3 ms·

CNN and NYT Are Deliberately Obscuring Who Perpetrated the Afghan Hospital Attack

39 points by etiam 11y ago

transfire 11y ago
When will we stop accepting excuses?
mark_l_watson 11y ago
Well, many news topics receive very different treatment in the USA than the get in most of the rest of the world. I debate this with friends: I will point out a descrepency and they resist the idea that their news is not legit. I guess this attitude is understandable but I believe that access to accurate news is vital for democracy.
- cryoshon 11y ago
  Conversely, the powers that be are likely of the view that strong propaganda is vital for democracy. See: Edward Bernays, father of PR.
cafard 11y ago
I can only ask, who else does anybody think is flying in that area? It sure isn't the Taliban Air Force, because the Taliban doesn't have one.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  Nobody. But there is more than one way to blow up a hospital, for example mortars, rocket propelled grenades, just a bomb planted in the hospital. Someone else /could/ have done it, they didn't, but they /could/ have in theory. I have no idea why CNN and NYT are more cagy than the US military themselves about this incident. It isn't like the USG are trying to cover this up from what I can tell.
phantom_oracle 11y ago
I'm not too familiar with how geopolitics/warfare rules work, but will this constitute a war-crime and/or crime against humanity?
- cryoshon 11y ago
  Doubtful. At the very most, it'd be considered a war crime, if intent can be proven, which it probably can't be to the standards of a court. And even then, the US won't send anyone to be prosecuted to international courts, so the best we can hope for is internal military discipline, which probably won't happen meaningfully. I assume this strike was a mistake; hitting a civilian hospital from a multinational organization is begging for bad PR, and PR is what wins guerrilla wars.
- shirro 11y ago
  The US has not ratified (and will not) the treaty that would make them subject to the international criminal court. There have been many things the US has done that may well be war crimes but they aren't subject to independent oversight and will never be prosecuted. I think the theory being that the US is a democracy and that the people of the US hold their government to account to do the right thing. Therefore the US can be trusted to prosecute crimes it has committed itself. Assuming the US media isn't manipulated and the government doesn't hide anything etc. Democratic allies from NATO, Canada, Australia and others are subject to the ICC. Its another instance where the US seems to be out of step with the rest of the "western world" and exposes itself to criticism.
cryoshon 11y ago
At first I thought this article was Greenwald getting a bit overzealous, but after reading what the NYT/CNN actually wrote, I can agree that they were intentionally trying to hide the fact that the US bombed the hospital. There's absolutely no question about who attacked the hospital, and yet both the NYT and CNN seem to hem and haw and use distracting, meaningless language to distance the US from the slaughter of civilians. I expect about as much from both of those news rags of course, but still, it seems as though for some reason they are getting their strings pulled specifically to obfuscate. Based off of the evasive language they used, I'd suspect some kind of Ministry of Culture to be patrolling-- of course, there is no such overt thing. The bewildering part is that other mainstream media outlets that are usually of poor journalistic integrity in favor of government interests are reporting that the US was in fact the striker, unambiguously, with no pretense of deniability. Even the US military accepts that it called in a bad airstrike! This makes the exceptional effort expended on deception by the NYT and CNN very confusing.

39 points by etiam 11y ago

When will we stop accepting excuses?

Well, many news topics receive very different treatment in the USA than the get in most of the rest of the world. I debate this with friends: I will point out a descrepency and they resist the idea that their news is not legit. I guess this attitude is understandable but I believe that access to accurate news is vital for democracy.

cryoshon 11y ago
Conversely, the powers that be are likely of the view that strong propaganda is vital for democracy. See: Edward Bernays, father of PR.

cafard 11y ago

I can only ask, who else does anybody think is flying in that area? It sure isn't the Taliban Air Force, because the Taliban doesn't have one.

Someone1234 11y ago
Nobody. But there is more than one way to blow up a hospital, for example mortars, rocket propelled grenades, just a bomb planted in the hospital. Someone else /could/ have done it, they didn't, but they /could/ have in theory. I have no idea why CNN and NYT are more cagy than the US military themselves about this incident. It isn't like the USG are trying to cover this up from what I can tell.

phantom_oracle 11y ago

I'm not too familiar with how geopolitics/warfare rules work, but will this constitute a war-crime and/or crime against humanity?

cryoshon 11y ago
Doubtful. At the very most, it'd be considered a war crime, if intent can be proven, which it probably can't be to the standards of a court. And even then, the US won't send anyone to be prosecuted to international courts, so the best we can hope for is internal military discipline, which probably won't happen meaningfully. I assume this strike was a mistake; hitting a civilian hospital from a multinational organization is begging for bad PR, and PR is what wins guerrilla wars.
shirro 11y ago
The US has not ratified (and will not) the treaty that would make them subject to the international criminal court. There have been many things the US has done that may well be war crimes but they aren't subject to independent oversight and will never be prosecuted. I think the theory being that the US is a democracy and that the people of the US hold their government to account to do the right thing. Therefore the US can be trusted to prosecute crimes it has committed itself. Assuming the US media isn't manipulated and the government doesn't hide anything etc. Democratic allies from NATO, Canada, Australia and others are subject to the ICC. Its another instance where the US seems to be out of step with the rest of the "western world" and exposes itself to criticism.

cryoshon 11y ago

At first I thought this article was Greenwald getting a bit overzealous, but after reading what the NYT/CNN actually wrote, I can agree that they were intentionally trying to hide the fact that the US bombed the hospital. There's absolutely no question about who attacked the hospital, and yet both the NYT and CNN seem to hem and haw and use distracting, meaningless language to distance the US from the slaughter of civilians. I expect about as much from both of those news rags of course, but still, it seems as though for some reason they are getting their strings pulled specifically to obfuscate. Based off of the evasive language they used, I'd suspect some kind of Ministry of Culture to be patrolling-- of course, there is no such overt thing. The bewildering part is that other mainstream media outlets that are usually of poor journalistic integrity in favor of government interests are reporting that the US was in fact the striker, unambiguously, with no pretense of deniability. Even the US military accepts that it called in a bad airstrike! This makes the exceptional effort expended on deception by the NYT and CNN very confusing.