Soundbites January/February 2016

Taking US at Its Word on Civilian Deaths

In an article that contrasted the US and Russian air wars in the Middle East, the Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung (11/25/15) quoted a US military spokesperson charging Russia with “sloppy military work” that had caused “upwards of 1,000 civilian casualties. . .including over 100 kids.” She followed this up with data:

In a report issued late last week, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had documented 403 civilians, including 166 women and children, killed in Russian airstrikes, more than the 381 fighters from both rebel and terrorist forces it said had been killed.

The US military has acknowledged two instances where airstrikes against the Islamic State resulted in civilian deaths.

To back up US claims about Russia killing civilians, DeYoung turns to a nominally independent human rights group. For US-caused deaths, she takes the Pentagon’s word for it. It’s not like there aren’t independent tallies, as the British Guardian (8/3/15) reported:

Airwars, a project by a team of independent journalists, is publishing details of 52 strikes with what it believes are credible reports of at least 459 non-combatant deaths, including those of more than 100 children.

More recent tallies by Airwars have the US-led coalition killing at least 680 civilians, and possibly as many as 975.

At CNN, Humanity Stops at the Water’s Edge

CNN host Michael Smerconish (Huffington Post, 11/23/15) brought on to his November 21 show former CIA officer Michael Scheuer, who argued that if the US were going to go after ISIS, it should:

take out every piece of infrastructure—hospitals, universities, irrigation systems—that make it impossible [sic] for the Islamic State to raise money, to provide electricity, sanitation, potable water. Do exactly what we did to the Germans.

Asked by the CNN host whether the US public would tolerate the “so-called innocent civilian death count,” Scheuer replied: “They should. What’s the difference? They’re not Americans.”

Weaponizing Whistleblowers

Scott Pelley began a 60 Minutes report (11/8/15) on security clearances:

The fugitive Edward Snowden, convicted spy Chelsea Manning and mass murderer Aaron Alexis all had one thing in common: US government security clearances which they turned into weapons.

This formulation treats leaks to the press and a sawed-off shotgun as the same thing: both “weapons.” It’s a peculiar stance for a TV news magazine that prides itself on its tradition of investigative reporting to take—that getting information out to the public is a form of violence.

It’s also odd for journalists to describe Manning, simply because she was convicted under the Espionage Act, as a “convicted spy.” When 60 Minutes reporters get classified information from government officials, do they say to their sources, “Thanks for spying for us”?

NYT Cleans Up After Scalia

Observers were stunned when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argued against affirmative action by citing crude racial stereotypes:

There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school—a slower-track school where they do well.

But like the sweeper following the elephants at the circus, the New York Times was on hand to try to clean up Scalia’s mess. In the hands of correspondent Adam Liptak (12/9/15), the passage was:

In a remark that drew muted gasps in the courtroom, Justice Antonin Scalia said that minority students with inferior academic credentials may be better off at “a less advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.”

Note that “inferior academic credentials” were not mentioned by Scalia, who spoke of African-Americans in general as doing better at a “less-advanced school.”

Around the World With David Brooks

Columnist David Brooks had a piece in the New York Times style magazine (11/13/15) headlined “My $120,000 Vacation,” detailing his time flying around the world on a Four Seasons-branded private jet—what he described as a “spectacularly expensive hopscotch” on a “self-contained luxury caravan.”

Yes, the Times picked up the tab for this; public editor Margaret Sullivan noted that the paper paid for “the portion of that trip for which Mr. Brooks was present”—which works out to about $35,000. One wonders what actual journalism could have been funded with the money that allowed Brooks to analyze the “merits and demerits of such pampered high-end travel,” gauge how much he enjoyed his “superfluous” second bottle of champagne and realize that he “wished there had been a little more pretense and a little more intellectual and spiritual ambition” among his fellow travelers from the “lower end of the upper class.”

Apparently you have to shell out that kind of cash if you want insights like Brooks’ closing line: “Of course, we all have a responsibility to reduce inequality in our society. But maybe not every day.”

For Corporate Media, Trump Is ‘Fun’—and Lucrative

The advertising climate couldn’t be better right now, and I’ve never seen it this hot for a number of years…. So as the year ends and we move into ’16, guess what…. We have a year of political advertising that looks like it’s shaping up to be pretty phenomenal. You know, we love having all ’16 Republican candidates throwing crap at each other. It’s great. The more they spend, the better it is for us, and—go Donald! Keep getting out there! And, you know, this is fun, watching this, let them spend money on us, and we love having them in there. We’re looking forward to a very exciting political year in ’16.”

—CBS chief Les Moonves (Intercept, 12/10/15)