There are Other Issues with Richard Engel

We learned this week about another scandal at NBC News, this time involving the kidnapping of Richard Engel in Syria (unless you read As’ad AbuKhalil's article on Angry Arab News Service in 2012 ).

I first heard about it on Emptywheel

In both Syria and Ukraine, the US press has largely been as obedient as the press is forced to be in Russia, telling convenient narratives that justify our armed intervention. The notion that US Congressmen who themselves spew propaganda are squealing about Putin’s great power of propaganda is almost pathetic in the face of all that.

The New York Times broke the news after their investigation

A Sunni militant group not connected to Assad, Iran or Hezbollah

NBC News on Wednesday revised its account of the 2012 kidnapping of its chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, saying it was likely that Mr. Engel and his reporting team had been abducted by a Sunni militant group, not forces affiliated with the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

Engel did not see a dead body himself

In his Vanity Fair article, Mr. Engel described one of his captors lying dead. In his statement Wednesday, he acknowledged that he did not see bodies during the rescue.

He said that one of his producers, Aziz Akyavas, climbed out of the van through the driver-side door, stepping over a body. “I climbed out of the passenger-side door,” he wrote. “A bearded gunman approached and said that we were safe now. That was our introduction to Abu Ayman. He said that he and his men had killed the two kidnappers. Under the circumstances, and especially since Aziz said that he had seen and stepped over a body, I didn’t doubt it and later reported it as fact.”

Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept elaborates about who knew what and when.  No one has said outright that Engel knew who his captors really were.

There were ample reasons at the time to be suspicious that this was a scam (perpetrated on (not by) Engel and his fellow captives) to blame Assad for the abduction.

continued

Nobody can blame Engel — a courageous reporter, fluent in Arabic — for falling for what appears to be a well-coordinated ruse. Particularly under those harrowing circumstances, when he and his fellow captives believed with good reason that their lives were in immediate danger, it’s completely understandable that he believed he had been captured by pro-Assad forces. There is no real evidence that Engel did anything wrong in recounting his ordeal.

But the same is most certainly not true of NBC News executives. In writing his new account, Engel does not mention the most important and most incriminating aspect of The New York Times reporting: that NBC officials knew at the time that there was reason to be highly skeptical of the identity of the captors, but nonetheless allowed Engel and numerous other NBC and MSNBC reporters to tell this story with virtually no questioning.

Engel's own statement says

I, along with two other Arabic speaking members of our six-member team, believed they were from the Shabiha.

continued

it is clear that we were kidnapped by a criminal gang for money and released for propaganda purposes. We still cannot determine whether we were set up to be kidnapped from the start

The Myth of the Moderate Free Syrian Army

As’ad AbuKhalil: I was skeptical about the entire enterprise of Western journalistic coverage of Syria, particularly by American correspondents in the region. There was a lot of stuff that’s been told and transmitted that contradicted the realities on the ground. They created this myth about a moderate, secular group called the Free Syrian Army. And they were, in fact, attacking people like myself and others who were saying that the bulk of the fighting force of the so-called Syrian revolutionaries were militant fanatics of the bin Ladenite style. And in reality, we knew at the time that what is so-called the Free Syrian Army is no more than a coterie of criminal gangs and thugs that were running amok throughout the area of the so-called liberated sections of Syria, and they were engaged in sectarian kidnapping, ransoms, murder, indiscriminate shelling, and they would sometimes kidnap people, and they’d sell them to other gangs

So, but there is also something political, as Glenn mentioned, which is, there is—there was a war lobby. There were people hedging at the time in order to get the United States to intervene militarily on the side of these rebels, along with Saudi Arabia, the same allies that we now have in the so-called war on Yemen. And at the time, the statements that Richard Engel made—and I should mention that what is—I mean, there is a political story, and there’s a journalistic story. I mean, there are questions to be raised not only about the credibility of Mr. Engel, but also about bad judgment. And this is a correspondent, one of the few who’s fluent in Arabic. He can speak it fluently, he can understand it. And yet, upon his release, he taped a video in Arabic for the propaganda arm of the Free Syrian Army, in which he made fantastic claims. And I went and watched it yesterday to my amazement. I mean, he admitted yesterday to The New York Times that in fact he may have lied when he said he witnessed, at the time of his rescue, dead bodies. Now he’s saying he didn’t. But if you watch the video he taped for the Free Syrian Army benefit, he in fact claimed he saw more dead bodies upon being captured. And he also told a fantastic story about how these awful Shiite militias went about to burn somebody alive, but they couldn’t find enough gasoline. I mean, he has to account for that.

