Thursday, March 07, 2013

US War Crimes get British attention but in the US?

Press TV notes this morning, "Sectarian commando units, operating under direct supervision of American Special Forces veterans, who were involved in the so-called US counter-insurgency efforts against opponents of some of the most brutal Washington-backed dictatorships in Central America, 'conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the country’s descent into full-scale civil war,' The Guardian reports Thursday."

That's huge news.  It's especially huge news for Iraq, for England and for the United States.  BBC and the Guardian are among the many British outlets covering the story.  What about in the US?

"Imagine going as fast as you go down a mountain and then imagine an avalanche coming after you."

Bradley Manning explaining what it was like to learn of War Crimes and expose them?

Nope more, garbage from CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley.  A 'report' from Anderson Cooper who hangs with a surfer.  Wow, that's going to help democracy.  Don't we all feel more informed?

Where was the news of the War Crimes?  TV watchers may not know what we're talking about.


As noted in yesterday's snapshot, there was a major news report Wednesday.  Mona Mahmood, Maggie O'Kane, Chavala Madlena and Teresa Smith (Guardian) reported:


 The allegations made by US and Iraqi witnesses in the Guardian/BBC documentary, implicate US advisers for the first time in the human rights abuses committed by the commandos. It is also the first time that Petraeus – who last November was forced to resign as director of the CIA after a sex scandal – has been linked through an adviser to this abuse.
Coffman reported to Petraeus and described himself in an interview with the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes as Petraeus's "eyes and ears out on the ground" in Iraq.
In what world is that not news?

How about in what country?  The answer to that question is:   The United States.


Let's flip channels.



"The giant storm has hit the east, the winds are howling, cars skidding down the road, trees are tumbling and we are there," boasted Diane Sawyer on ABC World News with Diane Sawyer apparently unaware that she has nothing to brag about.


You are there?  Where should you be, Diane?

Richard Nixon's skirt still struggles with news and with ethics.


Maybe desire confuses her?  "Get ready to fall in love with Princess Leila all over again," she purred.


Good to know that Diane had her priorities down pat.

Fortunately, there's the Big Three and not the Big Two, right?  So we still had one more chance of coverage on the network news.


"Tonight it takes on a new personality," began Brian Williams.

At last.  The new personality of the war, the new take on the actions and on the legalities and --

Oh, wait.  Brian finished, "thanks to an LED art project."  I live in the Bay Area, Brian, and even I don't give a damn about the makeover to Bay Bridge.  It's the plain cousin to the Golden Gate Bridge for a reason.


NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams was the last of the three and it ignored the report as well.

What did you get?  Princess Leia to return in Star Wars films? You learned about George Wallace's daughter.  That was news you really needed, right?


You got garbage passed off as news.

But this is the US and that means we still have PBS, blessed PBS!



"Its original mission was to serve a diverse range of perspectives and communities," the Anneberg School's Larry  Gross told Robert Strauss (Philadelphia Inquirer, November 2, 1999).


Exactly.  Living up to its mission statement would mean that PBS covered the news yesterday.  But, reality, PBS has never lived up to its mission statement and doesn't even care about it these days.

Hasn't for years.  As Larry Gross explained back in 1999,   "It has its problems, not the least of which is lack of funding, but it has chosen instead to become a kind of elite-oriented commercial network. It has not become the sort of public affairs and diverse palate of community perspectives outlet that was envisaged. That is what is not really covered in cable and what has become marginalized in the media in general."


And goodness didn't PBS and The NewsHour demonstrate that laast night.


Diane Sawyer's so confusing.  She does propaganda night and day and wants to pretend she's a reporter.  Just like she wants to pretend she's in a 'normal' marriage.  Diane lied and knowingly lied about Howard Dean.  She did the hit piece on Dean.  The 'scream.'  And Diane knew the piece was a lie.  A Howard Dean supporter who is one of Diane's best friends called her out -- I am friends with this artist as well (I am not, however, friends with Diane) -- really called her to the carpet.  That's the only reason Diane did her 'correction' -- after she'd destroyed Howard Dean's shot at the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

It had nothing to do with media criticism, her 'correction.'  It had everything to do with a woman screaming over the phone to her, reading her the riot act about how dishonest Diane Sawyer had been.  That's the only reason the correction happened.  (The woman may come forward with that story.  I knew about it in real time and we discussed it again recently because of a new project the artist is working on.)

 
I'm not Diane's friend.  I'm not civil to the beard anymore, not since 2003.  She's always been a fake and a fraud but for the sake of mutual friends I put up with her.


March 10, 2003, in England, the Dixie Chicks gave a concert.  Natalie Maines noted onstage, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas."

You knew the plan was to bury the Dixie Chicks as soon as you learned Diane was interviewing them.

"Just fifteen words, but they were fifteen words."  That's what Diane declared and then began raking the Chicks over the coals for those 15 words.

You know, I'm remembering 16 words: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Bully Boy Bush's State of the Union lie.


And Diane never got all upset about that.

She never asked Bully Boy Bush or anyone in the administration, "So what prompted this?
Why did you say it?"  But she put that question to Natalie Maines.

She asked her things like, "Do you feel awful about using that word about the President of the United States?"


And, explaining why her own journalism has been cowardly and servile to the government, Diane pondered, "Are you afraid they're going to boo you?"

Diane Sawyer is and always will be a joke.  She's a joke in her personal life and she's a joke in her professional life.

After the laughter dies down, she and her peers on all three commercial networks and on PBS are useless.  Completely useless to the citizens of this country.  They fail to impart any story of real importance.  They fluff throughout their broadcast and they dumb down the country day after day.


US War Crimes were news yesterday in England (still are today) but you wouldn't know that if you watched American broadcast television.  But at least Anderson Cooper go to hang with a surfer, right?


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