{"id":40628,"date":"2014-03-10T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T12:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=40628"},"modified":"2015-05-05T22:10:59","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T21:10:59","slug":"rt-host-abby-martin-condemns-russian-incursion-into-crimea-on-rt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/03\/rt-host-abby-martin-condemns-russian-incursion-into-crimea-on-rt\/","title":{"rendered":"RT Host Abby Martin Condemns Russian Incursion into Crimea \u2013 On RT"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Screenshot:<\/a>

Screenshot: RT host Abby Martin condemns the Russian military action in Crimea, March 3, 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

The vast bulk of the commentary issuing from American commentators about the Russian military action in Ukraine involves condemning exactly that which they routinely advocate and which the U.S. itself routinely does. So suffocating is the resulting stench that those who played leading roles in selling the public the attack on Iraq and who are still unrepentant about it<\/a>, such as David \u201cAxis of Evil<\/a>\/The Right Man<\/a>\u201d Frum, have actually become the leading media voices condemning Russia on the ground that it is wrong to invade sovereign countries; Frum thus has no trouble saying things like this<\/a> with an apparently straight face: \u201cIf Russia acts the outlaw nation, can it be expected to be treated as anything but an outlaw?\u201d<\/p>\n

Enthusiastic supporters of a wide range of other U.S. interventions in sovereign states, both past and present and in and out of government, are equally righteous in their newfound contempt for invasions \u2013 when done by Russia. Secretary of State John Kerry \u2013 who stood on the Senate floor in 2002 and voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq because \u201cSaddam Hussein [is] sitting in Baghdad with an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction\u201d and there is \u201clittle doubt that Saddam Hussein wants to retain his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction\u201d \u2013 told Face the Nation<\/i> on Sunday<\/a>: \u201cYou just don\u2019t in the 21st Century behave in 19th Century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext.\u201d The supremely sycophantic Face the Nation <\/i>host Bob Schieffer \u2013 as he demanded to know how Russia would be punished \u2013 never once bothered Kerry<\/a> (or his other Iraq-war-advocating guests, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Washington Post<\/i> columnist David Ignatius) by asking about any of that unpleasantness (is it hard at all for you to sermonize against invasions of sovereign countries given, you know, how often you yourself support them?<\/i>)<\/p>\n

American invasions and occupations of nations halfway around the world are perfectly noble, but Russian interference in a part of a country right on its border is the supreme act of lawless, imperial aggression. Few things are worse than watching America\u2019s militarists, invasion-and-occupying-justifiers, regime-change enthusiasts, drone-lovers, and supporters of its various \u201ckinetic military actions\u201d self-righteously wrap themselves in the banner of non-intervention, international law and respect for sovereignty. Does anyone take those denunciations seriously outside of the class of western elites who disseminate them?<\/p>\n

American media elites awash in an orgy of feel-good condemnation in particular love to mock Russian media, especially the government-funded English-language outlet RT, as being a source of shameless pro-Putin propaganda, where free expression is strictly barred (in contrast to the Free American Media). That that network has a strong pro-Russian bias is unquestionably true. But one of its leading hosts, Abby Martin, remarkably demonstrated last night what \u201cjournalistic independence\u201d means by ending her Breaking the Set<\/i> program with a clear and unapologetic denunciation of the Russian action in Ukraine:<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=IHYUPbnSs_0<\/p>\n

For all the self-celebrating American journalists and political commentators: was there even a single U.S. television host who said anything comparable to this in the lead-up to, or the early stages of, the U.S. invasion of Iraq? Even now, how many American TV hosts on the major networks and cable outlets report on the types of American killings described in the first three paragraphs of this interview<\/a> with Hamid Karzai, or the ongoing extinguishing of innocent human lives<\/a> by President Obama\u2019s drone attacks, or the pervasive chaos and suffering<\/a> left in the wake of the NATO intervention in Libya that they almost universally cheered, or the endless brutality<\/a> of the West Bank occupation and Gaza domination by the U.S.\u2019s closest Middle East ally, or, for that matter, U.S.\/EU interference in the very same country<\/a> that Russia is now condemned for invading? As political science professor As\u2019ad AbuKhalil put it yesterday<\/a> after listening to Obama\u2019s condemnation of Russia:<\/p>\n

