What’s the impact of believing that only They, but not We, engage in civilian-killing violence?
FOR DAYS NOW, American cable news has broadcast non-stop coverage of the horrific attack in Brussels. Viewers repeatedly heard from witnesses and from the wounded. Video was shown in a loop of the terror and panic when the bombs exploded. Networks dispatched their TV stars to Brussels, where they remain. NPR profiled the lives of several of the airport victims. CNN showed a moving interview with a wounded, bandage-wrapped Mormon American teenager speaking from his Belgium hospital bed.
All of that is how it should be: That’s news. And it’s important to understand on a visceral level the human cost from this type of violence. But that’s also the same reason it’s so unjustifiable, and so propagandistic, that this type of coverage is accorded only to Western victims of violence, but almost never to the non-Western victims of the West’s own violence.
A little more than a week ago, as Mohammed Ali Kalfood reported in The Intercept, “Fighter jets from a Saudi-led [U.S.– and U.K.-supported] coalition bombed a market in Mastaba, in Yemen’s northern province of Hajjah. The latest count indicates that about 120 people were killed, including more than 20 children, and 80 were wounded in the strikes.” Kalfood interviewed 21-year-old Yemeni Khaled Hassan Mohammadi, who said, “We saw airstrikes on a market last Ramadan, not far from here, but this attack was the deadliest.” Over the past several years, the U.S. has launched hideous civilian-slaughtering strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Libya, and Iraq. Last July, The Intercept published a photo essay by Alex Potter of Yemeni victims of one of 2015’s deadliest Saudi-led, U.S.- and U.K.-armed strikes.
Footage from airstrikes hit market in Hajja too graphic, so I blurred the civilians & children killed in pic. #Yemen pic.twitter.com/12KiTUD7Ps
— Hisham Al-Omeisy (@omeisy) March 15, 2016
You’ll almost never hear any of those victims’ names on CNN, NPR, or most other large U.S. media outlets. No famous American TV correspondents will be sent to the places where those people have their lives ended by the bombs of the U.S. and its allies. At most, you’ll hear small, clinical news stories briefly and coldly describing what happened — usually accompanied by a justifying claim from U.S. officials, uncritically conveyed, about why the bombing was noble — but, even in those rare cases where such attacks are covered at all, everything will be avoided that would cause you to have any visceral or emotional connection to the victims. You’ll never know anything about them — not even their names, let alone hear about their extinguished life aspirations or hear from their grieving survivors — and will therefore have no ability to feel anything for them. As a result, their existence will barely register.
That’s by design. It’s because U.S. media outlets love to dramatize and endlessly highlight Western victims of violence, while rendering almost completely invisible the victims of their own side’s violence.
Perhaps you think there are good — or at least understandable — reasons to explain this discrepancy in coverage. Maybe you believe humans naturally pay more attention to, and empathize more with, the suffering of those they regard as more similar to them. Or you may want to argue that victims in cities commonly visited by American elites (Paris, Brussels, London, Madrid) are somehow more newsworthy than those in places rarely visited (Mastaba, in Yemen’s northern province of Hajjah). Or perhaps you’re sympathetic to the claim that it’s easier for CNN or NBC News to send on-air correspondents to glittery Western European capitals than to Waziristan or Kunduz. Undoubtedly, many believe that the West’s violence is morally superior because it only kills civilians by accident and not on purpose.
But regardless of the rationale for this media discrepancy, the distortive impact is the same: By endlessly focusing on and dramatizing Western victims of violence while ignoring the victims of the West’s own violence, the impression is continually bolstered that only They, but not We, engage in violence that kills innocent people. We are always the victims and never the perpetrators (and thus Good and Blameless); They are only the perpetrators and never the victims (and thus Villainous and Culpable). In April 2003, Ashleigh Banfield, then a rising war-correspondent star at MSNBC, returned from Iraq, gave a speech critiquing the one-sided, embedded U.S. media coverage of the war, and was shortly thereafter demoted and then fired. This is part of what she said:
That said, what didn’t you see? You didn’t see where those bullets landed. You didn’t see what happened when the mortar landed. A puff of smoke is not what a mortar looks like when it explodes, believe me. There are horrors that were completely left out of this war. … It was a glorious, wonderful picture that had a lot of people watching and a lot of advertisers excited about cable news. But it wasn’t journalism, because I’m not so sure that we in America are hesitant to do this again, to fight another war, because it looked like a glorious and courageous and so successful, terrific endeavor, and we got rid of horrible leader: We got rid of a dictator, we got rid of a monster, but we didn’t see what it took to do that. …
I think there were a lot of dissenting voices before this war about the horrors of war, but I’m very concerned about this three-week TV show and how it may have changed people’s opinions. It was very sanitized. … War is ugly and it’s dangerous, and in this world, the way we are discussed on the Arab street, it feeds and fuels their hatred and their desire to kill themselves to take out Americans.
In other words, the death, carnage, and destruction the U.S. invasion was causing was generating huge amounts of anti-American hatred and a desire to bring violence to Americans, even if it meant sacrificing lives to accomplish that. But the U.S. media never showed any of that, so Americans had no idea it existed, and were thus incapable of understanding why people were eager to do violence to Americans. They therefore assumed that it must be because they are primitive or inherently hateful or driven by some inscrutable religious fervor.
That’s because the U.S. media, by showing only one side of the conflict, by presenting only the nationalistic viewpoint, propagandized — deceived — American viewers by making them more ignorant rather than more enlightened. As a result, when the trains of London and Madrid were attacked in 2004 and 2005 as retaliation for those countries’ participation in the invasion of Iraq, that causal connection (which even British intelligence acknowledged) was virtually never discussed because Western media outlets ensured it was unknown. The same was true of attempted attacks on the U.S.: in Times Square, the New York City subway system, an airliner over Detroit, all motivated by rage over Western violence. In the absence of any media discussion of those victims and motives, these attacks were simply denounced as senseless, indiscriminate slaughter without any cause, and people were thus deprived of the ability to understand why they happened.
That’s exactly what’s happening still. Because I was traveling in the U.S. this week, I was subjected to literally dozens of hours of cable and network news coverage of the Brussels attacks. The most minute angles of the attack were dissected. But there was not one moment devoted to the question of why Belgium — and the U.S., France, and Russia before it — was targeted by ISIS (as opposed to a whole slew of non-Muslim, democratic countries around the world that ISIS doesn’t target), even though ISIS explicitly stated the reason and it is, in any event, self-evident: because those countries have been bombing ISIS in Syria and Iraq and these bombings were intended as retaliation and vengeance. Nor was there any discussion of why ISIS seems to have little trouble attracting support among some in Western countries: As even a Rumsfeld-commissioned study found in 2004, it is in large part because of widespread anger among Muslims over ongoing Western violence and interference in that part of the world.
The point, as always, isn’t justification: It is always morally unjustified to deliberately target civilians with violence (see the update here on that point). Nor does it prove that the bombing of ISIS in Iraq and Syria is unjustified or should cease. The point, instead, is that the war framework in which much of this violence takes place — one side that declares itself at war and uses violence as part of that war is inevitably attacked by the other side that it targets — is completely suppressed by one-sided media coverage that prefers a self-flattering, tribalistic cartoon narrative.
The ultimate media taboo is self-examination: the question of whether there are actions we take that exacerbate the problem we say we are trying to resolve. Such a process would not dilute the evil of ISIS’s civilian-targeting violence, but it would enable a more honest and complete understanding of the role Western governments’ policies play and the inevitable costs they entail. Perhaps those costs are worth enduring, but that question can only be rationally answered if the costs are openly discussed.
But whatever else is true, if we are constantly bombarded with images and stories and dramatic narratives highlighting our own side’s victims, while the victims of our side’s violence are rendered invisible, it’s only natural that large numbers of us will conclude that only They, but not We, are committing civilian-killing violence. That’s a really pleasing thing to believe, no matter how false it is. Having media outlets perpetrate self-pleasing and tribal-affirming — but utterly false — narratives is the very definition of propaganda. And that’s what largely drives Western media coverage of these terrorist attacks every time they occur in the West.
Top photo: Yemeni rescuers carry the body of a baby girl who was retrieved from the rubble after a building was struck overnight by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on Feb. 10, 2016, in the capital, Sanaa.
I believe I saw US president Obama in a youtube video saying something like “I believe in american exceptionalism with every fiber of my being”. I don’t know the context, because it was just a snippet, but it really didn’t look like he was joking or anything, or that it was fake.
In my country (a country in Europe), every now and then there is some expressed idea of how the country is typically great in one aspect, but somehow this notion of exceptionalism is such a generalization that I find it appalling. Given the position a country like USA is in, in terms of wealth, science, military power and entertainment industry, from an outside view, it seem obvious to me that the notion of being special is not so much an honest expression of self esteem, as it is some kind of some over-the-top categorical expression, that ultimately is racist (as if to say “other cultures, countries and people are not equel to us as a fact”).
So, I am curious as to what Obama really thinks about what he meant in saying that, or if maybe I can’t take him seriously on that if what he said was just some boilerplate type of response to show a threatening stance.
you are a mediocre socialist shill.
Wrong. You are a mediocre right wing troll who makes comments which you are unable to substantiate.
I see someone else has read Into The Buzzsaw about reporters being shut down from reporting the truth (I.e. Ashleigh Banfield and Gary Webb, etc.). It’s a great read. Yes, here in America we’re bombarded by culled imagery and stories. I solve that by not watching national news.
Manufactured terror theater people. It’s time to start telling the truth.
“They” want actors that can be paid off instead of victims that can’t.
Fake video, make up, and not a single person with a cell phone camera takes a single picture of a real dead body.
Stay vigilant. We are so close to unmasking these monsters. Follow what Keshe recently had to say about the Belgian elites.
So true, yet so far away from the understanding and acceptance of the ‘intelligentsia’ that inhabits this site – that is just too difficult to fathom for them…
We cannot stop terrorism. We spent 10 years in the Middle East and the terror problem is even bigger. Go on truthcontest.com/insights to see how we can reform our political system.
Start by reading the great new book Freedom without violence by Dustin Howes.
Sure we can.When ALL are secure from harm,we will end it.
Now its selective,that umbrella.
Simple as pie.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/28/cia-photographed-naked-detainees
The CIA took naked “before” pictures documenting the observable physical condition of kidnapped suspects (guilty until proven innocent) in their custody prior to rendered them (extraordinarily) without trial to international black sites where torture policies and practices were/are less restrictive.
Thanks for the link. Some very good books on rendition :
Enemy Combatant by Mozzam Begg
Guantanamo my journey by David Hicks
Torture Taxi on the trail of the CIAs rendition flights Trevor Paglen
Ghost Plane the true story of the CIA rendition and torture program Stephen Grey
Guantanamo Diary Mohamedou Ould Slahi
The Guantanamo Files : The stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison
All children are innocent, and their lives should be regarded as sacred, anyone targeting schools, hospitals, and other civilian buildings with bombs, guns, drones is committing the most deplorable and disgusting, lowest possible level of crime against humanity. Nobody should be doing this – not Isis, not the Taliban, not the TPP, or any other terrorist group. Nobody includes the Saudi coalition, the Russians, the US military.or any other military force anywhere in this World.
If we have reached this stage in our evolution what have we have become child killers on mass we are morally bankrupt, and are at rock bottom, we are depraved. Children are not pawns in some militarist or terrorists game of chess. How can anyone or any group of people be so sick as to kill children, and even to deliberately target them ?
Who amongst us has not ever had ever felt their heart warmed by a child’s beautiful smile, or from their enthusiasm for life, their infectious laughter, their eagerness to discover and learn – are children not the future of our World and the future of the planet in which we all inhabit ? Is the greed, political differences, differences in religious beliefs, the power struggle, so called modernization, Globalization, , interventions, oil, or any other prevailing sickness in the cauldron of hatred, really worth taking even a single child’s life? Have not enough children been killed already ?
So this goes out to all terrorists, and to all those sitting in military control rooms, to drone operators, and to bomber pilots, when your finger is on the trigger, when those small dark shadows appear on your screen, see the image as a child, not an ant – your taking someone’s most precious possession in life, think of your own children, how sacred and precious their lives are.
DONT PRESS THAT BUTTON , DONT PULL THAT TRIGGER DONT DETONATE YOUR CAR OR THAT SUICIDE JACKET BOMB !!! STOP TARGETING OR RISKING KILLING CHILDREN AND CIVILIAN.
Helloooo, anyone home???
Wasn’t that excellent discussion by Snowden, Greenwald and Chomsky supposed to be archived? Haven’t been able to find it on this site for sure. And very little discussion on it.
So where is it??? Thanks.
https://web.sbs.arizona.edu/privacy
@Christian C. Holmer –
Why thank you. I’ve already bookmarked it!
Not sure what that second you replied with is about.
I’m surprised there hasn’t been much discussion about it here. Anyone else notice, all love and respect to Prof. Chomsky that he got the Pascal quote wrong?
Again, many thanks :-)
@ https://web.sbs.arizona.edu/privacy Feline 16.
(not a duplicate comment)
The “bombing” is as fake as the “Mormon, American teenager” who has been at not one, not two, but three alleged terrorist attacks. Really? Only a complete idiot would believe any of it.
The same terrorist organization responsible for the bombing in the park targeting Christians and children celebrating Easter also attacked a boys school killing 145 (132 children) in December, 2014. The TTP (Pakistan Taliban) sought revenge for military operations against the terrorists:
“…….By the time the hours-long siege at Army Public School and Degree College ended early Tuesday evening, at least 145 people — 132 children, 10 school staff members and three soldiers — were dead, military spokesman Gen. Asim Bajwa said. More than 100 were injured, many with gunshot wounds, according to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Information Minister Mushtaq Ghani……”
The TTP also targeted “Malala Yousafzai, who was singled out and shot on October 9, 2012 as she rode to school in a van with other girls”. They also often target Shiites and have closed dozens of schools. The Pakistan Taliban is aligned with al-Qaeda.
CraigSummers v CraigSummers: Episode MDCCCXCX
The Hypocrite Strikes Himself Again and Again
. . .this time expressing his heartfelt concern for:
. . . for whom the very idea of ever criticizing is an outrage:
. . .but then:
Try to look on the bright side of Craig’s never ending comments bombardment – we will very soon have enough to compile a good ‘thick’ book of his authoritarian comments , and maybe call it Craigsworld ? What do you think ? Although his blind acceptance and misguided faith in everything that his Government tells him, may not make it popular or a best seller in any genre other than perhaps, Comedy, It will make a very useful door stop or a great thick object that would be good for a computer monitor to sit on. IT departments in Corporate offices everywhere will be delighted by the potential saving in their hardware budgets.
That’s a bold new direction you’re proposing: trying to make something marketable from “Craigsworld;” do we compile or compost it?
I think as you have consistently and so brilliantly debunked most of his comments the pages and pages of BS might indeed make award winning compost. But If that proves unsuccessful then we could also consider launching a new range of Craigsworld toilet rolls, printed with an authoritarian comment on every sheet. That way his propaganda can be distributed all across the nation, and it will achieve its full potential and value, ending up in the most appropriate place for it.
We could even widen our toilet roll range to print on the faces of our illustrious Western World leaders., and dedicate a pack of rolls to each of them, The Obomba roll, Trump Roll, Clinton’s Clingons fighting roll – possibilities are endless, and I am surprised that companies like Andrex have not already thought of this.
No Sanders roll?Not even for PE and Cast Lead?
Is BS as malignant as Obomba or the hell bitch?No,but he has had his own episodes of Zionism overwhelming his humanity.
Trump has had no input into American policy yet,BTW.
How much do people in America know about their leaders, and their fortunes.. I was shocked when Chelsea Clinton was bought a very expensive apartment/estate in NYC.. several million’s worth of property.. and they’re supposed to be the left wing.. ????? Modest living.. begets.. a better life attitude.. life itself is a better goal not appropriation of great funds.. when particularly those with social conscience know what causes the inequality but do practically zero to change anything and still want votes?. I’ve been just amazed at Jeremy Corbin’s courage.. his public image was being smashed to pieces in the press and I just don’t know how he coped with that..but he spoke with a conscience about the people who in our country are truly suffering under ‘austerity’, I am so very concerned the ‘new agenda’ in the world is about starting wars everywhere, instead of concentrating on what counts at home. The other worrying thing.. about ‘corporations’… owning the press and guess too, directing colleges of education… and there was an article I saw.. about students who are choosing suicide or getting heavily depressed because of pressure place upon them through the system…. and I’ve been witness to some of this problem. I definitely found a kind of American system being promoted.. it seems wholly unlike the world I grew up in. I was so privileged to learn to read probably before I got to the schooling system and thus found reading enjoyable not something ‘I had to do’ no, it was truly a joy to be educated. I read the new then novels of people who had escaped the Communist influence on Poland, but who had also been victims of the Nazi’s of the then ferociously fascist Germany. The World Wars caused everyone to move around and change country.. Starving is not something enjoyable, but, few people worry about the fact children and survivors of the Syrian conflict, some of whom will have died through lack of aid getting through. They’ve been stewing leaves and eating what ever grew still to survive. So war is not a comfortable state for any country to experience. Yemen is also suffering, and the young and the old are not to blame for whatever opinions the so called world leaders are trying to say the country is ‘guilty’ of. I think the brewing trouble has got to stop. Let Yemen recover. Let aid in.
I still am having difficulty with what seems ‘a strategic’ event..just who is bringing war to our doorsteps..and the awful part about knowing something, knowing that quite possibly some of the current world leaders invest in weapons development, have ‘shares’ in weapons manufacture.. in terms of personal fortunes, and of course like good business men they have to sell to make profit. Why is our world so divided up, by financial bullies?..They’re just not worthy leaders.. if they don’t stand for what is moral and right…. had flashbacks then…to a Sandra Bullock film.. ..what happened and what is wrong with world peace being a goal? In past history… presidents lost their jobs over arms trading..
Can you go on Bill Maher’s show. He seems to be part of the problem. Thanks
My girlfriend Sue wants me to put my penis in a bottle. I said, “heck no, why don’t you put a bottle up your butt?” She disagreed vehemently! She thinks if a bunch of celebrities put their penises in a bottle this would be a great publicity stunt that some charity could use to highlight their disease, much as that campaign where people poured buckets of ice over the heads of various celebrities gained success about cancer. Now she is trying to determine which disease this could help the most: erectile dysfunction, pink eye, circumcision? I would really like your help on this. She makes all my clothes at home so a falling out could be disastrous. But I feel she has her head in the clouds on this one.
It won’t offer a cure to any of the medical problems you have outlined, but a quick bobit procedure and the bottle might cure you of CFHD (crap filling shit heads disease) It’s a disease that commonly occurs to right wing, militarist nut jobs, and authoritarians when they know they have been defeated in debate, and exposed. Alternatively I can take you back to the circus you have escaped from or even Craigsworld if you prefer.
Thank you very much. Congratulations, for loving the other side of people who had suffered for the last 100 years.
New revelation on the CIA interrogation pictures. Guardian, today:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/28/cia-photographed-naked-detainees
The most important POV on mefia malpractice that I’ve read in months. Thank you.
Suicide bomber killed 70 on Sunday in Pakistan. What are the chances flags across the US will be at half staff for those terrorism victims?
Slightly better chance. Victims were Christians at Easter, apparently.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/28/lahore-bombing-victims-buried-grief-anger-security
Majority affected were still Muslim… just like in Turkey last week.
” The intercept is an antidote to the pro Western bias in the establishment media. A citizenry cannot be informed about its Government if that Governments wrongdoing continually goes unexplained ” Mona
A bitter pill for some authoritarians to accept andswallow, but the above few, powerful and refreshing lines describe accurately, honestly, and precisely what the Intercept is and explains the importance and value of its fearless reporting.
Exactly. The Intercept fulfills the purpose that propelled the Founders to place freedoms of speech and the press as Number 1 in the Bill of Rights. They didn’t envision a steady diet of telling the people how awful All Those People Over There are. The spotlight is primarily supposed to be on the powerful right here at home.
I fully agree.
God bless you Mona, and everyone at The Intercept.
May that spotlight of hope shine into their darkest shadows forever.
Try as they might,the MSM cannot prevent the world from seeing how awful Israelis are.
Jeez.The Intercept started off great,but lately the insertion of total hysterical propaganda and idiotic Pussy Riot tomes make one realize that it is corrupt also.
After the Portland bird endorsed Bernie he said, “I know it doesn’t look like it but that bird is really a dove asking us for world peace. No more wars.” I keep trying to imagine those words escaping the lips of any other Democratic or Republican presidential candidate, and fail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc2TVLoxsDA
In our era, Zionist terrorists are frequently Americans.
Sara Yael Hirschhorn, a professor at the University of Oxford, laments this in The New York Times.
The criminal Zionists assaulting, harassing and killing Arabs on the West Bank, and daily stealing their land, are often Americans. And, no significant Shin Bet “crackdown” is occurring. These violent fanatics continue to operate with almost total impunity.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/07/05/the-million-missing-israelis/
A very high percentage of Israelis are dual citizens. It is estimated that about 25% of the Israeli population are arrivals from ex-Soviet Union, who have renewed their passports, about 500 000 carry US pasorts, another 100 000 carry German ones. There is a large contingent of French. Almost all of the illegal squats on Palestinian land are populated by dual citizens. Then there is the high number of Israeli passport holders residing abroad.
Israel has a stake in not revealing the numbers. It is well known that the Palestinian birth rate outstrips the Israeli one(except the ultra orthodox). The Palestinian’s secret weapon is that their population will soon outstrip Israel’s. Apartheid cannot last forever, and then it will be One Land for One People.
They are as American as Adolf Hitler.Americans love America,not Israel.
I know you hate Americans,but please differentiate.
Shame on you for blaming the victims. What has Belgium done except open their borders to Muslim refugees, paid back with barbaric attacks and bloodthirsty violence. You are sick.
Who exactly are you referring to and who according to you is blaming the victims ?
You couldn’t have missed the point of this article more thoroughly if you’d been rendered functionally blind then tried to read it via braille. There is no blame being laid at Belgium’s feet here. On the contrary:
What’s being addressed is the hypocrisy between how and when we choose to recognize such atrocities:
If you wish to know what Belgium has done, besides bringing in refugees which is laudable, then click on the link contained in the bolded words in this sentence:
There you will find this quote:
From another source:
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Belgium-Netherlands-and-Australia-start-combat-flights-against-ISIS-in-Iraq-378132
None of the above is “justification”. Rather it is explicitly the stated reasons for the attack. Until we realize that violence perpetrated by the west on others will be met with similar violence in return we will never be able to break the cycle.
The Muslim refugees are fleeing the same violent groups that attacked Brussels. Often, these groups were gestated in the chaos the West created, especially in Iraq.
The politically minded among these refugees, often share many of the same grievances against the West that the terrorists do. But when fleeing for one’s life, one goes where people will take one in. At the very least, the West is morally obligated to accept them.
….and don’t forget the terrorist bomb explosion that took down the Russian commercial airliner with nearly 300 killed, including 40 kids.
… and don’t forge the terrorist bomb explosion of Iranian flight 655 killing all 290 on board. The incident took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the flight’s usual flight path. The crew of the US Vincennes were given medals and never held accountable.
Another example of USA exceptionalism. The horror, oh the horror.
CraigSummers v CraigSummers: Episode MDCCCXCIX
The Hypocrite Strikes Himself Again
. . .feigning concern over a:
. . . after lamenting that:
. . .and then showing who also doesn’t give a ‘flying fuck':
It was Easter and the Christians had gathered at that park. The group who carried out that evil act has claimed that they were targeting the Christians.
From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lahore-bombing-taliban_us_56f89595e4b0143a9b4889b7
>”The Hypocrite Strikes Himself Again”
If Craig opened a funeral parlor people would stop dying. .. something to think about, Doc.
If Craig opened a funeral parlor and it didn’t make any noise, did he really open it?
Craig doesn’t hear very well Sufi (*deaf in one ear and can barely hear out of the other.) … so that’s probably a ‘mute’ question\../
The Intercept (Greenwald) covers the brutal murder of civilians by a Saudi bomber criticizing western journalist for their coverage of the civilians killed…….
“…….You’ll almost never hear any of those victims’ names on CNN, NPR, or most other large U.S. media outlets. No famous American TV correspondents will be sent to the places where those people have their lives ended by the bombs of the U.S. and its allies. At most, you’ll hear small, clinical news stories briefly and coldly describing what happened — usually accompanied by a justifying claim from U.S. officials, uncritically conveyed, about why the bombing was noble — but, even in those rare cases where such attacks are covered at all, everything will be avoided that would cause you to have any visceral or emotional connection to the victims. You’ll never know anything about them — not even their names, let alone hear about their extinguished life aspirations or hear from their grieving survivors — and will therefore have no ability to feel anything for them. As a result, their existence will barely register……”
……..There will be NO story in the Intercept on the brutal terrorist attack in Lahore which targeted Christians – but killed mostly Muslims at a park. Most of the victims were women and children. The Christians were celebrating Easter……….
“…….You’ll almost never hear any of those victims’ names at the Intercept. No famous journalists will be sent to the places where those people have their lives ended by the bombs of the terrorists. You’ll rarely hear small, clinical news stories briefly and coldly describing what happened — usually accompanied by a justifying claim from the Intercept, uncritically conveyed, about why the bombing resulted from US policies. Everything will be avoided that would cause you to have any visceral or emotional connection to the victims. You’ll never know anything about them — not even their names, let alone hear about their extinguished life aspirations or hear from their grieving survivors — and will therefore have no ability to feel anything for them. As a result, their existence will not register……”
However, the Intercept will continue to cover life changing stories like “Sheldon Adelson’s Israeli Newspaper Has a Crush on Donald Trump”.
@ summers breeze …
Answer the question: if a Hellfire struck in Brussels would all military aged males killed be considered enemy combatants? h/t Photosymbiotic
“You mean, the US supported ISIS and then bombed them . . .”
Except that the U.S. didn’t bomb ISIS oil convoys going to Turkey; the U.S. didn’t bomb ISIS suicide convoys that were overrunning Palmyra; no, that was left to the Russians for some reason.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-is-david-cameron-so-silent-on-the-recapture-of-palmyra-from-the-clutches-of-isis-a6955406.html
“If the Americans wanted to destroy Isis, why didn’t they bomb them when they saw them?” a Syrian army general asked me, after his soldiers’ defeat . . .
So in the end, it was the Syrian army and its Hizballah chums from Lebanon and the Iranians and the Russians who drove the Isis murderers out of Palmyra, and who may – heavens preserve us from such a success – even storm the Isis Syrian ‘capital’ of Raqqa.
I think the reality is that the CIA-Turkey-Israel-Saudi alliance was willing to back any anti-Assad forces without worrying at all about what they were supporting; that’s how the American TOW anti-tank missiles ended up in ISIS hands – and Turkey apparently continued that support right up through 2015, with their oil deals with ISIS.
The only other media coverage of the Syrian army’s defeat of ISIS in Palmyra that references the U.S. (or British) foreign policy establishment is this:
“Syrian army’s blow to Islamic State presents a paradox for Obama”, by Patrick J. McDonnell, LA Times, Mar 27 2016
“But for the Obama administration and its allies, the retaking of the storied city by the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, backed by scores of Russian airstrikes, highlights a dilemma: Washington has endeavored to portray the battle against Islamic State as a project of the United States and its allies, while accusing Moscow of attacking “moderate” rebels instead of the extremists. Palmyra seems to embody an alternative narrative.”
Why can’t cheerleaders like you for the regime change programs of the neocons and neoliberals finally admit that the project has been an unmitigated disaster?
“…….I think the reality is that the CIA-Turkey-Israel-Saudi alliance was willing to back any anti-Assad forces without worrying at all about what they were supporting; that’s how the American TOW anti-tank missiles ended up in ISIS hands – and Turkey apparently continued that support right up through 2015, with their oil deals with ISIS……”
I think, I think, I think. Sources, sources, sources.
“……Why can’t cheerleaders like you for the regime change programs of the neocons and neoliberals finally admit that the project has been an unmitigated disaster?……”
Syria was one of Iran’s main allies. Syria has been severely compromised so if you root for regime change because it will decrease the reach of Iran, then the ongoing war has not been an unmitigated disaster at all (although not as good as regime change). However, if you root for peace and a political settlement in Syria, the retention of Assad as the brutal dictator of Syria is an unmitigated disaster. With Assad at the helm, there will be no peaceful political settlement.
Assad has committed more war crimes than ISIS and al-Qaeda (if you take the time to read about it).
Fixed that for you….
Craig, your unfair criticisms astound me. How can you say that ‘there will be NO story in The Intercept on the brutal terrorist attack in Lahore ……’ You do not know that, and have no more of an idea what The Intercept will report on next., than any other reader.The Intercept reported on the Paris and Belgium terrorist attacks did they not ?
Maz Hussain has been tweet-storming the Lahore bombing. This one stuck out: “What kind of sick fuck do you have to be to blow yourself up in a park full of kids.”
It wouldn’t surprise me if he writes here about it.
Well,the Pakistani govt or American drones possibly blew up his kids,which creates blowback.
There are no good guys in this stupid war of terror,and to try and create ones out of BS is an exercise in futility.
I guarantee every ISUS,Al NUSrA,or Al CIAda feel the same about US,despite their using US or US using them.
Mackey didn’t report on the attack. He just acknowledged that it occurred. He didn’t use the word “terrorist” even though it meets every definition of that kind of attack. There were no references to “victims” even though the people killed in the attack were all victims. While the Intercept specializes in “adversarial” journalism, the report by Mackey couldn’t have been more bland and non committal.
