The Common Ills: Lt Kelly McEvers enlists in The Drone War

Today Kelly McEvers and David Greene yack and yack on Morning Edition (NPR). What they needed to do was stop interrupting and interjecting and just play the audio, of a soldier who took part in The Drone War, detailing what he did and what he saw and how it effected him.

That could have been powerful radio.

But the point wasn't powerful radio, the point was to sell The Drone War.

At the end of the segment, you're supposed to fell sad, a little sorry, but agree with McEvers that it really does come down to the US government uses drones or it puts boots on the ground.

That's a lie. That's a damned lie and NPR needs to be called out for it.

When outlets lie to the American people and tell them are two choices -- drones or boots -- they are selling The Drone War.

What NPR did wasn't even news because it has no factual basis.

In few situations are we ever only limited to two options.

In this situation?

One option is the US government can butt the hell out of Pakistan. Another option is diplomacy with Pakistan. Another option is diplomacy with Pakistan's neighbors. The US government can influence trade to Pakistan. It can do any number of things.

Kelly McEvers presents a false choice which sells The Drone War.

She's setting her end up really well, she wants to be a weekend anchor on NPR and tests broadcasts are coming up. But she's doing nothing to help reporting. She's doing nothing to help the public understanding.

This is why it matters, for example, when a reporter in 2008 for 'our side' felt the need to slam Hillary for agreeing to removed mercenaries from Iraq if elected president while the same reporter made excuses for Barack's refusal to make the promise, explaining in so many interviews that a withdrawal couldn't happen otherwise.

A withdrawal never happened. And the same compromised reporter has failed to report that Barack's been sending in Special Ops to Iraq. That was the New York Times that reported that in September, specifically Tim Arango.

'Our side' of the media loves to slam the mainstream. But we're the ones compromised because we refused to deal in facts.

When it's 'our guy,' we suddenly don't really care about standards and don't really get bothers about the cost of human life or -- as Margaret Kimberley (Black Agenda Report) so aptly pointed out Wednesday -- the hunting of humans. We start making excuses.

Now if it's the 'other side,' if it's Bully Boy Bush, or we bluster and pound our chests and we're Heidi Boghosian yammering away this week about the "Bush regime." But we can't tell the truth about what's going on right now because we can't call out Barack.

We have such passionate and fiery speeches to deliver when they're aimed at 'the other.' But when it's 'our guy,' we're suddenly silent or meekly saying, "PLease don't kill so many. Kill just a few and we'll look the other way."

Standards are not supposed to be a weapon to use against 'the other side.' They're supposed to be what we believe in. What we practice. What we want. What we demand. They are supposed to be the ethics we live by, not something we put on a hanger and hide away in the back of the closet while 'our guy' is in the White House.

The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley, Ms. magazine's blog, Tavis Smiley, Adam Kokesh, the Pacifica Evening News and Antiwar.com -- updates last night and this morning: