Troubles With Reporting the Truth

The leading headline in today’s NYTimes is: “Accounts Undercut Claims By Georgia on Russia War.” Finally, the obvious truth about the Russia-Georgia war is getting some high-profile media play in America. It’s an embarrassment that it took “newly available accounts by independent military observers” to provide cover for the Times to report what was clearly self-evident over a month ago to anyone who cared to look past the neocon spin.

The bad news is that the State Department issued neocon spin remains alive and well, and gets equal weight in the body of the article. The following excerpt reveals just how far American officials are willing to stray from our core human rights principles to defend one of America’s autocratic clients:

As for its broader shelling of the city [of Tskhinvali], Georgia has told Western diplomats that Ossetians hid weapons in civilian buildings, making them legitimate targets. “The Georgians have been quite clear that they were shelling targets – the mayor’s office, police headquarters – that had been used for military purposes,” said Matthew J. Bryza, a deputy assistant secretary of state and one of Mr. Saakashvili’s vocal supporters in Washington.

Georgia’s account was disputed by Ryan Gist, a former British Army captain who was the senior O.S.C.E. representative in Georgia when the war broke out. “It was clear to me that the attack was completely indiscriminate and disproportionate to any, if indeed there had been any, provocation,” Mr. Gist said. “The attack was clearly, in my mind, an indiscriminate attack on the town, as a town.”…He then soon resigned under unclear circumstances.

America’s respect for human rights on the battlefield has been lacking of late: mistakenly bombing Afghan weddings; indiscriminately sweeping up suspected insurgents through door-to-door home invasions in Iraq; condoning the cluster bomb obliteration of southern Lebanon by Israel. We can now add bombing police stations and mayor’s offices in small Ossetian towns without provocation to the list of activities condoned by America. Activities, let’s keep in mind, that fail to follow the guidelines of the Geneva Convention, which states that combatants "shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and, accordingly, shall direct their operations only against military objectives" (Part IV, Chap. 1, Article 48). Perhaps most dangerous of all, it appears Mr. Gist’s truth-telling got him promptly canned.

While this article is definitely a step in the right direction, it shows us how far we have yet to go in terms of getting the truth out into the mainstream media—on all issues, not just Russia-Georgia. And I doubt Obama’s victory will change much in this regard. Truth-tellers will continue to lose their jobs; reporters will continue to present preposterous spin as credible opinion; and, out of fear of appearing critical of America, the blatant disregard for human rights on the battlefield will continue to be under-discussed and under-analyzed.