There was no follow up report on the attack – or victims. This is unusual for the Intercept which generally views the Islamic terrorists as the victims.
So bland that is invisible to all but Craig; Robert Mackey last published a story on March 24. The Lahore attack occurred yesterday, March 27.
CraigWorld exists in a totally different universe. Perhaps Mackey published it in that one.
Sorry, Brussels TERRORIST attack
really? slaughtering civilians is unjustified. i suppose i’ll agree with you, seeing as it’s a fair
fight…..those goatherds in somalia and iraq and afghanistan can fight back at an equal level
militarily, right? they’ll just retaliate using their stealth bombers and nukular icbm’s and
missile frigates and nukular aircraft carriers and their satellite guided smarty bombs.
what? they don’t have all that? they only have homemade explosives and grandpa’s wwI
enfields? well, tough for them, eh? guess they can’t retaliate for the endless massacres
of wedding parties, the drone bombings, the regime changes without being called
“terrorists.” pity.
Right on! Western powers slaughter millions and these guys kill a couple of people. Trust me if they had the resources they would destroy the drones, military sites and people giving orders to destroy their countries . These desperate attacks are born of out helplessness against a powerful empire with unlimited resources. It is easy to say its unjustified unless you languish under the brutality of western imperialism. Not much people gave thoughts about innocent people when USA attacked Afghanistan after 9/11.
Western imperialist drop nuclear bombs and these guys toss some grenades.
There is no nuance in this article. Click bait worked but I gained no valuable information. People dead = bad. Yep, got it.
I would like my news with just a hint of insight, minus the spin.
Foreign Affairs, 60 Minutes, you local evening news. Those outlets seem to do what I think of as genuine reporting. If you want commentary, listen to Dan Carlin. If you want to hear the best and brightest debate the merits of an issue, listen to IQ2. But this article captures what I really dislike about many news outlets: Slanted to the extreme and only concerned with data that suits a particular point of view.
It’s funny how the point of this article is to highlight the egregious bias of mainstream media, meanwhile anyone who sees that a piece is written by Glen can predict how the information will be shaded.
Glen, you did a great job leaking documents related to domestic surveillance, NSA, etc. There was risk, and you’re experiencing the reward, but do you want to be remembered as a journalist or an activist?
Glenn answers that question at the recent panel discussion with Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald & Noam Chomsky – “A Conversation on Privacy”
I recommend the entire video – a fascinating discussion.
https://youtu.be/IOksJKfapVM?t=876
CraigSummers v CraigSummers:
Episode MMCCCXCVIII – The Hypocrite Strikes Himself.
He alleges an insincerity of humanitarian ‘bluster’:
. . .after blustering humanitarian concerns:
. . .insincerely:
And you actually think that ISIS ruling Syria rather than Assad would be an improvement? The Christians and Alawites would be slaughtered en masse, and neighbouring countries would be greatly endangered.
Doc stated no opinion on that; he’s quoting a far-right authoritarian, one Craig Summers.
Somebody here with two “dashes” in her name could be inviting trouble big time.
I think of these horrors every day and am so grieved- the world we live in is insane.
Anyone involved in Bernie Sanders campaign now knows how distorted and controlling the mainstream media is. All of his supporters are experiencing and witnessing the Bernie blackouts and “reporting” twisted to influence, discourage, and distract from his real success in mainstream media. A campaign in no way compares to the suffering of these victims of violence, but it does help Americans see corporate media for what it is- indoctrinating propaganda.
Well,some of that is true,but notice how the story of the rally disrupters has vanished from the MSM narrative,events that hurt Sanders image.(I don’t believe he had anything to do with the MO Soros nazis btw,the hell bitch did)
Trump has been subjected to total demonization of his campaign,btw,something which Sanders has not had to deal with.
They ignore Sanders,and demonize Trump for policies that will leave the monsters pockets a little less full.
On December 4, 1948, Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, and several dozen other prominent American Jews published a letter in the New York Times opposing a pending visit by Menachim Begin, whom they rightly described as a terrorist and fascist. Israel, of course, would elect fascist Begin their Prime Minister:
———————————-
TO THE EDITORS OF NEW YORK TIMES:
Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.
The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.
Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin’s behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement.
The public avowals of Begin’s party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.
Attack on Arab Village
A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants (240 men, women, and children) and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.
The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party.
Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model.
During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.
The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots.
Discrepancies Seen
The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a “Leader State” is the goal.
In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin’s efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin.
The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.
ISIDORE ABRAMOWITZ,
HANNAH ARENDT,
ABRAHAM BRICK,
RABBI JESSURUN CARDOZO,
ALBERT EINSTEIN,
HERMAN EISEN, M.D.,
HAYIM FINEMAN, M. GALLEN, M.D.,
H.H. HARRIS,
ZELIG S. HARRIS,
SIDNEY HOOK,
FRED KARUSH,
BRURIA KAUFMAN,
IRMA L. LINDHEIM,
NACHMAN MAISEL,
SEYMOUR MELMAN,
MYER D. MENDELSON, M.D.,
HARRY M. OSLINSKY,
SAMUEL PITLICK,
FRITZ ROHRLICH,
LOUIS P. ROCKER,
RUTH SAGIS,
ITZHAK SANKOWSKY,
I.J. SHOENBERG,
SAMUEL SHUMAN,
M. SINGER,
IRMA WOLFE,
STEFAN WOLFE.
Can you please stop littering this place with unrelated junk?
Thanks for your understanding and compliance.
Go perform an anatomically improbable act upon yourself.
Thanks for your understanding and compliance.
Thanks for your advice. I await your Operation Manual.
You shouldn’t really need a manual, just select something from the many advanced interrogation techniques you love so much. Make it long drawn out and painful – a bit like most of your bigoted comments. Whilst your carrying out the procedure it will at least give us a test from your disgusting and extreme comments.
Can you stop littering The Intercept with your Islamophobic, racist and bigoted comments ?
Shiek Anonomous,
Welcome again and thanks for not shouting your Alahuakbar, and then following it up with the usual fare. Stay around and you will learn some decency from Mona.
With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public, but how best to use the news to deceive the public.
Hope you can take that on board General ?
Shiek,
You have unending knowledge and wisdom, second only to Mona. Please don’t suicide-bomb it.
-H
Keeping the knowledge safe is not the challenge, getting you to take it on board is much more taxing.
Shiek Anonomous,
You are pretty stingy with your stuff. Last time I asked you to pass on certified copies of the Rules of War to your ISIS friends. I am sure you have been delinquent and now we are seeing women and children killed in a park in Lahore. You realize your delay is cause for Alla to ask you to wait in Guantanemo while he handles the sudden influx of Muslim Jihadists dispatched by the Russians in Syria.
Off topic crap flooding is a right (with the right political viewpoint)
lol.
Your turdstream has never been regulated. Not even so much as a courtesy flush. A demonstrable example disproving your statement.
Mona’s new job is Zionist rehab.
“In our era it is common to associate terrorism with Muslims, but Zionist Jews actually introduced a great deal of terrorist methods and ideology to modernity.”
I did not lie, Mona. What does one infer from that statement? Go post that statement outside the echo chamber of an Intercept message board and let’s see what kind of reaction you get. I don’t recall any members of the Stern Gang entering a park of women and children and blowing himself up. The fact that you have to dust off black and white photos to find examples of Jewish terror illustrates just how weak your false equivalence is.
Truck bombs, anyone?
The real trouble is that during the last fifty years the Muslims have got incredibly rich and prosperous due to all their oil wealth, something that was earlier in the domain of the Jews due to their generations of carefully cultured business acumen and ruthlessness. This present-day strife was bound to happen. There are no saints in either camp. One side accusing the other of debauchery and terrorism is really meaningless and hypocritical. It is best all sides sit together with mutual respect and figure out how to proceed towards peace instead of childishly accusing each other of acts that they are themselves guilty of.
Jews must realize that their greatest enemy has been Christians during the period between the two world wars when they were all but exterminated by the very people who now swear to be their best friends.
All but exterminated?How come every day we read about a CC survivor dying,and the worlds oldest man is one.
Total BS.
Yes,many many died,but many untold and uncounted survived.
The truth doesn’t help Zion one bit.
Propaganda is their lifeblood.
http://blog.theheadlines.org/theHead/
The above blog lists the daily grind of occupation that Palestinians have to live with, day to day. Daily murders, daily kidnappings, daily house demolishing. For the last 60 years.
Well, the Assassins cult probably can claim to being earlier terrorists. But certainly in recent history the Irgun/Stern Gangs can claim credit. Their terrorism was in full swing by the 1930’s and by the 1940’s they were busily murdering British soldiers. You are correct that writing about such facts will bring down anguished cries of anti-Semitism. This is exactly what Mr Greenwald is writing about. Some victims are worthier than others.
jaheeezus! The die is cast and set yet again in Lahore. Nothing changes nothing changes…
*dye not die – my bad.
Sadly and tragically, Christians were targeted.
and predictably. You seem to have a strong moral compass, Sufi Muslim. I urge you to seek another path to transcendence or higher consciousness. Take up meditation. Drop acid. This Islam thing is a really bad idea.
I think you are much more concerned by what Sufi Muslim is doing to the word Islam, then what the word Islam is doing to Sufi Muslim.
Sufi has been exposed as just another hypocrite.
I do meditate regularly. Sufism has historically developed spiritual exercises, like meditation, chanting, singing, music, retreats, serving others with no expectations, dancing, prayers, reflection, detachment, fasting, charity, etc. to quieten the mind, detach from the transient and dive into the infinite nothingness, and arise in consciousness, quite similar to other mystical pathts.
I cry for these victims as I do for others, regardless of their outer religious or non religious paths.
I’m sensitive to these violent events, which no one has figured out how to contain.
There’s a viciously poisonous current within the world of Islam that is wreaking havoc around the world.
These bastards targeted the already oppressed Christians in Pakistan. They claim to be religious and pious, but they are evildoers.
There are times when I just don’t wish to be associated with Islam, since that word has been corrupted so much and has lost its true meaning.
This is one of those moments.
It’s very frustrating and stressful.
My Sufi teacher was instructed by one of his teachers to stay as far away from the Muslim world as possible and settle in a land where there is no possibility of Muslims coming to power, for when they do, they screw things up and carry out injustices in the name of Islam.
quote”My Sufi teacher was instructed by one of his teachers to stay as far away from the Muslim world as possible and settle in a land where there is no possibility of Muslims coming to power, for when they do, they screw things up and carry out injustices in the name of Islam.”unquote
Naw, absolute power corrupts absolutely regardless of the religious belief of those who holds the reigns of power. George W. Bush, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco… and a dozen other fuckface tyrants of the last century come to mind.
There’s a saying: The most qualified person for a position of power is the one who is detached from all desires for power and control, but he’s qualified to do the job.
Telling somebody they should give up their religion is seriously twisted or pathetically ignorant.
Given that you conflate Sufis with all of Islam… or rather, the tiny minority distorting Islam through terrorism… suggests it is both.
I don’t need to imagine the response if someone were to judge all Jews based on Israeli policies and conclude that “this Judaism thing is a really bad idea”.
What kind of bubble are you living in where you would even think such thoughts, let alone put them into writing?
Sufi Muslim is being a good Sufi in his response, but you don’t deserve it.
Jonah is true to form with many Zionists online. They can be utterly vile, and he certainly is.
Only one cohort is worse. The Gamergate/Men’s Right Activists — and sympathizers — crowd. I’ve seen them overlap; combined they are vicious beyond description.
It’s 2016 and Islam was created in the 7th century. Kids are being killed in parks by suicide bombers. There’s no point in continuing this religion. The bad far outweighs the good. Lahore has to be the tipping point. Calling something a religion does not inoculate it from criticism. We need Mass apostasy on an epic scale. I derive no pleasure from saying this. I hate the fact that I must ruthlessly disparage an important part of someone’s identity but it has reached this point. 1. 6 billion must begin the process of shedding the religion from their identity. We at an inflection point in history. The only way forward is for each and every Muslim to begin the difficult process of leaving the faith.
The IDF is a secular army. Israel’s citizen population is conscripted into service. Atheists, Christians and Muslims also serve in the IDF. They are there to protect a secular nation state. Their activities and operations are done in the interest of national security. As an example, I do not view the Jordanian army as emissaries of Islam even though Jordan is significantly less secular than Israel. The same rule applies to the IDF. Religion is incidentally related to the actions of the IDF. In contrast, religion is the sole reason a Muslim blew himself up in a park full of Christians in Pakistan. Do you really not see the difference between ISIS/Taliban and the IDF? Would you like further clarification?
Agreed. When do we hand out the yellow stars …
Again, agreed. Let’s give the modern secular Jew a pass but those Orthodox fuckers are really making a mess of things, again.
That’s easy; the amount of American taxpayer dollars each receives. (guess who gets the most, by far …)
Orthodox Jews are insular and have issues within their community that would be fixed by less religiosity. They are a small group and are not a threat to non-orthodox Jews. They don’t bother me or anyone else so I do not see the reason to speak out.
And I can declare my desire for this religion to come to an end. By no means is that a call for genocide. It is simply an acknowledgement that this set of beliefs is dangerous, divisive and destructive. I do not object to Muslims praying at home or in privacy. They are free to believe whatever they want. I will never interfere with anyone’s personal liberty. However, I do not have to respect these beliefs nor am I precluded from frowing on them. Islam is utterly pointless and a source of so much misery in the world. Call me whatever you want. I do not care. I am correct about this religion. It is a horror show. If Scientologists were blowing up children, the Church would have been shut down by now. Islam is not sacred to me. There is no incentive for me to not tell the truth.
you just spew hasbara.
Note: “nuf said” mentions below (scroll down) that when he sees a fact it makes him stop reading what the person he’s talking with is saying. Don’t be tempted to take him seriously.
When you claim “lots of killing on both sides” is a fact then I have no need to read anything else you present. The classic hasbarat tries to pass off division by zero. You are an apologist for state sanctioned occupation and slaughter.
There is no middle ground as Israel slaughters Palestinians at an astonishing rate. You rally others with your palms-up, let’s be reasonable, everybody is at fault here, bullshit. Jews have been stealing Palestinian land for 70 years and they still do it every single day. It’s never stopped.
Fuck Israel and those who defend it.
I’ve posted this link before but it obviously needs to be read by some …
A guide to Hasbara trolls:
“Don’t be tempted to take him seriously.”
Fucking hasbarat.
http://www.haaretz.com/sharp-rise-in-number-of-religious-idf-officers-1.313861
The IDF is hardly secular when one third of its officer corps are graduates of religious schools. Further, take a look at the IDF dissident’s site, Breaking the Silence, for clarification on the Taliban/IDF issue. Finally, a state whose official name is The Jewish State of Israel is hardly secular, no different than a state that calls itsel The Islamic Republic of Iran.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-14/orthodox-jews-set-sights-on-n-j-town-and-angry-residents-resist
An interesting article on what is going on in Lakewood, New Jersey. Did you know that that Lakewood and surrounding areas are providing free sex segregated bus service to the Haredim community? What would the reaction in the US be if another county provided free, sex segregated bus service to Muslim students?
Don’t miss
Why is David Cameron so silent on the recapture of Palmyra from the clutches of Isis?
In the end, it was the Syrian army – and its Hizballah chums from Lebanon, and the Iranians, and the Russians – who drove the Isis murderers out of Palmyra
Robert Fisk @ theindependent.co.uk
Spot on Glenn. Keep up the great work
When it comes to double standards, one also has to ask, why no drone strikes in Europe?
The two suicide bombers who blew themselves up at the Brussels airport may have escaped during a police raid on an apartment earlier, according to the Washington Post:
“For example, one raid on an alleged safe house rented by Khalid el-Bakraoui took place just three days before Abdeslam’s eventual arrest. During the raid, two suspects were able to escape. Some suspect that these escaped suspects could have been the Bakraoui brothers. “If that operation would have been planned differently, the suspects would not have escaped via the roof of that apartment,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, chairman of the Center for Analysis of Terrorism in Paris. “This is crazy. This is something that should never have happened.””
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/03/24/the-many-missing-pieces-in-the-brussels-attacks-investigation/
Wouldn’t it have been better to have taken out the apartment with a drone-launched Hellfire missile? Then, the terrorists wouldn’t have escaped and a suicide bombing might have been prevented. Yes, there would have likely been dead civilians too – but why is it okay to have such ‘collateral damage’ in other parts of the world, but not in Europe?
Nice post – among many. The inevitable next step in the GWOT?
Coming to a neighborhood near you! But just be brave, and remember, a little sacrifice for the greater good is nothing to complain about.
Photosymbiosis
“……To reiterate: ISIS was supported from ~late 2011 to 2014 by the US CIA, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as an anti-Assad proxy force. BUT, ISIS was supposed to restrict its activities to the Middle East, not to engage in a program of European terrorism…..”
WE have discussed this issue twice in the past so you need to provide sources that connect the US to support of ISIS and/or al-Qaeda. The Saudis and Qatar definitely supported ISIS to destabilize Syria and undercut the reach of Iran. The US supported the Free Syrian Army. However, the US did not arm the FSA for the first couple of years after Assad initiated the civil conflict.
“……..So why did the crazy vile sadistic religious fanatic leaders of ISIS go rogue and start sending explosives experts to Europe to aid in orchestrating suicide attacks? Why didn’t they just take the money and guns and run their little local anti-Assad pro-caliphate operation like a good proxy force is supposed to do? Well, “crazy vile sadistic religious fanatics” sometimes have their own ideas, don’t they. . . hence, ‘blowback”…..”
You mean, the US supported ISIS and then bombed them because ISIS didn’t “play by the (CIA) rules”? Look guys, it’s our way or the highway. In my opinion, the US made a mistake by bombing ISIS in Syria since they are the best military fighting Assad – and the US supported regime change in Syria. Never the less, the US decided to bomb ISIS to protect the Kurds and as a part of their strategy to take back Iraq. The US also has bombed the oil trucks for the past year that fueled ISIS.
Oh, you’re now an ISIS supporter?
“In my opinion, the US made a mistake by bombing ISIS in Syria since they are the best military fighting Assad”
Yes, the Zionists really are insane, it seems.
“…..Yes, the Zionists really are insane, it seems…..”
It has nothing to do with Zionism, but if regime change in Syria is the US goal to undercut the reach of Iran, then why turn on the one military that can help accomplish that goal? I don’t support ISIS anymore than al-Qaeda, but a true political settlement can not happen in Syria while Assad is in power.
No single terrorist organization has committed more atrocities (war crimes) than the Assad regime. The civil war is entirely his fault because he refused to grant the protesters seeking political rights any say in the government. He (alone) made the decision to brutally crush militarily the protesters associated with the Arab Spring. He could easily have made a peaceful solution. He promised political reforms a decade ago when he assumed power from his Dad.
Maybe you can explain why my opinion on Assad and the Syrian regime has anything to do with Zionism?
Thanks.
An apparent U.S. clusterfuck going on in Syria:
More on Zionist terrorism.
Mona,
Thanks for reviewing this history of 1948 massacres of Palestinians by Zionists. As a guest of the Israeli government in 1982, I recall the revelations as I was driven around the country in a chauffeured Mercedes (ironic what?) : on the drive up to Jerusalem the obviousness of its desirable geography compared with the rest of Palestine as the reason it was such a battleground; on a stop by the sea of Galilee, wondering what the Jewish reformers under the leadership of the carpenter’s son would make of the current internecine scene; wading near the source of the Jordan river and thinking of the power that control of this water would mean to the the rest of Palestine. Much later on a trip to Jordan and Syria (Damascus and Palmyra) I pondered the secular nature of the latter society in comparison to many other Arab countries. Such a welcome contrast. And the warmth of our professional hosts who gave us their homes for rest and refreshment. And the almost musical Damascene arabic they spoke so soft and caressing to the ear. Alas, that benighted city and country today.
Then there’s this stomach-turning interview with Israeli historian, Benny Morris:
The only virtue it has is factual honesty about the brutality.
He is of course talking about Plan D. This was the Haganah taking the offensive after four months of defensively fighting the Arab militias. Unfortunately, with the impending invasion of the Arab countries, the Haganah took the necessary military steps to prepare for the invasion after the withdrawal of the British and the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
“after the expected withdrawal of the British and the Israeli Declaration of Independence” in mid May.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irgun_attacks
Plan Dalit was meant as a last push to empty the land. “A land without people for a people without land” whooohaa.
Jewish terror against the indigenous people of Palestine was in full force by the 1930’s. Nor should the British servicemen be forgotten. A favorite tactic was to leave the mutilated corpses of the British servicemen hanging in public view.
Reccomend Ilan Pappe’s book, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”. Prof Pappe is Jewish, and it is worthwhile to acquaint oneself with the vilification he was subjected to for writing the book.
“……….Reccomend Ilan Pappe’s book, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”. Prof Pappe is Jewish, and it is worthwhile to acquaint oneself with the vilification he was subjected to for writing the book……”
Pappe is a discredited Israeli historian. Plan Dalet was a last push by Haganah to ensure that another Holocaust was avoided.
Of course Pappe is a discredited Israeli historian — by the likes of you and the criminals that carried out the war crimes. Pappe relies on documents found in Israeli archives. Several lawsuits were brought against him to keep him from revealing the murderous methods of Plan Dalet — killing the village elders, poisoning the wells and the animals, destroying crops, all to force the people to leave their homes. And it continues to this day.
Jabotinsky had good mentors for his deportation methods. He learned at Stalin’s knee, “If the Soviet Union can deport millions of people, the Zionist state should also be able to do so.”
Your statement “Plan Dalet was a last push by Haganah to ensure that anothe Holocaust was avoided” deserves only one response: Then you surely were Hitler’s best pupils.
He indicts himself as no other bastard could.
In ’48 the Zionists finished what their prophet, Jabotinsky, counseled. In the 1920s Jabotinsky declared an end to seeking co-existence with the indigenous Arab population, and demanded ethnic cleansing:
And so it went. The Zionists, claiming to be the “civilized world,” raped, pillaged and ethnically cleansed.
“……And so it went. The Zionists, claiming to be the “civilized world,” raped, pillaged and ethnically cleansed…..”
You are really reaching down into your bag of tricks Mona, but you are disingenuous at best. There is no tie to the ethnic cleansing in 1948 with Jabotinsky’s remarks in the 1920s. There was definite resistance to Jewish immigration in the 1920s which probably partially explains his remarks .
The Jews accepted partition while the Arabs rejected the UN plan in 1947 – with violence. Violence was initiated by the Palestinian Arabs. This persisted for several months prior to the ethnic cleansing. As I mentioned above, Haganah went on the offensive prior to their Declaration of Independence, and before the British left in mid-May (with the Arab armies threatening to invade).
You cannot just make up shit Mona.
Very interesting post. I did not realize there is such a big photographic record of the Deir Yassin massacre, until I Googled it and saw the pictures. It’s like another (people’s) Holocaust. That makes it pretty hard to deny it happened.
Deir Yassin gets much attention, but several hundred Arab villages were ethnically cleansed, very brutally.
Sillyputty
“……This is exactly what Glenn and other advocates of journalism are, thankfully, railing about: the idea that the media and journalists have been co-opted by the government and the corporations to effectively be their mouthpiece……”
Greenwald provides context when it suits his political purpose. For example, the terrorist attack in Brussels results from US bombing of ISIS (something I agree with). Greenwald often justifies attacks against the west because of our policies including the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and our support for Israel. This is an important aspect of his story on why the west is attacked (which I disagree with entirely):
“….spending decades bombing, invading, occupying, droning, interfering in, imposing tyranny on, and creating lawless prisons in other countries generates intense anti-American and anti-western rage (for obvious reasons) and ensures that those western nations will be attacked as well…..”
But when US airstrikes reportedly kill 150 terrorists associated with Boko Haram, he provides no context to the targeting of the terrorist organization. Why did the US target al-Shabaab? They are a brutal al-Qaeda-linked international terrorist organization as most people know if they read western and world-wide news at all:
“……December, 2014: Gunmen attacked workers as they slept at a quarry in northern Kenya and killed at least 36 people, singling out non-Muslims and either beheading or shooting them……”
“…….November, 2014: Al Shabaab militants hijacked a bus travelling to Nairobi shooting dead 28 non-Muslim passengers who could not recite an Islamic declaration……”
“……Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the massacre in Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, which claimed 63 lives in 2013, and a similar assault on Garissa University in north-eastern Kenya, which killed 148 staff and students last year…….”
The US is working with the Somali government to fight the international terrorist organization. None of that is provided in Greenwald’s article. He omits that for political purposes because that would garner support for the US strike. He actually hides behind the “adversarial” journalist title in this instance. In my opinion, he is acting like the lawyer for the drone “victims”. He absolves himself of any journalistic responsibility to provide any context to a story – except when it benefits him politically.
To show exactly how politically motivated he is, he actually attacks the “right wing” bias of the media in Brazil – for being one sided in their reporting of the political crisis (Mona’s link above). No one is any more one-sided than Greenwald (even RT). The Brazil media is not objective enough even though the government (as admitted by Greenwald) is corrupt and the President of Brazil stands a good chance of being impeached. This completely exposes his approach to journalism as hypocritical. He protects the corrupt left wing government he supports which is exactly tribalism. He attacks the media bias of Brazil (adversarial journalism) despite being a strong advocate of adversarial journalism.
I don’t really care what you think about Keller. It’s irrelevant to his point which is that adversarial journalists tend to leave out what might diminish their viewpoint – Greenwald to a “T”.
Thanks.
All journalists leave out what might diminish their viewpoint. Adversarial journalists are simply more open about acknowledging their viewpoint. In fact, Mr. Greenwald has a lawyer’s habit of trying to anticipate – and deflect – opposing arguments. Most reporters, however, realize this is unnecessary, as their readers simply take everything at face value. So Mr. Greenwald’s sin is the opposite of what you state – he imputes greater intelligence to his readers than is actually the case.
Brazil is a special case with a young democracy which has made less progress towards fascism. The interests of the government, media and business are not yet perfectly aligned, so there remain different centers of power. They will eventually learn, however, that predators are more efficient when they work as a team.
If you replace “readers” with “critics” I’d agree. Altho, he quite early in his journalism career realized that making statements about what he was NOT arguing, did no good.
Morons and haters gonna be morons and hate.
That is the most willfully ignorant statement you’ve made…today.
Bill Keller, per se, isn’t the issue; the point is that he, as a self-proclaimed “objective journalist” left out information at the behest of the government.
Why? For personal and political reasons. He did it to protect himself and his newspaper from harm (getting blood on their hands).
Keller and the New York Times bought the governments fear-mongering argument about “getting blood on your hands” because, selfishly, in the highly unlikely event something did happen, they felt it would “diminish their viewpoint” and harm their stockholders and advertisers.
Lastly, perhaps, they were concerned that it would harm their credibility with readers – something that only happened, ironically, when the readers found out about this, and subsequent, omissions of fact.
So you see, it really doesn’t really matter what humans say regarding being unbiased, apolitical, or objective – what matters is that these claims are never, ever really true – despite all the bluster to the contrary.
Craigsummers always needs an editor, here let me help:
“Greenwald often [explains] attacks against the west [as the result of] our policies including the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and our support for Israel. This [blowback] is an important aspect of his story on why the west is attacked.”
Let me explain it in more detail. The rise of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East and South Asia was directly related to US support for such terrorist groups as an anti-Soviet proxy force from the 1950s through the 1980s. More recently, there’s been an effort to use Al Qaeda in Iraq remnants as an anti-Syria proxy force. This has resulted in unfortunate consequences, like mass exodus of refugees into Europe along with some ISIS-trained bombmakers, who orchestrate suicide attacks.
The U.S. has supported both the Zionist apartheid state of Israel and the Wahhabi monarchist dictatorship of Saudi Arabia over this same time period. While this is a seemingly contradictory approach, it has actually served to help Saudi Arabia, in that it has historically diverted its population’s dissatisfaction with the lack of democracy in Saudi Arabia by pointing to the Israeli treatment of Palestinians as the greater evil.
The overriding agenda of the Saudi Royals is to maintain its grip on dictatorial power by any means necessary. Now that the Royals feel most threatened by the Iran-Syria Shia alliance, they are moving towards a regional strategic alliance with Israel (and also with Turkey) – they’ve even begun to discourage hate speech targeting Jewish people – something positive out of this, perhaps?
http://www.mintpressnews.com/the-alliance-between-israel-and-saudi-arabia/209548/
A central player in this alliance has been the U.S. CIA, backed by the idiots in Washington, which played a disastrous game of covert regime change targeting Syria with the assistance of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel, leading to the rise of ISIS, formed from the remnants of Al Qaeda In Iraq. The oil deals ISIS struck with Turkey and the weapons the CIA furnished to their anti-Assad proxy forces via Turkey and Saudi Arabia are key issues – without that support, intentional or not, ISIS would never have become the force it is now. (Israel saw the chaos as an opportunity to seize more control over the Golan Heights, and so cooperated.)
To reiterate: ISIS was supported from ~late 2011 to 2014 by the US CIA, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as an anti-Assad proxy force. BUT, ISIS was supposed to restrict its activities to the Middle East, not to engage in a program of European terrorism.
So why did the crazy vile sadistic religious fanatic leaders of ISIS go rogue and start sending explosives experts to Europe to aid in orchestrating suicide attacks? Why didn’t they just take the money and guns and run their little local anti-Assad pro-caliphate operation like a good proxy force is supposed to do? Well, “crazy vile sadistic religious fanatics” sometimes have their own ideas, don’t they. . . hence, ‘blowback”.
