Oct 29 2010

Wikileaks War Log: How the Rest of the World Views the US

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

The Real Story the NYT’s ignored while instead engaging in a smear campaign on Julian Assange.

Salon media critic Glenn Greenwald hammers at a point we mentioned in our first read of the WikiLeaks coverage on Friday afternoon. That is, that as with the Afghanistan dump, there was an obvious disparity between the way that the Times reported out and framed its Iraq War Logs package and the way that Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and particularly The Guardian did. . . .

Reading the Times report next to its European counterparts is in many ways an illustration in the differences between mainstream American newspaper reporting and that of more partisan presses like Britain’s. Across the pond, the language is stronger, more inflammatory, and the reports plainly more hard-hitting. It’s a style that often doesn’t work for our sensibilities, and a non-partisan, scrupulously fair press is something to applaud.

But it feels that in its presentation of both WikiLeaks war dumps the Times has been tame to a fault; as if afraid of the material that it has been given by a man and organization they’ve sought to greatly distance themselves from, while working with both. As Greenwald says, the reporting seems a bit whitewashed.  

BBC:

Huge Wikileaks release shows US ‘ignored Iraq torture’

Wikileaks has released almost 400,000 secret US military logs, which suggest US commanders ignored evidence of torture by the Iraqi authorities.

The Guardian:

Iraq war logs: secret files show how US ignored torture

• Massive leak reveals serial detainee abuse

• 15,000 unknown civilian deaths in war

Al Jazeera:

US turned blind eye to torture

Leaked documents on Iraq war contain thousands of allegations of abuse, but a Pentagon order told troops to ignore them.

These are but a few of the headlines and reports about US and coalitions war crimes. Where is the investigation? Where are the NYT and the Washington Post who were so instrumental in exposing the fraud of the Viet Nam War and the crimes of the White House? Not in the US but in Great Britain, the US partner in the crime.

2 comments

    • on 10/29/2010 at 06:09
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    • on 10/29/2010 at 17:25
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    Instead of reporting the real news about what these documents revealed he conducted a smear campaign against Assange. Attack the messenger not the message tactic which is typical of the war mongers who supported the Iraq invasion since they have no other defense for this illegal, immoral war.

    Burns is now whining that he has been “attacked” by Glenn Greenwald for his “reporting”.

    Via Greenwald:

    The New York Times’ John Burns yesterday responded to (and complained about) criticisms — voiced by me, Julian Assange and others — over his gossipy, People Magazine-style “profile” of Assange, which his newspaper centrally featured as part of its coverage of the WikiLeaks document release.  In a self-justifying interview with Yahoo! News’ Michael Calderone, Burns makes several comments worth examining:

       Burns said he doesn’t “recall ever having been the subject of such absolutely, relentless vituperation” following a story in his 35 years at the Times. He said his email inbox has been full of denunciations from readers and a number of academics at top-tier schools such as Harvard, Yale, and MIT.  Some, he said, used “language that I don’t think they would use at their own dinner table.”

    This is really good to hear:  quite encouraging.  Apparently, many people become quite angry when the newspaper which did more to enable the attack on Iraq than any other media outlet in the world covered one of the most significant war leaks in American history — documents detailing the deaths of more than 100,000 human beings in that war and the heinous abuse of thousands of others — by assigning its most celebrated war correspondent and London Bureau Chief to studiously examine and malign the totally irrelevant personality quirks, alleged mental health, and various personal relationships of Julian Assange.  Imagine that.  Then we have this from Burns:

    Such heated reactions to the profile, Burns said, shows “just how embittered the American discourse on these two wars has become.”

    Read the whole article by Greenwald and the links. It is a scathing indictment of the news media and there biased support of the Iraq war.  

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