As'ad writes also that

Richard Engel has to account for those statements in this propaganda video for the Free Syrian Army

As'ad writes about Engel's Arabic that

I am most impressed with Engel's Arabic. He is really fluent in Arabic and speaks it with a semi-Egyptian accent. I must state that I did not expect this and I don't recall knowing or meeting one US correspondent in the Middle East with such fluency. He did not get stuck on words in the entire video and uses the language with such facility. If all correspondents in the region know Arabic like Engel, US media coverage of the region would be much better.

When I heard about the story I immediately knew this was not a lone incident with Richard Engel

this is not the first controversy involving Richard Engel's reporting
— BiasedReporter (@biasedreporter) April 17, 2015

Looking around I remembered where I had seen the articles discussing other problems with Engel's reporting in the Middle East.

In July 2012, Engel wrote himself that

the first casualty of war is the truth.

Here is the full paragraph as Engel documents Assad's crimes

The Assad goverment is concentrating its firepower on big cities like Damascus and Aleppo. Government troops left this village last night to join the attack on Aleppo. But the rebels, and Syria, need urgent help to prevent huge losses of life, both among fighters and civilians – Sunni, Allawite and Christian.

Many myths circulate in Washington and in the media about the Syrian opposition and the fighting in this country. From what I’ve seen traveling with the rebels, many of the commonly accepted ‘truths’ seem to be incorrect. After all, the first casualty of war is the truth.

He reports on "myths" and reports what he sees on the ground (random examples)

Myth: The rebels are getting weapons and money from abroad and will soon finish off Bashar’s army on their own.

View from the ground: The rebels are fighting with almost nothing

Myth: The rebels are disorganized, have no leaders and are rife with infighting.

View from the ground: The rebels have no central leadership. They do not have a single commander. The rebels generally do not recognize the leaders of the Syrian opposition in exile in Turkey and Europe. But on the ground here in Syria the rebels are well organized.

Myth: The rebels are al-Qaida or at least infiltrated by al-Qaida.

View from the ground: We have not seen evidence of a large al-Qaida presence. This is not an al-Qaida fight.

Engel was 100% right in 2009 about Afghanistan

“I honestly think it’s probably time to start leaving the country.” Engel added, “I really don’t see how this is going to end in anything but tears.”

As As'ad recognized, Engel learned Arabic in Egypt, and so his coverage of Egypt differs from other countries.

Remember that I look for biases in media.

2013 Richard Engel wants US aid to Egyptian military to continue to support WESTERN interests http://t.co/0dUbCYOT8Q
— BiasedReporter (@biasedreporter) April 17, 2015

FAIR explains

But on Meet the Press (8/18/13), NBC foreign correspondent Richard Engel appeared to make his feelings known: The U.S. should not cut off aid to the Egyptian military:

People in this country and around the region think it would be an absolutely disastrous idea for the United States to cut off aid, that Washington has real interest with the Egyptian military, preferential access to the Suez Canal, military over flights, and not to mention the Camp David Accords.

Preferential access to the Suez Canal (for oil shipments and other trade issues with the West), military over flights are not necessarily Egyptian interests.  They are Western interests and have been since Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798.  The Camp David Accords is a good-neighbor policy and where US aid fits in to Egypt's interests.

Then there is the Arab Spring in Egypt. FAIR explained the "controversy." (emphasis mine)

NBC Nightly News reporter Richard Engel held up a tear gas canister on the air to show that it was stamped “Made in the USA.” But something else he said on the January 28, 2011 newscast struck me:

But what’s scattered on the streets of Cairo right now are these little canisters. These were the tear gas canisters that were fired by all those riot police today. And if you look at them closely, they say clearly in English, “Made in the USA.” Egyptians have been picking them up, they’ve been looking them over. And from an Egyptian perspective, it does seem like Mubarak and the United States are working together. So the U.S. is walking a fine line here.

Strange perspective they’ve got over there.

RIchard Engel "US aid to Egypt should continue" because they're using an awful lot of it against Egyptians http://t.co/KaIcUTbmzP
— BiasedReporter (@biasedreporter) April 17, 2015

US double-speak on regime change

Back on February 14th I wrote about claims that the US was coordinating a coup against Venezuela. About halfway through my post I noticed a State Dept briefing with Jen Psaki and AP reporter Matt Lee that talked about America's

longstanding policy, the United States does not support political transitions by non-constitutional means. Political transitions must be democratic, constitutional, peaceful, and legal.

Later on February 26th I wrote about how media, including one's I admire like FAIR and Democracy Now! had or had not covered the story on the coup attempt against Venezuela.

Then on March 11th after Obama signed new sanctions against Venezuela Democracy Now had a great segment with Professor Miguel Tinker Salas which brought up the press briefing with Jen Psaki and Matt Lee almost a month later where Professor Salas said

MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: I would have loved if that kind of exchange would have got broader diffusion in the U.S. press, but the fact is that it hasn’t.