And now, if we can believe recent reports from the LA Times and elsewhere, it looks like the CIA is in a battle against the Pentagon (the Pentagon having rather reasonably backed the Kurdish forces in the fight against ISIS, which upsets Saudi/Israeli-allied Turkey, where the CIA has a supply base).
It’s all part of the ‘three dimension chessboard of the Syria war’, says the foreign policy establishment in Washington – but those clowns should really be made to sit down and play a real game of chess with pieces made out of C4 explosive that, when they are lost, blow up in the player’s faces. Perhaps then they wouldn’t be such reckless jackasses with their ‘regime change’ plans.
Photosymbiosis
I accidentally put this in the wrong spot the first time.
“……To reiterate: ISIS was supported from ~late 2011 to 2014 by the US CIA, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as an anti-Assad proxy force. BUT, ISIS was supposed to restrict its activities to the Middle East, not to engage in a program of European terrorism…..”
WE have discussed this issue twice in the past so you need to provide sources that connect the US to support of ISIS and/or al-Qaeda. The Saudis and Qatar definitely supported ISIS to destabilize Syria and undercut the reach of Iran. The US supported the Free Syrian Army. However, the US did not arm the FSA for the first couple of years after Assad initiated the civil conflict.
“……..So why did the crazy vile sadistic religious fanatic leaders of ISIS go rogue and start sending explosives experts to Europe to aid in orchestrating suicide attacks? Why didn’t they just take the money and guns and run their little local anti-Assad pro-caliphate operation like a good proxy force is supposed to do? Well, “crazy vile sadistic religious fanatics” sometimes have their own ideas, don’t they. . . hence, ‘blowback”…..”
You mean, the US supported ISIS and then bombed them because ISIS didn’t “play by the (CIA) rules”? Look guys, it’s our way or the highway. In my opinion, the US made a mistake by bombing ISIS in Syria since they are the best military fighting Assad – and the US supported regime change in Syria. Never the less, the US decided to bomb ISIS to protect the Kurds and as a part of their strategy to take back Iraq. The US also has bombed the oil trucks for the past year that fueled ISIS.
CraigSummers made the following argument below regarding objectivity in journalism. To support his claim, he used Bill Keller’s views on that:
Bill Keller’s argument that journalist’s must be “objective”or have a “view from nowhere” perspective in their reporting is hypocritical, self-serving bullshit.
For example, when Keller says:
“…it becomes tempting to omit or minimize facts
he is speaking about things that can and should be challenged in order to correct the record – to reflect how things actually are.
But you can’t challenge something if you don’t know about it.
Keller himself violated his own rules when, as editor of the New York Times, he made the decision to omit the fact that the NSA was invading American’s privacy by illegally spying on us all.
In other words, Keller wasn’t being objective at all when chose to be a biased advocate for the government instead of fulfilling his role as an advocate of the citizens.
When Keller and others “omit or minimize facts” (to use Keller’s own words) they:
“…frame the argument, in ways that support [their] viewpoint”
This is exactly what Glenn and other advocates of journalism are, thankfully, railing about: the idea that the media and journalists have been co-opted by the government and the corporations to effectively be their mouthpiece, in effect creating and participating in an invisible ‘shadow government’ that doesn’t allow the kind of public scrutiny that a democracy demands.
The Israeli soldier who last week executed a down and wounded Palestinian knife attacker, afterwards shook hands with a disciple of the fascist rabbi, Meir Kahane. There is now video of that glad-handing as well. From Haaretz:
And in The Only Democracy™:
Unfortunately for the soldier, and the enlightened Israeli public, *this execution was caught on a video that went viral internationally. So the State of Israel has little choice but to somewhat punish for this particular war crime.
Magnificent Article! But remember it’s never a war crime when our side or friendly autocrat does it [invisible but enduring adjunct to the Geneva Conventions].
As we treat ME populations as so much collateral damage fodder, we are sporadically reminded that Karma can be a real bitch. The willful blindness of our leaders will continue.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/24/scariest-brussels-reactoin-paranoid-politicians-isis-atrocity-belgium?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The Guardian wrote much in the same vein. “A dead muslim is an unlucky mutt in the wrong place at the wrong time. A dead European is front page news.”
Sanders crushed Hillary by more than 3 to 1 in WA state.
“People are not voting for Trump (or Sanders). People are just voting, finally, to destroy the establishment.” ~ Nassim Taleb
Nassim Taleb: “I Prefer Sanders To Trump But Absolutely No Hillary” — “No SHillary.”
…and another thing…
In an overseeing of comments and before my mind wanders again from here to the next thing. Probably twitter right…I’ll just say… thank you for this convo, I guess…and…
I ponder what complicates this discussion of personal interpretations. I wonder if our habit’s of analysis contribute to, or interfere with solution? Thinking seems to somewhat digress from the topic of a common desire to end bought/sold/biased journalism.
I’d like to make a shoutout for a better focus; might be our common desire to end the unacceptable atrocious violence in our world, and how to best use journalism to do so. The sticky wicket is, our own collective roles as part of a file of applications that runs this program for an avenue of public control.
Bias journalism is of nature (albeit maintainable), but we must look at our own timber in our eye when it comes to bias. Hunter S. Thompson had bias, that gave his writing’s his flavor right? I have a bias for peace, etc.
Therefore within ? power to do so, and what has to be changed is; bought and sold template journalism. Media perpetuation reporting practices created for, by, and supported with twisted manufactured demands, from media made conditions, is another systemic problem of, the ‘For profit as God’ principle. Todays MO for reporting, satisfies identified genres or demographics keeping things predictable. Almost all of todays choreographed journalism remains within the “corporate structure” of business as usual, and those interests. Aka big brother I suppose. Always supported by law and contract, are the allowances needed wherever to do whatever, which maintain the desired status quo.
Peace and love and given qualities of life, provided by intelligent morals, ethics, science, looses ground. We are the losers if we don’t go back to the drawing board as my mother use to tell me.
I have been thinking lately that, the collective we better get real before real gets the collective us. News and journalism and education will be a big part of that. Either by embracing it or ignoring it there will be impact.
I imagine the NSA and Watson have a plan for that in place. lol. So are we smarter than the machine?
anyway… not that it matters but, I think I’ll go outside and enjoy a beautiful day, and listen to the live tweets that I am blessed to be surrounded by (Sandhill cranes, bald eagles, redtail hawks, crows, chickadee, woodpecker, wild turkeys, etc. serious!) and see what they have to say. I’ll do this in honor of the brave lil’ soul that landed on Bernies podium in Portland, asking for recognition and probably peace, as Bernie said. Y’all gotta admit that was cool.
So again, happy holiday and peace out.
For its entertainment value, do see neocon Stanley Kurtz in WaPo: How socialists from the ’60s primed millennials to Feel the Bern . Stanley has everyone from Saul Alinsky to Howard Zinn to Karl Marx in his conspiratorial mix. But strangely omits the totalitarian hell hole that is Scandinavia.
I learned a new word, “recrudescent.” That’s about it. His reasonings are quite trite, boring . These republicans haven’t had a new idea in 40 years. Even their criticisms are lame.
The motto of their flagship mag, National Review, since 1955 has been to: “stand athwart history, yelling Stop.” Yes, it would have been so excellent for women, blacks, LGBTs and the rest of the world had we simply frozen in Cold War amber.
They’re nearly all still demanding the culture stop, but are even more interested in meddling and warring in the rest of the world.
“Cold War amber?”
Are you a Fringe fan?
I could be. At some point I may binge it on Netflix. And now that you’ve mentioned it I probably will — as soon as I’m done with S4 of House of Cards.
The NR was started by Americans,not zionists.It’s been coopted by them into neocon central,something WFB ,would abhor,as he was an American.
Glenn:
I have just finished rereading this thread. It is wonderfully full of interesting discussion produced by knowledgeable and sensitive minds. Priceless and so supportive of The Intercept and your vision.
@Aggrieved:
Bill Maher makes the same mistake that many others make: He overly generalizes Islam and looks at it as a monolithic religious path, whereas the observable reality is quite different — the world of Islam is a mosaic of cultures and ideas.
There is no single Islam. There are many islams in existence today.
Islam split into two right after Muhammad (S) died, and it has been splitting into pieces ever since.
Nevertheless, there are two ways to determine if an action is Islamic, that is, if it is according to Islam:
1. Do it based on the words and actions of Muslims, and/or
2. Do it based on its primary, and the most authentic source, the Quran, which needs to be examined within its own textual context, as well as within its historical context.
Bill Maher employs the former.
But he looks at the worst examples of Muslims and says: Aha! THIS is Islam!
He ignores the best examples of Muslims and doesn’t classify them as Islam.
So if a Muslim does something good, he’s not going to say that THIS is Islam!
So, he’s confused, and lets his natural biases get in the way.
I don’t consider him a scholar. So, at some level, I can understand his lack of knowledge.
But Juan Cole is a scholar and I find him to be quite reasonable and knowledgeable.
I post on his website sometimes and did once point out to him that the term, “Islamic Terrorism”, is invalid and inaccurate, and gave him my reasons.
I have no idea if he came to the same conclusion after I pointed this out to him or if he arrived at it on his own. Chances are, being a scholar, he arrived at it on his own.
Juan Cole.oy.sheesh and double sheesh.Mr.CIA,and a pos creepo.
Is The Intercept hypocritical?
Over the past few days a constant argument has been made here by some – that The Intercept (TI) cries that the media rarely covers the victims of attacks carried out by us/our allies, but that TI is just as bad as outlets like FOX and Breibart, because TI itself doesn’t give fair coverage to each side. So, if a Palestinian is killed by Israeli forces, TI will cover it, but if two Israelis are killed by a Palestinian, you won’t hear about it at TI. Therefore, TI is hypocritical.
This argument however can be refuted.
First of all, Glenn has made it clear on numerous occasions that there is no such thing as “objective journalism”. Therefore, TI never claims that it’s journalism is objective – it is clear that TI will cover some topics more than others. This is in stark contrast to most media outlets which claim that they are actually objective.
So the question being asked is, if TI can choose to cover some topics more than others, why can’t other outlets choose to cover some topics more than others too? Why is it ok for TI to not show Israeli victims, yet when other media outlets hardly cover Muslims, Glenn gets all upset and starts complaining?
Well, the answer is quite simple – the purpose of the mainstream media on giving more coverage to certain things than others is driven by self-interest. This could either be in monetary terms, such as higher readership/viewership, or of propagating a view that they hold – for example, if you hold the view that our way of life is much better than those people over there, and so do most of your followers then it is in your self-interest to report on things which confirm this view – what this invariably means is that news is always presented in a very biased manner, despite the claim of objective journalism.
The purpose of TI meanwhile isn’t self-interest. Even if the journalists believe that our way of life is generally better than those people over there, they are not interested in rank tribalism which results in always trying to exonerate the bad things we do. The purpose of TI is to report on the bad things we do, so that we are all aware of them, and can try and eliminate such things.
Hence, the claim that TI is hypocritical simply doesn’t stand up top scrutiny. If the target audience of TI was say Palestinians, if the people reading it were Palestinians, and TI only ever covered Palestinian victims and never Israeli victims, then, yes, you could argue TI is hypocriticial. However, the target audience of TI is largely Westerners. We hear about crimes committed by the other side all the time. We hear about crimes committed by our side a lot less. Therefore, TI covers crimes committed by our side. If tomorrow all media outlets started covering crimes committed by our side 24/7, and stopped covering crimes committed by say Muslims, you could be pretty sure TI would start covering human rights abuses in Muslim countries.
Well said. The Intercept is an antidote to the pro-Western bias in the establishment media. A citizenry cannot be informed about it’s government if that government’s wrongdoing continually goes unexplored.
You make some good points, AU, but there’s more to say.
The bad things ‘we’ do aren’t necessarily the things most Americans want.
The majority of Americans see diplomacy rather than military strength as the best way to ensure peace, believe that the U.S. should not attack another country unless that country has attacked the U.S. first, think the US should concentrate its efforts more on domestic issues and less on the affairs of other nations, and – among those expressing an opinion – favor the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Those who rule America aren’t guided by what most Americans want. The MSM – much of it owned by corporations that profit from militarism – extensively covers the blowback of policies and actions implemented by the elites while downplaying or just ignoring the effects those policies and actions have upon others. MSM journalism obscures the connection between Western policies and actions, the impact of those policies and actions upon others, and the subsequent blowback it brings to us.
The Intercept’s reportage helps to reveal the connections the MSM hides.
The article argued that the media tends to present more coverage of western victims of violence.
A chorus of people in the comments promptly demanded The Intercept provide more coverage of western victims of violence. In other words, they attempted to strengthen the article’s argument. I believe they succeeded. They also made an important ancillary point: people want to be propagandized. It’s not an insidious plot concocted by the mainstream media to poison the minds of their readers. The media is simply responding to popular demand.
But there is a small group of misfits who wish to be critical of their own government. They want a counter-narrative. They may not even see themselves as enemies of the state; they’ve deluded themselves into believing there’s such as thing as constructive criticism. They write articles at The Intercept.
I don’t think I would call them hypocrites, merely misguided. In a democracy, you give the people a toy steering wheel and convince them they are driving. If you plant doubts in their mind, they’ll insist the deep state step away from the real steering wheel – just to prove they are in control. With only a toy steering wheel, a crash is inevitable.
It was a good run while it lasted.
It would be more useful if TI had an ‘About Us’ page stating what you’ve stated and make that page easily accessible, than to have commenters saying it in the comments sections.
This article is not about any human suffering, but about how the media covers the same stories differently depending on the actors.
To say this suffering is covered in TI and that is not is simply missing the whole point what the article wanted to convey.
The challenge for the “fair and rational” side is, and always has been, the recognition that the “unfair and irrational” is never swayed by evidence, facts, deduction, induction, or otherwise.
What the unfair and irrational is good at is to: ignore evidence, insist on falsehoods, engage in whataboutary, assert facts without evidence, and demand fairness.
Glenn, Thank you for writing this article. I had exactly the same thought as I saw the extensive coverage of the Brussels attack. As you say, in effect, murder is good if it is committed by the U.S. That is basic dogma that is uncritically accepted by almost everyone in the U.S. A corollary of this basic fact is that the President can order murders by drone without any criticism by the mainstream media. Torture is not torture if done by the U.S. and its allies/partners in crime. The rule of law has been extinguished in the U.S. And hardly anyone seems to notice. The thinking here seems to be in parallel to late 1930s Germany. As long as “they” are not knocking on “my” door, then all is well. A truly sad and frightening state of affairs. Thank you for all your good journalist efforts done in a courageous attempt to combat these evils.
The coverage of the foreign Brussels bombing,and the still current list of victims,stands in complete opposition to the underwhelming coverage of the victims in San Bernardino.
They shut it down when the tale of the messianic Jew harassing his Muslim coworker was told,briefly,very briefly.
And now we hear of Zionist decryption efforts.Sheesh.
Oh, no!
There will now be 24/7 coverage of this evil act. The MSM will send its main journalists there. We will know the names of all victims and their stories. Their relatives will be interviewed in great detail. The experts will analyze it endlessly. The politicians will call them Islamic victims and offer to send in troops to protect them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pakistan-park-bombing_us_56f7f451e4b0a372181a30a5
… And of course the flags will be at half-mast. Everyone will say they are all “Pakistanis” or “Muslims” now. And since there are more Muslim victims than non-Muslim victims, Islam will be called a religion of victims a lot more than it will be called a religion of perpetrators of violence.
Stop seeing otherness. Killing one innocent person is akin to killing the entire humanity because while we may be diverse in the outer, we all have the same inner essence.
Is it really a suprise that Westerners relate more to thoses they know and feel close to ? Do you attend every funeral where you live ?
The propaganda is that Islam is a religion of perpetrators of violence.
The fact is it is a religion of victims of violence a lot more than it is a religion of perpetrators of violence.
Many commenters here have acknowledged that and consistently point that out.
The current narrative in the media and political discourse perpetuates the former. A more balanced coverage will remedy that and people will see the reality of the situation more accurately.
Given the current hysteria against the Muslims in the West, this remedy is urgent.
When Mumbai was attacked, there was a lot of sympathy for the victims in the West and a lot of coverage. There have been documentaries on that evil act and some Western leaders marked that attack’s anniversary.
So if the Mumbai victims can receive so much sympathy, so can the victims in India’s neighboring state.
I am surprised that you did not reflect on this part of my comments: Stop seeing otherness. Killing one innocent person is akin to killing the entire humanity because while we may be diverse in the outer, we all have the same inner essence.
It is part of the development of human consciousness to see less and less of otherness, and the higher we go in our consciousness the more we will sympathize with ALL victims regardless of their outer differences, because in reality there’s no otherness. There’s only one human essence.
“It is part of the development of human consciousness to see less and less of otherness”
I’m more pessimistic about the human race than you are, I don’t believe it’s possible to care equaly about everybody.
While I recognise rationally that all deaths are horrible, I’d be lying if I said they all had the same impact on me. For example 50 000 people died of traffic accidents in China in 2014 but it means nothing to me, where as if somebody in my village is hit by a bus it does mean something.
As for Mumbai I think the novelty of it made the news, if the same thing happend now, I’m not sure it would get quite as much coverage.
“Given the current hysteria against the Muslims in the West, this remedy is urgent.” I agree that there is a fair amount of hysteria about Islam in the West, the consequences of that hysteria have been relatively sedate…so far.
It requires a lot of individual discipline and spiritual training to groom the self to allow it to rise in consciousness so that it sees less and less of otherness.
I understand your point about the traffic accidents in China. However, America does have gun violence that kills thousands of people every year, some are referred to as “mass shootings”.
Could it be that there’re political reasons for the lack of hysteria over it?
Why isn’t Trump calling for a ban on guns until the Congress can figure out what’s going on?
Why isn’t Cruz calling for patrolling the neighborhoods to make sure no one is carrying a gun or keeping guns at home?
By the way, according to Juan Cole there were Moroccan-Belgian victims too:
From http://www.juancole.com/2016/03/what-would-effective-counter-terrorism-look-like-after-brussels.html
So does this mean you empathize only with the white Belgian victims?
Given the empathy that was given to the Mumbai victims, could it be that some in the West empathize more with the non-Muslim victims than with the Muslim victims?
If so, then the “us vs them” narrative is in reality “us (non-Muslims) vs them (Muslims)” narrative, right?
Well, one thing is for sure, you will never read about it in the Intercept – although they should take credit for understanding the reason for the bombing. That particular bombing probably directly resulted from our support for Israel.
I realize you’re being sarcastic, but that bombing has nothing to do with Israel.
There’s a vicious, and quite evil, current within the world of Islam. I call it a cancerous tumor within Islam. This same current is carrying out their evil acts in the West as well as in Muslim majority countries and India.
Pakistan did start to have some success against this tumor, and it was felt that it had managed to contain it.
However, this bombing shows that to be false.
The West and the Muslim countries just can’t figure out how to get rid of this cancerous tumor, which has existed for centuries and dramatically emerged and became quite deadly in recent times.
I don’t blame them for rebelling for whatever reason – but their targets are just awful. Their grievances certainly could be understandable in many instances, and maybe their cause is just. However, I am not sure how with their choice of targets they expect anyone – westerners or people from the Middle East – to support their cause.
Thanks.
Regardless, their violent actions are utterly un-Islamic and immoral!
Some of these bombers have been brainwashed and are naive.
One would-be suicide bomber was caught before he blew himself up. The authorities found that he had wrapped his penis with metal to make sure it didn’t blow into pieces after he blew himself up.
Someone had promised him virgins in the after life.
Points well made, Sufi Muslim … or rather, driven home.
Otherwise, as to your belief: Killing one innocent person is akin to killing the entire humanity because while we may be diverse in the outer, we all have the same inner essence.
I respectfully suggest: Clearly, we are not all.
UN chief visits Palestinian camp destroyed in 2007 fighting
BY BASSEM MROUE
MAR. 25, 2016 5:45 AM EDT
[Closing para…Wow! :-]
Tiny Lebanon, which borders Israel and Syria, is home to around half a million Palestinian refugees. With a population of 4.5 million people, Lebanon now also shelters more than 1 million registered Syrian refugees.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/aaf12d4b0a934d618410c386ac704073/un-chief-visits-palestinian-camp-destroyed-2007-fighting
What Lahore bombing?It’s totally disappeared from the MSM,but they still are listing victims of the Brussels event.
Until all are secure,none will be.
…this is my second attempt to place a comment-I hope this one will make it kinda. I hope I can still find the other as well. Just saying… although I don’t really know that it matters.
Anyway for now- I would like to comment as I wake up 2016 Easter morning… what is on msm TV is classic to this discussion, is the propaganda piece of CNN #Blindsided…ISIS vs US -is the disgusting epitome of no factual information but blatant american hypocrisy propaganda, glorified sound bytes and video, how Isis shook the world. This is demonstration of America’s finest art for feeding it’s loyal livestock bleating for their info-tainment. Where the f* does this footage come from, and who gets the multi million-dollar rewards for killing these “worlds most wanted and most dangerous men”, uhh-huh, leaders of Isis? Just curious… how does this source of information continually get past individuals bullshit detectors?
I am commenting because as I return to my lap top this am, this page is still up… and my bf had CNN’s report on…blatant to what Mr. Greenwald discusses here in this piece. Boom!
-so for s&g i am going to see if my other comment made it here.
happy easter all.
For those who question the role of US in fueling war… The headline in MSM:
CIA-armed militias are shooting at Pentagon-armed ones in Syria
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-syria-militias-us-cia-islamic-state-20160326-story.html
Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border…
Decent article, but it completely skipped over when the covert CIA effort began (initiating the regime change war), any mention of the terrorists we support in southern Syria, the fact that al Qaida was receiving our support, the fact that ISIS ended up with many of the weapons we delivered, and who we have partnered with getting all those weapons into Syria…
… or the costs and consequences of the combined actions… financial, death, destruction, refugees, creating more terrorists and terrorism, etc.
The part of the story they did cover is still important news to anybody who hasn’t been paying attention… most Americans.
Mona
“………The Intercept is the antidote to this gross imbalance. It is part of the alternative, independent media that documents the violence the West and its allies impose on a suffering world…….”
I am sure you believe that, but the journalists at the Intercept are no more interested in the victims of non western violence than the MSM is in the victims of western violence. One reason for that Mona is because the Intercept is NOT motivated by humanitarian concerns despite all the bluster. It’s strictly political. Another reason is that by not reporting the atrocities committed by the Islamic terrorists the US is bombing, it enhances the deaths of the “innocent” people due to US air attacks by drones and warplanes i.e., it provides no context to WHY the US is bombing the terrorists in the first place. This is fundamental to reporting a conflict:
“……Witnesses said that suspected Boko Haram fighters firebombed huts and opened fire on civilians on Saturday evening in the village of Dalori, leaving bullet-ridden and charred bodies strewn across the streets…..Witnesses said that they heard the screams of children burning to death as huts and homes were razed to the ground…..”
Of course the Intercept would not report that. Most normal people would be horrified providing support for the US campaign. By Greenwald calling himself an “adversarial” journalists and treating the victims of western bombings as if he is their personal injury lawyer, he absolves himself of any “journalistic” duty to provide any context. Greenwald abhors objectivity. Well, that is not always the case. When the shoe is on the other foot as in Brazil, Greenwald wants more objectivity in the reporting by Brazil’s media. The hypocrisy is stunning, but easy to see through.
Bill Kelly was right:
“……The thing is, once you have publicly declared your “subjective assumptions and political values,” it’s human nature to want to defend them, and it becomes tempting to omit or minimize facts, or frame the argument, in ways that support your declared viewpoint. And some readers, knowing that you write from the left or right, will view your reporting with justified suspicion……”
The post lightly edited for accuracy:
“I am no more interested in the victims of Western violence than I am in the victims of police violence: they’re mostly brownies anyways. One reason for that Mona is because I am NOT motivated by humanitarian concerns despite all the bluster. When I put the word not in all capital letters, it’s makes whatever I wrote strictly true; no argument needed.
Another reason is that by not caring about the atrocities committed with US bombs, it enhances my satisfaction with the deaths of the “innocent” people due to US air attacks by drones and warplanes i.e., it provides no context to WHY the US is bombing the terrorists in the first place. I easily dehumanize others: first I put innocent in quotation marks, as if it’s questionable that there really are innocent Muslims being killed (“wink-wink”), then I shift to calling those being slaughtered terrorists. All without ever providing any context.
By labeling unknown Muslim victims terrorists, I believe that I absolve my tribe of any humanitarian duty. I abhor decency. Well, that is not always the case. When the victims are Western as in Belgium, I want more violence done to Muslims. The hypocrisy is stunning, but easy to see through.”
Thank you, Doc. Craig clearly cannot abide it when I largely ignore him, so he’s begun starting endless new threads in an attempt to force my attention. But with your assistance and that of others, he can’t mislead readers and I can sit it out.
“……But with your assistance and that of others, he can’t mislead readers and I can sit it out……”
It is very difficult to respond to the truth – so you punt. Fair enough.
Thanks.
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/18/brazil-is-engulfed-by-ruling-class-corruption-and-a-dangerous-subversion-of-democracy/?comments=1#comment-212423
He’s got a crush on you, Mona; that’s just how insecure 12 year-old boys and adult sociopaths express themselves.
I doubt he misleads anyone – other than himself – for long.
My advice: play hard to get.
Really hard to get.
The problem is Doc (as in your case as well), she almost always responds to me first – I suspect – out of affection. But that is how insecure 60-70 year old women express themselves.
By the way Doc, are you going to respond to my post – or is responding to the truth just too difficult?
The language of the radical left:
“……My advice: play hard to get. Really hard to get……”
Meaning:
Psst, Mona. My advice is to challenge him constantly. Don’t let that torture loving authoritarian sociopath get away with anything.
Bill Keller’s argument that journalist’s must be “objective”or have a “view from nowhere” perspective in their reporting is hypocritical, self-serving bullshit.
For example, when Keller says:
he is speaking about things that can and should be challenged in order to correct the record – to reflect how things actually are.
But you can’t challenge something if you don’t know about it.
Keller himself violated his own rules when, as editor of the New York Times, he made the decision to omit the fact that the NSA was invading American’s privacy by illegally spying on us all.
In other words, Keller wasn’t being objective at all when chose to be a biased advocate for the government instead of fulfilling his role as an advocate of the citizens.
When Keller and others “omit or minimize facts” (to use Keller’s own words) they:
This is exactly what Glenn and other advocates of journalism are, thankfully, railing about: the idea that the media and journalists have been co-opted by the government and the corporations to effectively be their mouthpiece, in effect creating and participating in an invisible ‘shadow government’ that doesn’t allow the kind of public scrutiny that a democracy demands.
Sillyputty
“……This is exactly what Glenn and other advocates of journalism are, thankfully, railing about: the idea that the media and journalists have been co-opted by the government and the corporations to effectively be their mouthpiece……”
Greenwald provides context when it suits his political purpose. For example, the terrorist attack in Brussels results from US bombing ISIS (something I agree with). Greenwald often justifies attacks against the west because of our policies including the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and our support for Israel. This is an important aspect of his story on why the west is attacked (which I disagree with entirely):
“….spending decades bombing, invading, occupying, droning, interfering in, imposing tyranny on, and creating lawless prisons in other countries generates intense anti-American and anti-western rage (for obvious reasons) and ensures that those western nations will be attacked as well…..”
But when US airstrikes reportedly kill 150 terrorists associated with Boko Haram, he provides no context to the targeting of the terrorist organization. Why did the US target al-Shabaab? They are a brutal al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organization as most people know if they read western and world-wide news at all:
“……December, 2014: Gunmen attacked workers as they slept at a quarry in northern Kenya and killed at least 36 people, singling out non-Muslims and either beheading or shooting them……”
“…….November, 2014: Al Shabaab militants hijacked a bus travelling to Nairobi shooting dead 28 non-Muslim passengers who could not recite an Islamic declaration……”
“……Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the massacre in Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, which claimed 63 lives in 2013, and a similar assault on Garissa University in north-eastern Kenya, which killed 148 staff and students last year…….”
The US is working with the Somali government to fight the international terrorist organization. None of that is provided in Greenwald’s article. He omits that for political purposes because that would garner support for the US strike. He actually hides behind the “adversarial” journalist title in this instance. In my opinion, he is acting like the lawyer for the drone “victims”. He absolves himself of any journalistic responsibility to provide any context to a story – except when it benefits him politically.
To show exactly how politically motivated he is, he actually attacks the “right wing” bias of the media in Brazil – for being one sided in their reporting of the political crisis (Mona’s link above). No one is any more one-sided than Greenwald (even RT). The Brazil media is not objective enough even though the government (as admitted by Greenwald) is corrupt and the President of Brazil stands a good chance of being impeached. This completely exposes Greenwald as a hypocrite – especially his approach to journalism. He protects the corrupt left wing government he supports which is exactly tribalism. He attacks the media bias of Brazil (adversarial journalism) despite his advocacy of media bias.
I don’t really care what you think about Keller. It’s irrelevant to his point which is that adversarial journalists tend to leave out what might diminish their viewpoint – Greenwald to a “T”.
Thanks.
Bow-down all COWARDS to your Zionist Masters…
Yes,this started in 1948.When enough Americans realize this,this crap will end.
It’s tough for the public though,as every MSM outlet if full of Zioprop,24-7-365.And a lot of web sites.
You raise good points and back it with evidence [see Sillyputty’s original comment for the links] that the ‘line of continuity’ began long before this century; thank you.
We both agree that to the US elites go much if not most of the blame for these imperial policies.
Here’s an article describing the contribution made by European elites:
More at the link.
I posted this reply to Sillyputty yesterday afternoon, but it didn’t show up at all, even as of earlier this morning.
