Ut Humiliter Opinor

Ramzy Baroud (editor of The Palestinian Chronicle and researcher for Aljazeera.net English has written a piece on Cindy Sheehan entitled She speaks for all of us:

While the clichéd understanding of the media’s role in the US is that it is an open, unhindered and evenly representative forum, the sad, albeit unsurprising truth is that the US mainstream media has always been a one-sided, drum-beating, chest-pounding, war-mongering medium

Somehow, I don’t think he’s ever read the New York Times.

What’s also remarkable is his attitude towards Sheehan - the “ordinary woman”:

while some champions of the anti-war movement are incapable of articulating a decisive and uncompromising agenda on ending the war in Iraq, Sheehan, this ordinary woman with a small tent, a few sandwiches and a cell phone has proven more unshakable than anti-war groups who claim tens of thousands of members. “We’re over there and we need to come home,” she told reporters on August 16. She contested the claim that ‘leaving Iraq in chaos’ is a non-option. “We need to let the Iraqi people handle their own business,” she said, arguing, according to Salon.com that “the US presence is the source of all violence there.”

Sheehan has been part of the anti-war movement for quite some time - a fact that is easily verified with a simple Google search. While she may have been “ordinary” a couple of years ago, she is now a part of a political movement.

My heart goes out to Sheehan for her loss, however, she does not speak for all Americans, nor all parents of those killed in action. For Baroud to portray her as such is just as biased as the media he tries to paint with broad strokes.

Jason at Countercolumn discusses Cluelessness on CNN

That’s right. The explosion flipped a 31-ton APC. And what is Wolf Blitzer’s argument? That the military didn’t provide good vehicles in the Al Anbar Province. And that — and I quote verbatim, — “an up-armored Humvee would have stood a better chance.” Do the math. If the explosion flipped vehicle weight 31 tons (plus another ton and a half or so of marines and gear), then what are the survivability chances of a 4-ton uparmored Humvee? I’ll tell you:Anything left of the Humvee would have been parked in Syria, dumbass. The retired general was being too diplomatic to tell Blitzer he was being a moron, but Blitzer kept pressing the point. “I’m very disappointed that we don’t have the good vehicles in the Al Anbar province,” he says. “It’s a very sensitive issue for me, because I was there in March.Yeah, Wolf. How was the ride to the hotel? This is the kind of dimwittery posing as military analysis in the media.

It’s heard to trust the media on a lot of analysis, really. Whenever I see a mainstream report on networking, computing, hacking or programming, I usually cringe. I’m willing to bet that most professionals have the same problem. You have to keep that sort of thing in mind whenever you watch the so-called experts on cable.

I heard about this story driving into work today. It simply begs for context - and this is all I could find on the net:

Two Fort Hood soldiers who served in Iraq have killed themselves in separate incidents in Killeen.

No mention of why they may have done so - financial problems, relationships, depression. Nothing except that they both served in Iraq. So, we’re left with the clear implication that it was the war that caused this.

Maybe so, but it’s still irresponsible journalism.