I can't agree more, but I noticed it a month earlier on the day it happened! RSS feeds people! They really work so you don't miss things...

AND because I am not yet as popular as Democracy Now (LOL) they get to say this and I do not

A week ago Democracy Now! aired this short clip from a recent State Department press briefing about Venezuela. It has since gone viral.

Professor Salas added 

And we continue to have the belief that the U.S. does not—is not involved in unconstitutional change in Latin America. And as a historian, the record speaks just the opposite, from ’53 in Guatemala to the Dominican Republic, to Chile in ’73, and through the support of the Argentine military dictatorships and Brazil, and, if we want to go even closer, to 2002 in Venezuela, when the U.S. actually did support a coup against the democratically elected Hugo Chávez, the shortest coup in the world, and the coup that brought Chávez back to power, and then again in Honduras in 2009, and, not shortly thereafter, in Paraguay with Lugo, where they said it was a democratic transition, when in fact it was an unconstitutional shift in power. So, again, the notion that the U.S. has not supported both military coups directly or through what they call soft power is really ludicrous.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO TODAY'S POINT--Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

After Jen Psaki announced America's "long standing policy" of not supporting regime change (besides the obvious Iraq) I say "Assad?"

UN Ambassador Samantha Power on The Takeaway on Monday March 23rd (emphasis mine)

the only solution, she argues, is the political dismantling of the Assad regime.

This is not a regime whose existence, whose perpetuation is compatible with peace.

Bringing down the regime while maintaining what little stability is left in the region will be complicated.

Power also remains adamant that, despite the length and brutality of the Syrian Civil War, Assad will be brought down and his regime will be held responsible for its acts.

“We’re never going to give up, and a regime that commits acts like this will eventually be held accountable," she says. "It may feel like that day is a ways off right now because this regime has again, tragically, the support of two powerful countries, but that day will come. We have the evidence, we know who’s responsible and they will be held to account.”

 Also note that "regime" is used 11 times in a short interview.  I agree that Assad is a brutal dictator, but I thought we were against regime change.  Oh well.

Update on Israeli airstrike in Syria

Yesterday I wrote about the latest Israeli airstrike in Syria, attacking the Golan Heights city of Quneitra again.  Today we are getting more information about who was killed.

PressTV

Hezbollah statement

Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah confirmed the death of six fighters in the new Israeli airstrike on the southwestern strategic Syrian city of Quneitra.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Hezbollah said 25-year-old Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of slain Hezbollah top commander Imad Mughniyeh, and five other fighters lost their lives in the fresh Israeli aerial assault against Syria.

Hezbollah identified the other victims as Mohammad Issa,42, Abbas Ibrahim Hijazi, 35, Mohammad Ali Hasan Abu al-Hasan, 29, Ghazi Ali Dawi, 26, and Ali Hasan Ibrahim, 21.

The martyrs were reportedly on a field reconnaissance mission in Quneitra when an Israeli military helicopter targeted their vehicle.

continued

The Israeli military has so far declined comment on the attack.

Press TV reported that the Israeli military has gone on high alert for the fear of a possible Hezbollah response to the regime’s new act of aggression.

Analysts believe the new Israeli assault is yet another attempt by Tel Aviv to change the balance of war in favor of the Takfiri militants fighting against Syria.

The new Israeli aerial raid comes as Syrian soldiers, backed by Hezbollah resistance fighters, have made numerous gains against the militants operating in Quneitra.

The Tel Aviv regime has carried out several airstrikes in Syria since the start of the nearly four-year-old foreign-sponsored militancy there.

Damascus says Tel Aviv and its Western allies are aiding the extremist terror groups operating inside Syria since March 2011.

The Syrian army has repeatedly seized huge quantities of Israeli-made weapons and advanced military equipment from the foreign-backed militants inside the Arab state.

GlobalPost

Jihad Mughniyah's father, Imad, is thought to have masterminded some of Hezbollah’s deadliest attacks, and was once one of America’s most-wanted terrorists. His operations included the bombing of a French and US Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, the kidnapping of Western hostages in Lebanon throughout the 1980s and an attack on a synagogue in Argentina in 1994.

He was assassinated in Damascus in 2008. Hezbollah, Syria and Iran blamed Israel.

For at least the past two years, Hezbollah has fought on the side of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in the country’s brutal civil war. Hezbollah’s involvement in the war has seen Syrian jihadist groups strike back in Lebanon, targeting Lebanese civilians in bomb attacks.

continued

Israel has carried out a number of strikes in Syria since the war began, often claiming to have been targeting weaponry that it said was bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The latest strike comes just days after Nasrallah warned Israel that his fighters would respond to any further attacks by Israel.