Then I saw Jonn Mero’s post below and thought it might be of interest along the lines of his comment, so I just pasted it in.
And now both show-up?!
wtf?
Thanks Doc. That is a lot of current information supporting the long-held (but unadvertised) truth that the United States and Western governments already knew: the people attack others when they are attacked.
This really sums it up:
The hypocrisy of the governments of US and the West becomes blatantly apparent here, in that they claim the attacks against them are ideological (“they hate our freedom,” etc) when it is actually the US and the West that attack others without provocation.
William Blum offers this in regards to foreign “interventions” by the United States:
* Making the world safe for American corporations;
* Enhancing the financial statements of defense contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of congress;
* Preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model;
* Extending political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible, as befits a “great power.”
This is really not a hard conclusion to reach, unless, like CraigSummers, you choose to be willfully ignorant.
Not one mention of Israel or Zionism makes that article irrelevant.
Jonathan Marshall.Uh,any guesses on ethnicity?
Good high-lighting of the traditional ‘them vs us’ where ‘they’ are always at fault. Treat any person or group like shit, and it is just a matter of time before you have a blow-back. And since the jihadist (unfortunately) have more problems hitting the real villains (USA), they settle for the vassals (Europe). And here in Europe ‘we cannot understand it’. Bloody crazy, – and retarded!
To US global planners and elites go much if not most of the blame, but European elites have made their own contributions:
More at the link
Oh, that is not enough? Maybe there’s room to reprint the Encyclopedia Britannica while you’re at it…
Please accept my apology: those were way too many words for you.
The entity known as “Lin Ming” posts “tl;dr” as comments to superb long-form journalistic pieces. It’s trollish, but not in a volume that can’t be ignored.
Therefore, the thing called “-Mona-” just can’t seem to ignore it…
THIS is journalism! Thank you for being interested in the truth, Glenn Greenwald.
Will the upcoming US. Presidential Elections be one of sense or bring us another war-monger?
Excellent article in addition to the earlier broadcast “A Conversation on Privacy”.
The US. & Allied Policies and Interventions create more problems than they actually proclaim to solve.
The so-called “Axis of Evil” is/was nothing more than a sham to lure the people into destabilization of the Middle East. While recently Radovan Karadži? was sentenced to 40 years imprisonment for genocide, G.W. Bush and his “mates” actions are in no way “critized” by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
While condemning other countries atrocities the US. gladly works together with Saudi Arabia while keeping silent on the humanitarian conditions and insane executions in Saudi Arabia.
Will the US. Presidential elections bring forth another war-monger ?
Definitely, especially if Clinton is elected. Despite his belligerent tone and extreme bluster, it’s highly doubtful that even Trump would be as bad as Clinton on this issue (Trump has said that the Iraq and Libya massacres were bad moves that destabilized the entire region, and that we should look to Russia as a partner, not an enemy). Sanders would be better than either of those two, but he’s no Dennis Kucinich or Jill Stein.
I wouldn’t bet on Trump keeping his word.
So far it looks like he’s suffering heavily from Tourette Syndrome…
Well,words are all he has to take your heart away.
Any words from the other warmongering Zionists(BS included) that you can bet on?
Sorry, I forgot to identify your question to which I was responding: “Will the US. Presidential elections bring forth another war-monger ?”
my favorite moment during the blanket coverage was footage from the 2011 moscow bombing sold as the belgian airport. maybe they figured no one saw it the first time around? a lot of those “mistakes” in reporting on syria as well.
Given that your sartorial shortcomings have been exposed, Glenn, I am not sure I can trust you. #PurpleSupportsISIS
hahah! Since I have no fashion sense, I made no judgment of Glenn’s tie. All I know is that I noticed it, and I never notice what the hell someone is wearing. It’s hilarious that Chomsky noticed Glenn’s tie and commented on it. I couldn’t stop laughing when I read that little exchange. Thanks Glenn for posting that.
You can’t judge a book by its cover. While Chomsky’s ‘dressing-down’, as it were, of Glenn’s neon-purple tie was shocking coming from the ‘worlds leading intellectual’ perhaps some good will come from it, after all.
*I’ve never ‘trusted’ Glenn’s fashion sense either … although he’s one of the few reporters I give the benefit of doubt.
To be fair to Glenn, he’s always “properly” dressed. He basically told all the journalists with unkempt hair, “look, you people need a spokesperson, and I’m it.” I’ve never seen Glenn look like he wasn’t ready for some sort of “official business.” Every father would love to have Glenn as a son. Mine is always telling me how I’m too casually dressed, which gives away my lack of “seriousness of purpose.”
I’m a substance over image guy myself.No offense to GG intended.
Another excellent article Glenn, thank you. I’m glad there’s still a few journalists willing to inform people about the true impact of our country’s government and its allies’ foreign policy.
Jonah here has claimed that: “Anti-Semitism has always been a unique prejudice. It’s a conspiratorial, pseudo-intellectual paranoid ideology.”
a) Jonah, or someone else, please elaborate the uniqueness of such prejudice. The obvious uniqueness is that it is targeted at “semites”, but I am interested in aspects other than its target that makes this unique.
b) Jonah, or someone else, is “conspiratorial, pseudo-intellectual paranoid ideology” the essential part of the uniqueness you claim – as in a)? And, if so, are you suggesting that anti-semites are generally suffer from “conspiratorial, pseudo-intellectual paranoid ideology”, or is this only limited to when they think anti-semitic thoughts?
FINALLY. Thank you! Over the last few months, I’ve grown increasingly frustrated as I watch nonstop coverage of Trump and have to read, in tiny letters on the ticker, how people have been killed by terror attacks. Here we are again, mourning the victims of another attack in Europe and ignoring another bombing, this one at a stadium. Can you imagine the outcry if someone detonated a suicide bomb at a New England Patriots game? A Yankees game? Why don’t these lives matter? Why do we not mourn them? How can we relegate them to text at the bottom of the screen?
We cannot even get real news in America anymore, aside from Al Jazeera…who won’t be here for long. Corporate news, contributing to the ignorance of the masses… it’s so wrong. Nobody is asking the hard questions. Nobody is informing the public. The media is not doing the job of checking the politicians. I know I’m not alone and it’s high time we fill our lungs for a primal scream.
I was listening to NPR news in the car today and there was a story of Kenya students jumping out of windows of a building at Garissa University when they heard screams and thought is was another terrorist attack like the one last year that killed 147 young men and women. It was a fight and that led to the commotion. But as I was driving I noticed flags flying at half staff for the attack last Saturday in Brussels that killed 31.
Now I don’t remember seeing any flags flying at half staff last year for the innocent Kenyans killed in a terrorist attacks carried out by Al Qaeda confederate Al Shabaab.
There was a time when Africans were considered 3/5 of a human by the US constitution but I guess modern Africans are less human than that.
The branding of the those who the powermongers wish to weigh on a scale. Those who are deprived have the same drive to live as anyone else and that weight is the same.
@Patrick mcneal –
I hear you. Did you see my post down thread now, about Jeopardy being pre-empted for Brussels but NOT for other attacks? Yes, you’ve noticed the same thing that that other Jeopardy fan noticed.
It’s sad. It’s clear that at least “the media” and TPTB value some lives way more than others. Just a few minutes ago I caught part of a presentation on BookTV on “Equality by Design” about designing solutions for gender equality. The first audience questioner also brought out racial bias. One thin he said, I wish we’d all take to heart at least somewhat. He said when asked to fill out race, he puts ‘human.’ We really need to REMEMBER our common humanity.
Anon
“……Craig, nobody really knows, perhaps the Drone Casualty Report will be released soon, and maybe also with the report on the US bombing of the MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Meanwhile…..”
Funny you should mention Afghanistan where the UN reports that the (Pakistan-supported) Taliban account for 70% of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan while NATO accounts for only 2%. You, of course, would never know that reading the Intercept. The Intercept is only interested in promoting a narrative.
Greenwald complains that the “U.S. media outlets love to dramatize and endlessly highlight Western victims of violence, while rendering almost completely invisible the victims of their own side’s violence”. But the Intercept in general, and – Greenwald in particular – renders the victims of non western violence completely invisible. The innocent civilians brutally murdered by Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban, the TTB and al-Shabaab and other Islamic terrorist organizations are ignored entirely in support of an anti-western/anti-American political agenda.
Certain victims are granted a special status at the Intercept – and it is all politically motivated.
mr craigsummers. Clever person. So cunning and smart. Let’s drill down for the while.
Let me ask you a simple question. What newly born person is not entitled to life support and a place to live as his own?
Let’s tango.
That’s very silly. Glenn, and this publication, cannot “render victims of non Western violence invisible.” The establishment media is far too busy making sure they are magnified so that Americans can feel good about themselves, much better than “those bad non-Western people.”
The Intercept is the antidote to this gross imbalance. It is part of the alternative, independent media that documents the violence the West and its allies impose on a suffering world.
That’s true. It’s true of all journalists, everywhere, virtually all the time.
What a pathetic, and ridiculous statement to make Craig. How on earth can Glenn or the Intercept “render the victims of non Western violence completely invisible” when the mass mainstream media is covering precisely that every day. The Intercept is just ensuring that the victims of western violence also get mentioned. “An antidote to this gross imbalance” as per Mona’s earlier reply to you.
Another day, another breathtaking Zionist lie, this one from Jonah
Never happened. I never wrote it, and I don’t believe it.
That is a lie.
A stupid, loaded question, implying a fact not in evidence.
And you, Jonah, are a space alien shape-shifter. (See how that works? The just making’ shit up thing?)
You do not deserve it, but because I take the following accusation seriously I shall deliver a serious answer:
Far more than most, I am fully aware of the main tropes of historical antisemitism. By education both formal and informal. My profound antipathy to antisemitism was the predicate for my spending most of my adult life as an ardent Zionist.
Then the Internet happened. By 2005, many good and decent people, many of them Jewish, were setting forth both the history of Zionism and of the Israel Lobby in the United States. To say I initially resisted these arguments and facts would be to understate; it would be fair to say I found them disturbing on a visceral level.
However, I am a natural skeptic, an atheist who has a long history of rejecting woo woo and supernatural claims, as well as crank historical narratives. Facts are my guidepost, as determined by the best empirical and evidentiary criteria available .
My strong attraction to the truth no matter what, compelled me to see that Zionism was built on a pile of lies and atrocities. While perhaps no people in history have had a greater excuse than Jews have to commit horrible crimes in pursuit of what they consider to be the only path to security, they are not allowed to tell endless lies. I absolutely insist that the ONLY respectable argument is this: “Yes, Zionists did and do all that to Palestinians, and it’s justified.”
An Israeli author makes exactly that argument in a very candid book, My Promised Land. Ari Shavit writes:
That is the only argument you can make, Jonah, that I will begin to respect. I won’t agree with it, but it is at least honest. But lying so much, as Zionist have been doing for a very long time, does, indeed, sickly track with antisemitic tropes.
Perhaps you/they should stop doing it?
The phenomenology of relativity plays to the ego in the competitive environment which is the operating environment which the zionistas want to occupy and dictate. It is short lived. WE WILL CHANGE THE CURRENCY. WE WILL BE FREE AND CLEAR.
As usual, Typical Liberal Elitist Establishment Tripe from the thing called “-Mona-“…
There was no Islamic terrorism outside of Palestine? before 1948.
” Far more than most, I am fully aware of the main tropes of historical antisemitism. By education both formal and informal. My profound antipathy to antisemitism was the predicate for my spending most of my adult life as an ardent Zionist.”
I must be quite a bit older that you. I came to realize the rottenness of the Zionist project during and after a visit to israel in 1982 to participate in a scientific conference. It was this time of year and I spent Good Friday in Jerusalem before fleeing the mayhem by the government and its citizens against Palestinian residents of that city. I drove down to Eilat to dive and picked up an Israeli soldier and his girl friend going there for R&R. That trip and discussions with Israeli hosts and the passengers during the drive opened my eyes to the evil of the Israel project.
Then I began to read the history of the region by multiple academic sources and the then current writings of Edward Said. The scales dropped from my eyes and I understood.
You’re probably not much older than I am. My first inkling that I’d swallowed a dark fairy tale was in college in the mid-80s. There I befriended an Iraq-American and she was disturbed by my zealous Zionism.
She asked me if I advocated that Europe take over Denmark since all the Danes could “just move” to another Scandinavian country? I felt (properly) embarrassed at my glib dismissal that “a few” Palestinians could simply remove themselves to Egypt or wherever.
For the first time, Palestinians became real to me. Her point of view stayed with me, but I didn’t do a full about-face until I began reading smart and sober voices online c. 2005, and then obtaining their books. To my surprise, many of these voices were Jewish.
Or all people who identify as Jewish could move to New York City. Same thing. And as I tell my wife – a now ardent Zionist (twasn’t always thus), whose only antidote to the one-sided narrative she’s been sold is me – some of the strongest critics of Israeli policy are Jewish e.g. Finkelstein, Chomsky, Blumenthal, etc.
Unlike you you, I used to be neutral in the Arab/Israeli conflict. This conflict is like two brothers who never learned to get along after childhood sibling rivalry and still hate each other. This was despite my parents making me go to Hebrew school Monday-Thursday after public school and get bar mitzvah’d. But when I became friends with some Jordanian/Palestinians who just happened to be PLO, my view on this changed radically. Your story about your Iraqi friend is similar to mine, though I was not pro-Israel or Zionist, just neutral.
The only problem I have with Shavit’s statement about all the dirty work done before, that allows him and his children to live, is the fact that about three quarters of Israelis are dual citizens. They carry that other passport. They always have another option, to return to France, to the USA, Russia. The Palestinians have no such option. Since so many of them carry that “get out of jail free” card, just how deep is their commitment to the Zionist project?
Mmm, I don’t know about that. Dreyfus’s France and pogrom Russia are the two countries that inspired the first Zionists.
But the U.S. , yeah. I think it was Max Blumenthal, who in a debate with a Jewish-American Zionist, referred to “our ancestral home of New York City.” There’s more than a bit of truth to that.
Zionism in the abstract, however — the political version of Herzl and Jabotinsky — isn’t a wrong or unsympathetic idea. Herzl considered a part of Uganda and several other locations before settling on Palestine.
Even then, Jewish-American men like Judah Magnes, the founder of Hebrew University, advocated a “spiritual Zionism” in Palestine. One in which they peacefully co-existed with the Arabs and went about establishing a Jewish spiritual and cultural area, but not a “Jewish state.” Magnes continued to hold this view even after the founding of Israel in ’48.
Unfortunately, Magnes held a minority position, and the fierce militaristic nationalism of the Jabotinsky faction prevailed.
Leaving aside the much more salient points that Glenn makes here, even when the perpetrators are Daesh or Al Qaeda, there is an extreme difference in US media treatment of lethal political violence depending on the identities of the victims.
For the 4th day in a row, the front page above the fold of our NYT was splashed with pictures from Brussels. On the inside, bottom of page 6, is an 8 paragraph account of a suicide bomber who killed “at least 31 people” — the exact number of deaths in Brussels — at a soccer game south of Baghdad.
You have to know the story is there to even find it on the NYT website. The three stories linked under the subhead “World” on the front page are all about Brussels.
If you click through to the “World” section, it’s not among the featured stories. Scroll down to the “Middle East” section and there’s the story about the 412th “number 2″ of a violent theocratic organization killed by the US, and a piece about Assad and Putin.
Keep scrolling. After you’ve gone past links to nearly 40 news and opinion articles, including 10 about Brussels, and are way down in the “More News” portion of the World section, you’ll see the headline “ISIS Suicide Bomber in Iraq Kills Dozens at Soccer Game.”
No profiles of victims. No react from the US administration. No je suis Baghdad Soccer Fan. 8 short paragraphs. End of story.
Propaganda on demand – the by design manufacturing of solution through lies, or at best distortion of truth, secures the desired status quo. To seek solution through publicized truth, or at worst obvious and ‘honest’ fabrication, would be endgame for the established profit. So this bought/paid for insidious system of response control has proven to work well to keep the hamster on the wheel, fueled by gimmickry, (and we all still get to heaven because we know not what we do.)
Thing is – there is no, zero, 0, none, nada, zilch, sane “reason” or rational purpose, or acceptable cause, that can be reported as such, for this level of violence. No matter who did who or where, it is the violence that is completely unacceptable without argument. Period.
This method of media release we are experiencing is like an addictive designer drug, given in calculated doses, prescribed for maintaining preprogrammed demographics, making the user too sick in too many ways to argue it or do different, but can only want more of more – and will pay “good” money for it, right?
It is crazy to watch. The collective we are being given what we are programed to ask for.
Everyone does this, it’s standard tribal behavior: “Everything we do is great or at least justified, and everything our enemies do is evil.” As a bonus provided by the corporate propaganda machine (aka, mainstream media), fear-mongering by running coverage of attacks like this 24/7 accomplishes the goal of making people frightened and thus far more likely to accept or even want a police state, and to worship the military even more than they already do.
The problem here is that attacks like the one in Belgium are reactions to what the attackers feel was done to them, starting with the imposition and support of lackey governments that serve western interests at the expense of the people of the countries. (Many people in these countries just know that they’re bad off and don’t articulate or necessarily even process why they hate the west, but see the movie Syriana.) Considering this context, it is nothing short of pure propaganda to tilt coverage so heavily in this direction.
So I agree with Glenn’s premise, but we should get to the root causes, not just complain about the corporate media.
and by their clamour to “go with the predicted winner” so shall you recognize the deceiver for your voice is the one that matters most to you.
Radical Muslims bring the death upon themselves and their families. Stop acting like psychos like your chimo prophet… May peace be with you my ass… Islam is a terrible religion of hate and I tolerance.
Christianity destroyed the Americas and Australia, murdering the native people, stealing their land, and destroying it for money. I agree that Islam sucks, but so do all the monotheistic religions, and Christianity has done far more harm to the Earth and to indigenous people than all the other religions put together.
It’s easy as a beneficiary of Christianity’s exploits to ignore the massive harms it’s done and myopically focus on Islam and attacks like these. But as I said just above, attacks like the one in Belgium are a REACTION to what the west has done to these people. Your comment is a perfect example of Glenn’s point: everything you do is OK, but when others do the same to you it’s evil. That’s a ridiculous point of view.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bombings_during_the_Northern_Ireland_Troubles_and_peace_process
Hiya Rando, Here are some other bombings for you to contemplate, all carried out by good Christians on each other. Not a Muslim in sight.
“It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the US throughout the world have been systematic, constant, clinical, remorseless and fully documented but nobody talks about them. Nobody ever has. It’s probably more than a newspaper or TV channel’s life is worth to do so.”
Harold Pinter 1996
Yeah, well, I live here most of the time, Glenn. So, you won’t get much sympathy from me.
Leaving any claims to ‘Islamic’ aside, Deash (h/t Sufi) is not a Nation-State and has no recognized authority that I know of to ‘declare war’.
For the most part, in my view, it is the US-allied “war framework” (on an undefinable, unplaceable political/criminal ideology) that sets the western medias stunningly brief, cold and ‘clinical’ coverage of the horrific events in Yemen. These killings (20 Children/120 dead, 80 wounded), tragic as they are, are merely the inevitable results of a “war framework” and media portrays them accordingly.
Otoh, never, once, during the exhaustive (see The Guardian) detailed and ‘in-depth’ coverage of the Brussels tragedy, so far, have I read it was an act of “war”…
Killing ISIS’s No. 2 Leader, Again
Yah, I remember the Onion piece–pretty dark satire. But as for announcement you mention. The State Dept and Pentagon try to keep anything positive about the Russian/Syrian/Iran alliance off the front pages of print and online media. They have been doing it since the first day the Russians started up in Syria. The taking out of these ISIS leaders has netted big headlines from what I have seen online. However, looks like the Syrian Army along with Hezbollah is on the verge of taking Palmyra. Which would be a very major blow to ISIS both militarily and a propaganda coupe given how ISIS had dominated Western media for their actions in Palmyra. Losing a few leaders a decentralized organization will not match the blow of losing Palmyra.
Speaking of “The Onion”….
Doesn’t Hillary’s top campaign contributor now own “The Onion”?:
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/26/ha-ha-hillary-clintons-top-financial-supporter-now-controls-the-onion/
Oh Shit!!!
“Manufacturing Consent:” worthy and unworthy victims.
Examples of “random” airstrikes by US military targeting (any) military age Muslims in Syria:
“……The American forces originally hoped to capture the commander, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, and were following his vehicle in at least two helicopters, according to a senior military official who requested anonymity. But their plan to land Special Operations fighters, seize Mr. Qaduli and return him to the helicopter changed for unknown reasons, and they fired on the vehicle instead, killing him…….
………Defense Department officials concluded last week that American strikes had killed the group’s minister of war, Omar al-Shishani. The military has also targeted a senior Islamic State leader known as Abu Sarah, who was believed to be the group’s chief accountant and was in charge of paying the group’s fighters in northern Iraq, according to senior military officials……”
Last two paragraphs of that NYT piece:
Yea. They probably killed a couple of kids, Mona (military age – wink-wink). Greenwald said it best:
“……Watch how many people today are defending this strike by claiming “terrorists” and “militants” were killed using those definitions even though they have literally no idea who was killed……”
Goddamit, but you are disgusting. As you are well aware, our drones actually have slaughtered innumerable children, including multiple toddlers. You won’t care, but if other readers do, their names and ages are here.
Of course, many kids have “merely” lost limbs or suffered cognitive impairments.
mr craigsummers treats you like a vampire – throwing you a web of knots. But you will understand that he needs you. He needs your understanding and sympathy and compliance so he can have power over you. But you will be able to tell him “I don’t need you” and drive him bananas.
Mona,
Thank you for publishing a link to this long list of children killed and seriously injured by the drone attacks.
Next we will no doubt see Craig Summers providing numerous links to US media about terrorist groups recruiting children, and suggesting that maybe those victims on the list were concealing weapons or suicide vests in their prams and push-chairs. If this approach fails to prove convincing he will resort to authoritarian plan B , urging his beloved US Government to re classify anyone over the age of three, killed in the vincinity of a drone strike, as a militant. The ” fun sized terrorist” description can then be abandoned to avoid any possibility of more shame and embarrassment, and the mass media will be able to assist in covering up the deaths of childrenc by describing all drone victims as militants, even if a drone or bomb has accidentally hit a nursery school.
Craig, nobody really knows, perhaps the Drone Casualty Report will be released soon, and maybe also with the report on the US bombing of the MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Meanwhile I remain concerned and shocked at the propaganda which was used by the mass media in describing any male of a military age killed in the vicinity of a drone strike as a militant. This is a deliberate deception and distortion and covers up civilian deaths. I also remember and will never forget the shocking and sickening revelations from the ex US airman and Predator drone operator who said that when small black shadows were seen on screen, ( the images of children ) they were referred to as “fun sized terrorists” Other choice wording included “cutting the grass before weeds grow” and that the killing of drone targets was likened to “killing ants”
@CraigSummers,
Watch this eagles nest with two cute eaglets. It’s very soothing, and presents a metaphor:
http://dceaglecam.eagles.org/
Spectacular Sufi. I now have a link so I can monitor the Eagles raising their “Eaglets”.
Thanks
PS I don’t know how they get any sleep with all of the noise coming from Congress.
Whatever comes from the left goes through their right ears, and whatever comes from the right goes through their left ears.
@Decatur204,
Sigh!
The reality of Islam (religion, history, civilization, Muslims’ actions, etc.) is much more complex than you realize.
Read Rene Genon, Frithjof Schuon, Martin Lings, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, William Chittick, Titus Burchardt, Rumi, ibn Arabi, Kabir Helminski, Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri for perspectives that are usually not talked about.
http://www.shaykhfadhlallahaeri.com
Good points. Manufacturing Consent. Sure, one could give some aspect of heuristics that play into this, but the evidence points to something more than that. The utter excuse laden views of state led terror in other countries is a farce and obviously so. Ah well.
There is a first cousin to this slant. We can see this first cousin when the Russians have been attacked. The siege of Dubrovka Theatre is a good example. A quick search. Here is PBS:
“Just after 9:00 last night, heavily armed Chechen guerrillas stormed this Moscow theater, taking some 700 playgoers hostage.”
And there is this from NPR delving into the roots of the attack while the hostage situation was still going. They interviewed an expert in the Chechen war: “PAUL JOYAL: Well, the group that has identified themselves is a Chechen fighter out of the Argon [ph] area. He’s about 26 years old. He’s a young man who’s grown up knowing only war. And clearly he has come under the influence not only of the fighting and the experience but also the Islamic creed.”
Later in the segment: “MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Karny, what are we to make of the fact though that these _fighters_ apparently before they went and stormed this theater….”
Can’t imagine any Western news outlet going into the travails of the Brussels bombers.
This is not to argue about Russia and Chechnya, but to show the nature of the reporting depending on who is the victim. As one commentator put it: “Blow up Brussels; you are a ‘terrorist.’ Blow up Moscow; you are an ‘insurgent.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe-july-dec02-chechnya_10-24/
Sure but overwhelmingly in incidents that also kill Houthi fighters after the Houthis either hide among the civilians, or engage Yemeni army forces from among them (the linked article indicates civilian casualty rates are around 50% of the total killed which if anything is relatively low compared to other urban conflicts). Hostile forces do not become immune from attack just because they surround themselves with civilians. Again, mass casualty incidents where indiscriminate airstrikes are used are rare.
Who’s we? Maybe you know that, I know that, but the average person certainly does not. Most continue to think ISIS or Al-Qaeda are responsible for most civilian deaths in Syria. If the Intercept was truly focused on exposing the truth, hypocrisy or setting the record straight, they would be publishing more articles over these Iranian sponsored attacks. Instead they focus almost exclusively on western actions or allies. There is obviously a double standard at play here whether you want to admit it or not.
I’m not denying the violence committed by western entities, I’m only saying, in the present day, this violence doesn’t come close to the violence committed by the people the west is targeting. Furthermore, I’m saying the west doesn’t specifically target civilians, unlike the people they’re targeting.
I believe in a higher power, but not any organized religion.
The practice of taqiyya, by both Sunni and Shia Muslims, is a reality. The article you linked even confirms Muslims are allowed to deceive in times of war. This is exactly what I’m referring to. Muslim jihadists are able to justify their deceit by claiming there is a war on Islam and thus it’s permissible to lie to defend it. I’m not saying the average Muslim is lying to non-Muslims in their daily lives (like some people claim), only that Islamists are.
So Muslims haven’t been invading, conquering, stealing other peoples land and carrying out massive campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide for centuries now??
What part of what I said earlier about Mohammad and his early companions wasn’t true?
The problem with having a mass murdering warlord as the most revered figure in a particular religion is all of the religion’s followers that come after will try to emulate his actions. How often do we hear moderate Muslims claim Mohammad was a perfect human being or that Islam is perfect and only individual Muslims are not?
There is nothing ISIS (or Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, and literally hundreds of other Islamist groups in existence) is doing today that this so-called prophet did not himself carry out or command his followers to. ISIS is as Islamic as it gets.
Lying about what, that I read that opinion piece? Like I said, I’ve heard it all before. You are mistaken if you think that OPINION piece concretely establishes that Japan surrendered based solely on the Russian invasion. It’s nothing more than conjecture based on circumstantial evidence. Without Hiroshima, the Japanese would have continued their defense against an impending Russian invasion of their northern islands and an American invasion of the southern ones, and there would have been infinitely more people killed all around.
Capitalist societies have produced technological advancements and improvements which have lifted millions out of poverty and saved millions more through medical innovations. I’m not claiming these improvements and innovations have been the goal of capitalist societies, but they’ve still been byproducts of capitalism and have done far more good than harm.
Not true, at least not in the 21st century. The biggest killer of innocents today is Islamist groups and it’s not close. Hardly a day goes by where we don’t hear about some sadistic mass-murder being carried out specifically in the name of Islam. You can’t say the same about capitalist entities.
I agree, and I personally think western nations should end any and all support for any nations that adhere to the barbarity and apartheid-esque policies of Sharia law (Saudi, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.). However, I also realize that oil is essential to the sustainability of humanity (whether a capitalist society or not) and therefore these resources must be secured (not for “profits” but for nothing less than the continuation of our species). Until there’s an economically viable alternate to fossil fuels, that’s just the way it is.
Inequality equals oppression. Even if non-Muslims accept the dhimmi status under Sharia, they are still subject to more than just the Jizya tax including limits on societal or governmental participation. And then there’s all the limitations on lifestyle choices and liberties for both Muslims and non-Muslims alike under Sharia. It’s not a “moderate” system at all and it should be shunned wherever it exists by anyone who values freedom and liberty.
Because Muslims pay a different form of tax but are also given elevated status (including many more rights and privileges) in the society compared to non-Muslims.
Glenn’s essay today is of course absolutely spot on. But unfortunately this one sided depiction of “good” and “bad” victims is not new.
Look at any WWII era news accounts and it won’t be long before you read of “krauts”, “slopes” “Japs” and many more less polite terms. These are the ones they printed. Or showed in kiddie cartoons at the movies.
Much is made of terrorists deliberately targeting civilians today. Horrible. Yet nothing is ever mentioned about WWII terror tactics by the US and allies deliberately targeting civilians as a strategy. Think Liddell Hart, whose UK bombing theory was to supposedly demoralize Germans by wiping out civilian cities. Didn’t work, in fact was later shown to be quite the opposite.
Terror bombing of Japanese and German cities is never called terrorism. Or dropping nuclear weapons on two mainly civilian targets in Japan.
