I don't listen to the radio often, but it happens occasionally. Last weekend the A's were in town to play the Mariners. Saturday afternoon I was out and about so I missed part of the game. At about 5:00 I was back in the car so I turned on the radio in the car to see if maybe the game had run long.

The station that carries Mariners games is KOMO, an ABC affiliate (and ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Corporation). I happened to tune in just in time to get one of the five-minute canned news bursts from ABC. That Disney's idea of "news" is just one or two lines on each topic is a big part of what's wrong with it, but that's not what I'm here to complain about today.

The first item told me that "Saudi Arabia and five other moderate states" ... did something or other. I think they're buying ("buying") weapons from us, but I didn't catch the rest of the sentence because I was choking on rage from the first seven words. What in God's name is "moderate" about Saudi Arabia??

Saudi Arabia is in almost every way the least moderate Arab state. It is one of the world's few remaining absolute monarchies. Its civil law is based on the most backward Hanbali interpretation of shari'a, and enforcement of that law is facilitated by secret police, torture, and general disregard for civil rights. Opposition to the government is equally immoderate, and not coincidentally Saudi Arabia produces the greatest supply of al-Qaeda style terrorists -- probably even in absolute numbers, but certainly in proportion to its population -- including Osama bin Laden himself.

This is what we call a "moderate Arab state".

But my deity-invoking question above is rhetorical because I know what they really mean. "Moderate" is a code word defined as "military ally of the United States". It has nothing to do with moderation of any kind. The news blurb didn't list the other five, but I already know who they are: Kuwait, the Emirates, Oman ... well, OK maybe I don't know exactly ... maybe Egypt and Jordan? Some of these are moderate in various ways, immoderate in others. It doesn't matter because America doesn't really care who is moderate. We just care who will buy our weapons and host our military bases.

The news media is full of stupidities, and most of them don't bother me. This one infuriates me because it's such a clear example of why any serious debate about the Middle East is poisoned. When contemplating the fact that many Muslim extremists hate and want to kill us, and pondering what we might do about that, one naturally wonders if it could really be true that all Muslims hate us, and if they don't then why can't we support all these ordinary non-hateful Muslims and make peace with them? That's a fine and sensible thought, but whenever it is brought up, ten seconds later someone has encapsulated the idea as "support the moderates", and the next thing you know someone is saying, "Oh, but we do support moderate Arab states (like Saudi Arabia), but it hasn't helped."

What is the purpose of the Department of Defense? Simple, its purpose is to defend America against attack.

When I was a kid, it was reasonably well known that the Department of Defense used to be called "Department of War" but had been renamed in 1947. Actually, it's a little more complicated than that: The Department of War and Department of Navy were combined, and this was the occasion for rebranding it with a new name.

Either way, the idea was that after World War II, America no longer believed in waging war. Our military -- for that is what the Department of Defense was to manage -- was needed for self-defense only. Our missiles and bombs are not made for attacking with, nor for projecting political power abroad; they are only deterrents to defend us against attack. I don't know if anyone ever believed it, but it's a nice ideal. I'm willing to concede a euphemism for the sake of wishful thinking. It certainly would be nice if all our weapons were for defense only.

In the 60 years since then various things have happened to cast doubt on the fantasy. It was officially put to rest in 2003 when we created the Department of Homeland Security. What is the purpose of the Department of Homeland Security? Simple, its purpose is to defend America against attack. Wait a minute, I thought that's what the Department of Defense is for. But of course it's not, and by 2003 the non-defensive nature of the Department of Defense was so blatant that it never occurred to anyone to question the need for a new department that really was for defense.

(By the way, I would argue that the real purpose of the Department of Defense is still widely misunderstood. Obviously its purpose is not defense, but I don't think it's about making war anymore either. The primary purpose of the Department of Defense is to channel money to the military-industrial complex. It's really not that much different from other corporate welfare ministries like the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy.)

Why is the Bush Administration so damned secretive about everything? It's not just Cheney, it's the whole government. I remember the Clinton days when you could count on the government to cover up anything that might be damaging to the President. Now, they aren't even that subtle. They cover up everything, as a matter of course.

A few years ago, some public figure made the mistake of saying that it's no wonder people believe conspiracy theories about the World Trade Center bombing, given how secretive the government is about revealing any information. I've already forgotten who it was -- maybe Howard Dean, he was always getting tripped up by this sort of thing -- but whoever it was he was immediately lambasted for agreeing with the conspiracy nuts. Of course he didn't agree with them, but our mass media is too blunt to appreciate such a sophisticated concept as understanding why people might easily be led to a false conclusion.

Something similar is now happening with regard to the death of Pat Tillman, the former professional football player who left his NFL career to fight in Afghanistan. Now I don't for a minute believe that Tillman was assassinated on orders from the White House -- as some fringe leftists are now starting to suggest -- but seeing the freakish cover-up of everything having to do with his death, I can see why such an idea would flourish.

Why can't they just leave the evidence untampered? Why can't they just let the investigative reporters investigate and report and see what they turn up? If it turns out that it was friendly fire, or even if it turns out he was fragged by his troops, so what? What does the Bush administration gain by hiding it?

War is hell. Ugly things happen. Among those ugly things are death by friendly fire and fragging of unpopular officers. It's always been that way. It's part of the reason we try to avoid war.

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