What a difference a year makes. Immediately after September 11, US news organizations were seized by a narrow-minded nationalism that made dissent and even debate all but impossible. Susan Sontag became a national whipping girl for suggesting that the terrorists had shown courage, while Bill Maher lost advertisers for suggesting that those launching US cruise missiles were cowards. At Pentagon briefings, reporters were cowed into submission by the pugnacious Donald Rumsfeld, while at CNN Walter Isaacson declared that "there may be no more partisan issues to talk about for the next year."

Today, there's hardly an aspect of the war on terrorism that has not come in for intense scrutiny. The issue of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, for instance, which last fall and winter was completely off-limits, has since become a front-page staple. The FBI, which for months enjoyed the type of hushed respect it had had under J. Edgar Hoover, has been opened for vivisection. The New York Times's Tom Friedman, who last fall trumpeted his love for America and cast doubt on the loyalty of anyone who questioned its actions abroad, has been skewering the White House for its rudderless policy in the Middle East and its failure to address America's dependence on foreign oil.

Last September, Newsweek placed on its cover a photo of three firemen hoisting a flag amid the rubble of the World Trade Center. "God Bless America," the cover declared. This past August, by contrast, it was "The War Crimes of Afghanistan." "In November," the cover blared, "America's Afghan Allies Suffocated Hundreds of Surrendering Taliban Prisoners in Sealed Cargo Containers. Where Were U.S. Forces?" The eleven-page "special report" described how hundreds of Taliban soldiers had baked to death after being packed into airless shipping containers by forces commanded by warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. According to Newsweek, the "close involvement" of American soldiers with General Dostum made the issue "all the more sensitive." An investigator from Physicians for Human Rights who helped uncover the killings was quoted as saying, "US forces were in the area at the time. What did the U.S. know, and when and where--and what did they do about it?"

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