In a single day, two members of the American press asking for clarification and evidence from the Biden administration were painted as sympathizers of Russia and ISIS.
Efforts by US media to establish objective truth – rather than acting as stenographers for the government and its official narratives – is now apparently considered an act of disloyalty to your country, and loyalty to its enemies.
The first instance occurred during a gaggle in which the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, addressed the US-led liquidation of the latest “ISIS leader,” Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, in Idlib province, northwestern Syria, on Wednesday night. According to President Joe Biden’s televised retelling of events, the target blew himself up and took some family members and others out with him just as American troops were moving in for the kill. Why would he do that? Because he’s a “coward,” Biden suggested.
“I know the US has put out its statement that [ISIS] detonated the bomb themselves. But will the US provide any evidence? Because there may be people that are skeptical of the events that took place and what happened to civilians,” NPR White House Correspondent Ayesha Rascoe asked.
“Skeptical of the US military’s assessment when they went and took out the leader of ISIS?” Psaki replied. “That they are not providing accurate information? And ISIS is providing accurate information?”
Note that the journalist didn’t say that ISIS (IS, Islamic State) had a counter narrative, just that the official story put out by the US government is worthy of skepticism. And the US has certainly earned skepticism in Syria. Not only have they peddled narratives portraying the Western private contractor-founded White Helmets activists as do-good humanitarians and objective witnesses rather than a convenient propaganda front, but just last November, the New York Times published a story with the headline: ‘How the U.S. Hid an Airstrike That Killed Dozens of Civilians in Syria’. In March 2019, according to the report, an F-15E fighter jet dropped a “500-pound bomb” on the town of Baghuz, right before another aircraft dropped two more bombs of 2,000 pounds each. It was only after the Times’ investigation that CENTCOM admitted it may have killed up to 80 people, including civilians, but argued the women and children may have been “combatants.”
Now one might figure that anyone in a war zone is fair game. OK, but then don’t be surprised when their countrymen end up hating the US for the next several generations (you know, because of the ‘freedoms’, as successive administrations routinely claim).
The Syrian conflict was also the backdrop to the US-backed murder of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani at neighboring Iraq’s Baghdad Airport two years ago, after which the Trump administration publicly claimed self-defense and US intelligence suggesting that Soleimani was planning an imminent attack on American interests. A White House memo later debunked that excuse.