Posted by Alexander Higgins - August 24, 2012 at 8:41 am
Two new sources of data independently implicate the US government and corporate media outlets covering up civilian drone murders.
New detailed data on the victims of America’s overseas assassination drone strikes confirms that the United States government and corporate media sites have been covering up the number of innocent civilians murder by assassination drone strikes.
The new data collected from two different sources from local sources on the ground reveal that between 2008 and 2011 74 percent of people killed in drone strikes were innocent civilians and not military combatants are reported by the US government and echoed by the parrot media.
In response to a damning article from Truth-out revealing the New America Foundation, ran by CNN’s terrorism expert Peter Bergen and often cited by the corporate media as the official source of drone casualties, has scrubbed their data which severely under-reports civilian casualties.
The article exposes the flaw in the corporate media’s circular logic of citing the New America Foundation as an ‘independent’ and ‘authoritative source’ of civilian drone casualties:
Two new sources of data independently implicate the US government and corporate media outlets covering up civilian drone murders.New detailed data on the victims of America’s overseas assassination drone strikes confirms that the United States government and corporate media sites have been covering up the number of innocent civilians murder by assassination drone strikes.
The new data collected from two different sources from local sources on the ground reveal that between 2008 and 2011 74 percent of people killed in drone strikes were innocent civilians and not military combatants are reported by the US government and echoed by the parrot media.
In response to a damning article from Truth-out revealing the New America Foundation, ran by CNN’s terrorism expert Peter Bergen and often cited by the corporate media as the official source of drone casualties, has scrubbed their data which severely under-reports civilian casualties.
The article exposes the flaw in the corporate media’s circular logic of citing the New America Foundation as an ‘independent’ and ‘authoritative source’ of civilian drone casualties:
- Anonymous government sources say anonymous unnamed militants were killed by a drone strike (with Obama’s definition of militant recently being revealed as any male of combat age (12 and up) killed in a strike zone (regardless if there is evidence of the person actually is a combatant).
- The New America Foundation tallies up the number ‘militant’ deaths reported by the government and compares them to numbers of civilians reported killed in the local media reports – that is if there any reported at all because local reports are far and few between and often lack detail due to the tribal areas were the strikes occur).
- After deducting the number of civilian deaths reported by local media, again if reported at all, the New America Foundation logs this number.
- The corporate media then cites the NAF as an ‘objective and independent source’ since the government can’t be quoted directly.
Clearly there is a problem with this methodology because it does quote the propagandized government reported numbers, just indirectly, and their is no ‘independent’ or ‘objective’ confirmation or validation of the government’s press release.
One example shows how the NAF echoes a BBC report claiming that 83 people killed in one drone strike were all militants in a terrorist hideout only to show how a Pakistani paper published a list of names of people killed at the school – not a militant hideout- and on that list 26 of the 83 murdered people were children under the age of 15. The Pakistani President later admitted he up for the CIA in the first place to save face for the Americans.
Using such Bergen claimed that only 9 civilians were killed during the first four years despite highly credible evidence to the contrary and when Truth Out requested comment from Bergen on such egregious discrepancies they were not acknowledged. Instead the NAF’s drone statistics were just scrubbed from the interned with no explanation and response to further inquiries to why the statistics were pulled.
The Porter Report discusses the actual data gathered and the media cover up in the video below.
The key parts of this video (full transcripts here): Read More>>
VIA WhatReallyHappened
One example shows how the NAF echoes a BBC report claiming that 83 people killed in one drone strike were all militants in a terrorist hideout only to show how a Pakistani paper published a list of names of people killed at the school – not a militant hideout- and on that list 26 of the 83 murdered people were children under the age of 15. The Pakistani President later admitted he up for the CIA in the first place to save face for the Americans.
Using such Bergen claimed that only 9 civilians were killed during the first four years despite highly credible evidence to the contrary and when Truth Out requested comment from Bergen on such egregious discrepancies they were not acknowledged. Instead the NAF’s drone statistics were just scrubbed from the interned with no explanation and response to further inquiries to why the statistics were pulled.
The Porter Report discusses the actual data gathered and the media cover up in the video below.
The key parts of this video (full transcripts here): Read More>>
VIA WhatReallyHappened
