MSNBC‘s Rachel Maddow had a discussion last week (3/31/11) about the U.S. role in the Libya War with Col. Jack Jacobs, an MSNBC military consultant. Jacobs described the U.S. military’s “ability to jam communications that take place between units or among units of Gadhafi’s army,” then referred to the U.S.’s
ability to jam electronic transmissions that occur when Gadhafi’s army, ground forces try to fire at allied planes. The instant that a radar system is turned on on the ground, we can detect it and in very short order, send a precision-guided munition that follows the radar beam all the way down to its source.
After responding to that with “Wow,” Maddow asked:
One of the things that people have questioned is if the U.S. has this high level of electronic capability, why is Libyan state TV still on the air? Is that not one of the things they would want to shut down?
Maddow’s questions echo similar calls by U.S. journalists during the Iraq invasion for an attack on Iraqi government TV–calls that were heeded when the U.S. destroyed the TV studios with a missile attack on March 25, 2003. As FAIR wrote in a media advisory, “U.S. Media Applaud Bombing of Iraqi TV” (3/27/03):
Prior to the bombing, some even seemed anxious to know why the broadcast facilities hadn’t been attacked yet. Fox News Channel‘s John Gibson wondered (3/24/03): “Should we take Iraqi TV off the air? Should we put one down the stove pipe there?” Fox‘s Bill O’Reilly (3/24/03) agreed: “I think they should have taken out the television, the Iraqi television…. Why haven’t they taken out the Iraqi television towers?” MSNBC correspondent David Shuster offered: “A lot of questions about why state-run television is allowed to continue broadcasting. After all, the coalition forces know where those broadcast towers are located.”
There is a good reason, actually, why Iraqi TV should not have been attacked: Journalists are civilians, even those who enthusiastically support their country’s military efforts, and therefore targeting them is a war crime. The idea that journalists reporting in a country the U.S. is at war with deserve protection seems to have been rejected by the Pentagon, however. As FAIR wrote in “Is Killing Part of Pentagon Press Policy?” (4/10/03):
In the Kosovo War, the U.S. attacked the offices of state-owned Radio-Television Serbia, in what Amnesty International called a “direct attack on a civilian object” which “therefore constitutes a war crime.” On March 25, the U.S. began airstrikes on government-run Iraqi TV, in what the International Federation of Journalists (Reuters, 3/26/03) suggested might also be a Geneva Convention violation, since it the U.S. was “targeting a television network simply because they don’t like the message it gives out.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists declined to count the Serbian journalists killed by the United States in its annual list of murdered journalists, a move that FAIR warned at the time would contribute to a sense that “enemy” journalists are fair game (Extra!, 9-10/00). Maddow’s question suggests that treating reporters as enemy combatants has indeed become the new normal.
To give Maddow the benefit of the doubt, maybe – maybe – she was asking about the ability to jam broadcasting signals, and not coldbloodedly conversing about the murder of civilians.
Even if that’s the case, to not bring up the history of deadly US attacks delineated above is a pretty blatant abrogation of her duty as a journalist to provide vital context, don’t you think?
No “WOW” factor there. It’s SOP for “mainstream” media, innit?
Hey, Rachel, give ’em a break; they can’t be everywhere, y’know.
Even if that’s the case, to not bring up the history of deadly US attacks delineated above is a pretty blatant abrogation of her duty as a journalist to provide vital context, don’t you think?
Waitaminnit… y’mean, Rachel Maddow’s a journalist?
Clearly the title is very misleading. This is the first time I am disappointed in Fair. You have just done what you accuse others of doing. Shame on you.
Maddow clearly is asking why US army did not try to jam Libyan state TV. She is not asking about targeting journalists. Also I doubt there are any “journalists” working for Libyan state TV.