No “war crimes” tribunals were held for Allied terrorism. Nor is there any meaningful accountability for the recent deliberate war crime in US bombing of a MSF operated hospital in Afghanistan. Instead we receive a mealy-mouthed “apology” by some US general and some mumbling about secret demerits supposedly put on the service records of the anonymous perpetrators. Of course like their terrorist predecessors, they wear US military uniforms.
Our Saudi “allies” and similar are killing thousands in Yemen. Who cares?
Two wrongs (or dozens) don’t make a “right.” Of course.
But as Glenn notes, such hypocrisy doesn’t go unnoticed by those being hurt or the families and neighbors of victims in foreign lands.
Where are the liberals of a few decades back? We heard some noise from them during the Vietnam war about this. Today, nothing. Of course they are now running these wars, so I guess that makes their civilian killing okay.
And some still wonder why “they” hate us.
thank you — people have to take responsibility for what their governments do and hold the press to answer the 5 w’s not what justifies what the governments do–thank you again.
The American President came from Chicago. To this day, Chicago has only gotten worse under the Black American President and is a KILL ZONE – and it’s worse for America’s President…. he’s had 7 years to improve Black/White relations – he didn’t even try, and the number in poverty has increased dramatically by the obvious number of people on food stamps, and despite the Administrations claims unemployment is only 5.7% – despite the fact 90 million Americans are out of work and not looking.
Ask me, and I think the American President LOVES the current state of world affairs, because he is the leader of the free world, and his influence or lack of is very apparent.
The world is the most unsafe in my 50 years on earth. Thank you Obama and Thanks Democrats and a special thanks to Ari Emmanuel .
‘Now hear this, O foolish and senseless people, Who have eyes but do not see; Who have ears but do not hear.’
‘what fault of mine hast caused thee to cease thy favors? … is it that we are lowly, and thou of high degree’?
I am really tired of the poor comments section at this site – please improve it.
Why is the comments section on this site so shitty?
C’mon Glenn, please ask the developers to sort this out, this isn’t difficult at all.
With those specific complaints, I’m sure they’ll have no trouble getting it done for you…
They don’t give a crap. Except for the reporters*, this place is a joke. Old and tired clock punchers simultaneously in way over their heads, and yet too scared/bored to do anything new.
From a business perspective this place makes the Sunday talk shows seem like Wikileaks.
It helps when you realize this place is a very very very rich man’s mid-life crisis. A sports car pony tail–which explains the transition to film producer perfectly.
*And by reporters, I mean Glenn and Jeremy.
New found appreciation for Ashleigh………
People leave such tediously long and boring comments here , you sound like a bunch of attention whores.
Ok, attention whore.
He is exemplifying to the best of his ability such profound, remarkable and insightful observations for which there is no comparison. And if weren’t for his obvious talents, one might erroneously think he would be attempting to dissuade others from….. participating.
Amazing courage GG. If you want to put out a fire, you have to know what is fueling it. The current strategy is to beat them into submission or exterminate them all while at the same time declare that they have no right to life support. And therein lies the twist that takes “who we are” to a “what we do” which is not altogether leading by example.
Humanity has 2 choices, competitive power and domination over others or, co-operative promotion of equality and life support. There is no in between, no gray area, no other choice. This is about the family of the planet. Either everyone counts equally or they don’t as a rule and by default and the measure of this is ownership of life support resources. It really is that simple.
In 1775 Americans revolted against those who would make them slaves and steal their productivity and power of self sufficiency and life support. The enemy – altho capitalists – were only propelled by capitalistic induded greed that fueled their will to render colonists as expendable. Like any poison, too much of one thing is deadly.
Yet here we are again. Same symptoms. Same disease.
This emphasis on victimhood (see israel also) is characteristic of self righteousness and demonstrates the “power over others” operation in play. What you will also see in the PowerPlayers scenario – as a tell (like in poker) – is the “sell job”. There was no WMD. It was obvious that the media was pushing this against loud objections that were rendered as distant wispers. Then came the seller in chief aka GWBush to tell the nation (u.s.) about the wmd in a tone and manner that reflected doubt and had to be back-stopped with a
Moreover, these sellers of wars offer the biggest tell of all and that is, the imposition of advocating armed conflict with pride, not regret, for the potential for loss of life, that somehow the deaths of others, no matter which side, was just a cheaper price.
This “propagandistic” and self-exonerating media coverage should be wholly unsurprising. It’s what empires always do. They sanitize their atrocities. The degree to which Americans are deliberately kept in the dark about the human cost of empire is equaled only by the failure of conscience by American citizens themselves, who have allowed themselves to be lulled into a sense of entitlement and invulnerability. In short, exceptionality. This does not bode well for the future. Empires crumble from within. Donald Trump is exhibit number one.
spot on. Yet another symptom of the disease. Sanitizing their atrocities indeed.
Something happens to people who are willing to kill for power or gain. If you have ever met these types you may sense a very creepy scary weird sensation within yourself as a tremor. It will literally take you back a step. You will wonder what you are witnessing.
Absurd ending.Trump has had no influence on current American policy which has been shown as terrible and self defeating.
He is the only candidate to attack Nato,the shrub,McCain,the WOT,Syria,Libya trade steals,open borders ,Russophobia and Iraq.
Your prejudices are showing.
Very odd how all of you well-educated elites take these and other maleficent actors and acts occurring as a result of Middle East ‘tensions’ at face value.
You believe the motives and rationales put forth by the news media as supposedly relayed by those engaging in these incidents, and begin your analysis and opinion based upon that information.
Less than 1% of you seem to even question these ‘facts’, or even engage in a more thorough investigation – because so many are saying the same things, so it must be the truth.
There is a different side to this mass manipulation, but it is one that is not easily accepted, and it is much easier to just go along with the ‘official’ line.
Do tell.
If it answers, we’re going to be sorry you asked.
Pointing fingers at others while you constantly feed the Ziotroll CS is hillaryous.
The post lightly [edited] for accuracy:
“Mr. Greenwald
[I’m] really moving the goal post [all over the place]. ISIS is not [just] retaliating because of our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan[; there’s much more to it than that:] the West perpetrates violence against Muslims in seven countries[! Still, ISIS couldn’t even exist if wasn’t for US policies and the American weapons and support provided to them along with much money from Saudia Arabia and Turkey].
I. do.n’t care about our support for Israel. [All that really] matters [is that] they target, attack and murder Muslims [in Palestine] – many if not most innocent civilians [whom I care about even less].
ISIS [exists] because we bomb[ed and destroyed] Iraq [which led to the creation of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the forerunner of ISIS. The American-backed assault upon Syria bolstered ISIS still further, just as the Defense Intelligence Agency predicted in 2012 that it would. The war in] Syria [was initiated with the] goal of [replacing one] anti-democratic oppressive state [with another that would serve US ‘interests’ better than the Assad regime even though it was known to US planners that they would be backing an Islamic State in Syria].
This military [approach, known as war crimes and crimes against humanity among those who care, naturally leads to a desire for] revenge because drones [and other American-made instruments of terror and war] have killed [hundreds of thousands of innocent] (Muslim) civilians in [Iraq, Syria], Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan and so on.
It was always a ridiculous assertion by [me that Western violence and imperialism hasn’t led to more violence] – and nothing short of propaganda on behalf of the [imperial elites]. Islamic terrorist organizations like Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, ISIS and al-Qaeda [owe their very existence to Western policies and funding because American elites] have political goals which use American propaganda[, money and weapons] to further their interests, [so] none have any compunction about killing tens of thousands of Muslims to create a [compliant] state. Their primary goal is [wealth and power through control over natural resources], not [security or peace].
That doesn’t make [any of the now countless number of] attacks in [the Middle East by the US and its clients] any less of a [series of terrible war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated] for political [and economic] gain. [Many of those attacks even] meet the operating definition of terrorism.”
Without know what it is that some muslims don’t like about western ways, i can say from observation that tits for tats are immaterial with respect to the differences that count.
Every society or group of people want to live in some place in their own way. That extremists have no place to go to bathe in their ways is a problem of overpopulation.
If crazy persons want to have their own country, and we have the physical room for that, let them go there. It is high time we start removing artificial borders establish by the territorial empires. Of course the weapons makers will object to that. And so will the democracies who vote for their own emporers.
ISIS is deeply unpopular among Muslims, who, from what I’ve observed, are even more anguished and horrified than the rest of us by the group’s violence. ISIS has openly stated it’s goal is to change this; to manipulate the West into sending its Muslims fleeing to the arms of ISIS.
As one Muslim wrote in a WaPo op-ed:
Western nations are very helpfully doing a great deal to make their Muslims feel unwelcome in the West. They must love ISIS.
That’s why we Muslims do not wish that they be referred to as “Islamic State”. Daesh is a better term. They are NOT a state, and they are NOT Islamic! The word, Islamic, to us Muslims, means “According to the teachings of Islam”.
Here’s Juan Cole on this:
From http://www.juancole.com/2016/03/how-not-to-talk-about-muslims-after-a-fringe-terrorist-group-attacks.html
That’s a more than fair point, Sufi. I guess the reason I don’t refer to it as “Daesh” is because I’m not sure everyone know the term.
Altho, and as we’ve discussed before, I do classify Daesh as “Islamic.” I do so because that is how they identify themselves, just as the Army of God considers itself Christian as it goes about bombing abortion clinics and assassinating abortionists.
I understand. We don’t have to go over that again, but I found an ally in Juan Cole.
From the same link:
http://www.juancole.com/2016/03/how-not-to-talk-about-muslims-after-a-fringe-terrorist-group-attacks.html
How not to talk about Muslims after a Fringe Terrorist Group attacks
By Juan Cole
2. Call the terrorists “Muslim” if you have to characterize them, not “Islamic” or even worse, “Islamics.” There is no such thing as “Islamic” terrorism. The word “Islamic” has to do with the ideals and verities of the religion of Islam, and is analogous to “Judaic.” There are Muslim criminals and Muslim terrorists, just as there are Jewish criminals and Jewish terrorists. But there are no Judaic terrorists, and there aren’t any Islamic ones either. But it is all right just to call them terrorists or cultists.
Excellent observations. Bill Maher needs to read you.
“…….Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one of two choices, they either apostatize .?.?. or they [emigrate] to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution from the Crusader governments and citizens.” The group calculates that a small number of attackers can profoundly shift the way that European society views its 44 million Muslim members and, as a result, the way European Muslims view themselves. Through this provocation, it seeks to set conditions for an apocalyptic war with the West……”
They may indeed have that as a grand plan, but remember that Muslims don’t hate our freedoms, right? If they join the Islamic state, they most certainly will be giving up their freedoms – not to mention, they will be perpetually at war. Isn’t that the reason that there are millions of refugees who want to ESCAPE the war zone? They could have joined ISIS when they were in Syria – but chose not to.
ISIS is not an attractive option for Muslims. There will always be a small percentage of Muslims in Europe who will hate our freedoms and join ISIS, but good intelligence will expose most plots (like the one in France today, for example). ISIS represents only a minor threat to Europe.
The ISIS “plan” is ludicrous – and intellectually – no one could possibly believe this outcome is remotely realistic.
Something i am not seeing here. The IDF hate terrorists. The right wing racist radicals in israel (party name eludes me, but they are members of the zion cult) should be all up in and on the ground over there fighting ISIS/ISIL. Why are they not? Are they that much of cowards? Or maybe are they thieves who want to make America the target to get America to do their fighting for them?
Jesus the savior would have something to say about that.
“…….Something i am not seeing here. The IDF hate terrorists. The right wing racist radicals in israel (party name eludes me, but they are members of the zion cult) should be all up in and on the ground over there fighting ISIS/ISIL. Why are they not? Are they that much of cowards?…..”
Don’t be stupid barabbas. It’s more like why hasn’t ISIS attempted to attack Israel?
“……Or maybe are they thieves who want to make America the target to get America to do their fighting for them?…..”
Right. Gook thinking.
“It’s more like why hasn’t ISIS attempted to attack Israel?’
1. mossad is ISIS?
i know something you dont know
To destroy the gray zone–this is goal of all partisan politics.
Daesh is simply using a tried and true technique. What is different is that Daesh will tell you upfront what they are doing and why. It would be refreshing if we could get that kind of honesty out of our own partisans.
This is why partisans use exclusive and exclusionary language. You can’t be left and right at the same time. You can’t be black and white at the same time.
The goal of partisans is to demonize the other side to such an extent that cooperation and empathy is impossible. There can only be war.
Violence is a wonderful shortcut to this goal, but violence is unnecessary for hate and division. The only requirement is the other.
lol! plz allow me a moment of hillarity at the irony of it all. It comes to mind that it is..
Somehow America got all involved in this BS. We the people didn’t start the fire. That somehow is somewho namely bush and cheney- the arsonists. From a flicker to a flame.
There have been 100year wars. Israel has a 50+ year war going against Palestine. This ISIS/ISIL thing vs whoever could fester a thousand years.
Yes, obviously the other side is responsible for the fire.
I can’t think of better way to sum up exactly what I was saying.
Incredible that people cherry pick criminals based on their party loyalty.
Bent Dick,his evil wife,Gore and almost every demoncrat in Congress are also responsible for the hell hole we find ourselves in.They are all Ziowhores,along with the majority of rethugs.
Mona, do you really believe Islamic terror begins and ends with ISIS? They are the tip of the iceberg. Not to mention, the problems of Islam go well beyond the threat of terror. Not everything is a Zionist plot.
Anti-Semitism has always been a unique prejudice. It’s a conspiratorial, pseudo-intellectual paranoid ideology. You undeniably subscribe to an anti-Semitic form of Anti-Zionism. All the classic tropes apply with you. You literally wrote somewhere on this message board that the global phenomenon of Islamic terror is a Zionist creation. Jew hatred stems from the belief that Jews are clannish, shadowy people pulling strings behind the scenes. It’s the paranoid belief that Jewish people are the secret cause of all that is wrong with the world. Mona, you ascribe these characteristics to the state of Israel. Whether the Jewish character of the state is a coincidence or not is to be determined.
Now, before you rip my face off. I do not believe you have hatred for individual Jews or the community as a whole. You are not a Nazi. However, you have immersed yourself in a movement that has forged an unholy alliance with Islamists. You have inhaled the toxins of anti-Semitism without realizing it. You are propagating anti-Semitic ideas without actually holding any ill will for the Jewish people. Perhaps I am being too charitable, but I do see you as symptomatic of a larger problem on the left. You are not a prejudiced person, but you are dangerously oblivious to the origins of your ideas.
“…the problems of Islam go well beyond the threat of terror.”
————-
Yeah, somebody should do about this monolithic monster.
http://www.shaykhfadhlallahaeri.com
I saw that movie. “Be afraid. Be very afriad.”
“Warfukkers are neither creative nor intelligent nor embracing of good living”.
The SWISS SOLUTION is Cross our borders uninvited and we kill you.
So WTF are we doing everywhere else, trying to take over the world?
When morons make decisions, you might have a problem.
DocHollywood
“……Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies……”
No one is arguing that Muslims hate our freedoms. In fact, the Arab Spring was more than ample proof that many Muslims are willing to fight and die for freedom. Syria, Libya and Egypt were classic examples. The commission is well out of date on that point since the Arab Spring occurred after the commission wrote their misguided (and abused) report. No one can argue any differently. Muslims may disagree with our policies, but that doesn’t make them terrorists anymore than I am going to strap a suicide vest on and attack a Russian airport terminal because I disagree with the policies in Syria and Ukraine. Plenty of Muslims residing in the west disagree with many western policies. an incredibly high percentage voice their disagreement PEACEFULLY – and through the ballot box.
The Muslims that are attacking the west are beholden to ISIS and al-Qaeda – two terrorist organizations that do hate our freedom as they have stated time and time again. They seek to recreate the caliphate, in a racist, bigoted, misogynistic, anti-democratic society. There is no middle ground on that issue. The Charlie Hebdo massacre was a classic example. THEY DO HATE OUR FREEDOMS. Get the difference, Doc?
The terrorists associated with ISIS and al-Qaeda kill thousands of Muslims annually. Sunni terrorist kill more innocent people from terrorist attacks than any other group. Muslims are the largest recipient of the terrorist attacks. There has been 5000 European Muslims who have traveled to join ISIS in Syria and Iraq – in support of the goals of ISIS which involves mostly killing Muslims. So Muslims are pissed off at our policies of killing Muslims; invading dominantly Muslim countries; bombing seven Muslim countries; randomly droning any (Muslim) male of military age – and they retaliate by ……… killing MORE Muslims?
The idiocy of the radical left is beyond any doubt.
But that’s not why the Islamic terrorists are hellbent on attacking us. As the 2004 DoD study Rumsfeld commissioned found. Or as Murtaza Hussein documents (re: ISIS) here at TI.
You mean they want to create another Saudi Arabia.
The denial is strong in this one…
From a comment that has yet posted that contained hyperlinks (which I’ve removed for this):
__________________________________________________________________________
Not only have these facts been repeated and found verified again and again since 2004 – the question of “Why do they hate us when we’re so good?” (as pointed out by Noam Chomsky in the panel discussion with Snowden and Greenwald shown here at The Intercept) was asked by President Eisenhower in 1958, and the answer was the same then as it is now – because of our policies, not our freedoms.
The blatant hypocrisy is especially evident in several excerpts of the1958 document outlining United States foreign policy in the region:
Foreign Relations of the United States 1958–1960
Volume XII, Near East Region; Iraq; Iran; Arabian Peninsula, Document 5
Thwarting of Aggression
Oil
And finally:
Psychological
The bottom line is that Western, and specifically the United States policies in the region have created the chaos and resulting quagmire we find ourselves in today.
Thanks for that, SillyPutty. I’d made a mental note of Chomsky’s observation of the ’58 report, and then it slipped my mind.
Not that it, or any other facts, will deter Craig, or many other Zionists. Facts that upset their narrative must be ignored where possible, and where it’s not possible to ignore the facts, the messenger must be denounced. ( In CraigWorld, “radical leftists” at the State Dept. drafted the ’58 report for Ike.) Facts that seriously threaten the Zionist Tale of Reality must never be accepted.
Sillyputty
“…….The bottom line is that Western, and specifically the United States policies in the region have created the chaos and resulting quagmire we find ourselves in today…..”
Of course, sillyputty, I know you want to blame the US, but the “chaos and resulting quagmire we find ourselves in today” goes back much further in time – at least according to Jon Schwarz. Columbus Day completely explains all the wars and conflicts on earth today (“COLUMBUS DAY IS THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF EVERY YEAR”:
“…..in fact it tells one story, the story of why October 12, 1492, is the most important date in human history — and demonstrates that you have to understand that in order for anything happening on Earth now to make sense….”
“…….If we maintain the social silence around colonialism, our past and present will always be bewildering, like the above list. But if we break the silence, and talk about what truly matters, the confusing swirl of war and conflict can suddenly makes sense……”
To get back to your post and your conclusion (the only writing you did in your post), it makes as much sense as Jon’s. You wing out a select few policies from the period 1958-60 without any context (for example the Cold War, or the US brokered peace between Israel and Egypt at Camp David in 1979, or the UN supported resolution to remove Saddam’s army from Kuwait in 1990 etc.) and suddenly, everything wrong in the world today is the fault of the US. The radical left always provides simplistic solutions to complex geopolitical problems: It’s the fault of the US. If you want to get more specific, let me know.
“……Not only have these facts been repeated and found verified again and again since 2004 – the question of “Why do they hate us when we’re so good?” was asked by President Eisenhower in 1958, and the answer was the same then as it is now – because of our policies, not our freedoms……”
Reread my post.
Yes, as I noted, the US accepted responsibility for the policies that has generated the blow-back in the region (but didn’t much care) in the assessments done in 1958 and 2004.
The context was self-evident, in that the responsibility of reaping what we sow due to our policies (not our freedoms) was freely acknowledged by the US – then and now.
No, just those specific things that our own government has admitted to in both 1958 and 2004 (but doesn’t much care about) which is that our policies – not our freedoms – are the root cause of these problems.
No, thanks. Unlike you, when I see a government admitting twice over forty-plus years to the specific consequences of their specific actions, and the facts supporting these admissions are also born out by not only my research, but also by international scholars as well, the least helpful thing would be to listen to you try to repeatedly ‘specify’ your way out of reality.
No, for reasons already stated.
“……No, just those specific things that our own government has admitted to in both 1958 and 2004 (but doesn’t much care about) which is that our policies – not our freedoms – are the root cause of these problems…..”
What problems? I am still not quite understanding exactly what problems you are talking about. Again, you might try being a little more specific. I suspect you won’t however because that might actually force you to know something about what you are citing as problems.
A refresher. Again. The premise of the article is, as usual, the title:
Highlighting Western Victims While Ignoring Victims of Western Violence
And again, I am following that premise (i,e,. not changing the subject) as is your wont.
As I see it, the article is showing the specific hypocrisy of the Western media as a whole in its disparate coverage of the victims of violence as a result the Western interventions in the Middle East. A lot is said about Western victims and attacks on Western interests; not so much about those the West victimizes, either by the United States directly or by its many partners and proxies.
That seems pretty straightforward – to me at least. If the author thinks I’m mischaracterizing it, he can chime in.
So that is one of the “problems” here that you are searching for.
I, and others here, take that premise further, noting that the United States has not only made this contrivance of “whoa is me, what did we do to deserve this?” further, to the extent that not only does the United States know now why folks in this region act the way they do (it’s our policies – not our freedoms) but that the United States has known about this dynamic since at least 1958, when President Eisenhower asked the question, and again when Rumsfeld’s 2004 report on the same topic came back with the same result.
I would argue that human history provides us with enough lessons to show that this process – irrespective of the initial aggressor – occurs almost universally.
The “problem” with the United States (and the West) in relation to the premise of the article is that because citizens now know the United States (and the West) knew what they knew when they knew it, the United States and the West’s position on claiming the moral high-ground has evaporated.
Yet, by under-reporting the damage inflicted on all humans involved in this conflict, the United States (and Western) media continue to push the message that it’s only their interests being harmed here, and by imperial implication that this must rightfully be so.
In my view, this paradigm is predicated on lies in the first place, such as:
1) That U.S. policies and objectives, (then or now) actually support any goals of the Arab people, including:
a. Freedom and independence of Near East nations.
b. Self-determination of area peoples.
c. Local responsibility for local problems.
d. The ideal of Arab unity.
e. Opposition to external dominance and infringement on local sovereignty.
f) The U.S. desire to contribute to local economic development
Why? Because these “U.S. policies and objectives” are always superseded by the self-interest of the West as outlined here:
Note that history has shown us that none of this is due, nor has it ever been, to any existentialist threat to national or Western security, but simply because of policies of the United States and the West are governed by corporate and military interests – not humanitarian ones.
Sillyputty
Thanks for the response. I firmly believe that you may be sincere in your belief, but you still simplify without any context to individual events or actions taken by the US. You hold the US to some higher standard always without any leeway for geopolitical interests (as if we should be the only country on the planet that should have none). I agree that the US is driven in many cases by interests – but not always. The cold war was an ideological battle. Of course, the US has had many misguided policies. No sane person can deny that.
“…….As I see it, the article is showing the specific hypocrisy of the Western media as a whole in its disparate coverage of the victims of violence as a result the Western interventions in the Middle East. A lot is said about Western victims and attacks on Western interests; not so much about those the West victimizes, either by the United States directly or by its many partners and proxies……”
OK and I believe that the MSM under reports on the civilians killed by the Taliban who – according to a UN report – account for 70% of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Those civilians killed are as much a part of the war as the victims of US drones – and they are certainly never reported by the Intercept. I also believe that the MSM under reports on Pakistan’s role in supporting the Taliban. Of course, a terrorist attack at home is going to garner more coverage. I am sure that the British media covered the bombings of London in WWII far more than the civilians killed by British bombers in Germany. That is tribal (nationalistic, patriotic – and sells newspapers) – and perfectly normal. But the Intercept is no better – and far worse in most circumstances. Greenwald provides no context WHY the US is bombing the terrorists in North Africa in the first place. This is fundamental to reporting a conflict:
“……Witnesses said that suspected Boko Haram fighters firebombed huts and opened fire on civilians on Saturday evening in the village of Dalori, leaving bullet-ridden and charred bodies strewn across the streets…..Witnesses said that they heard the screams of children burning to death as huts and homes were razed to the ground…..”
When have you ever read that in the fair and balanced Intercept? Regardless, Greenwald’s article on air attack by the US on al-Shabaab was ridiculous. Bombing al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda, ISIS and Boko Haram is always humanitarian even if that is not the goal.
“………I, and others here, take that premise further, noting that the United States has not only made this contrivance of “whoa is me, what did we do to deserve this?” further, to the extent that not only does the United States know now why folks in this region act the way they do (it’s our policies – not our freedoms) but that the United States has known about this dynamic since at least 1958, when President Eisenhower asked the question, and again when Rumsfeld’s 2004 report on the same topic came back with the same result…….”
My first post (that you responded to) answers this question. There is nothing I need to add.
“…….The “problem” with the United States (and the West) in relation to the premise of the article is that because citizens now know the United States (and the West) knew what they knew when they knew it, the United States and the West’s position on claiming the moral high-ground has evaporated…….”
First of all, the brutal bombing highlighted in this article was conducted by Saudi Arabia – not the US. Second of all, the Saudis are locked in a regional battle for supremacy with Iran. Iran has been arming the Houthis (not reported by the Intercept). This is part of the regional conflict which includes the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Syria. Third of all, the US is not in control of the Saudi government which has a different set of geopolitical objectives than the US. The US opposed Saudi Arabia and Qatar arming ISIS in Syria – but encouraged the Saudis to arm the moderate opposition. Saudi Arabia runs their own foreign policy not always in lock-step with US interests (for example, the US is bombing al-Qaeda in Yemen while the Saudis are bombing the Houthis who are an enemy of al-Qaeda). There is no reason that the US media should go house to house in Yemen getting comments on the Saudi bombing of civilians, or otherwise provide the same coverage they give for the Brussels bombing. All deaths are not the same. All victims are not the same and the Intercept is a leading proponent of that philosophy.
“…….Yet, by under-reporting the damage inflicted on all humans involved in this conflict, the United States (and Western) media continue to push the message that it’s only their interests being harmed here, and by imperial implication that this must rightfully be so…….”
Your own bullshit – and answered above and below.
“……Note that history has shown us that none of this is due, nor has it ever been, to any existentialist threat to national or Western security, but simply because of policies of the United States and the West are governed by corporate and military interests – not humanitarian ones……”
They are not mutually exclusive concepts. Geopolitical interests can coincide with humanitarian ones as well – but clearly not always. For example, the Korean War was fought for geopolitical reasons (communism), but produced humanitarian results (just compare to North Korea). US deterrence prevented the potential war between Taiwan and the mainland. The collapse of the USSR – and the end to the cold war – freed 15 countries many of which joined NATO and the EU. The wars in Bosnia and Kosovo were humanitarian as well as geopolitical – and produced a Muslim majority state in Kosovo. The US (UN) booted Iraq out of Kuwait which was clearly humanitarian, yet preserved US interests (oil). The invasion of Iraq freed the Kurds and the Shiites (although regime change was the goal), and who in their right mind can argue that getting rid of the Taliban was not humanitarian even if that was not the goal? The US helped boot the USSR out of Afghanistan which was humanitarian (and supported US interests opposing the USSR). You’ll remember that the Soviet record of producing democracies was abysmal (like zero). Additionally, US-supported Taiwan and South Korea transitioned from dictatorships to democracies (as did all of Europe after WWII – and now eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union).
Superb statement!
Yes, the same “solutions” identified by those radical leftists in Ike’s State Department and at the Defense Science Board.
The Defense Science(?) Board is simply wrong in their conclusions.
Oh. How do you know that they are wrong?
And, how do you know that they aren’t radical leftists?
Are you conceding that Ike’s State Department was a coven of radical leftists?
lmao. They hate us for our freedoms? Really? First off, you have to believe that people who are robbed of jobs, homes, productivity, food resources and saftety from being poisoned by lead from pipes and bullets, are actually free. Talk about idiots, only a self-righteous right wing nut job would call that freedom.
Oh! freedom of speech? nope. not that either. That was superceded by money from the USSC and zions at UCB.
I will proceed. They hate us for our freedoms? Given the nature of the transgressions i just pointed out, not to mention that we are not free to dis-support the israeli apartheid state, the only remaining freedom is to do what to who – beginning with the lack of prosection of the bombing of the british embassy by terrorists, the replacement of the ruler of iran with a cia installed shah, etc etc.
So if these transgressions are the last bastion of freedoms for the dynamic duo, then yeah, you might say they hate the only freedoms remaining.
have a nice day.
Craig probably meant to say they hate us for loving the freedoms we used to have.
Some here, especially the ardent Zionists, insist on ignoring the perfectly rational (note, I did not write “reasonable”) motives behind Islamic terrorism. The fact is, even ISIS is following a rational game plan, one not dictated simply by some obscure and savage religious beliefs.
The Intercept’s journalist, Murtaza Hussein, currently has a piece up addressing ISIS’ political motives and goals, goals which Western nations are dutifully helping them meet.
Many Western interest groups have strong interests in not promoting the actual motives and goals of violent Muslim groups. Zionists rely on cartoonish demonizations of Islam to point their fingers and hide Israel’s own monstrous actions. Terrorism “experts” earn their money on TeeVee and at their think tanks and security companies by not telling the public truth. And, many politicians pander to base religious prejudice among Christians.
Finally, the state benefits from fearmongering and falsehoods when the body politic accedes to its buying shiny new toys, bombing and warring, and expanding its power.
Glenn, I just found the correct link. Sorry; I’ll get better next time..
