- Dead Afghan Kids Still Not Newsworthy
To justify the killing of Pakistani troops, the paper of record regrets all those killed by the war - except some
By Glenn Greenwald
Published Nov 29 2011 at Salon.com
The New York Times Editors chime in today on the border killing of two dozen Pakistani soldiers by the U.S., and offer up a formulaic both-sides-have-some-explaining-to-do sermon. It’s their first paragraph that is notable:
Except when constructing their general statement of regret for all those killed in the war they support, the NYT Editors forgot to mention one rather large category of victims: namely, “Pakistani and Afghan civilians killed” not “by extremists” but by the American military (unless, that is, they used “extremists” to refer to the invading U.S. army, which seems highly unlikely). That’s a particularly striking omission given that it was just this week that the United States extinguished the lives of six more Afghan children from the air. But it’s as though the NYT Editors can’t even bring themselves to acknowledge that it isn’t only the “extremists” but also their own country’s army, fighting a war they’ve long cheered, which regularly kills civilians. But that’s par for the media course: American war media narratives, as Ashleigh Banfield was demoted and then fired by NBC News back in 2003 for pointing out, specialize in erasing the existence of America’s war victims, and this is a perfect example of how that’s done.
Ongoing American killing of Pakistani civilians is a major cause of the tension between those two nations: that’s because governments and their citizenries tend not to like it and generally become quite angry when foreign nations kill their civilians (though there is one major exception to that rule when it comes to American citizens). America’s constant killing of numerous Afghan children independently inflames anti-American rage. If the NYT Editors are going to purport to provide context and balance to the conflict between the U.S. and Pakistan by listing (and expressing cursory regret for) all the killing beyond just this one border incident, perhaps they should include — rather than awkwardly ignore — this category of deaths (and those justifying the war in the name of what’s good for The Afghan People should also take that into account, along with polling data about what they actually think). It might also be good to start thinking about the cumulative effects of those ongoing civilian killings by the U.S. when deciding whether this war should continue even though Al Qaeda — the original justification for this war more than a decade ago — is, according to U.S. officials, “operationally ineffective” and virtually non-existent in that region.
- On November 25, the New York Times reported--on page 12--that six children were killed in one attack in southern Afghanistan on November 23. This news was, as best I can tell, not reported on ABC, CBS, NBC or the PBS NewsHour.
- There were, on the other hand, several pieces about U.S. soldiers eating Thanksgiving dinners.
- US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week...
- But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists.
- See the guy in the photo there, dangling an ax from his left hand? That’s Greece’s new “Minister of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks” Makis Voridis captured back in the 1980s, when he led a fascist student group called “Student Alternative” at the University of Athens law school. It’s 1985, and Minister Voridis, dressed like some Kajagoogoo Nazi, is caught on camera patrolling the campus with his fellow fascists, hunting for suspected leftist students to bash. Voridis was booted out of law school that year, and sued by Greece’s National Association of Students for taking part in violent attacks on non-fascist law students.
- With all the propaganda we’ve been fed about Greece’s new “austerity” government being staffed by non-ideological “technocrats,” it may come as a surprise that fascists are now considered “technocrats” to the mainstream media and Western banking interests. Then again, history shows that fascists have always been favored by the 1-percenters to deliver the austerity medicine.
- The respectful response of the media to the batshit-crazy statements one hears from the second-tier Republican candidates—candidates who occasionally rise to the first tier and then just as quickly sink down again, having never been serious contenders in the first place—is doing definite damage to this country. How many credulous Americans may have decided to shun the HPV vaccine for their daughters after hearing Bachmann’s nutty suggestion that it causes mental retardation? What of the insistence of that ignorant idiot Herman Cain that the “objective” purpose of Planned Parenthood’s founding was to “kill black babies before they came into the world. It’s planned genocide.” Now we’ve got a new front-runner, Gingrich, who holds, among other crazy notions, that the Obama administration’s “secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did,” when his diseased brain is not focusing on his moronic (and racist) contention that “only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together” the inspiration for Obama’s foreign policies.
- We speak with Kamran Loghman, the expert who developed weapons-grade pepper-spray, who says he was shocked at how police have used the chemical agent on non-violent Occupy Wall Street protesters nationwide
- First we had the Pepper-Spray Cop. Now we have the Pepper-Spray Shopper, an as-yet unidentified woman who allegedly sprayed open an avenue for herself amid crowds grasping for Black Friday bargains in an LA-area Walmart. Apparently, she needed an Xbox at half off.
