A Better Report

NPR deserves some credit for interviewing Fawaz Gerges today on Weekend Edition Saturday. It was really refreshing to hear someone talk about the complexities of the Lebanese situation, and to respond to questions with nuanced answers. Scott Simon asks him, "Who gains and who loses from Mr. Geymayel’s death?" and he replies, "Well I think it's too early to say definitely who wins and who loses. In the short term however, the main loser is the Syrian-Iranian alliance led by Hezbollah..." He later spells out that regional the regional alliances Syria-Iran and US-Israel both use Lebanon in their own geopolitical conflicts.

Notice that Gerges doesn't make accusations, but simply tries to suggest the several directions to which history and evidence point. We listeners have to draw our own--possibly even differing--conclusions. How refreshing!

Of course it is this kind of inquisitiveness and willingness to consider the US as one of several less-than-idealistic players in the region that earns people like Gerges the honor of being attacked by McCarthyite Campus Watch/National Review by the McCarthyite thought police.

Come on NPR. Let's have some more.

Holes

There are two glaring holes in NPR's Morning Edition and ATC coverage of the tragic assassination of Pierre Gemayel in Lebanon. The first is the refusal to bring up the possibility of his assassination being the direct or indirect work of Israeli or US covert operations. Any impartial coverage of the situation would have to at least bring this up given Israel's history of assassinations and covert operations in Lebanon and other countries, US rogue behavior, and the political benefits that the US and its allies have gained from this assassination (not to mention its obvious disadvantages to Syria and Hezbollah). NPR on the contrary repeats again and again the opinion that Syria was behind the assassination (which may or may not be true).

The other missing angle on this development is that a major reason the current Lebanese government is so weak and Lebanon so fractured is because of the US/Israeli assault on Lebanon this past summer (NPR politely calls it the war between Israel and Hezbollah). On Morning Edition Peter Kenyon has the gall to say, "...here in Lebanon, where arguably the closest thing to a success the White House has had in the Middle East is the pressure that forced Syria to withdraw its troops last year. If this government now falls and a pro-Syrian or dysfunctional national unity government takes its place some say that success would be badly tarnished." Tarnished? -- hey newsflash Peter, that "success" was killed and buried in this summer's preplanned military attack on Lebanon.

It is really sad that NPR can't offer its listeners full, complex, nuanced coverage on an issue such as this one, even if it means daring to question Israel and the supposed good intentions of US foreign policy.

P.S. A reader kindly pointed out the close coverage of the assassination offered on the Angry Arab blog -- take a look if you get a chance.