Home > Archives for War/Military
Nov
27
2012

NYT Waves Goodbye to Three Amigos of Militarism

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John McCain and Joe Lieberman (photo: Talk Radio News Service)

Not every politician gets a warm and fuzzy retirement profile in the New York Times. But not every politician is Joe Lieberman.  Jennifer Steinhauer's piece (11/27/12) is a tribute mostly to Lieberman's close bond with Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The "Three Amigos" traveled the world together, advocating for one hawkish foreign policy idea after another: Their hawkish world views often placed them at odds with their respective parties, but together they secured a place at the center of every major foreign policy debate. That's mostly true of Lieberman, but it's hard to figure how McCain and Graham much [...]

Filed Under: Iraq, Libya, New York Times, Politics, War/Military Tagged With: , , ,
Nov
16
2012

It's Terrorism When It Happens in Israel

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NBC-terror(1)

On NBC Nightly News (11/15/12) , correspondent Martin Fletcher gives viewers a sense of the suffering on both sides of the Israel/Gaza conflict: FLETCHER: Terror in Israel. (SHOUTING) FLETCHER: "There is another one," a soldier screams. (SHOUTING) FLETCHER: More than 200 missiles fired at Israel today. And in Gaza, despair. (SHOUTING) FLETCHER: Burying an infant killed in an Israeli attack. Frightened Israeli soldiers are being terrorized. And Gazans burying a child? Something else, apparently.

Filed Under: Israel/Palestine, NBC, War/Military Tagged With: ,
Nov
14
2012

Collateral Damage–Not the Usual Kind

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wp-collateraldamage

It's bad enough when media refer to civilian deaths in U.S. wars as "collateral damage," but it was jarring to see how the phrase was used in a Washington Post headline today: Obviously, they're talking about the sex-and-emails scandal. How could dead Afghan civilians ever threaten the career of a high-ranking U.S. official?

Filed Under: Afghanistan, War/Military, Washington Post Tagged With:
Oct
23
2012

Morning Joe's Drone Debate: Whose Four-Year-Old Girls Should Be Killed?

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joeklein-drones

MSNBC's Morning Joe had a  remarkable discussion of U.S. drone attacks today (10/23/12). Here's a clip of the most intense moments of the exchange between the conservative-leaning Joe Scarborough and Time columnist Joe Klein, who is occasionally mistaken for a liberal: Scarborough offered up a more passionate critique of drone attacks than you're likely to hear from his left-leaning MSNBC colleagues: "If you're between 17 and 30, and you're within a half-mile of a suspect, we can blow you up." When Klein interjects to argue that drones are "decimating bad guys," Scarborough responds that the attacks are "taking out a [...]

Filed Under: Media Criticism, MSNBC, Time, War/Military Tagged With: , ,
Oct
22
2012

U.S. Media Ignore Toxic Legacy of U.S. Weapons

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Doctor examining a baby in a Fallujah hospital (photo: Larisa Epatko/NewsHour)

The London Independent published a harrowing story on October 14, "Iraq Records Huge Rise in Birth Defects." The piece focuses on the legacy of the U.S war in Iraq, in particular the two massive U.S. military invasions of the city of Fallujah in 2004.  The Independent reports: High rates of miscarriage, toxic levels of lead and mercury contamination and spiraling numbers of birth defects ranging from congenital heart defects to brain dysfunctions and malformed limbs have been recorded. Even more disturbingly, they appear to be occurring at an increasing rate in children born in Fallujah, about 40 miles west of Baghdad. [...]

Filed Under: Healthcare, Iraq, War/Military Tagged With: ,
Oct
02
2012

How to Tell When 'Humans' Die in a U.S. War

By 12 Comments
Afghan women (photo by ISAF Public Affairs)

ABC World News' David Muir (9/30/12) took note of the 2,000th U.S. military death in Afghanistan this way: Overseas now to Afghanistan, and a stark reminder tonight of the human cost of war. An attack at a checkpoint left two Americans dead, one of them a serviceman, the 2,000th U.S. military death since the war began. That kind of language is revealing in that it presents American deaths as evidence of the "human cost of war." But, of course, that is a human cost almost every day most wars. What they're saying is this is primarily something we should think [...]

Filed Under: ABC, Afghanistan, War/Military Tagged With: ,
Sep
27
2012

Don't Tell O'Reilly, but His Iran Blockade Idea Already Worked

By 17 Comments

Crooks & Liars (9/26/12) notes Bill O'Reilly is proposing a naval blockade of Iraq: Says O'Reilly: We're going to block it, nothing in, nothing out. OK? That's what we're going to do. And if you challenge the blockade, we'll do what we have to do like the Cuban missile crisis, same thing–not gonna do it, not gonna let your nukes in Cuba. Kennedy did that. Not gonna let your nukes in Iran. BANG! That's what we're gonna do. So you've either got to stop now and not force us to do it, because if you force us to do it, [...]

