- Western media, especially America's, mostly ignore multiple
Obama wars (including against Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia), focusing mainly
on promoting terror bombing Libya, slaughtering civilians to save them.
-
- Ongoing since March 19, killing and destruction continue
daily. NATO's second in command, US Admiral Samuel Locklear, told Congress
that Washington wants Gaddafi assassinated. Earlier, one of his sons and
three grandchildren were murdered, as well as around 40 Libyan imans, attending
a peace conference to end the carnage. Ruthlessly, Obama, the peace candidate,
wants it continued, claiming lawless executive privilege to do it.
-
- On the Progressive Radio News Hour, live Tripoli reports
discussed hospitals, schools, residential homes, and other non-military
targets bombed, civilians killed, anti-NATO anger, and growing popular
Gaddafi support, including a million Libyans rallying in Tripoli on his
behalf.
-
- On air, Cynthia McKinney said she saw it all, including
fishermen killed at sea, food and medicine imports blocked, evidence that
mercenary rebels murdered, tortured, harassed and raped dark-skinned residents
like herself, and daily terror bombings - war crimes by any standard to
conquer, colonize and plunder Libya for profit and greater regional control.
-
- Like McKinney and other Progressive Radio guests, Tripoli-based
Western journalists also witness NATO crimes. Nonetheless, their reports
airbrush them, providing a sanitized version of war, detached from reality
they conceal, no matter the daily horror enough to give anyone nightmares
and second thoughts about who's right and wrong in this conflict.
-
- Is there any doubt? Does it take keen perceptiveness
to know? Can human misery be blocked in turning out daily copy? Apparently
so, ignoring professional standards, including the Society of Professional
Journalists' Code of Ethics Preamble, stating:
-
- "....public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice
and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further
those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account
of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties
strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional
integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility."
-
- In addition, the Radio-Television News Directors Association
Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct stresses public trust, credibility,
accuracy, truth, "reporting anything known to be false," avoiding
bias, fairness, integrity, independence, accountability, and meeting their
"responsibility to the profession of electronic journalism."
-
- Clearly major media reporting fails on all counts, serving
power at the expense of principle and honor, performing like lapdogs, not
providers of real news, information and analysis. Those trying it, in fact,
are fired, media bosses intolerant of anything in print or on air contrary
to mainstream consensus, supporting wealth and privilege, not truth, integrity
and honor.
-
- As a result, America's media promote war, including bloodlust
killing and destruction, prettifying it to seem just, no matter how much
lying, distortion, and deceit it takes to do it. It comes with the territory.
-
- For example, Kareem Fahim's June 30 New York Times article
headlined, "Tripoli Refugees Stream Into Libya's Mountains,"
saying:
-
- Ignoring reality, he claims "people (are) fleeing
Tripoli," hundreds leaving to escape "the dreaded People's Guard
carr(ying) long lists of wanted men....Their numbers - more than a hundred
families on a recent day alone - suggest a quickening exodus from the capital."
His source - mercenary rebels providing falsified information, not verified
accounts from independent sources.
-
- Instead, Fahim quoted a man named Ali Mohammed Rahaybi,
saying "he saw signs of resistance to (Gaddafi's) rule everywhere:
in graffiti on schools, at occasional demonstrations, and in the flags
drawn on neighborhood walls."
-
- Apparently he didn't notice one million pro-Gaddafi Libyans,
rallying in Tripoli for him. No Times report covered, or even mentioned,
what was too obvious to miss. Instead, Fahim, other Times writers, and
all major media ones provide managed news propaganda, violating their profession's
ethical code that's required to keep their jobs.
-
- A same day Times editorial headlined, "The Libya
Campaign," saying:
-
- "Four months into the NATO air campaign, (Gaddafi's
still) protected by loyalists and mercenaries." "Loyalists?:"
yes, a growing majority of Libyans. "Mercenaries?:" in fact,
those there are Western recruited cutthroats, armed, trained, funded and
directed to ravage, not liberate, Libya for NATO.
-
- Nonetheless, the editorial claims if Gaddafi "ha(s)
his way, thousands more Libyans will die. The credibility of NATO would
also be severely damaged. (Gaddafi), who has a long history of sponsoring
international terrorism, is not one to let bygones be bygones."
-
- In fact, most Libyans support him, more than ever now
against NATO terror bombings, Times hyperbole notwithstanding. Moreover,
no humanitarian crisis or mass slaughter happened until America, Britain,
France, and other co-conspirators showed up, what no Times editorial or
report explains.
