The tragedy of Yemen—the contorted, official views vs. straightforward ones (Videos)

PATRICE GREANVILLE

The tragedy of Yemen, under assault by the US, Britain and Saudi Arabia, with ancillary support by the usual cast of vassal nations, has become so massive that not even the US media are able to disfigure and cover up its truth entirely, although they certainly try. The most frequently used argument is the old canard, that this is really a "brutal" (and apparently inexplicable) conflict between two equally ruthless and often barbaric sides, the Saudis and the Houthis—the latter the "upstarts" in the perennially reactionary imperial POV, the rebels who merit by definition little sympathy. Observe in this report—unusual in the sense how CBS correspondent Holly Williams, embedded with the US side of the conflict—delivers (for US tv standards) as close to a semi-decent report on the situation as her handlers will allow. That said, the poor woman must still perform literal contortions to give a facsimile of truth while still hiding the big pink elephant in the room, the fact that it is Washington and London who are the chief enablers of those doing 9/10s of the barbaric killing in Yemen, while the US public doze on. Each of the videos below is preceded by their official intros. Note that CBS casually acknowledges whose side they are supporting: "Holly Williams got access to the war-torn country from the Saudi Arabian government to see its version of the war." This is propaganda in broad daylight, in your face, but few Americans notice and fewer care.

A second US mainstream tv report was filed on the same topic by PBS Newshour.  This is far more balanced and detailed (as usual) than the more normal mainstream report filed by CBS, and is also unusual in that it does present the picture with fewer distortions favoring the imperial side. This is noteworthy because PBS, despite its claims to quality unbiased journalism, is not exempt from shilling for the plutocracy, on whose largesse and political will it depends for survival. In that sense, this report must be seen as the exception and not the rule, even if the "exception: occurs more frequently with PBS than with the openly commercial networks. The degeneracy of PBS as quality medium for investigative journalism is mirrored by the transformation of its onetime award-winning Frontline series into little more than a thinly disguised propaganda outlet for Washington's hegemonic pursuits. Anyone who has watched its tendentious portrait of Vladimir Putin will have little doubt about that.

• By the way, CBS is controlled by the Sumner Redstone clan, who control Viacom and National Amusements, the umbrella corporation. Leslie Moonves is Chairman, CBS Corporation. Sumner Redstone (Sumner Murray Rothstein) serves as Chairman Emeritus. These are the main people responsible for what CBS does or doesn't do.

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[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he other side of this coin is represented by the uncompromising independent journalism exemplified by intrepid figures like John Pilger, Vanessa Beeley, and the equally stubborn pursuit of truth and justice on the part of correspondents and Middle East experts like Felicity Arbuthnot. Their brave dispatches from the very fracture lines of imperial aggression whether directed at China, Russia, Iran, or Syria, or other tormented regions and nations, aid the public in comprehending the real vital issues of the day. To this we must add the invaluable presence—under attack by the empire, of course, under all sorts of calumnies—of state-backed resources such as RT.com (Russia), PressTV (Iran) and Sputnik (Russia). They almost invariably offer the starved-for-truth American public a type of coverage and viewpoint rarely or never seen on the homeland's tv or newspaper venues.

—PG

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