Cheers,
J
Glenn wrote they claim “They, but not We, are committing civilian-killing violence”. Yes, ours is not violence it is merely collateral damage and a good example of such collateral damage is the video Chelsea Manning went to prison for when exposing the American soldiers callously in their helicopter gunning down unarmed civilians, journalists and children. Here it is http://www.collateralmurder.com/ just to keep as a reminder why we are considered the terrorist in the minds of millions.
The term collateral damage should have been also inscribed on the tablets so the murders and ignorant could fully understand the concept of “Thou Shall Not Kill”.
It may not be a bad idea that those Americans which are calling for mass carpet bombing remember that George Washington and his men were all considered terrorists in their day.
Glenn,
As always, I enjoyed reading your unique angle on the media, an angle very hard to find elsewhere. I also saw you, Snowden and Chomsky in a recent forum taped at Arizona University. I thought I was in heaven…my two heroes and my intellectual father discussing the themes of the day..it lasted two hours and felt like one minute; it was that captivating to me.
I am curious about the 2004 Rumsfeld report that you and Noam mentioned in the forum and you give links here and in other places but all those links are dead. I had no luck finding i in the dod website. Do you have another link or source where I can download the report from?
Thank you,
Josephine
CraigSummers inadvertently stumbles upon a truism
He’s finding that the facts refuting his falsehood refute it no matter how many times he repeats himself.
All that he’s missing is evidence.
The same US policies that led to the Advisory Committee’s conclusions and their predicted outcomes still exist today:
Not only have these facts been repeated and found verified again and again since 2004 – the question of “Why do they hate us when we’re so good?” (as pointed out by Noam Chomsky in the panel discussion with Snowden and Greenwald shown here at The Intercept) was asked by President Eisenhower in 1958, and the answer was the same then as it is now – because of our policies, not our freedoms.
The blatant hypocrisy is especially evident in several excerpts of the1958 document outlining United States foreign policy in the region:
Foreign Relations of the United States 1958–1960
Volume XII, Near East Region; Iraq; Iran; Arabian Peninsula, Document 5
Thwarting of Aggression
Oil
And finally:
Psychological
The bottom line is that Western, and specifically the United States policies in the region have created the chaos and resulting quagmire we find ourselves in today.
The deplorable ethical decay of the western syndicated feed is simply that “feed”–low grade fodder or pablum ground out according to a production formula that extricates anything remotely resembling the truth. Truth always has a contextual grounding but “journalism” is supposed to balance those contexts and hold them in opposition to provide a basis on which to form perspective. Unfortunately, the views espoused by western media outlets are as flat as a medieval tapestry–fitting given the new dark age of orthodoxy that we are being plunged into by both sides of this pissing contest between idealogues.
The “News” is a parody of itself and has long been a wellspring of material for ironic humour for shows like The Daly Show . That so many can be so easily led by the nose–by a one eyed man in the land of the blind is as astounding as it is depressing.
Thank you for keeping the candle burning and spreading light where darkness abounds.
“pablum ground out according to a production formula that extricates anything remotely resembling the truth”.
Well said. Some time ago we were solicited to review the quality of MSNBC and one of the questions expressed their concern for it’s VALUE AS TO ENTERTAINING. Entertaining…. not truthful, informative, accurate, meaningful, empowering, etc… none of that, just ENTERTAINING.
So now what, i have to change my name to Rover? Or is it already Rover and i am too dumb to know it?
This is how wallstreet “treats” America.
CraigSummers inadvertently stumbles upon a truism
He’s finding that the facts refuting his falsehood refute it no matter how many times he repeats himself.
All that he’s missing is evidence.
The same US policies that led to the Advisory Committee’s conclusions and their predicted outcomes still exist today:
So much for fair and balanced. If anything exposes the mainstream media’s self-perpetuating myth of journalists and media sources being detached, neutral observers simply relating the facts as they know them, it would be its editorial choice to sanitize, it not ignore completely – as Glenn’s article shows – the brutalities of life in a country that’s been on the receiving end of U.S. ordnance.
How can they keep a straight face when claiming journalistic neutrality?
Your piece, “Highlighting Western Victims While Ignoring Victims of Western Violence”, is like a breath of fresh air in this world of “un-journalism”! As a former journalist, in schooling and experience, back in the 1960s and 1970s, I view most of today’s so-called “mainstream media” with utter disdain. The New York Times and its shielding and defense of indefensible Zionist Israel is but one example, and the same is true with the Washington Toast. Network and cable “news” is solely aired now for entertainment and for promoting whatever may be on their “agendas”.
Unless I’ve missed it on The Intercept, I would urge you to do a much needed series—on the “ugly old America” and its ill-purposed destructive imperialistic “foreign policy” and why and how it has given birth and growth to the so-called “terrorism” endlessly propagandized by our “establishment mainstream media.”
Its western propaganda to support their war. They show brussels while they are committing the same acts themselves. The saddest part is that no one is held accountable. The brussels attack is nothing compared to what we do. I don’t blame the muslims for fighting back. About time the west read the Bible and we got our christianty back on track. No one deserves to be attacked in a civilised world. Now i been through a war and have no problems with soldiers having it out but innocents and especially children is not on. So vote your leaders out for those that support values. Then all this carnage will stop. Don’t just look at it from one side but both. I think its time the west stops being led by the nose by uncle sam. Don’t want an influx of foreigners in your country then stop blowing up their countries and get your act together with who you let in.
Greetings! Yes, the Tucson panel was so excellent. But wasn’t it supposed to be archived here somewhere??? And BTW, I really couldn’t understand Edward Snowden at all. Did see a clip of him on another site and I could actually make out what he was saying. In other words: transcript, please; pretty please :-)
And the discussion was a bit of inspiration:
http://observergal.blogspot.com/2016/03/privacy-word-cloud.html
All welcome to visit my site anytime…
The Tucson discussions were transcendent in illuminating the need for reigning in the pretensions of the NSA et al. All of you were superb and I again marveled that the heroic Edward Snowden must be safe under Putin’s wings because of of the vengeful US apparatchiks.
This essay is your usual excellent exposition. Give us your specific prescriptions for banishing the propagandistic corporate press from our lives.
I have bittersweet feeling about the Sanders campaign because rigged Demo convention will add his delegates to La Clinton’s after the super-delegates weigh -in. The two party control of our elections must be broken. How ?????
Please please everyone stop writing off Sanders! He’s on an amazing roll and could easily win the nomination. Clinton is imploding. Her only hope was for people to not learn who she is, and now they are getting the chance to learn who she really is. The most recent national poll puts him ahead of Clinton now in a general election! Why so much negativity and apathy? Why assume the superdelegates will stay with Clinton? They are supposed to go to the candidate who wins the most primary delegates. Having so many pledged at the outset is just a psychological ploy and see how well it’s working!
I am not fooled by attempts of corrupt persons telling me that i need to be on te side of predicted winners. I am not looking to be a winner per se. I AM LOOKING TO VOTE MY WILL, MY VOICE. Bullytalk does not work on me. My voice, my will, is not for sale.
I SUPPORT BERNIE SANDERS for PRESIDENT.
no matter what.
SIMPLE. The concerned persons must hold a convention for a constitutional upgrade and a declaration of dependence and.. a list of crimes and punishments for elected persons who propose or advocate laws contrary to our rights. Also a right of defense for those items that are sacred to the American way.
Then signed.
Then persons wishing to run for office who support this new document set (not ratified by states- forget that) will be voted and finaled for the general election.
All the pieces are about and just need some co-ordination. Simple yes. Easy not so but very do-able in the current America while it is still legal.
Recall that in florida a bunch of elected imbeciles made a law to prevent a beer maker from competing against the biggies – he had better beer, more popular beer, and it cost less. Stuff like that scares wallstreet thieves who want to own America.
All aboard.
Thanks for the great article. Another missed story is the 37 shot and killed and 224 shot and wounded so far in March in Chicago. While the media was reporting on Brussels bullets were whistling throug a daycare center on the South Side. Oh, they were Americans too.
Zionist terrorism*
In our era it is common to associate terrorism with Muslims, but Zionist Jews actually introduced a great deal of terrorist methods and ideology to modernity. Zionist terrorists in Mandate Palestine innovated the letter bomb; in 1954 Israel hijacked a Syrian airways civilian jet to obtain hostages, and; in 1956 shot down an Egyptian civilian airplane, killing 16 civilians, in order to assassinate a military leader. Moreover, without terrorism the State of Israel likely would not have come to exist in 1948.
Zionist terrorism demonstrated that “terrorism can, in the right conditions and with the appropriate strategy and tactics, succeed in attaining at least some of its practitioners’ fundamental aims.” Indeed, “[i]n the end, the [Zionist] terrorists got what they wanted.”
Pre-state Zionists carried out extensive terror against Arab civilians, the British and politically unacceptable Jews. They also murdered UN mediator Folke Bernadotte, who as head of the Swedish Red Cross during WWII had rescued thousands of concentration camp survivors.
In 1943 Yitzhak Shamir wrote the article Terror for the journal of Lehi — the terrorist organization he headed — and therein advocated the “dismiss[al of] all the ‘phobia’ and babble against terror with simple, obvious arguments.” “Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can be used to disallow terror as a means of war,” he wrote, and “We are very far from any moral hesitations when concerned with the national struggle.” “First and foremost, terror is for us a part of the political war appropriate for the circumstances of today, and its task is a major one: it demonstrates in the clearest language, heard throughout the world including by our unfortunate brethren outside the gates of this country, our war against the occupier.”
Additionally, Menachem Begin slaughtered many Arabs in pre-state Israel and was responsible for the infamous massacre of innocent Palestinians in their village of Deir Yassin. Both Begin and Shamir appeared on Palestine Police wanted posters for crimes of terrorism, and both would some day be elected prime minister of Israel. So, although Israel doesn’t negotiate with terrorists it evidently has no problem making them chief executive.
——————–
*This is taken from an article on Zionism I significantly, but not exclusively, wrote. Footnotes/documentation provided upon request.
Excellent statements. Yes please let us have footnotes and documentation.
As you may know, the software here usually refuses to post comments with more than one link embedded. But, I’ll cut and paste notes from the sources with the hyperlinks and see if it posts.
? https://books.google.com/books?id=O-uMJuYdDxwC&pg=PT92&lpg=PT92&dq=1954+Israel+hijacked+Syrian&source=bl&ots=eTLGLwAwLS&sig=nPi–hsWEXHTYAZWXHuHAqbS6bo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEwQ6AEwCTgKahUKEwiI5ZTew5vJAhXEeD4KHXDGBz0#v=onepage&q=1954%20Israel%20hijacked%20Syrian&f=false
? International Terrorism: Image and Reality by Noam Chomsky http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199112–02.htm
? https://books.google.com/books?id=O-uMJuYdDxwC&pg=PT92&lpg=PT92&dq=1954+Israel+hijacked+Syrian&source=bl&ots=eTLGLwAwLS&sig=nPi–hsWEXHTYAZWXHuHAqbS6bo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEwQ6AEwCTgKahUKEwiI5ZTew5vJAhXEeD4KHXDGBz0#v=onepage&q=1954%20Israel%20hijacked%20Syrian&f=false
? https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/assessing-role-of-terrorism-by-jewish-underground-in-founding-of-israel/2015/03/13/9ac811fe-b938-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html
? http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/189264/israel-original-terrorist-state
? http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2014/06/killing-count-20146282143931887.html
? Chomsky
Crap, I just repeatedly tried to get the links to post, but as you may know, the site software often refuses to post multiple links in a single comment. So, I removed the “h” from the “http” parts of the address; add it back in and stick it in your browzer:
? ttps://books.google.com/books?id=O-uMJuYdDxwC&pg=PT92&lpg=PT92&dq=1954+Israel+hijacked+Syrian&source=bl&ots=eTLGLwAwLS&sig=nPi–hsWEXHTYAZWXHuHAqbS6bo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEwQ6AEwCTgKahUKEwiI5ZTew5vJAhXEeD4KHXDGBz0#v=onepage&q=1954%20Israel%20hijacked%20Syrian&f=false
? International Terrorism: Image and Reality by Noam Chomsky ttp://www.chomsky.info/articles/199112–02.htm
? ttps://books.google.com/books?id=O-uMJuYdDxwC&pg=PT92&lpg=PT92&dq=1954+Israel+hijacked+Syrian&source=bl&ots=eTLGLwAwLS&sig=nPi–hsWEXHTYAZWXHuHAqbS6bo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEwQ6AEwCTgKahUKEwiI5ZTew5vJAhXEeD4KHXDGBz0#v=onepage&q=1954%20Israel%20hijacked%20Syrian&f=false
? ttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/assessing-role-of-terrorism-by-jewish-underground-in-founding-of-israel/2015/03/13/9ac811fe-b938-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html
? ttp://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/189264/israel-original-terrorist-state
? ttp://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2014/06/killing-count-20146282143931887.html
? Chomsky
VERY INFORMATIVE & ENLIGHTENING. thanks for your effort in putting out the picture.
My take is that the zions learned from hitler and the isil-isis learned from zionistas.
From everything i have read, and knowing that the wallstreet motto is “why pay for it if you can steal it” indicates to me that zionistas are a bunch of common criminals who steal for a living. Just because they make it legal doesn’t make it good, doesn’t make it right.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestine-by-ilan-pappe/4715
Ilan Pappe wrote “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” that covers the Zionist Project’s actions from the very beginning.
i am aware of the Yinon Plan.
Ethnic cleansing and the Yinon Plan are two different issues.
The first illegally removes the current occupants,the second is to divide all their neighbors and enemies,both now and future possibles,into confused and angry self destruction,witness America,and all the neighbors of Israel.
Re the lack of identifiable leadership, recognizable names (other than the usual political hacks), perhaps that is a consequence of the privitization of the GWOT, as well as the use of darkness/secrecy so that no one is to blame for abhorrent military actions, etc.
Glenn, I enjoyed what I could catch of you and Misters Chomsky and Snowden over the ether live last night.
I was listening, but also watching the ameri-centric Fox news on mute. It made for a rather strange, cognitively dissonant experience.
Anyway, bienvenidos de Tucson!
The Arizona event is archived here.
While the deaths from drone strikes and aerial bombing are invisible to Western media and audiences, you can be sure that that is not the case in the regions where the carnage is taking place.
In the American news it is always presented as an irrational mystery why “they” hate us (and our freedom) so much, but the mystery would be solved were both sides of this war were presented to Western audiences along with the history of American and British “interventions” in the Middle East.
You can’t put out a fire with gasoline.
We are at war and in war the blade cuts both ways. War is serious and should demand an inform citizenry, congressional declaration of war and press that reports the complete facts and fictions. All three elements are absent from the war on terror.
The average citizen has little concept of what this war means and even the diligent and knowing get insufficient information. Our history and wars in our history are not well taught or learned. The Art of War “Master Sun’s Rules of Warfare” the 5th century BC, should be taught in high school.
Glenn has given us a good article and perspective on how all sides suffer in war and each side selectively sees their suffering and cause. Why we fight wars. Wars with religious roots, God is on our side and our action are justified make war even more bitter. I am no pacifist but you best know war before you engage in one, a “War Pray” cuts both ways.
Mark Twain got this exactly right and best describes what a “War Pray” for victory truly means. The piece was so controversial and “true” it was left unpublished until well after Mark Twain’s death in April 1910.
Mark Twain said it best in War Pray” 1923
http://warprayer.org/
Excerpt:
“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —
For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
Another characteristic that stands out to me in this “war on terror” is the absence of identified leadership. In traditional military conflict, we generally learn more about the leadership; their names, who is in their close circle of advisers, their background and other factors which may shape their thinking and actions. But in the case of terrorist assaults, it seems to always be attributed to some sort amorphous entity that can’t be defined and thus, can never be understood.
Another characteristic that stands out to me in this “war on terror” is the absence of identified leadership.
Well, if you do an internet search on “Number 2 al Qaeda (or ISIS) leader killed” you’ll know why we never hear anything more about them. Every time they get to the number 2 spot we unleash our righteous fury. :-s
If al Qaeda and/or ISIS was a prolific in their killing as we are we’d have lost Congress at least two times over by now and wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of trying to primary all their pathetic asses out of office.
So you”re a Daesh supporter after all. I knew it!
So you are a Greenwaldian ISIS supporter.
I knew it all along!
Still interesting though that we don’t really even learn their names until after they’ve been taken out. At that point, there isn’t much of a contemporaneous reason to study them any further. Thus the enemy just remains “The Enemy” who without a name, without a face can be anybody you want them to be.
It is a delusion that never ends. We have terrorists in congress who take the nation and people hostage unless they get what they want. They are currently terrorizing the American Ways and Values by holding the country hostage and not being American in doing their job to vote up or down for a judge on the Supreme Court of the United States. They are killing democracy. That is also terrorism.
So 31 people have been killed in the recent bombing in Europe & the whole world is up in arms. Our so called news media is going 24/7 repeating the same pictures over & over as if the world has come to an end over the deaths of 31 people & the injuries of 200 more. There is no question that 31 deaths is a shame & heartache for the families of the dead BUT I was thinking & wondering, where was all this hysteria for the past 20 years or so when the West was blowing the hell out of Muslims all over the Middl East ? Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed in Iraq & all we did was talk about a few thousand American’s killed while invading & killing hundreds of thousands of non American’s. Between Iraq, Syria & Libya Western arms have killed more then a MILLION innocent people & displaced a few million more & not one single word about innocents being killed. Innocent people being bombed by drones while at weddings, funerals, sleeping in their homes & so on. Now some people would call that a “MAJOR HYPOCRISY” on the whole of the West while others call it what it is, “It’s ok to kill Muslims” but if they kill white christians that becomes a horrible thing that demands major pay back.
Now having said the above & if you are still reading this I would like to say the following about not only the above but about the whole of the foreign policy that has been patterned after the European model for the past few centuries, a foreign policy of “Colonialism”. Nation after Nation became dictators of all of Africa, Asia & the Middle East while sucking the natural resources out of them. England led the charge with India & the Middle East, France with, Asia & Africa, Belgium with the Congo while America took over the Philippines plus numerous pacific Islands & annexing large parts of Mexico. These Western countries all decided that when they invaded these countries it was perfectly ok since the majority of the conquered countries were made up of “NONE WHITE” peoples as well as non christian.
Well today I would like to suggest that the foreign policy we here in America have been following has “PROVEN” itself to be a foreign policy of total failure where wars have prevailed. The foreign policy of America for example allowed us to invade Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos plus as if they were non countries. We killed hundreds of thousands, we poisoned their lands & all in the name of freedom. (Non white people) We invaded Iraq based on a lie & killed more then a million people & the Bush criminals are walking free. Added to that we created ISIS because of it & so on. I could continue but the true honest bottom line is truly simple, THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES HAS BEEN & STILL IS A TOTAL FALURE & NEEDS to be changed totally.
We should for example not allow one single peace of killing equipment sold to any nation on then planet that is involved in a religious civil war, we should not allow one single military person to help either side in ay religious war, we should not allow our planes to blow up anyone who is fighting in a religious civil war, we should not be protecting pretend king’s & dictator’s & we should not be involved IN ANY RELIGIOUS CIVIL WAR’s PERIOD !!!!!!!
(America is now bombing Yemen for Saudi Arabia the Nation that beheads, hangs more people then any other nation on earth)(According to their religious government)
Islam has been at war with itself since the 7th century & America needs to STAY THE HELL OUT OF IT !!!!!!!!! America needs to be concerned with first & foremost our own country that is falled apart, they should be more concerned with the whole of the America’s then with the Middle East & Europe. We should be worried about people starving in South & Central America as well as Mexico, not 5,000 miles away. (This is not to say we should turn our backs on hunger & poverty but our policy of military intervention needs to be curtailed)
I have said this before, “IF WE WERE NOT BLOWING THE HELL OUT OF THEIR HOMES, THEY WOULD NOT BE BLOWING THE HELL OUT OF OURS”. “IF WE WERE NOT KILING INNOCENT PEOPLE IN THEIR COUNTRIES, THEY WOULD NOT BE KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE INN OUR COUTRY”. What the hell is so complicated to understand, if you hit me I will hit you back, if you don’t hit me, I won’t hit you. Children in the first grade understand that, why can’t American adults do the same. Why do we allow the whole of the military industrial complex to control the criminals in Congress that spend trillions of dollars on military hardware that is not only used by us but by anyone with the dollars to buy it. I want to close by saying I am not suggesting we become isolationist but I am saying we need to clean our own homes before suggesting someone else’s needs work. I am not suggesting we turn our backs on our friends BUT I am saying for example that Europe deal with Russia/Ukraine & Japan & South Korea deal with North Korea & so on. As for Israel, we should simple open a Navel & Air force base inside Israel thereby guaranteeing their safety from invasion. As for the poverty in area’s across the globe, we can help with foods as well as medical help BUT NO KILLING EQUIPMENT !!!!! WE NEED A MASSIVE CHANGE IN OUR FOREIGN POLICY & WE SHOULD BE IN THE STREETS DEMANDING IT & WE SHOULD BE ELECTING PEOPLE WHO AGREE WITH US…..
The Cause of ALL causes of violence is that those who are in power and control do not reflect the higher consciousness.
Discussing other causes is like chasing shadows.
As a Muslim, a Sufi Muslim, I care more about the actions of those who call themselves Muslims than I do about those who do not.
Frankly, those Muslims who are carrying out violence are in a state of duality and have succumbed to their lower consciousness. They have forgotten one simple spiritual and moral principle: Do not do unto others what you don’t want done unto you.
Their inner selves are not connected to the Cosmic Consciousness, which allows a person to experience oneness and not see any otherness.
This results in nihilistic tendencies.
I do not know what the solution is. But I do know that these Muslims have deviated from the Original Light, for, otherwise, their inner selves will be in a state of peace, bliss, joy, love and connectedness, and will pay attention to another cosmic truth: Taking the life of a single person is akin to killing the entire humanity, for, we all have the same human essence.
Excellent points, as usual. Never question the root cause…just focus on tablo details. But another tabu topic in the media is the comparison of these terror attacks that are relatively small operations run by underground groups…with the other terror attacks such as airplane bombing, drones, and the likes….that are run by “legitimate” states.
When I tried to leave a comment to this effect in reaction to a NYT article, the latter refused to publish it. Thank you for this article. Until we are balanced in the manner in which information is disseminated to the West, the USA will be in a position to continue its campaign of destabilisation in the name of endless war.
Great piece / thank you.
This is a very good article. but I would take it further.
The basis of this one-sided focus in “the West” is the result
of the real religion of the West (and much of the world).
That religion is the belief in capitalistic desire for
privatized property and the privatized acquisition of power
and monetary riches which depend upon the
devaluation of all forms of life and the elimination of
the sense of connected-ness between humans and their actions.
The brainwashing which demands that thinking in terms of
socialistic benefit must be eliminated in the name of
privatized self-enrichment, that a balance of socialism
(brotherhood/sisterhood) must not be allowed to regulate
the self, is central to the religion of capitalism.
In this religion, like most (all?) religions,
logic and science are only tolerated to the extent that they can
be used to reinforce the desire for more privatized riches.
This religion has willfully reduced its own adherents to
“human resources” which its priests use for the sacred acquisition
of more monetarized power and domination.
In their god they “trust” and in their devotion they reduce all.
The construction of this cathedral of endless war has been
long underway, but it has been rising with increased devotion
since the middle of the 20th Century.
Millions of people have been slaughtered in the name of
Unfettered Capitalist Lust since the end of WWII, but the
creation of “Muslim terrorists” in more recent times has
given the religion of capital a deeper (more debasing)
layer of devotion which draws upon that same twisted,
perverse religious devotion which was the driving force
within the slaughtering of the “Crusades” of the Middle ages.
In essence, the manipulation of
an increased feeling of INSECURITY
is vital to all institutionalized religions and the priests of
capitalized domination have tapped into the most
cherished sources of blood for their feeding. They do not care
whose blood they feed upon. They will always seek more.
Excellent statement!
You speak a truth that will one day be common knowledge among historians. I’d say in about 100-150 years, if there are any historians around by then.
Human nature is such that there will always be stratification between those who hold power and those who do not. One can not make ones fellow man love one another. Science has a mandate to objectify; those who have been trained to be most objective are often given to the type of detachment that allows for the most heinous use of humans (the dumb and weak ones) as guinea pigs. History is replete with forward looking people who have embraced “science” as a mean of advancing the human condition at the expense of the weak and vulnerable. Henry ford, Helen Keller, HG Welles, George Bernard Shaw, Winston Churchill, Francis Crick, Alexander Grahm Bell, John Harvey Kellogg, Andrew Carnegie, Averill Harriman, Margaret Sanger, and Adolph Hitler etc. all heralded science as the mean by which mankind could understand the necessity of culling the human herd of defectives. Of this limited list of notables, Margaret Sanger was the most successful in institutionalizing a way of scientific thinking that has now legitimized and normalized the culling of the world’s population of 1,409,452,000 undesirables. No reason why mandatory retirees should be breathing carbon and taking up valuable resources…
I really do not know what you are trying to say, but I can’t
help but suspect that what you are saying is that religious
manipulations are preferable to scientific investigation.
IF that is the case, I feel very sorry for you.
I (foolishly) do not share your belief that
“human nature”
will “always” lead to one kind of abuse or another.
I will not rule out the possibility that we may EVOLVE
and seek balance despite the enormous amount of proof
that there is little reason to hope. Part of my thinking is
based upon the history that shows that Hope is often (always?)
a waste of time.
I was speaking directly to your first post wherein you were lauding the potential benefits of Logic and Science at the expense of religious sensibilities (among other things). Yes, the politicization of religion has led to tragic historical consequences including the crusades. But the art of warfare itself falls squarely into the domain of reason and science. Government funded scientific research has put weapons of mass destruction into the hands of atheist and secular zealots who already have demonstrated a proven capacity to device strategies that will lead to mutually assured destruction. Scientific reason has also devised the technological mean whereby the very concept of individual sovereignty is on the verge of extinction. Reason alone has done more in the last 100 years to promote a set of dehumanizing BELIEFS than all religions combined. When reason is informed by “religious” sensibilities however, men are far less inclined to habitually prey on one another. For instance the Catholic faith derives its view of human nature largely from Pauline doctrine which emphasizes the fruits of an enlightened spirit: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity etc.. Free-will, faith-based beliefs tend to support attributions of moral responsibility. However, those who rely on Neuro-scientific/behavioral models of human nature, and their de-emphasis of man’s innate capacity for free will, invariably advance ethical models that claim that the consequences of one’s conduct alone are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Much of the secular West’s war-on-terror rationale is governed by an ends justifies-the-means (science-biased) mindset.
As far as I can tell,
You almost couldn’t be more wrong.
Yes, so-much-so in fact that you couldn’t counter a single point with a lucid argument of your own. Instead, you chose to resort to the ol’ sandbox argument that, “Your Wrong.” Your original comment was nothing but a unsubstantiated string of sweeping generalizations akin to those I have been listening to the last 50 years:
1. All religion is evil
2. Capitalism is fundamentally evil
3. Socialism is an ethically sound alternative to the status quo (Note: Nazism is a form of socialism)
4. Reason (and its outgrowth science) are the only true arbiters of truth
This refrain has been sung to the unwashed masses for the better part of a century by Fabian Socialists. This current election cycle has been formulated to provide two option that represent two poles of a narrow range of options that are being presented to the American public: Fascism (Trump) to Fabian Socialism (Sanders) (or if you prefer: the stick or the carrot) . In keeping with the governing principles of tripartite dialectic, one would expect to see a predetermined outcome that is the blending of these poles. Do you actually believe that the elites do not understand how this process works? There has been a deliberate attempt to disinvest “the west” of its culturally-centric ethos since the end of the first world war. The impetus toward this end was doubly renewed in the years that immediately followed the second world war.
Perhaps in your next article the terms Donetsk, Lugansk, Donbass will appear, as their voices are also unheard. http://littlehirosima.com/?p=1601 https://dninews.com/
Mr. Greenwald
“……The most minute angles of the attack were dissected. But there was not one moment devoted to the question of why Belgium — and the U.S., France, and Russia before it — were targeted by ISIS (as opposed to a whole slew of non-Muslim, democratic countries around the world that ISIS doesn’t target), even though ISIS explicitly stated the reason and it is, in any event, self-evident: because those countries have been bombing ISIS in Syria and Iraq and these bombings were intended as retaliation and vengeance……”
This is really moving the goal post on what you have said in the past. ISIS is not retaliating because of our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, or that the west perpetrates violence against Muslims in seven countries. ISIS doesn’t care about our support for Israel. None of that matters because each and every day they target, attack and murder Muslims – many if not most innocent civilians.
ISIS is retaliating specifically because we are bombing them in Iraq and Syria and preventing their goal of creating a racist, anti-democratic Islamic state. This is a military response by ISIS – not revenge because drones have killed 500 (Muslim) civilians in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan and so on. That was always a ridiculous assertion by you – and nothing short of propaganda on behalf of the terrorists. Islamic terrorist organizations like Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, ISIS and al-Qaeda have political goals which use anti-American propaganda to further their interests, but none have any compunction about killing tens of thousands of Muslims to create an Islamic state. Their primary goal is political, not revenge.
That doesn’t make the attack in Brussels any less of a terrorist attack which targeted civilians for political gain. It still meets the operating definition of terrorism.
I think you have been watching one too many “terrorism experts” on telly – you really have no clue about the nature and complexities of terrorist organisations, do you?
“…….you really have no clue about the nature and complexities of terrorist organisations, do you?…..”
Regardless of what I know and don’t know about terrorist organizations, I am not learning anything from your response, right?
Yes you are. You are learning from my response that you are ignorant and need to go and do some research before commenting on things.
