Media
Largely Silent on Trump’s Killing Of 3,700
Civilians In Iraq
By Adam Johnson
July 21,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
-
Earlier this week,
human rights group Amnesty International issued
a
lengthy report
accusing US-backed forces of “repeated
violations of international humanitarian law,
some of which may amount to war crimes,” in
Mosul, Iraq, causing the deaths of at least
3,700 civilians. Neither this report, nor the
broader issue of the civilian toll in the US war
against ISIS, has come close to penetrating US
corporate media.
The only major radio or television outlet to
report on Amnesty’s claims was NPR (7/12/17).
While traditional print outlets, such as the
New York Times and Washington Post,
did run Reuters (7/11/17)
and AP (7/12/17)
articles, respectively, on the report, neither
covered it themselves. Neither Amnesty’s
charges, nor the broader issue of civilian
deaths in Mosul, garnered any coverage in
television news, with no mention on ABC,
NBC, CBS, CNN or MSNBC.
The
expulsion of ISIS from Mosul by the US-led
coalition did receive coverage, but the US role
in killing civilians was uniformly ignored.
CBS News’
reports (6/25/17,
7/4/17,
7/9/17) made no
mention of US responsibility for civilian
deaths, referring only vaguely to “a rising
civilian death toll” and “whole neighborhoods”
that “cease to exist.” The role of US bombing
role in that rising death toll or those
no-longer-existing neighborhoods was never
mentioned.
In one report (6/23/17),
correspondent Charlie D’Agata, standing over a
pile of rubble, said to the camera, “Whole
buildings, whole neighborhoods have been wiped
out, this is what it cost to get rid of ISIS.”
Who helped “wiped out” the buildings and
neighborhoods is left a mystery.
One slight exception was ABC Nightline (7/14/17),
which reported on summary executions and torture
by Iraqi special forces, but made no mention of
direct US responsibility for the bombing of
Mosul. It did, however, accuse the US of
“turning a blind eye” to crimes committed by
others. The remaining ABC News reports (7/5/17,
7/12/17), like
the others, overlooked US-caused civilian
casualties.
One 10-minute report for Nightline (7/12/17)
made reference to “thousands killed,” but pinned
the blame for those deaths squarely on ISIS.
After hearing an airstrike in the distance,
correspondent Ian Pannell sang the praises of
bombing raids, insisting, “It’s hard to imagine
that [Iraqi fighters] would have got this far
forward—despite their brave fighting—without
their support.” He then profiled two victims of
US-led airstrikes and Iraqi army gunfire, but
said they were “forced to help [ISIS], they were
used as human shields. ISIS fighters made them
run into the line of fire of the advancing Iraqi
army.”
CNN
(6/26/17,
6/29/17,
7/10/17)
likewise didn’t mention US responsibility for
civilian deaths, repeating the “ISIS using human
shields” justification advanced by all major
outlets.
(To be clear, as Amnesty
pointed out,
ISIS certainly is using civilians as human
shields, but this doesn’t nearly account for all
casualties: The US and its allies “continued to
rely upon imprecise, explosive weapons, ignoring
the ever-growing toll of civilian death and
injuries.” Similarly, civilians in Aleppo were
not allowed to leave by jihadist groups like
Jabhat Fatah al-Sham,
according to the UN,
but Russia and Syria still bombed heavily for
years.)
NBC/MSNBC
stuck to a similar line. In one nine-minute
segment (MSNBC,
7/14/17),
Andrea Mitchell didn’t mention Iraqi civilians
once, much less their massive death toll—and
incidentally painted Bush’s 2003 invasion of
Iraq, which killed an estimated
half million people,
as an unfortunate error, insisting it was full
of “tragic miscalculations.”
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A
separate segment by Richard Engel (MSNBC,
7/14/17) on
Pete Reed, an ex-Marine who is treating
civilians in Mosul, made no mention of deaths
caused by US bombing, instead—as with ABC’s
Ian Pannell—framing all the deaths as the sole
responsibility of ISIS. After showing a
12-year-old girl blinded by shrapnel, Engel
opaquely refers to “an airstrike” that caused
the injury, but curiously doesn’t say whose
airstrike it was. He then insists the doctor
treating her wouldn’t be able to do so under the
Islamic State, because she is female—thus
turning the treatment of a victim of a US
airstrike into evidence of why that airstrike
was justified. Everything is reframed as pro–US
bombing, even when highlighting the victims of
said bombing.
Can one imagine this frame in reporting on
Russia’s siege of Aleppo? Can one imagine
highlighting Syrian and Russian doctors,
treating the very civilians their governments
just bombed, in such an uncritical manner? Can
one imagine the US media blaming all the deaths
caused by Russian bombing as the sole fault of
those occupying the city? Unlike reporting on
Aleppo (FAIR.org,
1/4/17), Engel
makes no mention of civilian deaths caused by US
bombs, no figures, no mention of war crimes, no
mention of Trump’s
open disregard
for civilian casualties. It’s a breathless
Pentagon press release that never questions the
motives or effect of Trump’s bombing campaign.
Obviously, the two instances aren’t exactly the
same, but the stark 180-degree difference in how
the Russian and US sieges were covered is an
object lesson in nationalistic ethos. Because
ISIS is seen as an unmitigated evil, and the US
as an unmitigated good, no death toll is too
high. Indeed—no death toll is even worth
mentioning. The Americans rode in, the baddies
got theirs, and any costs to human life US
bombing may have caused are incidental and
unworthy of mention.
Adam
Johnson is a contributing analyst for
FAIR.org
This
article was first published by
FAIR
-
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
