The media is a popularity contest. It influences public opinion of course, but it also, probably more significantly, reflects it. When the war started in Afghanistan, the public mood was fearful and angry in response to 9–11. The media coverage reflected that. Now that the US has pulled out, of course the media is going to report on it extensively and of course it’s reporting is going to be sympathetic to the US’s former allies there. What other response do you find plausible? Media attitudes are public attitudes, and the apparent hypocrisy you criticize is merely a reflection of changes in those attitudes. There’s no need to invoke the shadowy influence of defense contractors who “own or fund the media”. This is typical conspiracy argumentation: waving vaguely at sinister bogeymen like “defense contractors” without any evidence in an emotional appeal to widespread media distrust, while claiming that such dark but unfounded suspicions are “critical thinking”. The media can certainly be influenced by the political agenda of its owners, but the idea of conspiracies involving defense contractors swaying mainstream media coverage across the board is intrinsically implausible. Media organizations are just like any other organization: comprised of normal human beings with attitudes that in aggregate reflect those of the broader society. They are much too big, diverse and complex to be simple puppets of dark elites. Suggesting otherwise is not critical thinking but the opposite: it’s intellectual laziness.