“……You are learning from my response that you are ignorant and need to go and do some research before commenting on things……”
Let me learn from your comment below:
“……I am currently torn between whether you really are that stupid or just a troll – because I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, I’ll go with the latter……”
Sorry if I don’t give you the benefit of the doubt: you really are that stupid.
But you are too stupid to make any meaningful analysis, so anything you say doesn’t really carry any weight whatsoever …
Well, no Craig. ISIS isn’t trying to create the Islamic version of Israel. I will grant you that ISIS’ goal is a state even less free and democratic than Israel.
But of course ISIS is overwhelmingly a bunch of young nihilists, brewed in the cauldron we made in Iraq and Libya and they spread to the horror show in Syria. They have an enormous sense of political grievance against the West, but also unhinged notions of this grand caliphate thing.
The young are prone to Grand Illusions.
“…….But of course ISIS is overwhelmingly a bunch of young nihilists, brewed in the cauldron we made in Iraq and Libya and they spread to the horror show in Syria. They have an enormous sense of political grievance against the West…..”
Sure they do Mona. We kicked the minority Sunnis out of power in Iraq, busted up their little apartheid state under the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein and freed the Shia and Kurds. That’s their grievance against the west. They have attracted Islamists from all over the world to impose a sharia dictatorship on predominantly Muslims. This includes 5000 European Muslims.
Yes, young ones with the usual list of grievances against the West. To be sure, they also kill “wrong” Muslims. As I said, they are young nihilists with a Grand Illusion.
Isn’t it just fantastic we made the chaotic mess for ISIS to steep and brew in? Who would have thought that an angry, immiserated population, characterized by deep sectarian divides and utterly destabilized by invading Western powers, would erupt with some unreasonable people?
Why, Brent Scowcroft did! That’s right, as did others, who were dismissed as French surrender monkeys and lovers of the Hitler du jour, Saddam Hussein.
“……Yes, young ones with the usual list of grievances against the West. To be sure, they also kill “wrong” Muslims…..”
In Iraq and Syria, that is all they kill:
“…… A suicide bomber has blown himself up at a football stadium south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing at least 30 people and injuring 95 others…….blast in Iskandariya happened in the early evening on Friday at the end of an amateur football game, Falah al-Khafaji, the head of security for Babel province, said……Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – which controls large areas of the country’s north and west – later claimed responsibility for the attack…..”
Er, Craig, Iraq and Syria are overwhelmingly Muslim. The other targets are, like, not much there. Get it?
To get at the Westerners with whom they have political grievances, they do shit like Paris and Brussels.
Ethnogeography isn’t your strong suit I see.
“……To get at the Westerners with whom they have political grievances, they do shit like Paris and Brussels…..”
Political grievances, Mona? We are bombing the shit out of them. That’s their grievance – not because they hate our policies like support of Israel. They hate our policies of preventing their dream of a caliphate.
Yes Craig, with ISIS issues like Israel are second tier; primarily they wish to see Western nations alienate their Muslim populations, as well as to impose economic costs on Western opponents of ISIS. But Western foreign policy is not absent from ISIS’ motives.
And yes, they would express Islamic nationalism through this caliphate fantasy. It’s not far different in kind from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish terrorists in the West Bank.
“….It’s not far different in kind from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish terrorists in the West Bank…..”
You mean by “not far different”……from here to the moon?
I feel bad for jewish persons. First they are kicked from khazar. Then booted from germany and poland. Then they are opposed by the Palestinians in Palestine. Having their own country is a good thing, Israel. A good thing. Every major difference population should also have their own country. Anyone who thinks otherwise would have evil intent.
As retired US General Stanley McChrystal has stated,
“For every innocent person you kill, you make 10 new enemies.”
It’s a losing proposition.
Typical responses by Greenwald to a “terrorist” attack on western soil:
1. You are a racist for even suggesting the perpetrators are Islamic terrorists.
“……The rush, one might say the eagerness, to conclude that the attackers were Muslim was palpable and unseemly, even without any real evidence……”
2. Terrorism is a meaningless term:
“…….As usual, what terrorism really means in American discourse – its operational meaning – is: violence by Muslims against Americans and their allies……”
“…..For mindless authoritarians, the words “terrorist” and “militant” have no meaning other than: anyone who dies when my government drops bombs, or, at best, a “terrorist” is anyone my government tells me is a terrorist…..”
“…… That is the crucial backdrop for yesterday’s debate over whether the term “terrorism” applies to the heinous shooting by a white nationalist of nine African-Americans praying in a predominantly black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Almost immediately, news reports indicated there was “no sign of terrorism” — by which they meant: it does not appear that the shooter is Muslim……”
3. The Global War on terror (GWOT) is a racist war:
“…..Every war – particularly protracted ones like the “War on Terror” – demands sustained dehumanization campaigns……..applied almost exclusively to Muslims…..It is worse than that: it is based on the implicit, and sometimes overtly stated, premise that Muslims generally, even those guilty of nothing, deserve what the US does to them……”
“….I’m most certainly not suggesting that anyone who supports Awlaki’s killing is driven by racism or anti-Muslim bigotry. I am suggesting that the belief that Muslims are somehow less American, or even less human, is widespread….”
4. Islamic attacks against the west are justified:
“…….In the last several years, there have been four other serious attempted or successful attacks on US soil by Muslims, and in every case, they emphatically all say the same thing: that they were motivated by the continuous, horrific violence brought by the US and its allies to the Muslim world – violence which routinely kills and oppresses innocent men, women and children…..”
“…….If the United States does not get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries controlled by Muslims, he said [Shahzad], ‘we will be attacking US’, adding that Americans ‘only care about their people, but they don’t care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die’……….”my insertion in brackets
5. The 2004 Rumsfeld-commissioned study is proof of the causes of terrorism:
“……That study concluded that “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies”: specifically “American direct intervention in the Muslim world” — through the US’s “one sided support in favor of Israel”; support for Islamic tyrannies in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and, most of all, “the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan”……”
6. The western media serve as state-operated propaganda outlets for western violence:
“……It’s because U.S. media outlets love to dramatize and endlessly highlight Western victims of violence, while rendering almost completely invisible the victims of their own side’s violence…..”
“……This is the religion — of militarism and tribalism — that is the one thriving and pervasive in the West. The vast, vast majority of political discourse about foreign policy — especially from U.S. and British media commentators — consists of little more than various declarations of tribal superiority: we are better and our violence is thus justified……”
I am currently torn between whether you really are that stupid or just a troll – because I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, I’ll go with the latter.
He’s a stupid troll. But he works very hard at it.
THIS IS ABSOLUTELY F*CKING BRILLIANT, GLENN GREENWALD! 99 :-)
Have an actor friend who was on location in Iraq for a time and almost every native he met had lost a family member in the constant warfare of the last several years. The West has no idea and does not want to know.
But the U.S. media never showed any of that, so Americans had no idea it existed, and were thus incapable of understanding why people were eager to do violence to Americans. They therefore assumed that it must be because they are primitive or inherently hateful or driven by some inscrutable religious fervor.
I agree and have always felt this way, but I’d take it a step further. The only reason for this anti-western violence is the violence perpetrated upon these people by the west. It’s all or at least mostly about oil, so if you drive you’re part of the problem, no matter what your political opinions are.
Hey Glenn
Another point is that the media is an extension of the western powers that push racism and militarism. Why would the media want to do harm to itself? The mainstream media is another arm of the government/corporate powers. It makes no sense they would cover anything which hurts their own interests.
In fact I think it is because that it is controlled by the corporate interests that it focuses on stories like in Brussels because it helps them with their exploitation of non western countries and ability to push their military agenda. I do not think they care at all about those people in Brussels…those stories are a means to an end for the powers behind the corporate media.
Afghanistan? Iraq?
a bunch of murderers…you say there is no justification for killing innocent people…I would say there is no justification for murdering people at all…dropping bombs to murder people who have not even been convicted of a crime. Putting labels like Isis or terrorist does not take away someones humanity. One has the right to self defense, but bombing people anywhere or everywhere is murder plain and simple.
Another thing what are innocent people anyways? How does one become a innocent person? At what point does one go from innocent to guilty? Is there a trial to determine this and what crime does one have to do in order to not be innocent anymore? If a person is not considered innocent is it justified for them to be bombed? Who determines the innocence of such a victim so as to say whether it was justified?
Western powers drop bombs and kill tons of people all the time…some guys who don’t like that kill some random people…What’s the big deal? It’s like comparing a nuclear bomb to a grenade. They both kill, but that nuclear bomb reaches across the entire world.
Anyways nothing will ever change as long as militarism, racism, and economic exploitation are prevalent.
Glad you covered the atrocities in Yemen Mr. Greenwald. We have some problems here at home in the U.S. that could do with some exposure as well…
Members of a senior community in Applegate, Oregon have been attacked with electronic weapons for several years now. Law enforcement, thinking we are all senile, has refused to do anything about it. So, hired an engineer, and then purchased several thousands dollars in electronic instruments to document these attacks (which have caused cancer & heart attacks). We have now fully documented the attacks, and irrefutably so.
We have a story to tell, as the weapons being used were all developed by the Department Of Defense. Some were used by Special Ops in Iraq. We believe they have been using our community as a “guinea pig” farm to test these weapons. WE HAVE THE EVIDENCE. Please see @applegatefriend on Twitter to learn more. This is a “60 Minutes” quality story Mr. Greenwald. It’s yours if you want it.
This is certainly an important function of propaganda, but its main purpose is to scare people. Scientists have recently learned that fear causes people to shift along the authoritarian spectrum and willingly cede more power to their leaders. Politicians, who are a little more attuned to reality, have known this for several thousand years.
So it’s really quite simple. The purpose of the press is to publicize any attacks against our own society in order to generate fear. Publicizing attacks against some other society doesn’t; so it’s not worth the effort.
The Republicans understand this particularly well. After the recent attacks in Belgium, they harshly criticized President Obama for not immediately rushing back from his visit to Argentina. But instead of taking this opportunity to ramp up fear, the president let a good crisis go to waste. This is irresponsible. However, I’ll cut him some slack since it’s his last year in office. Hopefully President Trump or President Clinton will be more diligent fear mongers.
I think it is going to get worse too. Obama is accelerating his murderous bombing campaigns and the bombs are getting bigger, killing nearly a hundred each attack. I think this deranged man is on par to passing Bush Jr for killing the most middle easterners.
What of this?
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/25/staged-photo-brussels-attack-memorial-ethical-debate-photographers
Fox News need to fix their own O’Reilly’s and Riviera’s first.
Good point here. but it’s not just victims of Western violence that don’t get the same (or sometimes, any) news coverage.
Just the other day in some markets, mine for example, Jeopardy was pre-empted for coverage of the Brussels attack. When I went to the Jeopardy fan board I sometimes visit, one poster noted that the networks didn’t seem to pre-empt for some other attacks, noting the recent one in Cote D’Ivoire. Oh gee, wonder why?
This is the kind of nonsense Jonah offers to nearly every fact posted about Israel, Palestinians, and Muslim violence:
Jonah, you are a deeply Zionist apologist for Israel. You, and people like you, are greatly invested in making Muslims, and the religion of Islam, the Source of All Evil.
The fact is, there are 1.6 billion Muslims on our planet. A very tiny fraction of them are terrorists. Jews, who by contrast constitute a small fraction of the world’s population, commit a great deal of violence. More than a fair share.
But their relatively small numbers do not attract the same attention. (Though they somewhat did in the U.S. in the 80s. The FBI then labeled the Jewish Defense League as the #1 domestic terrorist organization .)
Indeed, Jews also have violent religious fanatics to rival those of any other faith, or any ideology. See, e.g., what a former director of Shin Bet recently had to say about these religious Jews and their profoundly illiberal and violent beliefs and actions.
Then, go follow the links Glenn provided above which goes to an article of his at Salon heavily quoting from a Rumsfeld-commissioned study that determined why so many Muslims hate the U.S., and some target us for violence. It’s our policies.
Having read many of your comments here in several threads, I’m guessing that, like many ardent Zionists, your own ideology blinkers you to facts that would undermine your “necessary” hostility to Islam.
See Doc Hollywood’s comment below, heavily quoting that Defense Science Board study. Muslims are justifiably angry at U.S. actions and policies.
Read my posts on this message board. I moderated my position in real time to information Glenn provided me with. Mona, if you in any way think Jewish terror is a greater threat to this planet than Muslim terror, you are not fit comment on anything. Even if you adjust the terrorism totals for population size, the Jewish population does not even come close to the numbers put up by the Muslim population. There are more Christians on this planet than Muslims , yet Muslim terror dwarfs Christian terror. The two religions aren’t even close.
“a Rumsfeld-commissioned study that determined why so many Muslims hate the U.S., and some target us for violence. It’s our policies.”
If that’s the reason, why did they attack Belgium?? Why are jihadists attaching suicide vests to 11 year old girls in Nigeria? Why is Al Shabbab murdering Christian college students in Kenya? Why is ISIS setting off Bombs in Jakarta, Indonesia? How many more countries would you like me to list?. Your theory does not hold up to scrutiny. It is laughably easy to discredit. Islam is a dangerously extreme religion. The fact that a large percentage do not participate in terror is immaterial. A large enough percentage do that the Middle East is up in flames and the Europe is on the brink of disaster. How do you not see this???
It’s not my theory, Jonah; it’s the conclusion of the the Department of Defense Advisory Committee in a report made at the request of then – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It was commissioned to address why there is so much hatred for Americans – not ‘non-American’ or ‘non-Western actors’ – among Muslims, and as the report concluded:
“Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather, they hate our policies.”
Your claimed that:
The US DoD Advisory Committee apparently reached a different conclusion.
So what would the DOD say about the prevalence of terror against non- Americans?
The study was commissioned to explain why Muslims were angry with the U.S. Of course, many of the findings apply to other Western nations.
What do you have to say about the findings of this study?
“……It’s not my theory, Jonah; it’s the conclusion of the the Department of Defense Advisory Committee in a report made at the request of then – Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It was commissioned to address why there is so much hatred for Americans – not ‘non-American’ or ‘non-Western actors’ – among Muslims, and as the report concluded…..”
The radical left loves this 2004 report and repeat it ad infinitum despite it being out of date and generally false. Greenwald mentions it yet again in the above article trying to drum up support for his misguided idea that it is our policies that motivates al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIS, al-Shabaab and other radical Islamists.
Jonah is 100% right and Greenwald along with the rest of the radical left supporters in this forum just ignore Muslim on Muslim violence – or the 5000 European Muslims that have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. These terrorist organizations seek power at all cost (which includes murdering tens of thousands of Muslims), but they are only too happy to to accept the propaganda spewed by Greenwald (and you) on behalf of their cause.
Jonah,
I agree with you. Muslims are fckin terrible. Especially the horror and the deaths caused by their terrorism. I want you to continue your deep thoughts in this area, by doing a death comparison of the horrible Muslim Terror Deaths and the beautiful, warm, and orchestralIsraeli Collateral Damage Deaths and whatever you think constitutes Christian Collateral Damage Deaths, and get back to us with your findings on the numbers.
And I have yet to see your comment on Robert Mackey’s latest piece, on the “collateral damage” caused when the Israeli soldier shot the immobile Palestinian in the head. That comment section feels bare without your input.
That soldier is under investigation. He fired his gun because he thought the terrorist may have been trying to detonate a suicide vest. The terrorist did move slightly. Suicide bombing is a thing these days. You may be aware of something that happened in Brussels a few days ago. We will see if that claim is reasonable. I am not a mind reader so I cannot infer what motivated him to shoot an immobilized person who attempted to stab him to death a few minutes earlier. The IDF is investigating. What more would you like them to do?
That single sentence tells me everything there is to know about your lack of desire to know the truth.
‘The murderers are investigating themselves. What more would you like them to do?’
‘The cops are investigating themselves. What more would you like them to do?’
That’s fucking obscene. It’s a Hail Mary put forward by the soldier’s defense attorney. It has no basis in reality.
No person whose mind isn’t addled by Zionism is going to watch that video and see it for anything but what it was: a bunch of soldiers strolling around as a wounded man lay immobilized on the ground, with no medical help. Until, one of these soldier from The Most Moral Army™ decided to blow the incapacitated, wounded man’s brains out. Then the soldiers continued to just stroll around — because nothing remarkable had just occurred.
The IDF kills nonthreatening Palestinians — EVERY. DAY.
Jonah
Mona is one of the most vehemently anti-Zionists in this forum. To Mona, Israel is an ethno-supremacist state; Zionism equals racism; Israel is the same as Apartheid South Africa; and all Zionists are racists and fascists. She believes that the Palestinians have a right to kill Jewish civilians (resistance). Don’t even believe for a moment you can convince her of anything. That’s futile.
TO READERS: Craig Summers habitually attributes to me positions I do not hold and beliefs I do not espouse, mixed among a few accurate statements.
I do not reply to everything Craig writes, including about me. To do so causes him to reply again, and the comment board becomes overrun with Craig’s sophistry. Readers have complained about this phenomenon, so I now comment far less to Craig.
Not these days, no. Jews have a “Jewish State” to undertake state terrorism for them (or so many of them perceive it, as being done on their behalf).
Well you see, the Christian West has been colonizing other cultures and countries for centuries. In that process, it has slaughtered and oppressed many millions with it’s nation-states.
In those rare instances where one Christian culture has oppressed another lacking its own nation-state, terror has fiercely arisen. See, e.g., Northern Ireland until very recently.
I am not an indoctrinated Zionist. My background is in law, religious studies and history. Facts have always held primacy of place in my thinking. Including facts of history and human nature.
The US can bomb at will, with no accountability whatsoever.
The 2 newly refurbished mini-USs, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are bombing people they don’t like at will, with no accountability whatsoever. Arms are pouring into these two countries to make things worse and worse. Most sophisticated British missiles are bought by Saudi Arabia and British commanders are assisting in the bombing operations in Yemen .. Hello??!!!
Perhaps more mini-USs will be sprouting all over the place soon?
They are scaring us with their patented group ISIS while all the destruction on the planet points to the biggest predator of all times: The US war machine.
Very good article and to the point, no rocket science just common sense human nature everyone should know about. Lots of armchair generals and couch potatoe experts in the USA many in my family alone. I am happy to see this piece you have written so well -thank you.
“…these attacks were was simply denounced…”
Thank you for courageously saying what so many in our western press are afraid, unable, or unwilling to say. Your ceaseless efforts, despite enormous criticism, are incredibly valuable toward both documenting and presenting an alternative narrative. What you do is important and greatly appreciated.
MAD AS HELL AND SICK TO MY STOMACH. Only in America can we sit back and justify the death of innocent human beings. Cause and Effect begins with the worlds super power. Always taking credit for success and skirting blame for failures.
When I was in a combat unit in Vietnam in 1968 I saw American terrorism from the air by B-52s and fighter jets with napalm and white phosphorus and fleshettes. A few million people were killed by this terrorism while the Communists had killed less than 60,000 of us for invading their country and manipulating their politics.
The rules the corporate media follow to prevent opposition from developing should be summarized in a format that can go viral.
The ignorance of the masses about the techniques used against them is a problem articles such as this can’t surmount.
Whether it’s the focus on “our” victims while ignoring “their” victims, the dehumanization of the enemy, the sanitization of the gore, hiding the costs (deaths, injuries, monetary, opportunity), or any of the other methods, everybody should be aware.
Anybody come across anything that remotely resembles such an effort?
Good discussion below about how TI presents a perspective normally eschewed in mainstream news venues, and how that is intentional. I often see Craigsummers and Mona carping at each other on this subject, so if CS has not yet got the meaning of it through his thick skull, he might want to read the informative exchange below.
A perfect storm of media ineptitude, government propaganda, tribalism, and a version of Missing White Woman Syndrome.
Yeah it’s annoying.
Anyway, you shouldn’t watch television. It rots your brain.
I think Glenn is cognizant of that but facing and addressing the reality that tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans *do*. So your comment doesn’t really add much to the conversation. The internet probably also rots your brain, btw.
That’s by design. It’s because U.S. media outlets love to dramatize and endlessly highlight western victims of violence, while rendering almost completely invisible the victims of their own side’s violence.
THIS DOUBLE STANDARD HAS GOT TO BE ELIMINATED!!! ONE WAY OR ANOTHER!!! WE CAN DO BETTER!! AND WE ARE PISSED!!
I agree wholeheartedly. The reason is the same reason lobbying works: concentrated benefits and diffuse costs. Since the cost of bombing is largely floated (not actually funded) through Federal Reserve and other central bank induced inflation, so is not “real” even to taxpayers, the benefits are showered on the bombmakers. The only cost to westerners are the few lives lost to suicide terrorism, which Glenn points out most don’t care to understand the reactionary cause. It will take a dollar and fiat currency collapse to end the floating of the MIC. Until then, this Merry-go-round keeps spinning. I do appreciate TI providing the truth in the meantime to the few percent of us that care.
Now let’s watch everyone attack Glenn because he cares about all human life equally… As if that’s not the MOST American thing someone can do…
Thank you, Mr. Greenwald! Your opinions and articles, along with hose of your entire staff, give me inspiration and a weekly dose of hope.
Yep, let’s all get ready for the freak show to begin, as the state driven propaganda machine gets cranked up for a gang attack on Glenn and The Intercept, for daring to provide a balanced and honest report. I’m just jealous that I only get to view the pathetic, freak show from a far distant land, whilst Americans get the front row seats !
There are some very important differences:
1. We don’t use suicide-bombers.
2. We don’t target the innocent purposely.
3. Our daily kills have to be signed off by POTUS.
This ensures that our activities are subject to rigorous check and balances to prevent unintended harm to innocent people.
We can’t and shouldn’t defend actions by Saudis. They are also Islamist thugs just as the rest of the other variety. All of them shout Alahuakbars before pulling their plugs. If you hear that Alahuakbar shout anywhere just bash up the fellow before he can pull the plug.
Ah, “we don’t use suicide bombers” is the same argument that is used when we say “we don’t behead people”. However, I am sure the person who we killed by lethal injection instead of beheading them wasn’t concerned whether they were going to be beheaded or injected with toxins, they just wanted to live.
The best bit of your post was :
Sounds like an Obama-worshipping Democrat.
Suicide-bombing is radically different from head-chopping. I am not sure how you see any equivalence. Overall, your perspective appears defective, though I can see that you are a bit appreciative at the end of your post.
Lethal injections are provided only under very strict legal orders and supervision. The aim is to make that fellow empathize with his victims’ desire to be alive as well, so that at least at welcome meeting with his Alla down there he can atone for his sins up here.
Actually, it’s your reading and comprehending simple English that is defective considering I never said there is an equivalent.
Thanks for pointing out that you are basically in agreement with me, and it was only my misperception that you equated suicide-bombing with head-chopping.
Which reminds me – we must take reflexive action to bash up the moment we hear anyone shout “Allahu ..” because by the time the next two syllables are uttered we may not be properly endowed to act.
You idiot, do you actually set your standards for behavior based upon the lowest possible level in EVERYTHING you do? I see you do it in argument, but really, it’s a stupid way to live.
Aim a bit higher. What’s the point otherwise.
It is because of your self-certified variety of intelligence you are unable to appreciate the vastly superior quality control procedures that we follow to limit collateral damages.
No it’s because you are a racist bigot that goes around spreading your hatred. If your a product of the quality control that you refer to, then god help America.
Welcome, Shiek Anonomous, to this serious discussion, though I suspect you may be here on a suicide-bombing mission to create disturbance in an otherwise decent environment.
Most of your “differences” have to do with the available resources of the different sides. Obviously, it would be illogical for ISIS etc to go head to head with Western military power. Number 2 has proven to be incorrect has the West including the USA has made frequent use of “double-taps” and hitting of hospitals and civilian infrastructure. Look back at massive bombing of Vietnam or Dresden firebombing or Hiroshima demonstrates that statement is false. Number 3 seems both irrelevant and false if you look examine the details. Obama’s kill list sign off only involves a small amount of the overall military action. So the question is why do you make these excuses? Are you truly that blind to objectively looking at the situation?
Mr Glider Boy,
Thanks for your lengthy response. Looks like you are a serious chap concerned about worldly affairs, just like Mona and the rest of the gang here.
In ISIS territory there are basically two types of people; 1) ISIS murderers themselves, and 2) ISIS-loving people whom the ISIS murderers allow to live. The rest cease to exist soon after they have their heads chopped off in quick time. In this way to a large extent the ISIS pigs themselves take care of us not killing any “innocent” people because it’s really hard and statistically improbable to find any such people there.
In addition to the extreme caution that we nevertheless take, we do not target schools and creches where the only probable innocents may be present, even though these days we are coming across evidence that ISIS is engaging even five-year-olds in their obnoxious activities.
Hospitals are fair game because most of the fellows that our snipers and drones knock out elsewhere finally land up there to get ready and retro-fitted for fresh action. Shops and malls are definitely our prime targets because in such areas only the ISIS thugs can afford to go in order to extort and threaten the rest of the people, and then collect all that take their fancy.
I think you are woefully removed from reality to appreciate ground situation and the type of war we are fighting to object to my point #2.
I see that you agree with point #1, though given your attitude it is difficult for me to feel elated by your acquiescence.
You have not provided any evidence for point #3, but in your graciousness you allow me the opportunity to examine them. It’s tough, would you not admit, unless you do your part and enlighten me?
-H
No. Hospitals are not “fair game”as you incorrectly suggest and seek to justify attacks on by stating that combatants end up there to “get ready for fresh action”
International Humanitarian law ban any attacks on medical facilities, patients or staff and state that even if combatants take refuge there they must not be attacked. Hospitals are zones which must be respected under the rules of law.
According to Human Rights Watch The laws of war require that even if military forces misuse a hospital to deploy able bodied combatants or weapons the attacking force must issue a warning to cease the misuse, setting a reasonable time limit for it to end and attacking only after such a warning has gone unneeded.
Shiek Anonomous,
I see that you are in possession of a lot of very good documents. Could you please do us all a favor and pass a certified copy of all the Laws and Rules and Regulations to your ISIS friends, translated into whatever languages they need in order to comprehend, so that we all feel a little bit more comfortable while walking through airports and stations or seeing theaters and soccer matches? Please, this will be beneficial to all of us in ways that you cannot imagine.
I’m glad that you appreciated that the documents are good , as the laws contained in them are there to protect non combatants, and to prevent civilian deaths. They help in the process of accountability and provide definitions of what actually constitutes a war crime. They also provide rules of engagement which apply for all International military conflicts. Some of the laws are also created to try to ensure the safety of hospital staff, and patients, so that those facilities can continue to serve the sick and injured. Without such laws I am sure that even you might appreciate that those who bomb civilians in wars can never be held accountable and brought to trial for their crimes.
Also, I have no Isis friends and do not support or condone any acts of terrorism by Isis or any other group.
I am dismayed that you are unable to enlighten your wayward friends about the valuable documents in your possession. I enjoin you to keep trying, and then on successful transfer of your knowledge please come back here and inform us that we can safely move around without elevated risks of Alahuakbar-prefixed explosions.
Even if we were to accept your simple-minded theory of how all civilians under ISIS control are ISIS-loving, they are still civilians.
@ Ivan:
You seem to be a very thoughtful individual. Your comment was indeed very sublime and gentle, very much unlike the kind of vitriolic Islamic Jihadists haunting this website.
At some point in our lives we are all civilians, then some of us become somewhat uncivil for a while, and finally we are back to some form of civility. That is, if you not a Muslim. Then you sort of oscillate between being civil and uncivil many times during the day, most of the time being the latter.
As you must have seen from recent events, Muslims are generally very uncivil people as they themselves admit very proudly. I tried many times to visualize some form of civility in suicide-bombing and gave up. I guess sometimes during the night, when the Muslims are not raping Yazidis or young boys or making bombs but are actually sleeping, do they become a bit civil and then we can call them civilians. That is why we usually avoid bombing them in their sleep. But those occasions are so rare that statistically we find it impossible to bomb any Muslim civilian even if we wanted to since it is an extremely rare and short event.
I think you should spend more time listening to Donald Trump’s rallies instead of spending time here reading the hyperbolic chants of Greenwald and Mona, among others.
Dead kids don’t care about motive, process, or intent. Parents of dead kids don’t care about motive, process, or intent.
Does any parent go, “It’s ok because you meant well?”
What they did in Belgium was horrifically wrong. What we do to innocent Muslims is horrifically wrong. Again, intention doesn’t help dead people.
The real, big problem is that no one has been able to come up with a “List of Innocent Muslims”. Have you seen any such authenticated list? I haven’t.
According to Islamic Laws, otherwise known as Sharia, you are assumed guilty unless proven otherwise. That is why this “List of Innocent Muslims” is very important so that we know who the Muslim people are who have proven they are not guilty.
I started preparing a list, and I had Sufi and Murtaza here to begin with, but soon I got stalled. I suggest we all put in our joint effort and prepare a list, after which we can catch anyone guilty of killing any of them for “Crimes against Innocent Muslims”. Till then we really can’t accuse people of killing innocent Muslims, especially when their own laws declare them to be guilty.
I have a better idea. How about we focus on body counts over methods?
In that arena, the United States and Europe overshadow the Muslim world by 10 times.
That said, when we Muslims say “Allahu Akbar”, its 99% of the time for prayer. Since its apparent you’ve never seen a Muslim pray before, I’m just here to inform you.
So please, when you see a Muslim praying, don’t shoot them like a psychopath – since you appear so ignorant as to actually do something like that.
Mr Ali,
Pray can you please inform us what happens during the balance 1% of the time?
