NPR's Diane Rehm Shushes Black Iraq Veteran

NPR's Diane Rehm

I'm an avid listener to the Diane Rehm Show on National Public Radio.  But the shameful way she treated a caller to her show on February 3, 2012, left me shaking with outrage and sorrow.   The male voice  introduced himself as an African-American veteran, who had served in Iraq.  Speaking in a manner that struck me as polite and authentic, but also poignant, he described how America had decimated Iraq and fueled explosive growth of Afghanistan's poppy trade, the consequence of which was a surge in heroin deaths in America's inner cities.

It took less than 20 seconds for Ms. Rehm to dismiss the caller with a hollow "thank you," while one of her guests insisted that Americans shouldn't concern themselves with Afghanistan's illegal drug trade, because all of its heroin was exported to Russia. Ha...ha!  And then they changed the subject.

Is this kind of mindless cocktail chatter (parading as news analysis) supposed to be the rational alternative to Rush Limbaugh?   In truth, I don't blame right-wing conservatives and the Bush White House for shoving the U.S. into meaningless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Warmongering is their game.  But where is the soul-searching among the Diane-Rehm-media types?  Their deafening silence allowed Bush to invade these countries with barely an opposing whisper ten years ago, and now they turn their backs on the horrors our nation created?