The Blind Media
The CIA, operating without the Pakistani government's approval, fired missiles into houses in a remote Pakistani border town last Friday. The intention was to kill an al-Qaeda member who supposedly was dining in one of the houses. When the story broke, the media reported it as a failed attempt to kill a terrorist leader.
What is entirely missing from the media's coverage is the reality of the situation. Eighteen people were killed because the United States feels that it is above the law. The Pakistani government has repeated told the United States not to enter into their territory, and instead to let the Pakistanis take care of the situation. This arrangement has worked very well in the past - a number of al-Qaeda leaders have been captured in police raids in Pakistan. This is the way that attempts to disable terrorists should be done - not rocketing the houses of civilians.
Imagine that Canada was chasing after someone who bombed a building in Toronto, and they found out he was hiding in a house in Montana. If they were to drop bombs on the house in an effort to kill him, the United States would have a massive fit and, quite likely, launch some sort of reprisal attack on the Canadian government. Such behavior would not be tolerated by Americans; why then do we tolerate such behavior on the part of our government? The media should have been all over the government for slaughtering civilians without any cause whatsoever, regardless of whether the strike was successful - which, by the way, it was not. If the media wants to be recognized as the "public's watchdog," they need to start actually watching what is going on, and not playing along with the Bush administration.
January 18 update: The Pakistani intelligence agency is claiming that "a master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert for al-Qaida" was killed in the attack. However, they are also claiming that the bodies of all the militants were dragged away by sympathizers and buried before authorities could come to verify the damage done. How, therefore, they know that they killed this abovementioned figure is beyond me.
What is entirely missing from the media's coverage is the reality of the situation. Eighteen people were killed because the United States feels that it is above the law. The Pakistani government has repeated told the United States not to enter into their territory, and instead to let the Pakistanis take care of the situation. This arrangement has worked very well in the past - a number of al-Qaeda leaders have been captured in police raids in Pakistan. This is the way that attempts to disable terrorists should be done - not rocketing the houses of civilians.
Imagine that Canada was chasing after someone who bombed a building in Toronto, and they found out he was hiding in a house in Montana. If they were to drop bombs on the house in an effort to kill him, the United States would have a massive fit and, quite likely, launch some sort of reprisal attack on the Canadian government. Such behavior would not be tolerated by Americans; why then do we tolerate such behavior on the part of our government? The media should have been all over the government for slaughtering civilians without any cause whatsoever, regardless of whether the strike was successful - which, by the way, it was not. If the media wants to be recognized as the "public's watchdog," they need to start actually watching what is going on, and not playing along with the Bush administration.
January 18 update: The Pakistani intelligence agency is claiming that "a master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert for al-Qaida" was killed in the attack. However, they are also claiming that the bodies of all the militants were dragged away by sympathizers and buried before authorities could come to verify the damage done. How, therefore, they know that they killed this abovementioned figure is beyond me.
posted by Jimmy at 6:52 PM
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