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(Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
On Media Outlets That Continue to Describe Unknown Drone Victims As "Militants"
It has been more than two years since The New York Times revealed that "Mr.
Nov 19, 2014
It has been more than two years since The New York Times revealed that "Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties" of his drone strikes which "in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants...unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent." The paper noted that "this counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths," and even quoted CIA officials as deeply "troubled" by this decision: "One called it 'guilt by association' that has led to 'deceptive' estimates of civilian casualties. 'It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants. They count the corpses and they're not really sure who they are.'"
But what bothered even some intelligence officials at the agency carrying out the strikes seemed of no concern whatsoever to most major media outlets. As I documented days after the Times article, most large western media outlets continued to describe completely unknown victims of U.S. drone attacks as "militants"--even though they (a) had no idea who those victims were or what they had done and (b) were well-aware by that point that the term had been "re-defined" by the Obama administration into Alice in Wonderland-level nonsense.
Like the U.S. drone program itself, this deceitful media practice continues unabated.
Read the full article at The Intercept.
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Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law, and a former staff writer and editor at First Look media. His fifth and latest book is, "No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State," about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world. Glenn's column was featured at Guardian US and Salon. His previous books include: "With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful," "Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics," and "A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency." He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, a George Polk Award, and was on The Guardian team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public interest journalism in 2014.
It has been more than two years since The New York Times revealed that "Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties" of his drone strikes which "in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants...unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent." The paper noted that "this counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths," and even quoted CIA officials as deeply "troubled" by this decision: "One called it 'guilt by association' that has led to 'deceptive' estimates of civilian casualties. 'It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants. They count the corpses and they're not really sure who they are.'"
But what bothered even some intelligence officials at the agency carrying out the strikes seemed of no concern whatsoever to most major media outlets. As I documented days after the Times article, most large western media outlets continued to describe completely unknown victims of U.S. drone attacks as "militants"--even though they (a) had no idea who those victims were or what they had done and (b) were well-aware by that point that the term had been "re-defined" by the Obama administration into Alice in Wonderland-level nonsense.
Like the U.S. drone program itself, this deceitful media practice continues unabated.
Read the full article at The Intercept.
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law, and a former staff writer and editor at First Look media. His fifth and latest book is, "No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State," about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world. Glenn's column was featured at Guardian US and Salon. His previous books include: "With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful," "Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics," and "A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency." He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, a George Polk Award, and was on The Guardian team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public interest journalism in 2014.
It has been more than two years since The New York Times revealed that "Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties" of his drone strikes which "in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants...unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent." The paper noted that "this counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths," and even quoted CIA officials as deeply "troubled" by this decision: "One called it 'guilt by association' that has led to 'deceptive' estimates of civilian casualties. 'It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants. They count the corpses and they're not really sure who they are.'"
But what bothered even some intelligence officials at the agency carrying out the strikes seemed of no concern whatsoever to most major media outlets. As I documented days after the Times article, most large western media outlets continued to describe completely unknown victims of U.S. drone attacks as "militants"--even though they (a) had no idea who those victims were or what they had done and (b) were well-aware by that point that the term had been "re-defined" by the Obama administration into Alice in Wonderland-level nonsense.
Like the U.S. drone program itself, this deceitful media practice continues unabated.
Read the full article at The Intercept.
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