Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Blood & Gold


BLOOD


Yesterday on ATC Jason Beaubien's piece on El Salvador's coming election features the usual erasure and distortion of history. Block introduces the feature with this winner:
"In the 1980s, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front drew the U.S. into a bloody Cold War conflict in Central America."
And were the Serbs "drawn in" to the bloody war in Bosnia or Kosovo? Were the Janjaweed "drawn in" to the conflict in Darfur, etc?

From Beubien we get the usual blather about El Salvador being a "front" in Reagan's "battle against the spread of communism in the Americas." Oh, and by the way, "more than 70,000 people died in the war, " though he fails to mention that the vast majority were atrocities against civilians carried out by the US backed government.

GOLD

This morning Lourdes Garcia-Navarro is on for a reprise of her previous cover-up of civilian deaths in Iraq (remember the "Gold Standard"?). There's no mea culpa in this morning's report. More of the same about how unknowable the death count in Iraq is and how "controversial" the Lancet report was - although it's a bit better than her previous report in that it conveys how completely death and violence have touched virtually everyone in Iraq.

I did go ahead and drop a comment on the NPR site beneath the story. I'd recommend occasionally reading listeners' comments - as they are often quite pointed and astute.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haven't been listening these past few days, but NPR's devolution and creepiness seems to be accelerating. It's a race to the bottom!

Anonymous said...

Apparently, Lourdes Garcia-Navarro thinks her listeners are too stupid to see the glaring inconsistencies in her own statements in just that one piece.


"Estimates of the number of Iraqis killed overall vary wildly, from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands."

"The Web site Iraq Body Count compiles its data from reports by the media and accounts from the Iraqi government and NGOs. It estimates that, at a minimum, just under 100,000 have died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion."

Iraq body Count is widely recognized as a minimum number and they basically claim 100,000 deaths -- ie, the magnitude of the total number is measured in "100's (not tens) of thousands".

No one* actually believes the number is in "tens of thousands".

*except former Pres Bush** who once pulled a number out of his a-hole -- "30,000 more or less" -- in order to cast doubt on the first Lancet number (98,000 from inavasion through Oct, 2004)

**and his parrots like Navarro and Gonyea at NPR and FOX

Tommy Strange said...

No surprise that our liberal media would respond such....about another land and freedom movement 'instigating' a response of mass murder.Over one million dead in latin america 'causing' such a response by the USA govt. And remember Jimmy Carter's role in el salvador, nicaragua and east timor. Sure, Obama is a welcome change....to that cabal of replublican devils, but it is still the same mass murdering govt, and the still the same CIA, USAID, DEA etc...
He must be fought, as any citizen of a mass murdering govt has a responsibility too.
And this NPR wash...is a sign that the elite, are not 'experts' as all. But just being good germans.


And I should not have been surprised that masses of people did not at least TRY a general strike in all our cities in lead up to invasion of Iraq, let alone afghanistan. Instead we held up signs. For the most part.
I don't know about you, but I still seethe with loathing at all the democrats who allowed the dirty wars...in latin america....I litterally grind my teeth daily over them...
and Iraq.

Hubertg said...

Tommy it is difficult to come to terms with the fact that the history of man on Earth is a history of empire and conquest. As it is the nature of man, it appears that it's not going to change in the immediate future.

Anonymous said...

Tommy, it's ironic that you mention this, Tues. joke line was briefly on the 'on point' show, and he went on about how we've had peace and prosperity since WW II. I'm with you, when can we have a generation of peace? According to joke line, we've just had it!

Anonymous said...

Just the other day there was a segment about the "3 million widows" in Iraq. I understand that they were counting people killed in war against Iran (whose side was US on? Both sides? Was that against the middle?) but even if we grossly overstate the number of Iraqi dead then (2m) we still got a million widows. Oh shut up, lulu was explaining about the dog.

edk