I’ve always admired CBS News reporter Lara Logan’s war-zone reporting. She strikes me as courageous, skeptical and level-headed.<\/p>\n
But her response to the Stanley McChyrstal expose in Rolling Stone is startling and suggests the weakness of current journalism about our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Watch her comments — and those of Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings — here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Logan lays out an argument that a journalist’s broad loyalty should lie with the soldiers and military officers that he or she is covering.<\/p>\n And she accuses Hastings, with absolutely no evidence to support her attack, of violating the terms of his access agreement with the US Army and McChrystal’s staff.<\/p>\n The truth is that no one is questioning the facts of Hastings’ story:<\/p>\n He uncovered incontrovertible evidence of top military commanders in Afghanistan who feel utter contempt for their civilian leaders.<\/p>\n As Andrew Bacevich points out in this Washington Post<\/a> piece, that’s a very dangerous thing.<\/p>\n [I]ndications that the military’s professional ethic is eroding, evident in the disrespect for senior civilians expressed by McChrystal and his inner circle, should set off alarms.