Mainstream Media Suddenly Care About Syrian
Civilian Casualties
United States military has killed more foreign
civilians than any other armed force on the planet
since dropping two nuclear bombs on Japan in 1945.
By Brett Wilkins
October 11, 2019 "Information
Clearing House" - Turn on any US
cable news network or click on any mainstream media
news story about the Turkish offensive in Syria and
you"ll see lots of worrying about civilian
casualties. On the first day of the Turkish
campaign, all the major networks covered the
mass exodus of Kurds facing imminent bombing and
invasion, with most also airing the
first reports of Kurdish civilian casualties.
Everywhere we see
expressions of concern for the innocent Kurds
caught in the path of Turkey"s onslaught.
There was no such concern in 2014 when the United
States began its five-year bombing campaign against
Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq. Mainstream
media outlets that regularly reported war crimes and
mass slaughter when they were committed by
IS fighters,
Syrian government forces or
Russian air strikes were suddenly silent as US
and coalition bombing and, later, ground attacks
killed thousands of Syrian and Iraqi men, women and
children, to the point where for several months in
2017 US-led forces were
killing more Syrian civilians than IS, Russian
bombing or even Syrian President Bashar al-Assad"s
forces. Even reliable alternative media outlets like
Democracy Now only occasionally reported civilian
casualties, even though they were happening almost
every day.
While it is impossible to say exactly how many
civilians have been killed by US-led bombing over
the past five years, SOHR has counted 4,036 Syrian
civilians
killed
by coalition forces since the bombing began.
Human rights monitors including
Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and
Airwars have been
publishing daily reports of civilian casualties
caused by all belligerents in Syria and Iraq for
years. These groups compile casualty lists from
local media and monitor groups and are highly
credible sources. Their reports are, however, almost
completely ignored by the US corporate media. With
the exception of a relative handful of high-casualty
incidents—like the time in March 17 when
more than 200 people were killed when US
warplanes bombed an apartment building in Mosul,
Iraq—American media focus almost exclusively on US
military casualties, with civilian deaths usually
little more than an afterthought when they are
mentioned at all.
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While it is impossible to say exactly
how many civilians have been killed by
US-led bombing over the past five years,
SOHR has counted 4,036 Syrian civilians
killed by coalition forces since the
bombing began. That"s about 3.5 percent
of all civilian deaths in Syria"s
eight-year civil war. Airwars
estimates at least 8,214 and as many
as 13,125 Iraqi and Syrian civilians
have been killed in more than 34,000
coalition attacks over the past five
years. Earlier this year, the Iraqi High
Commission for Human Rights (IHCR) said
around 11,800 civilians, including
some 2,300 children, had died in US-led
strikes since 2014. Entire cities like
Raqqa in Syria and
Mosul, Iraq were destroyed in the
US-led offensive to liberate them from
IS, with almost no reporting on US
corporate TV news and only somewhat
better online reporting.
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Why are US mainstream media outlets so loth to
report civilians killed or wounded by US bombs and
bullets? First, they"re American, and one of the
many truths that Americans hold self-evident is that
"we"re the good guys." This mythology is upheld by
the US military, which in addition to undercounting
civilian casualties—the Pentagon
claims coalition forces have only killed about
1/10th as many civilians as Airwars" high-end
estimate—always asserts that US troops take great
pains to avoid harming innocents. US officials also
often deny credible casualty reports until presented
with overwhelming evidence. Casualty counting in
active war zones is also a perilous undertaking,
with many reported casualties difficult or sometimes
impossible to verify.
The vast bulk of US mainstream media outlets are
corporate-owned, with much of the American ownership
class having vested interests in waging war.
Self-censorship is also at play here. Journalists
who ask too many tough questions tend to lose access
to the people making the most important decisions.
During times of conflict, there is also a tendency
to rally around the flag that can be taken to such
extremes that some of the nation"s most vaunted
publications shamefully act as mouthpieces for
government talking points and
even cheerleaders for war for the war du jour.
This is by no means the exclusive province of
conservative media—witness Brian Williams, the
disgraced NBC Nightly News anchor turned MSNBC
host who
gushed how he was “guided by the beauty of our
weapons” as Trump launched cruise missiles at Syria.
Williams was misinterpreting lyrics by the late,
great Leonard Cohen, who surely rolled over in his
pine box coffin upon hearing Williams" words.
Speaking of that cruise missile attack, so-called
liberal media outlets across the nation approvingly
asserted how, at long last, Trump was finally
acting “presidential” by escalating an already
dangerous conflict.
Finally, there"s the elephant in the room: the
vast bulk of US mainstream media outlets are
corporate-owned, with much of the American ownership
class having vested interests in waging war. And so
while reporting on individual wartime triumphs and
tragedies is permitted, asking why the US has been
at war for this entire century, or pointing out that
the United States military has killed more foreign
civilians than any other armed force on the planet
since dropping two nuclear bombs on Japan in 1945,
seems strictly verboten.
There are exceptions. But on the whole, it"s as
Keith Olbermann once said, "you can rock the boat,
but you can never say that the entire ocean is in
trouble. You cannot say… there"s something wrong
with our system."
As the Turkey escalates its attack on America"s
(yet again) abandoned Kurdish allies, you can
expect to see heart-rending images and reports about
the innocent men, women and children killed and
maimed in the campaign. The same goes for the next
time Syrian or Russian forces go on the offensive.
However, if coverage of civilian casualties caused
by US action is what you"re after, you"ll have to
look to foreign or alternative media sources. After
all, as US General Tommy Franks
flippantly declared before the invasion of Iraq,
“we don"t do body counts.”
Brett Wilkins
is a San Francisco-based freelance author and
editor-at-large for US news at Digital Journal. His
work, which focuses on issues of war and peace and
human rights, is archived at
www.brettwilkins.com.
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