My humble suggestion is that it will be extremely safe for all concerned if you guys take off your clothes and are only in your underwear before the Alahuakbar, so that both we and Alla feel comfortable that it’s safe to remain in your vicinity. Otherwise, that 1% of the cases is a sufficient reason for considerable worry.
I have a better idea.
How about you get a proper education — not the boon docks one where mama told you about how to skewer alligators.
Until then, I won’t waste my brain cells on trailer trash like you any longer.
Mr Ali,
I think the time for the 1% has come for you rather fast, and down below in his kingdom of brimstone and fire, Mighty Alla is eagerly awaiting your arrival after your folks have cleaned up your mess and packed you off. Good luck and Amen.
need a foe? Jesus and Muhammed are cousins. So who killed Jesus? Follow the money.
I am not certain how the Prophet died, but definitely he did not suicide-bomb himself. He was a wise man who knew all about the many prizes that he proclaimed the Alla was waiting with for the successful suicide-bombers.
Jesus and Muhammad are good friends. Jesus actually created Muhammad when he found the Jews all alone and therefore not being subjected to the process of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Now he finds he did a good thing given the business it is generating.
I gotta hand it to you, GH. You keep trying very hard to be BM Lite. You put a smile on my face, but BM is the only BM.
@Mr Sufi:
You appreciate BM because you are one of the rare, good, innocent Muslims not quite prone to suicide-bombings, and therefore you are right at the top of my “List of Innocent Muslims”. BM is like BS (Bernie Sanders, not anything else), very benign and mild about Islamic Jihadists and similar stuff. His perspectives are thought-provoking, whereas mine are most direct, mundane and combative. I have lots of potential suicide-bombers trying to wrestle me as you can see, but they stay away from you and BM.
BM makes all of us smile. I don’t see why you should smile reading my posts, when all I try to do is explain how ridiculous it is to harbor hatred and kill others. Instead, I would be happy if you could cry reading some of the posts above.
Take the case of Mr Ali. He says that 99% of the Alahuakbars are for prayers. That really should raise your concern as it did mine. At 99% and with five times a day prayers, that would mean 16 times a year this guy shouts Alahuakbars with some mischievous intent instead of drawing the All-Mighty’s attention to bless him. That is the problem.
I know you can’t solve all problems. But Donald Trump can. He doesn’t pander to Saudis, and if those crooks are not controlling how the rest of the Muslims are thinking and behaving you guys will see a lot of peace. Pray that he becomes President. He said he will stop entry of Muslims in USA, and I am certain that’s going to do you guys a world of good than otherwise, world-wide. You guys won’t see any peace if you don’t know what peace is and how to get it. Turkeys by the nature always play fowl, don’t trust them.
Trust me, when I read your posts, my face might smile, but my eyes have tear drops, or at least one eye has one, like that Italian actor who played a native Indian in the movies and in a commercial with tear coming down his one eye.
You are struggling with the right to life support granted to all humans by God?
On what do you base your observation?
“I know you can’t solve all problems.”
The root of all problems begins at the foundation of God’s bestowed entitle for the right to life and habitat. There are very few real evil people on the planet. Evil grows by provocation, witholding of life support, and enlistment.
Your arguments are based on the belief that human behavior is a matter of anything other than God’s will as i see it.
You dont seem to be an evil person, but just a member of the team of the game. I am guessing you would not initiate torturing anyone but you might do so it you were a subordinate instructed to do so.
There is good and evil on this planet and the good leads by example and suffers for it. But sufering is the price of remaining good. It’s a high price few are willing to pay.
@ Mr Bar Abbas:
My goodness, gracious! How do you know that I won’t torture anyone? I would have definitely water-boarded Salha Abudeselam the very hour he was caught and that could have prevented 28 people from dying and hundreds of others getting injured. Being soft on evil is definitely not being good in my dictionary. I wouldn’t have needed anybody to instruct me if I had the authority to do as I pleased with that bloke.
Muslims read backwards, so that’s why every LIVE Muslim usually happens to be EVIL unless we can impart western education values to them and make they have the correct perspective to always read left to right.
-H
Now, that’s the most hilarious statement I’ve read in a long time!
Cheers!
:-)
With regard to torture – do the math. That means you have to analyze the scenarios in game theory logic. When you do that math, you will discover that any pretense of positive results is countered by bad/none intel that results in COLLATERAL DAMAGE, SOCIAL DEGRADATION, GREATER NUMBERS OF LOST LIVES, PROLONGED CONFLICT…
“GROW UP”
you are seiously twisted.
Like the redcoats calling the natives savages for not standing in straight lines and declaring themselves officially at war like good Christians
“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
From your Declaration of Independance.
Yup. History (like, well like everything :b) is a nice, nuanced, complicated thing
Fact is Glenn and the intercept do the exact same thing. If a Muslim in America even gets looked at funny and tweets about it there is Glenn re-tweeting it or writing a story about it. But if someone in Israel gets stabbed to death by a terrorist it’s radio silence. Or if someone in a majority Muslim county gets thrown from a roof for being gay, or honor killed, etc. it can’t make this blog. Because again even though they pretend to be above it all over here, they are just like Brietbart and Fox, they have their agenda.
SOMEBODY has to stand up for the Muslims and other minorities…your favourites at Breitbart and Fox do not. So much for your 2+2 = 4 1/2 argument.
because they report in things that mostly have something to do with the US. if they open the door for reports on things all over the world you’d have undreds if not thousands of stories each day…
There are plenty of media personalities happy to advertise every sin committed by a Muslim anywhere in the world.
Glenn and co. provide a much needed service in reporting the stories that won’t otherwise be brought to our attention.
Agenda much?
You are such a thick idiot.
Of course The Intercept has an agenda. The agenda of The Intercept is to report on issues that the mainstream media do not cover, so that the general public is aware of these issues.
If a gay gets thrown off a building, it will get coverage in the mainstream media, and even if you do not follow the mainstream media, you are likely to find out from others.
If a Israeli gets stabbed to death, it will get coverage in the mainstream media, and even if you do not follow the mainstream media, you are likely to find out from others.
If 20 civilians in Yemen are killed, it isn’t likely to get hardly any coverage in the mainstream media, and so people are not likely to hear about it.
This is what TI is about – giving a voice to the most marginalised who otherwise have no voice.
Your comparison with FOX and Breibart is nonsensical – I can’t even be bothered explaining why, you’re probably too thick to even understand it.
Not just an idiot but a THICK one. LOL. amongst all the tango on this board, i have to get a cheap thrill to catch my tensing face from knotting up. Thanks for that and please forgive my useless comment but, “thick” is something i would like to adopt for emphasis. TYIA
Nope.
Glenn and The Intercept are the antidote to that thing.
That’s their “agenda”; to tell you what the other huge establishment “thing” does not.
To duplicate what anyone can get from cable news and mainstream newspapers would be silly, and I wouldn’t read here. CNN is just a click of my TV remote. Don’t need another outlet like it.
Good job explaining the intercept the same way people defend fox news or other conservative outlets. We can ignore certain stories or stories that go against our thesis because all other media will cover them!
Also we can we get Glenn to stop saying illegal settlers? It’s super racist. There are NO illegal human beings, only undocumented settlers!.
yet here you are.
Does TI plan to send any of its staff to Yemen to provide the type of reporting you say is lacking in the Western news outlets?
We have. If you read the article before commenting, you’d know that.
I read it and several of the links, including the Mohammed Ali Kalfood piece. Was under the impression he and the photojournalist were freelance reporters already based in Yemen or abroad, not TI employees.
Because that’s not exactly unique. Several outlets including CNN have sources in Yemen. Your two freelance journalists did work in the NYT and NPR.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/16/middleeast/yemen-airstrike/
What you seem to desire is for Wolf Blitzer to show up in Sanaa. Wouldn’t hold your breath.
The issue isn’t having people in a country. It’s paying the same type of attention to their victims from western violence. Did you read the article?
Whether Wolf Blitzer is in Yemen is completely irrelevant to the point.
Nate reads, but often fails to understand or comprehend the main points or context, which establishes that he has a closed mind. I think that a lot of it maybe because he skim reads, going about one inch deep, and then spending too much time accusing others of “changing the subject” whilst continuing to raise totally irrelevant points himself. This occurs when he is unable to provide any valid points to discredit anything which is different to his own point of view. He often fails to answer questions put to him that are on topic, and dislikes any criticism of his choice of words
Do you think Glenn, or anybody for that matter, cares about some commentator’s assessment of another commentator!?
Of course he doesn’t. This is just a passive aggressive way to insult someone. Accusing close mindedness, skim reading, “changing the subject,” lack of valid points, irrelevant points, afraid to challenge my worldview, disliking criticism…
That’s a hell of a lot of speculation drawn from a single, ongoing post from the other day!
Meanwhile I’m assuming that we’re having a separate conversation in good faith. I don’t presume to assess or judge your intentions, characteristics and worldview. I suggest you do the same. Otherwise, why even bother?
did YOU read the article you wrote!?
You said: “No famous American TV correspondents will be sent to the places where those people have their lives ended by the bombs of the U.S. and its allies”
Hence, my comment about “The Wolf.”
Glenn, you’re TI’s star equivalent, perhaps you should go!? Put Omidyar’s money where your mouth is!
Maybe it’s just me but I feel like I’m waiting for a concert (PrivacyPalooza2016?) to start.
Note to TI editors on tonight’s event notice: You mixed Daylight Time (EDT) acronyms with Standard Time (MST), which probably should have been Pacific Daylight Times (PDT) instead, anyway. Nobody in media really cares about people in the Mountain Time Zone like they do those many millions on the West Coast. I know, I’ve lived in Colorado for most of 30 years. I just saw the confusion about an hour ago and there’s no comment section yet on that event notice, and
i wasn’t sure who would be there to see an email if I sent one this late on a Friday.
The confusion is the line “5-7 p.m. MST (8-10 p.m. EDT)” clearly implying a 3 hour time difference between Mountain and Eastern when it’s only 2. Pacific (PST) is 3 hrs from EST.
It should also be noted that the “Saudi” Air strikes are directed by US central command. In effect, US gets to bomb another Muslim country while someone else takes the blame and pays for its costs.
Glenn, thank you so much for being an honest voice in today’s world of deceit.
Simon Jenkins wrote a good piece in the Guardian the other day about the media response to the attack in Brussels. The interesting thing was that no comment section was opened on it. It was carefully partitioned off from the public discourse, even though it was published in ‘Comment is Free’, and was one of the most popular articles of that day.
Good point, but the Guardian actually has one of the better comments sections amongst the mass media. The mass media in its primary role as a propaganda machine has to ensure that any potential dissenting comments are minimized, as otherwise dissent could quickly get out of hand and grow. The main stream media ensures in the vast majority of their comments sections ensure that you cannot post any links. Some even require you to register via Facebook, so that they have your identity before you can make any comments. This practice helps to discourage many people from commenting ,or from posting any comments which may provide further undisclosed information, and they don’t want commentators to give rise to others questioning the propaganda It’s all about control, and often about managing deception -manipulating the minds and managing the perception of the masses. Very few encourage and permit total freedom of speech as they censor and block many comments. The only way to overcome this abuse and editorial control is to utilize Twitter and other Social media platforms to provide links which help to disseminate more honest information, helping to ensure that fearless, uncorrupted, journalism like the Intercept, become even wider read. Going viral as a commentator mentioned earlier, and producing media in a format that can easily go viral ,is also an important consideration. it’s also important to keep posting links to other marginalized media publications, and books.
What you wrote is so true “it’s also important to keep posting links to other marginalized media publications, and books.” There is so much to learn from the comments. I really find looking through them can be especially rewarding when someone shares something that nails the way you feel, but never thought of expressing it that way or maybe not at all.
The Guardian has moved rightward since the GCHQ matter. It is a terrible offshoot of right wing dominance in the UK.
thanks for that info. very important and didnt know that. (busy). I heard the same thing about the BBC. Why is that all this and more seems to revolve around israel? rhetorical.. do not answer.
When Saudi Arabia launches an airstrike in Yemen, any civilian casualties are not the result of “western violence”, they are the result of Saudi violence. Period. Just because the U.S. or western nations sells arms to a country like Saudi Arabia doesn’t make them complicit in any resulting civilian deaths. If Saudi Arabia was using these arms to specifically target civilians on a regular basis, it would be a different story, but they are doing no such thing.
For every Saudi airstrike that does kill civilians in Yemen (targeting Iranian sponsored proxy groups), there are multiple airstrikes or rocket attacks in Syria or Iraq carried out by Iranian sponsored proxy groups that kill FAR more civilians.
Funny how sites like the Intercept rarely find the time to report on these far more rampant civilian killings being carried out by the likes of Iran, Syria, Russia, etc. Iranian supported groups in Syria and Iraq (like Hezbollah, the Syrian Arab Army or other Shia militias) have killed FAR more civilians than groups like ISIS or Al-Qaeda, and that’s saying something.
Yet again it’s another case of – “it’s only wrong when the west or its allies do it!”
Furthermore, the west doesn’t target civilians. In virtually every instance of civilians being killed in western strikes, the targets were violent Islamists/jihadists. The same type of people who just carried out the Brussels attacks. It’s not the west’s fault these people make it a habit of hiding behind their women and children. This is one of the main tenets of Islamist military strategy the world over (because they know they can use the inevitable resulting civilian deaths for propaganda purposes, and leftist sites like this one will lap it up and make violent jihadists look like the victims).
There is no moral equivalency whatsoever between Islamists and western military entities despite the best efforts of the Greenwalds of the world to claim otherwise.
“Just because the U.S. or western nations sells arms to a country like Saudi Arabia doesn’t make them complicit in any resulting civilian deaths.”
This argument does not hold when the U.S. is aware of the constant killings of civilians by Saudi Arabia and continues to arm them with the weapons for said atrocities.
[blockquote]This argument does not hold when the U.S. is aware of the constant killings of civilians by Saudi Arabia and continues to arm them with the weapons for said atrocities.[/blockquote]
The U.S. is aware that civilians are being killed by both sides and that the only thing not selling weapons to Saudi would do is make them turn to someone like China or Russia and at the same time lose what little influence they may have in applying pressure on Saudi to limit civilian casualties or other matters in these proxy wars.
More complete nonsense to justify the complicity of your country in civilian casualties.
The US could of course put sanctions on Saudi Arabia. Then neither China or Russia would be able to sell them weapons. We know however this won’t happen, not because sanctions might hurt the civilian population, but because sanctions would hurt US economic interests, but you keep telling yourself that the US is driven by “humanity” and not “self-interest”…
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if Saudi Arabia wasn’t doing what we wanted, then we would have another country that does do what we want bombing Saudi Arabia.
And I guarantee you if the U.S. wasn’t arming them somebody else would be and there would be a lot more civilian casualties.
I like it. The cool parents keg party philosophy of warfare.
Sure we’re charging $15 at the door, but it’s to keep the kids safe.
That’s just the argument drug dealers use who push heroin onto the streets use – “I guarantee you that if I wasn’t selling heroin then somebody else would be selling something even worse and there would be a lot more people killed”.
How dumb can one person be? If there is some gangster, and I know this gangster is likely to use weapons indiscriminately, that will cause harm to civilians, and I sell him a gun because he is giving me lots of money for it, and then he kills someone with it, then, yes, I have as much responsibility for the death of that person as the gangster. This is such a simple concept to understand, I don’t know why I am having to spell it out.
Well, actually, I do know why I am having to spell it out – it’s because you are selective in what causes you outrage and what doesn’t.
The reason the West doesn’t target civilians is because the West doesn’t need to. If the West felt threatened and felt it needed to target civilians, it would. Remember that thing called Hiroshima and Nagasaki? That was an attack on civilians.
“Oh, but we had no choice!”, you are going to cry, and that it helped shorter the war and save civilians in the long run.
Well, that’s what most terrorists say – that they attack civilians because they don’t have the capability to attack military institutions, and they justify it just like people like you justify Hiroshima and Nagasaki – that it’s the only way to defeat an aggressor.
No they weren’t.
No one is saying that – if that is what you think they are saying, you are dumber than I thought.
Not all Islamists are fighters. You’re too dumb to even realise that. And an Islamist who hasn’t killed anyone has less bloods on his hands than Western civilians.
But anyway, as I said before, no one is making moral equivalencies or whatever other nonsense you are making in your mind. The reason is that making moral equivalencies between someone who spends trillions on weapons and doesn’t need to attack civilians to achieve military victory and someone who doesn’t have any sophisticated weapons and feels they have to attack civilians is like comparing apples and oranges. It is totally meaningless to try and compare them morally.
And an Islamist who hasn’t killed anyone has less bloods on his hands than Western
civiliansmilitary.Long before the nuclear weapons were used there were strikes against civilians. Civilians were the targets of the Dresden & Tokyo firestorms from incendiary bombing. Prior to that, one need only look at sieges of large cities for the long history of this practice.
That’s where your analogy crumbles, as bad as Saudi Arabia is they aren’t purposely targeting civilians for the hell of it. They are trying to target Houthi rebels whose Iranian sponsors have helped them master the art of fighting from among civilians like they have in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Syria, etc. Civilian casualties are inevitable in these circumstances.
The reason the west doesn’t target civilians is because they’re not commanded to by some perverse, medieval holy scripture (or at least they don’t take said edicts literally anymore).
Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military centers for the Japanese. And virtually every able bodied Japanese “civilian” at the time was dedicated to giving their life to fight the Americans if they invaded (to stop Japan’s war of aggression). It did absolutely save countless lives of both American and Japanese soldiers and civilians in the long run.
25 fa, zu (poss), as
No it doesn’t you idiot. In my analogy I didn’t say the gangster is going to kill civilians purposely, I said indiscriminately i.e. when the gangster attacks someone from a rival gang, the gangster doesn’t care if civilians get killed in the shoot-out. So, yes, me selling a gun to a gangster who I know will use the gun indiscriminately is morally wrong.
Similarly, we know the Saudis are indiscriminate and don’t care about civilian lives, if taking out a rebel position means taking out 20 civilians, they will do it. Therefore, it IS immoral for us to sell them weapons, you just do not want to believe it because you have been indoctrinated since birth that we are really good guys who always put ethics before things like profit.
You are even dumber than I thought if you think it is holy scriptures that make people target civilians.
How about the secular Arab terrorist groups who targetted civilians? How about the Marxist groups that targetted civilians? How about the right-wing groups in Latin America that targetted civilians? None of these were following any scripture.
Absolute nonsense. You are a brainwashed idiot. Maybe you should try and expand your knowledge to find out really why Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/
And secondly, even if we imagine that you are right, which you’re not, but for the sake of argument, let us imagine that. You are saying it is ok to kill civilians if you think that it will save civilian lives in the long run. Therefore, by your logic, if someone thinks that killing Western civilians is going to stop American aggression in other parts of the world and will overthrow capitalist governments and will bring about a more peaceful world where there is more wealth distribution and will therefore save more lives in the long run, then this person has a right to kill civilians.
Yes there is, you’re just an ignorant uneducated fool who has been brainwashed and therefore whose opinions are nonsensical.
It’s wrong if it becomes an established pattern. These mass civilian casualty incidents are not the norm in Yemen despite a lot of propaganda to the contrary. It’s not happening on a daily basis or with any regularity (unlike the aforementioned Iranian supported Syrian attacks that the Intercept and other like minded sites are silent on).
I was referring to the present day. There’s obviously exceptions but most Islamists (those most responsible for targeting civilians in the present day) who use violence today cite Quranic scripture that commands them to strike terror into the hearts of disbelievers. This is exactly why most carry out attacks against so-called “soft target” civilian areas.
I’m well aware of the opinions on all sides when it comes to why the Japanese capitulated, and I assure you I would wipe the floor with you on anything to do with WW2. I can’t read that specific article because of paywall, but the Japanese would not have surrendered with the Russian invasion alone. It was a culmination of several events, including and especially the atomic bombs that did them in.
Half right, I’m saying it’s necessary and acceptable to expect civilian casualties when targeting the likes of people who specifically target civilians (and use their own as human shields) since these kind of people would have been responsible for far more carnage if left unchecked.
If the capitalist governments were actually responsible for most civilian death and destruction in the world and were purposely targeting civilians, they would absolutely have the right to stop it and you’d have a point. Unfortunately for you, certain socialist entities have been among the biggest mass-murderers in human history and certainly would not be the solution to anything, especially any kind of lasting peace or justice.
No there isn’t. One thing ALL Islamists share in common is a belief that Sharia law should be implemented in every society. Many by any means necessary. Many may not advocate violence to achieve these means, but they still require a Sharia based society. A Sharia based society means persecution and oppression of non-Muslims who they consider second-class dhimmis, subject to numerous humiliating and violent stipulations.
There is no such thing as a moderate Islamist (unlike Muslim). They are antithetical to any notion of freedom or liberty and it’s mind boggling how so many so called liberals blindly apologize or outright condone their behavior because of such a perverse overriding hatred of something else (the west, the U.S., Zionism/Israel, democracy, capitalism, etc.).
Oh, so if I sell a gun to a drug dealer who then causes civilian casualties every week during his shoot-outs with rival gangs instead of every day, that makes it ok?
What if he causes one civilian casualty daily? It isn’t a mass casualty incident happening every day – does it make it ok?
I bet you wouldn’t say it was ok if it was your loved one that died, that’s how people like you are.
You seem very confused – The Intercept (and other like-minded sites) are not “silent” on Iranian supported attacks – in fact, everyone knows about these attacks, and that’s why they don’t report them. The whole purpose of these sites is to bring to public attention information that isn’t readily available to the public.
I haven’t seen The Intercept writing articles on gays being thrown off buildings by Islamic State. The reason isn’t because The Intercept somehow thinks that isn’t horrific, it’s because it will already receive so much coverage in the media, so what’s the point of repeating it?
Again, you are talking rubbish. Most of the terrorists aren’t even Islamists – drinking, smoking joints, having sex with prostitutes – if their scriptures mattered that much to them, surely they would not be doing these things.
The only people who believe the nonsense you do are those who have been watching “terrorism experts” on CNN and FOX or reading people like Robert Spencer. If you listen to the actual academics who study terrorism, and not these so-called experts on television who have no scholarly credentials, you will know that terrorism is rarely driven by religion, and that the religious aspect is a symptom and not a cause of it.
But then again, since when have people like you been in gaining knowledge.
No, you’re not.
I am sure a Flat Earther can assure me he would wipe the floor with me on anything to do with Geology. The truth of course is that both of you are brainwashed and so your assurances are worth nothing – even an eighth grader probably has more knowledge than you on WW2 and terrorism.
You can sign up for free to read it. But we know why you don’t want to.
Ok, so you don’t think it is never ok to kill civilians, you believe it is ok to kill civilians if it will mean less civilian casualties in the long run. So you believe if by killing the wife and children of the leaders of ISIS we can cause ISIS to stop fighting, then it means we are justified in killing the wife and children of ISIS.
You sound just like a terrorist.
This is some of the dumbest logic out there – it just shows what a simplistic minded buffoon you are where things should be either one or the other.
First of all, the idea that someone who purposefully targets civilians is automatically worse than someone who doesn’t purposefully target civilians is nonsensical. Say Chan has a large company in China. Chan equally shares the wealth between his thousand workers. However, there is a rival business owned by a very greedy person. So Chan hires a hitman to get him killed.
In contrast, there is another business in another part of China owned by Lee. Lee doesn’t hire any hitman to kill a rival. Instead, he pays his thousand workers peanuts – and he then buys off the business of his rival. Because Lee doesn’t care about his workers and they live in abject poverty, 4 workers a year are dying from ill health.
So according to your criteria, Chan is a worse human being than Lee because Chan deliberately killed someone whereas Lee never deliberately killed someone, but most people would say that whilst Chan certainly did wrong and should be punished, Lee is actually a worse human being than Chan because although Lee doesn’t deliberately kill someone, he knows his policies will result in a lot of deaths.
Secondly, capitalism has resulted in millions of deaths in the world. Capitalism results in profits being put ahead of ethics. If wealth was more equally distributed, then millions of lives would be saved each year. But anyway, this is another topic. The point here isn’t whether capitalism is good or bad. The question here is whether someone who thinks capitalism is bad and causes a lot of deaths has the right to kill civilians if he thinks that by doing so, capitalism might end. I don’t think they do, but you clearly do, because you have clearly stated that killing civilians can be justified if you think it will save more lives in the long run, which is why you justify the deliberate killings of babies and children and old people and sick people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Yes there is. It isn’t my fault that you’re too stupid to realise that there is no universal thing called “Sharia Law”, and that Islamists have different interpretations of it, and some interpretations of Sharia Law are moderate.
Probably because so many “liberals” aren’t as stupid as you and realise that Islamists are not one dimensional and have differing beliefs.
If there were these mass civilian casualty incidents every week like this market place bombing then it would be cause for concern, but again, these type of incidents are not occurring every week or with regularity.
Smaller numbers of civilians are no doubt being killed on a weekly basis, but it’s unavoidable in a urban war like what’s going on in Yemen. As long as the Saudis don’t start carrying out these mass casualty market place attacks on a regular basis, then it’s not “immoral” to support them. Especially not when the side they’re fighting is responsible for far more death and destruction across the region.
Nonsense. All we see in the mainstream media these days is “ISIS! ISIS! ISIS!” Most people don’t realize the vast majority of civilians killed in countries like Syria or Iraq are being killed by Iranian sponsored Shia proxy groups (Hezbollah, SAA, other Shia militias, etc.), not the Sunni terrorist groups. There’s nowhere near enough coverage of these attacks in MSM or independent media.
It’s called Taqiyya. Muslims are allowed to deceive the infidels to protect or promote an Islamic agenda. I agree many of the so-called “foot soldiers” that actually carry out terrorist attacks may not be well versed in Islam, but virtually all of the leaders of terrorist groups who plan and organize the attacks are. They are simply following in the footsteps of their warlord pedophile prophet after all. Beheadings, rape, slavery, conquest, mass-murder, ethnic cleansing, genocide – all carried out by Mohammad and his earliest followers.
What do you expect is going to happen when Muslims try to emulate this psychopathic madman? This type of violence is not new and is not a product of western imperialism/interference. It has literally been occurring for 1400 years now.
I was able to read it on my mobile phone and it’s nothing I haven’t heard before. It’s opinion, nothing else. Like I said earlier, the atomic bombs by themselves, and the Russian invasion by itself, was not the cause of their surrender. These events together, combined with others, are what led to the end of the Pacific war.
I believe every situation is different and you have to take into consideration the target in every attack. I only think it’s never ok to kill civilians if you are SOLELY targeting civilians or the number of civilians is grossly disproportionate to the number of hostiles you are engaging. This is something the west has to deal with on a daily basis, and indeed it has called off numerous strikes against confirmed Islamist leaders and targets because of the number of civilians present.
Targeting civilians wasn’t my only criterion, I specifically said those responsible for most death and destruction in the world (AND those who specifically target civilians).
In the 21st century, this is Islamists. No other groups or ideologies come close.
It’s also saves tens of millions and prevented far more deaths than it has caused.
And my point is capitalism isn’t remotely close to being as bad as you make it out to be and has done far more good to the world and for humanity than bad. If somebody overthrew capitalist societies, they would be condemning said societies to MORE deaths and destitution, not saving them from it.
Unlike Islamism, which is a cancer on this planet and contributes nothing positive to humanity.
Like Islam, there’s no universal Sharia law, but there are certain beliefs and tenets that are common between all Muslims or all practices of Sharia. In Sharia this includes the requirement for non-Muslims to pay what’s nothing less than an extortion fee (called the Jizya) just to keep their necks. This is a common trait in all forms of Sharia law.
I’ve honestly never heard anyone try to argue there is a “moderate” form of Sharia in existence today. Probably one of the more delusional and depraved claims I’ve ever read on this site. Maybe “moderate” relative to the type of Sharia practiced by ISIS or the like, but no way is it “moderate” in and of itself.
I often see a similar argument in the Israeli/Palestinian debate when people say Jews had it better under Islamic rule than Christendom (and therefore they should accept Islamic domination over them again in the holy land). Yes, this is true, but it doesn’t mean their treatment would be acceptable by today’s standards. They were still considered second-class dhimmis and have to live under the apartheid-esque conditions of Sharia.
There is no form of Sharia law in existence where non-Muslims are treated EQUALLY to Muslims. I challenge you to find even one example of a Sharia based society where this is the case. You will be unable to do so. By definition Sharia means oppression towards non-Muslims. The only thing that may differ between Islamic societies is how severe this oppression is.
It’s mainly because they are completely clueless as to what Sharia entails and how horribly non-Muslims are treated under Sharia based societies.
I have replied to you but The Intercept isn’t showing it up here, so the link to my post is:
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/25/highlighting-western-victims-while-ignoring-victims-of-western-violence/?comments=1#comment-214844
You are right to suggest that terrorists tend to have criminal backgrounds and access to weapons. This was evident after the Brussels Bombing. Greenwald forgets that Saddam Hussain was tried and convicted of war crimes in Iraq, which tends to undermine the poor Muslims are the real victims plea. Some people are evil. Hitler, Mao, and Stalin rank alongside Khomeini as sociopathic leaders. Check psychological profiles instead of religious affilliation to differentiate good and bad people. The Brussels bombers were as evil as the sociopathic right-wing Christian Breivik. Terrorism is a crime that cannot be excused by the retaliatory claim that some random strangers must be killed as the West is my enemy. Stop your pathetic bloodcount and ugly racist assertions and display some gratitude for the countless Westerners and Western countries who have assisted Muslims to attain asylum from war or political oppression by non-Western tyrants, and extend support and treat their familes with respect.
No one said that, you moron. It isn’t my fault you are too dumb to comprehend what people are saying.