Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 84

How the Obama administration is making the US media its mouthpiece | Glenn Greenwald

Spoonfed national security scoops based on anonymous official leaks – did we learn nothing from Judith Miller's WMD reporting?

Over the past several weeks in the US, there has been a series of high-profile media scoops exposing numerous details about President Obama's covert foreign policy and counterterrorism actions, stories appearing primarily inThe New York Times. Americans, for the first time, have been told about Obama's personal role incompilinga secret "kill list", which determines who...

Media, drones and rank propaganda

(updated below - Update II - Update III)

Several items today relate to the issue of gross U.S. media propaganda and Obama's national security policies:

(1) I have an Op-Ed in The Guardian todayon how the American media has been repeatedly and willingly coopted in the Obama administration's propagandistic abuse of its secrecy powers, with a focus on the recent high-profile, Obama-flattering national security scoops from The New York Times.

(2) In yesterday'sGuardian, the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer and...

Probing Obama’s secrecy games

(updated below - Update II)

Over the past several months, including just last week, I've written numerous times about the two glaring contradictions that drive the Obama administration's manipulative game-playing with its secrecy powers: (1) at the very same time that they wage an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, they themselves continuously leak national security secrets exclusively designed to glorify Obama purely for political gain; and(2) at the very same time they insist to federal co...

Raw Story’s liberal rhetoric

(updated below - Update II - Update III)

Raw Storyis a moderately well-read political outlet that touts itself as "a progressive news site that focuses on stories often ignored in the mainstream media." It recently began publishing a blog devoted exclusively to venerating the President and sliming his critics: because that's so edgy, brave and rare; after all, the meek "MSM" would never dare glorify the nation's most powerful political official and the party in power, so we really need a brave...

U.S. again bombs mourners

(updated below)

In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documentedthat after the U.S. kills people with drones in Pakistan, it then targets for death those who show up at the scene to rescue the survivors and retrieve the bodies, as well as those who gather to mourn the dead at funerals: "the CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims orwere attending funerals." As The New York Timessummarized those findings: "at least 50 civ...

Obama again bombs mourners

In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documentedthat after the U.S. kills people with drones in Pakistan, it then targets for death those who show up at the scene to rescue the survivors and retrieve the bodies, as well as those who gather to mourn the dead at funerals: "the CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims orwere attending funerals." As The New York Timessummarized those findings: "at least 50 civilians had been...

Deliberate media propaganda

Earlier this week, The New York Timesreported that the Obama administration, in order to conceal civilian deaths caused by their drone attacks, "counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants." Although I wrote at length about the NYT's various revelations,I wrote separately about that specific disclosure, in order to emphasize the implications for media outlets reporting on American drone attacks. I wrote:

What kind of self-respecting media outlet would be party to this practice...

Tough Guy Leaking: Iran edition

(updated below - Update II)

The primary fear-mongering agenda item for the National Security and Surveillance State industry is now cyberwarfare. The Washington cadre of former military officials who seek to personally profit by exploiting national security issues -- represented by Adm. Michael McConnell and Gen. Michael Hayden -- has been running around for several years shrilly warning that cyberwarfare is the greatest threat posed by Terrorists and other of America's enemies (and, just coin...

A reminder about WikiLeaks

"Just in time to spoil the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the publication of the Pentagon Papers, the Obama Justice Department is trying to do what Richard Nixon couldn't: indict a media organization. . . .Charging Julian Assange with 'conspiracy to commit espionage' would effectively be setting a precedent with a charge that more accurately could be characterized as 'conspiracy to commit journalism'" -- James Goodale, General Counsel of The New York Times during its Pentagon Papers f...

How extremism is normalized

(updated below)

There is one important passage from yesterday's big New York Timesarticle on President Obama's personal issuance of secret, due-process-free death sentences that I failed to highlight despite twice writing about that article. The fact that I did not even bother to highlight it among all the other passages I wrote about is itself significant, as it reflects how rapidly true extremism becomes normalized:

That record, and Mr. Awlaki’s calls for more attacks, presented Mr. Obama wit...