Maddow’s source had just explained what he meant by “jam electronic transmissions”: “We can…send a precision-guided munition” to the source of the transmission. To which Maddow responded, “Wow.” I presume, therefore, that she is using “jam” in the same sense that her source is using it. In any case, missiles are, in fact, the tool that the U.S. military uses to “shut down” enemy TV stations, and if Maddow is hoping that they use a different method, she really needs to specify that.
Wait a minute, folks. Maddow wasn’t talking about “putting one down the stovepipe.” She was clearly asking about electronic jamming–no cruise missiles required. I don’t always agree with Maddow, but don’t assimilate her to liberal(ish) hawks who are all gung-ho to make bad people go boom because they have never witnessed the actual effects of high explosives or even heavy-caliber bullets on human flesh.
I watched the interview. At the time, in the context, it was crystal clear that she was clearly responding to her guest’s boast of the US ability to “send a precision-guided munition that follows the radar beam all the way down to its source.” During the last year, Rachel spent hour after hour pushing the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as if the lack of opportunity for gay & lesbian young people to join the armed forces and visit foreign countries and kill people, was a reason for despair. If you want to believe differently, feel free; lots of people hear and see what they wish. Happy Fantasies!
I didn’t see this segment, and I’m not sorry, because I hate it when NBC brings out their so-called military analysts. They are propagandists for the pentagon at heart, and at least one has deep conflicts of interest. Maddow has shown a fascination for military hardware all along. One can almost see the passion, it’s nearly palpable. She really is SUCH a boy. That’s not a criticism of her, it’s just a fact like many other facts, such as: Most people don’t really care about war crimes anymore.
Sorry Gregory, War Crimes are for Losers, always have been always will.
I was clearly disappointed in Rachel’s response to the guys’ munition following the transmission to its source idea. Since when is blocking transmission only accomplished by a bomb? Rachel should not have been so readily amazed at this capability by saying “wow.” The guy said nothing about the folks who would be killed by this action, doesn’t it matter anymore?To anyone? Am I the only one?
Wow, yourself. The question Maddow asked clearly meant, “if we are using the level of electronic sophistication that lets us trace a single communication to its mobile, shifting source, why are we not doing the much simpler process of jamming official broadcasts, which have a known, non-mobile source?”
Having been at more than one peace march in Pittsburgh where “someone” (presumably the government) blocked cell phone transmissions over a multi-block radius for the duration of the march, I am well aware that signal blocking is NOT the same thing as “dropping a bomb on the transmitter.” Signal blocking is signal blocking. It is cold war level technology.
It’s still an open question whether blocking any transmission, even a propaganda transmission, is in the best interests of free society. Plenty of people learn to read around and through state propaganda. I’d rather see you call her out for that, rather than for something totally trumped up.
The “wow” was a surprise at the response she got to her question about jamming. Since using a “precision guided munitions” doesn’t fit as jamming but as a weapons hit. She was surprised at the militant killing suggestion the Gen. was talking about. Ahh, babes in the woods full of military wolves. I hope she is more understanding of whom she is speaking to when she has a military shill on her show.
You are doing Rachel Maddow a real injustice by “presuming” anything at all about her comments. What does “presuming” have to do with the facts. I think that she was genuinely surprised that Libya’s state t.v. was still operating, but that doesn’t mean she wanted it to be bombed. You add something to her words that just isn’t there. You are being un-FAIR, please rethink this.
If Libyan Radio or Tv were being used to interdict against American military personnel,and we were at war with them(no jokes please)Im sure one would go down the” stove pipe”.I would hope our country would give prior warning(as they did to civilian laden targets in Iraq)to destroy what they needed without collateral
damage.But people would die as you cant make any munition “that”smart.
Rachel asked a loopy question. Probably no deeper than that.
For once, I am disappointed with FAIR/Extra! Nothing in this article’s quote from Maddow supports the conclusion that Libyan journalists should be targeted. To jam or disable a TV station is one thing. “Targeting journalists,” implies, to me, something more life-threatening to individuals. As far as “Wow,” she says that all the time in any and every context.