-
- This one says "signs of revolt" are evident
- against NATO, not Gaddafi. Nonetheless, Times editors say "Washington
and NATO must stand firmly with the rebels and reject any solution that
does not involve the swift ouster of (Gaddafi) and real freedom for Libyans."
-
- Omitted was saying only Libyans, (not Washington, NATO,
or Times editors), may decide who rules their country. For sure, they abhor
the secretive, Western controlled Interim Transitional National Council
and their cutthroat mercenary killers, but don't expect America's "newspaper
of record" to explain.
-
- Nor does Al Jazeera (AJE), waging war on Gaddafi with
falsified reports like a June 29 one headlined, "Libya: War and rape,"
suggesting:
-
- Gaddafi's forces "used rape as a weapon." Another
on June 9 headlined, "Analysis: "Gaddafi's 'rape weapon,' "
saying:
-
- International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo
"said that he has evidence that (Gaddafi) ordered his soldiers to
use rape as a weapon of war." He lied, but AJE didn't check and report
accurately.
-
- In March, AJE claimed Gaddafi supplied his forces with
Viagra, saying it was found in their pockets in burned out tanks. The report
surfaced in an interview with Suleiman Refadi, a Libyan doctor who claimed,
"I have seen Viagra (and) condoms" as part of Gaddafi's sexual
violence campaign.
-
- In fact, Human Rights Watch (HRW) interviewed him earlier,
discounting his claims for lacking supportive evidence, including victims
and/or witnesses. Moreover, HRW's Liesel Gerntholtz confirmed that, "We
have not been able to find evidence."
-
- In April, however, Washington's UN ambassador Susan Rice
told Security Council members in a closed door meeting the same thing,
saying it's to encourage mass rape with no corroborating evidence whatever
to prove it.
-
- She lied, based on assessments from other human rights
organizations, including Amnesty International (AI), saying its investigation
found no evidence that Gaddafi forces committed rapes.
-
- Moreover, AI learned that rebel forces knowingly made
bogus claims based on falsified evidence, showing Rice ICC prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo,
and Hillary Clinton lied, saying, "Rape, physical intimidation, sexual
harassment, and even so-called 'virginity tests' have taken place in countries
throughout the region," including in Libya.
-
- AI's Donatella Rovera disputed allegations, saying, "we
have not found any evidence or a single victim of rape or a doctor who
knew about somebody being raped." In fact, the entire story was fabricated.
-
- AI also found no evidence that Gaddafi is using African
mercenaries against rebels, Rovera saying, "The politicians (keep)
talking about mercenaries, which inflamed public opinion and the myth has
continued" about sub-Saharan Africans in Libya to work, not fight.
-
- Last March, however, Al Jazeera reported the mercenary
hoax, citing rebel leader lies instead of investigating and presenting
corroborated facts, what many of its accounts fail to do, supporting NATO's
imperial war.
-
- Overall AJE stops short of being anti-imperialist, notably
in its pro-Western Libya and Syria reporting, destroying its residual goodwill
in the process. Moreover, it downplayed anti-government Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) state demonstrations and/or uprisings, notably in Bahrain
with suggestions they're linked to Iran.
-
- On March 20, Financial Times writers Roula Khalaf and
Abeer Allam headlined, "Al-Jazeera's backing is key for coalition,"
saying:
-
- AJE's "owners, the Qatari royal family (hosting
America's CENTCOM Doha forward headquarters), are among those backing"
NATO's Libya war. So does the Saudi monarchy and its media mouthpiece Al-Arabiya,
airing anti-Gaddafi propaganda like AJE, despite Arab street opposition,
exposing both operations as pro-Western tools, not reliable news, information
and analysis.
-
- Professor As'ad AbuKhalil agrees, recently saying AJE's
"sinister" regional role got "worse, much worse. Yesterday,
I was seething all day because it could not break from its annoying, obsessive
non-stop (Libya) coverage to report the Israeli murder of Palestinian children."
Instead it focused on Western bombing "successes."
-
- "It seems that (AJE) now operates according to the
Western standards by which Israeli victims are more precious than Palestinian"
or Libyan ones, killed by IDF, Pentagon, and NATO terrorism.
-
- As a result, AJE's pro-Western stance destroys whatever
past credibility it had, an awareness growing numbers regionally and elsewhere
understand and tune out.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive
Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy
listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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