As FAIR has noted before (1/8/18, 3/20/18), to MSNBC, the carnage and destruction the US and its Gulf Monarchy allies are leveling against the poorest country in the Arab world is simply a non-issue.
On July 2, a year had passed since the cable network’s last segment mentioning US participation in the war on Yemen, which has killed in excess of 15,000 people and resulted in over a million cases of cholera. The US is backing a Saudi-led bombing campaign with intelligence, refueling, political cover, military hardware and, as of March, ground troops. None of this matters at all to what Adweek (4/3/18) calls “the network of the Resistance,” which has since its last mention of the US’s role in the destruction of Yemen found time to run over a dozen segments highlighting war crimes committed by the Syrian and Russian governments in Syria.
By way of contrast, as MSNBC was marking a year without mentioning the US role in Yemen, the PBS NewsHour was running a three-part series on the war, with the second part (7/3/18) headlined, “American-Made Bombs in Yemen Are Killing Civilians, Destroying Infrastructure and Fueling Anger at the US.” The NewsHour’s Jane Ferguson reported:
The aerial bombing campaign has not managed to dislodge the rebels, but has hit weddings, hospitals and homes. The US military supports the Saudi coalition with logistics and intelligence. The United States it also sells the Saudis and coalition partners many of the bombs they drop on Yemen.
MSNBC chat show/Starbucks commercial Morning Joe did run one segment (4/25/18) that vaguely mentioned the war on Yemen, but failed to note the US’s role in it at all, much less that Washington is arming and backing the conflict’s primary aggressor. Instead, they did the perverse inversion––previously mastered by Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl (FAIR.org, 6/27/17)—of not only ignoring the US’s major role in killing thousands, but painting the US as a noble haven for refugees. The schlocky segment, an interview with writer Mohammed Al Samawi, was a shallow mixture of “interfaith” pablum, poverty porn and self-congratulations to the US for taking in refugees (without, of course, acknowledging that they’re seeking refuge from a crisis the US has created).
For a bit more context, in the time period of July 3, 2017, to July 3, 2018, MSNBC dedicated zero segments to the US’s war in Yemen, but 455 segments to Stormy Daniels. This isn’t to suggest the Stormy Daniels matter isn’t newsworthy—presidential corruption is per se important. But one has to wonder if this particular thread of venality is 455 stories more important than Trump aggressively supporting a war that’s killing hundreds of people a month, injuring thousands, and subjecting millions to famine and cholera. Did MSNBC editors, poring over the latest academic foreign policy literature, really come to the conclusion Trump’s war in Yemen isn’t important? Or is MSNBC simply fueled by partisan Russia dot-connecting and stories that allow them to say “porn star” as much as possible?
What seems most likely is MSNBC has found that attacking Russia from the right on matters of foreign policy is the most elegant way to preserve its “progressive” image while still serving traditional centers of power—namely, the Democratic Party establishment, corporate sponsors, and their own revolving door of ex-spook and military contractor-funded talking heads (3/26/18). After all, Obama backed the war on Yemen—though not nearly as aggressively as Trump has—and it’s difficult to make a coherent left-wing, anti-war criticism when the current Republican in office is simply carrying out your guy’s policy, but on steroids.
In any event, it’s not like any Yemenis are going to pull ads, turn down appearances, or phone Comcast higher-ups complaining. So, who cares? To be poor and brown—to say nothing of not serving the immediate partisan interests of the Democratic party—is evidently to not matter much in the eyes of MSNBC producers and on-air talent.
ACTION ALERT:
Please tell MSNBC to pay serious attention to the US role in the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Yemen.
Contact: Deb Finan, Senior VP, Programming and Production
Email: debbie.finan@nbcuni.com
Twitter: @MSNBC
#TheResistance to revealing a wretched reality
I remember when a family from Yemen came to America to speak about family death, and I think it was a death from an American bomb in the family garden. Sadly, Congress ran away and did not want to listen to the family from Yemen.That family must have really believed all these stories about America being a fair and fine place with liberty and justice. I guess they don’t believe that stuff anymore…and sadly I don’t believe it either.
me too
I have to say that FAIR itself is falling a bit for MSM misinformation on Yemen. It says that the death toll is 15,000. It’s at least an order of magnitude greater than that. For a very long time the media was endlessly parroting a figure of 10,000, as the months of bombing, blockade, and ground offensives dragged on. Both of these numbers are impossible to square with the reports that 130 children are dying of starvation and disease daily, to say nothing of non-children. Save the Children was estimating 50,000 dead kids ‘by the end of the year’, and that was 8 months ago. A thing with famines is that not everyone just dies all at once. The weak go first. Add in the disease and the constant, deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure and services by the Saudi Coalition, and things get even worse. 150,000 dead already may be overly conservative.
Currently some 8 million people in Yemen are starving. If the Saudi’s and UAE take the city of Hodeidah, the Houthi will lose their last remaining port. The Saudi’s haven’t exactly been shy about the fact that their plan to to cut off the already meager amount of supplies getting through and to starve the rebels into submission. If this happens, the famine will instantly jump from 8 million people to 18 million, fully 3/4 of the population of Yemen. This isn’t a war in Yemen, or for Yemen. This is a war ON Yemen, and its people. This is a genocide.
There is one underlying issue here that’s not discussed. And that is, the parochialism and jingoism Americans love to display.
And as a consequence, they are completely clueless about what’s going on in the rest of the world. The American media is just playing up to that parochialism, and giving Americans what they want, which is just insular flimflam about their own little world.
What baffles me is the Saudi and partners’ military’s incompetence. They have modern equipment and years of US training and currently, advising. Have they learned nothing from the history books or is there an ugly background to this incompetence as in Sunni/Shia antagonism?
I believe Iran backs the houthis[sp] and this has to be a part of this insulting behavior on the Saudis’ part but leveling civilian areas is an example of military dinosaur-think.
What the media completely fails to discuss is the core reason for this war. Saudi Arabia with support from the US wants to build a pipeline through Yemen to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. That way the US could cut off Iran, Syria, Iraq at will and thereby control their exports. And.. force these countries to sell their oil against US $. Here an article that explains:
http://www.middleeasteye.net/essays/saudi-war-yemen-oil-pipeline-empowering-al-qaeda-1386143996
Bernie Sanders was on MSNBC four months ago (March 20, 2018), railing about “…the brutal war the Trump administration is helping wage without congressional oversight.” Does that not count? Just curious why you excluded it.
Bernie Sanders was on MSNBC four months ago (March 20, 2018), railing about “…the brutal war the Trump administration is helping wage without congressional oversight.” Does that not count? Just curious why you excluded it.
Can you tell me the last time Fox News mentioned the war in Yemen
The modern left in the West is an alliance with Sunni supremacists. Don’t expect them to criticize the US government when it helps Sunni supremacists kill shiites, Christians and secular people in the Middle East. The die has been cast. “Progressives” are pro-Sunni, pro-jihad.