Friday, May 19, 2006

Gitmonews

NPR reported tonight about an alleged "attack" on guards at the Guantanamo prison camp. However isn't it problematic to report US military "news" which in no way can be independently verified. I've noticed in the past that when civilians or "enemy" governments make claims that shed a negative light on the US military, reporters are very careful to state whether such claims can be independently verified. In this story we have Navy Admiral Harris, Commander of Guantanamo, telling us what happened at Guantanamo without any qualifications of his credibility mentioned by NPR. Shouldn't we be told that reporters have no free access to Guantanamo or its inmates? Shouldn't we be told that the US Military has frequently lied about its behavior throughout the so-called "war on terror" (e.g. torture in Afghanistan, the killing of Pat Tillman, torture in Iraq, the use of phosphorous in Fallujah, etc.) This could be done in a "polite" way by saying something such as "US military sources claim that such-and-such happened even though we have no way to verify the claims."

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