This is what imperialism is all about: to give yourself the right to intervene in far away places and to project power in every corner of the globe, including the arctic, and to disregard world public opinion. Imperialism is to have the temerity to lecture and hector Russia about the evils of intervention in the affairs of its neighbor, Ukraine, where the U.S. and EU are blatantly conspiring against Russian interests there. . . . Obama sends drones around the world to kill people, including Americans, who have never been put on trial and yet sounds like a peaceful dove when offering lessons to Russia. Basically the U.S. is objecting to attempts by Russia to play a smaller and even far less aggressive version of its own world game.<\/i><\/p>\n

When that sort of commentary and reporting appears frequently on major American television outlets, American celebration of its own \u201cfree press\u201d can be taken seriously. Or, put another way, until hosts of major U.S. television programs do what Abby Martin just did on RT in connection with a major American military intervention, American commentators\u2019 self-justifying mockery of Russian media outlets will continue to be as persuasive as the condemnation of Russian imperialism and aggression from the David Frums of the world.<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/b>: The official RT account on Twitter seems perfectly proud of Martin\u2019s statements, as they re-tweeted my commentary about her monologue condemning Russia\u2019s actions:<\/p>\n

\"twitter<\/a><\/p>\n

UPDATE II<\/b>: In response to my question about whether any U.S. television hosts issued denunciations of the attack on Iraq similar to what Martin just did on RT, Washington lawyer Bradley Moss replied<\/a>: \u201cPhil Donahue (MSNBC) and Peter Arnett (NBC).\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaving aside that Arnett wasn\u2019t a host, this perfectly proves the point I made, since both Donahue and Arnett were fired because of their opposition to the U.S. war. <\/b>Arnett was fired instantly by NBC<\/a> after he made critical comments about the war effort on Iraqi television, while a memo from MSNBC executives made clear they were firing Donahue despite his show being the network\u2019s highest-rated program because<\/a> he would be \u201ca difficult public face for NBC in a time of war\u201d.<\/p>\n

During that same time, MSNBC\u2019s rising star Ashleigh Banfield was demoted and then fired<\/a> after she delivered a stinging rebuke of misleading pro-war TV coverage by U.S. outlets, while Jessica Yellin, at MSNBC during the time of the war, admitted in 2008 that<\/a> \u201cthe press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president\u2019s high approval ratings\u201d and that executives would change stories to make them more pro-war.<\/p>\n

All of that stands in rather stark contrast to the clear denunciation of the Russian intervention by Martin which RT broadcast and this morning is promoting. We\u2019ll see if she suffers any recriminations, but if she does, U.S. media behavior during the attack on Iraq was hardly any better.<\/p>\n

_______________________________<\/p>\n

Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, and author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. His fifth book, <\/i>No Place to Hide<\/em>, about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world, will be released in April 2014. Prior to his collaboration with Pierre Omidyar, Glenn\u2019s column was featured at <\/i>Guardian US<\/em> and <\/i>Salon<\/em>. He was the debut winner, along with Amy Goodman, of the Park Center I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism in 2008, and also received the 2010 Online Journalism Award for his investigative work on the abusive detention conditions of Chelsea Manning. For his 2013 NSA reporting, he received the Gannett Foundation award for investigative journalism and the Gannett Foundation watchdog journalism award; the Esso Premio for Excellence in Investigative Reporting in Brazil (the first non-Brazilian to win), and the Electronic Frontier Foundation\u2019s Pioneer Award. Along with Laura Poitras, <\/i>Foreign Policy<\/em> magazine named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers for 2013. He lives in Rio, Brazil.<\/i><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In response to my question about whether any U.S. television hosts issued denunciations of the attack on Iraq similar to what Martin just did on RT, Washington lawyer Bradley Moss replied: \u201cPhil Donahue (MSNBC) and Peter Arnett (NBC).\u201d This perfectly proves the point I made, since both Donahue and Arnett were fired because of their opposition to the U.S. war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}