- Of course, big box stores have long encouraged “competitive shopping.” After an employee was trampled to death at a Long Island Walmart on Black Friday in 2008, stores vowed to improve their crowd control. But they don’t advertise their sales with the words “door busters”—with that hint of drug-raid-level violence—for nothing. They know that hysteria can drive higher sales. It works so well that stores have been moving door busters back earlier and earlier, so that this year Black Friday at Walmarts across the country began on Thanksgiving night, forcing employees to work on the holiday in order to sow the itching powder of urgency among customers.
- Heavy rains and floods in Australia may have helped the deadly disease cross from bats to humans and that has doctors concerned about climate change
- Greenpeace today renewed its demand for the Japanese government to keep its nuclear reactors offline as simulation maps of potential accidents at Japan’s nuclear plants - used in the development of nuclear emergency response efforts - "are completely inadequate, and have not been updated since the Fukushima disaster."
- Life's no circus for the Ringling Brothers these days.The USDA announced Monday that an agreement was reached where Feld Entertainment, Inc., doing business as Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus (Feld), will pay a $270,000 fine for allegedly violating the Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
- Few people are aware of the little-publicized concerns about processed pet foods
- Climate change is taking place on the Kenai Peninsula, slowly but surely.
To justify the killing of Pakistani troops, the paper of record regrets all those killed by the war - except some
By Glenn Greenwald
Published Nov 29 2011 at Salon.com
The New York Times Editors chime in today on the border killing of two dozen Pakistani soldiers by the U.S., and offer up a formulaic both-sides-have-some-explaining-to-do sermon. It’s their first paragraph that is notable:
It’s not clear what led to NATO strikes on two Pakistani border posts this weekend, but there can be no dispute that the loss of lives is tragic. At least 24 Pakistani troops were killed. We regret those deaths, as we do those of all American, NATO and Afghan troops and Pakistani and Afghan civilians killed by extremists.This opening from the pro-Afghan-War NYT Editors is meant to provide balance and justifying context to the deaths of these soldiers by pointing to the deaths caused by The Other Side: sure, it’s regrettable that these Pakistanis are dead, but let’s remember that it’s not just these soldiers who have been killed, but also “American, NATO and Afghan troops and Pakistani and Afghan civilians killed by extremists.” Therefore, the American war against these “extremists” (a war we’ve been supporting for more than a decade and still support as much as ever) is just despite this week’s little regrettable incident.
Except when constructing their general statement of regret for all those killed in the war they support, the NYT Editors forgot to mention one rather large category of victims: namely, “Pakistani and Afghan civilians killed” not “by extremists” but by the American military (unless, that is, they used “extremists” to refer to the invading U.S. army, which seems highly unlikely). That’s a particularly striking omission given that it was just this week that the United States extinguished the lives of six more Afghan children from the air. But it’s as though the NYT Editors can’t even bring themselves to acknowledge that it isn’t only the “extremists” but also their own country’s army, fighting a war they’ve long cheered, which regularly kills civilians. But that’s par for the media course: American war media narratives, as Ashleigh Banfield was demoted and then fired by NBC News back in 2003 for pointing out, specialize in erasing the existence of America’s war victims, and this is a perfect example of how that’s done.
Ongoing American killing of Pakistani civilians is a major cause of the tension between those two nations: that’s because governments and their citizenries tend not to like it and generally become quite angry when foreign nations kill their civilians (though there is one major exception to that rule when it comes to American citizens). America’s constant killing of numerous Afghan children independently inflames anti-American rage. If the NYT Editors are going to purport to provide context and balance to the conflict between the U.S. and Pakistan by listing (and expressing cursory regret for) all the killing beyond just this one border incident, perhaps they should include — rather than awkwardly ignore — this category of deaths (and those justifying the war in the name of what’s good for The Afghan People should also take that into account, along with polling data about what they actually think). It might also be good to start thinking about the cumulative effects of those ongoing civilian killings by the U.S. when deciding whether this war should continue even though Al Qaeda — the original justification for this war more than a decade ago — is, according to U.S. officials, “operationally ineffective” and virtually non-existent in that region.
Sean