Tweets

2013 Picture of Jihad Mughnieh who was reportedly killed in #Syria today with head of #Iran's Qods force Soleimani pic.twitter.com/9GWc3BfnLi

— Golnaz Esfandiari (@GEsfandiari) January 18, 2015

#Hezbollah: Jihad Mughniyeh killed #Israel strike #Syria. File pic w/ #Iran Qods Force commander. Was 2nd gen leader. pic.twitter.com/iC3gTaML9h

— Robin Wright (@wrightr) January 18, 2015

Breaking News, Israeli Jets Strike Golan

Israeli jets bombed the Golan Heights again.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: An Israeli helicopter carried out a strike Sunday against "terrorists" in the Syrian sector of the Golan Heights who were allegedly preparing an attack on Israel, an Israeli security source said.

The source told AFP the strike took place near Quneitra, close to the cease-fire line separating the Syrian part of the Golan Heights from the Israeli-occupied sector, confirming a report by Al-Manar television.

The report had said that an Israeli helicopter fired two missiles in the Syrian province of Quneitra near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

It did not specify the target of the strike in the area, called Amal Farms. The Israeli military declined comment and Syrian state media did not mention the attack.

I wrote about earlier attacks here and here.

Meanwhile IDF on Twitter is distracting you.

Only the Air Force technical team can give a #pilot permission to take off. #SafetyFirst! #MyWorkPlace pic.twitter.com/M4GU4xiTsG

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) January 18, 2015

"Fun Video" from the War in Syria

May 8, 2014

"Breaking the Set"

The title of Abby Martin's show on Russia Today is fitting for this story: it is about the abdication of the role of today's mainstream journalism, and it is also just happens to be about a broken TV news set.  On Wednesday, May 7, two journalists were on a Jordanian TV show debating the Syrian war, and the debate turned heated and a fight broke out and they broke the table as they started punching and kicking each other, and using the table to push each other back and forth.  That was basically all the local news channel told us.

My questions immediately were instead:

• who were the journalists
• what were they fighting about
• what were they debating
• THIS is how you report the story??!!

Here is the video, showing the 45 seconds before the fight breaks out.  I will try to get a translation.

Here is the rest of the story.

The Associated Press says the show aired on Tuesday, on the satellite channel "Seven Stars," while The Washington Post says the show (“Bayn Etijihayn” (Between Two Ways), which reminded me of "Between Two Ferns") aired on Wednesday, but neither is clear whether that is local time there or here in the US.  The journalists were Shaker al-Johari, head of the Electronic Media Association in Jordan and Mohammad al-Jayousi, editor-in-chief of the news Web site al-Mustaqbal al-Arabi.

The Washington Post says they were debating media freedom in Syria, which is a very important topic in Syria, as well as in the Middle East as well as worldwide, especially if "democracy" is the goal in the Arab Spring, which started the Syrian Civil war (this time at least) and is also important as we debate the future of Afghanistan and Iraq, as Iraq descends into a civil war of its own, and as US troops leave Afghanistan by the end of the year, we hope they can avert a civil war as well as they build the "democracy" we invaded to set up.

The Washington Post describes the fight saying

The heated conversation turned physical when Al-Jayousi accused Al-Johari of being a "deviant" who supports the Syrian revolution. Al-Johari responded by accusing Al-Jayousi of supporting the Syrian regime in exchange for money.  This prompted the two men to start shoving the studio table toward one another, eventually flipping it over. The clip is not to be missed. (my emphasis). The host then ended the program abruptly. 

The Associated Press says

However, the debate fell apart as al-Jayousi accused al-Johari of supporting the Syrian rebels. Al-Johari then accused al-Jayousi of taking money for supporting Assad.  The two men, obviously carried away by the debate, stood up and grabbed the edge of the studio table they had been seated at, and tried to fight each other.  In the scuffle, the top of the table broke off and the rest of it toppled as the moderator and studio workers tried to stop the fight and finally separated the two journalists.

In describing the larger issue, the Syrian Civil War, AP says

the 3-year-old war pitting rebels against President Bashar Assad's government, a conflict that activists say has killed more than 150,000 people.

Did you notice the problem in that sentence?

A) it is not just "activists" that say that 150,000 Syrian civilians have been killed, that is the cited statistic by major news outlets, the UN,  the international community trying to end the war, etc, not just "activists" trying to make a point. 

Death toll--Wikipedia

B) the war was not started by "armed rebels who decided to attack the govt."  The war grew out the larger Arab Spring and Bashar al Assad's reaction to Syrians' peaceful protests, and issues of drought in Syria that affected farmers and the economy, adding to the Arab Spring protests, and the war was started by Assad, deciding to hold onto power by any means necessary, instead of listening to his people's needs.

I wish our mainstream news would take the time to do a better job of reporting the stories they decide to show us, instead of just showing us a "fun video" and acting like that is enough of an explanation, and their job is finished of "reporting the news."