
CNN and NYT Are Deliberately Obscuring Who Perpetrated the Afghan Hospital Attack - etiam
https://theintercept.com/2015/10/05/cnn-and-the-nyt-are-deliberately-obscuring-who-perpetrated-the-afghan-hospital-attack/
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cryoshon
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.

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mark_l_watson
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.

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

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cafard
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.

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Someone1234
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.

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

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cryoshon
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.

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transfire
When will we stop accepting excuses?