Filed Under: Fox News, Iran, Iraq, Media Criticism, War/Military Tagged With: , ,
Sep
17
2012

After NATO Strike Kills 8 Afghan Women, Pundits Still Wonder: Why Do They Hate Us?

By 21 Comments
A Washington Post headline illustrates which lives are more valuable.

The protests and violence in Egypt, Libya and Yemen have caused a notable uptick in media discussions about, as Newsweek's cover puts it, "Muslim Rage." Part of the corporate media's job is to make sure real political grievances are mostly kept out of the discussion. It's a lot easier to talk about angry mobs and their peculiar religion than it is to acknowledge that maybe some of the anger has little to do with religion at all. Take the news out of Afghanistan yesterday: A NATO airstrike killed eight women in the eastern province of Laghman who were out collecting [...]

Filed Under: Afghanistan, Islamophobia, Media Criticism, New York Times, Newsweek, War/Military, Washington Post
Aug
07
2012

War Propaganda, Olympics-Style

By 30 Comments

NBC's Olympics broadcast last night included a profile of Grenadian runner Kirani James. The small island is peaceful now, viewers learned, thanks in no small part to Ronald Reagan's decision to invade. Here's the clip: (UPDATE: As you can see, someone at NBC is keeping tabs on YouTube, and they've taken this down twice. You can watch the segment– along with a shampoo ad– at the NBC site.) The U.S. invasion is described as an attempt to "put down an Communist coup and restore the Grenadian government"; the broadcast goes on to refer to the U.S. "liberation" of the country. In [...]

Filed Under: Media Criticism, NBC, sports, War/Military
Jul
30
2012

Pundit Accountability: What an Idea!

By 22 Comments

Writing in Newsweek, Peter Beinart has a pretty good idea: America's foreign-policy debate desperately needs some measure of accountability. I'm not suggesting that politicians and pundits who got Iraq wrong be banished from public life. (This standard would leave me looking for other work.) But neither should they be able to flee the scene of the disaster. Imagine if every time Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton or John Bolton or John McCain or William Kristol was interviewed about military intervention in Iran or Syria, the interviewer began by asking what they've learned about the subject from their experience supporting the [...]

Filed Under: Iraq, Mitt Romney, Newsweek, War/Military Tagged With: , ,
Jul
30
2012

The Toll of Drone Wars…on U.S Pilots

By 40 Comments

There are plenty of worthwhile things media could try to tell us about U.S. drone wars. But does the world need another uncritical piece about the difficult life of a drone pilot? Apparently someone at the New York Times thought so, and so readers get a story (7/30/12) headlined "A Day Job Waiting for a Kill Shot a World Away." Reporter Elisabeth Bumiller (perhaps best known for a testy C-SPAN appearance where she explained that New York Times reporters "can't just say the president is lying") gives us a glimpse into the struggles of the pilots who spend hours–even days–tracking [...]

Filed Under: New York Times, War/Military Tagged With: ,
Jun
29
2012

Is Limbaugh Sure He Wants Lying to Be a Crime?

By 33 Comments

The Supreme Court decided on Thursday that lying about medals and military service, while "contemptible," is protected under the First Amendment's free speech clause. The court said the federal "Stolen Valor" law was overly broad and imposed a chilling effect on free speech. This news enraged Rush Limbaugh, who responded on is radio show with disdain, facetiously wondering, "I don't know if they legalized pedophilia or not." An interesting non sequitur, but back on point: Limbaugh's comprehension of freedom of speech has always been a crabbed affair, pretty much limited to the view that he and his conservative allies–people who enjoy [...]

Filed Under: Clear Channel, First Amendment, War/Military Tagged With:
Jun
22
2012

NYT Discovers the Other Side of Spending Cuts

By 8 Comments

It's been said (by me!) that the big spending cuts set to hit the federal budget next year–so-called "sequestration"–are not created equal, at least in the eyes of the corporate media. The cuts, as designed, hit the military budget and non-military spending in roughly equal measure. The political calculation was that Republicans would object to the military cuts while Democrats would object to cuts in social spending. But in the corporate media, those non-military cuts hardly ever get any attention–perhaps because there are not powerful lobbyists and Cabinet officials complaining loudly about how the safety of the country is at [...]

Filed Under: Budget, New York Times, War/Military, Washington Post Tagged With: , ,
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