Syria
Slowly and ominously, the war drums started beating in America last week. The media warmed up with news of Donald Trump telling congressmen he was considering retaliationfor the chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun, Syria. The pace picked up when Hillary Clinton told the ‘Women in the World Summit’ that America should “take out Assad’s air fields”.
By the time the Tomahawks were flying, the media had reached its 2003 pre-Iraq invasion jingo mode. The stench of war was not restricted to conservative media either. Since 2001, there has not been an invasion, bombing or regime change that the so-called liberal media has not gotten behind, and it was no different this time. On MSNBC, which is considered the most liberal of cable news channels, veteran journalist Brian Williams while watching footage of the missile launch, commented:
“We see these beautiful pictures at night from the decks of these two US Navy vessels in the eastern Mediterranean. I am tempted to quote the great Leonard Cohen: ‘I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons.’”
Aside from the fact that Williams was woefully misusing the song – which is a typical Cohen condensation of love and rebellion resistant to one interpretation – his description of a cruise missile launch as “beautiful” was nauseously disturbing. One might be open to the idea of violence as art in a Bosch painting or a Francis Coppola movie. But this was real life, real weapons, real death and real war on display.
Suddenly, the actions of a president previously dismissed as ignorant and dangerous were being called “swift”, “decisive” and “just”. The sarcasm of many liberal news outlets took on more sombre notes. After all, in times of war, a nation must rally around its commander-in-chief right?
What was missing from the media commentary was the inconvenient fact that an alleged US Air Force strike in Mosul, Iraq two weeks before the Syrian incident killed 300 civilians – more than four times the number killed by the chemical attack the Assad regime is suspected of. Also, nary a whisper about the nine children killed in a botched anti-terror raid in Sanaa, Yemen by US Navy SEALS in February. To illustrate the Orwellian “newspeak” being employed, the Mosul incident was described thus by Stephen Townsend, commanding US General in Iraq and Syria:
“If we did it, and I’d say there’s at least a fair chance that we did, it was an unintentional accident of war, and we will transparently report it to you.”
The general makes it all sound so proper that you’d think those people were lucky to be disintegrated by men of such honour.
Last week, US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley made a fiery speech against Assad and Russia, including in her presentation graphic photos of dead Syrian children
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