and Google+ hosted an event this evening called “Your Interview with the President.” President Barack Obama took questions from a few individuals who were selected to be a part of a “hangout.” They asked various questions about the economy, education and a few on digital freedom and foreign policy.

Two questions of interest, given Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s interview last night on 60 Minutes, were questions on drone use. A young male asked about drones and how they have caused many civilian casualties.

Charlie Savage has a great piece on the mess that is the DOD’s investigation and trial of those charged with the 2005 massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha. Sadly, as Savage points out, the lack of justice in this case is part of a disturbing pattern in the military, where all too often, PR trumps justice.

It’s not new. The Pat Tillman case was the same way, as PR concerns shoved the truth aside. Another example of the ongoing “PR trumps justice” movement in the military is on view at the Sundance film festival with “The Invisible War,” a film that describes itself as “a groundbreaking investigative documentary about one of our country’s most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within our US military.”

Within the military, it seems PR trumps justice, all too often. Our military, and our nation, deserve better.

The President made some brief remarks at the Pentagon during the introduction of the new “austerity” defense budget. He stressed that the US will still have the most powerful fighting force in the world, that even after the cuts the defense budget would grow over the next five years, and that the overall budget will still amount to as much as the next ten largest militaries combined. So it’s hard to make the turn, given all those facts, that this is a real sacrifice on the part of the military.

Leon Panetta has sketched out his vision for an “austerity” military, which only spends slightly less than every country on Earth does on their militaries combined, rather than more. This reflects the cuts from the spending cap version of the debt limit deal, not the trigger cuts which would reduce another $500-$600 billion from Pentagon budgets over 10 years. We’ll be able to fight only one unnecessary ground war and another “not-hostilities” action, plus drones wherever.

There are several ways in which the Defense Department’s extended whine about automatic sequestration cuts to their base budget is a joke, but the White House has apparently sniffed out one of those ways. The Overseas Contingency budget has quickly become a slush fund for the Pentagon. Many earmarked to go toward operations in Iraq and Afghanistan often ends up paying for cherished Pentagon programs. The White House wants to put a stop to this.

Bradley Manning has sat in jail for over 18 months without any word of an eventual trial, and has endured truly inhumane treatment at the hands of our government. Luckily, he will soon have his day in court.

Who could have anticipated Republicans on the Super Committee basing their no-compromise position upon past Democratic performance?   Republican co-chair Jeb Hensarling…claimed that if the committee recommended even a dollar of new net tax revenue — the kind of revenue Dems are demanding — it would constitute a step in the wrong direction. He said [...]