Mondoweiss
Genocide and American liberals
Donald Johnsonon December 12, 201714 Comments
Saudi attack on a funeral in Yemen, 2016.
Recently FAIR ran a reportconcerning the coverage given the incipient
genocide in Yemen by 60 Minutesand the Washington Post. It seems that both
news organizations covered the crisis without ever mentioning the support
given by the United States to the Saudis. We are responsible- no one who
actually covers the issue honestly bothers to deny that. What they do
instead is forget to mention it.
The New York Timeshas done a better job and was recently praised by Mark
Weisbrot on the Real News Networkfor acknowledging US complicity in war
crimes while they are happening, something the Times rarely does, albeit in
an editorial. But if you read the editorial in question, it is less than
overwhelming in its honesty. Congress is praised by the New York
Timeseditors and Trump is condemned, but the legislation was a toothless
measure. It is a step forward but it was also a compromise. Nothing was
actually done to stop American aid to the Saudis. Our complicity continues.
Weisbrot points out that it might eventually lead to more debate and a final
end of US complicity, but it hasn't happened yet.
And in a more recent story the New York Timesfollows the lead of the Postand
60 Minutesand simply omits US complicity, writing as though the crimes were
all the fault of the Others, as we wring our hands wondering if they could
be brought to justice.
Meanwhile, Russiagate continues to outrage mainstream American liberals who
are shocked, shocked, that an American President might be tied to Putin.
Putin, you see, is a thuggish person. We can't have our foreign policies
dictated by such a person. though one wonders if Putin is the one telling
Trump to pick fights with Iran, given that Iran and the Russians are aligned
together in the Mideast.
The Russiagate storyline is very confusing, until you realize it is being
put forward by people who are studiously ignoring actual, out in the open,
bipartisan Presidential collusion with one of the worst regimes on the
planet as it murders children in Yemen.
Note the outrage directed at Russia in the comments following this
Timesstory. The thrust of the article is that Russian dissidents who despise
Putin think Americans are being ridiculous concerning the meddling; but the
Timesreaders will have none of it. How many of these people have been
following the story in Yemen? How many question the push to war with Iran or
wonder how that is supposed to tie in with Putin as puppet master? I don't
know, but I would bet there is little overlap between those who are outraged
about US involvement in Yemen and those obsessed with Russiagate, because
one story makes the other seem absurdly trivial.
When you read liberals in comment threads or hear them in real life it is
difficult to avoid the conclusion that the simplest, most insultingly stupid
forms of propaganda actually work. And they work on well educated liberals.
The New York Timesdoes from time to time condemn U.S. complicity in Yemen,
but in a way that is almost certainly designed to minimize it or make it
seem anomalous or tangential, just another bad thing Trump does. During the
Obama era they reported concern on the part of some lawyers in the State
Department that we could be complicit, but it was never given front page
attention or a constant drumbeat of editorial outrage. Obama's State
Department spokesman defended the Saudis, claiming that their bombing of
civilians was accidental, unlike what the Russians did in Syria. Lying about
Saudi war crimes and our complicity didn't merit any outrage in the New York
Times. There is just enough honesty in the paper so they can say they
covered the issue, but not enough to signal to their readers that the issue
matters.
Of course the readers shouldn't need that signal. But obviously they do. A
torrent of stories has convinced them that Russiagate is a moral outrage,
the great issue of our time. Yemen is a sort of boutique issue, something
you might mention once in a while and if so, you blame Trump or simply blame
the Saudis. But nobody obsesses about it and nobody asks what form of moral
or financial corruption has led us to this point or asked whether the whole
political system seems designed to obfuscate our guilt when we participate
in mass murder. It deserves the occasional story. Our killing of civilians
in our own bombings receives some mention- theNew York Timescarried a great
story on civilian casualties of airstrikes in Iraq a month ago which
seemingly had no impact whatsoever.
Then we go back to what really matters, which is Russiagate.
It's not exactly clear why it matters. What has Putin persuaded Trump to do?
Is it a bad thing that we might not arm Syrian rebels? Should we be imposing
a no fly zone in Syria and killing Russians and Syrians in the process? Did
Putin stand in the way of America exerting its will in the world as God
intended? Nobody spells it out. Or rather, it seems to change. Right now the
moral outrage is that Trump interfered with US foreign policy before taking
office. This is the sort of thing Republican usually say about liberal
Democrats when they oppose some Republican war. I despise Trump, but when
Flynn met the Russians on behalf of Israel he was acting like most of
Congress, except it was the Russian factor that makes it outrageous. If
liberals cared that much about the Israeli occupation they wouldn't need
Flynn's Russian lobbying to be angry. And I seriously doubt we will see
Israeli connections investigated. How many FBI guys would we need to do
that?
When you consider how much news coverage we have from organizations that
pride themselves on their professionalism, a person from Neptune would find
it remarkable that so many American liberals are so indifferent to the fact
that we are complicit in a crime against humanity. This isn't a secret. It
isn't something hidden in the ultra classified files of the NSA waiting for
some Snowden to leak or for some British spy to uncover. There is just
enough coverage so that no one somewhat interested in politics could deny
knowledge, and yet it continues because we all know it just doesn't matter
that much. We may eventually stop helping the Saudis murder children, but
there won't be an investigation and something like it will happen again.
Maybe the press is the way it is because it reflects the values of its
readers
We act this way because we are a superpower and we can squash people like
bugs without serious consequence to ourselves if it happens to be
convenient; and so this is what we do. The upper ten or twenty percent, the
educated consumers of the liberal press, have up to this point benefited
from the system in place. I don't know how much of our GDP requires the
murder of people overseas but obviously some powerful people benefit from US
imperialism and this corrupts both our politicians and the mainstream press
which does just enough reporting so they don't look like total liars, but
without ever digging too deeply into the rot that permeates the whole.
For the educated liberal it is convenient to believe that whatever is really
wrong can be identified with the Republican Party, so if we just win
elections for the Democrats everything will be fine. Russiagate is utterly
irresistible. Some bad foreigner helped the worst imaginable Republican.
Liberals get to be liberal and wave the flag.
Stories like what we or our allies do to Gaza or Yemen or other places
contradict the narrative and make us uncomfortable, as it involves us all,
so we ignore them the way people ignore the sexual abusers if acting against
them would threaten their jobs. We should stop doing this. But it is hard to
see what will make us stop doing this.