Cable Noise Network: Mouthpiece for the War State

by | Mar 3, 2017

CNN and its Pentagon stenographer, Barbara Starr, are shameless mouthpieces for the war state. In an article touting the Pentagon’s unverified claim that last month’s special-ops raid in Yemen, greenlit by Donald Trump, has yielded actionable intel, we find this astounding sentence:

“AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] is considered by many analysts to be al Qaeda’s most capable affiliate, and the organization has been able to carve out a safe haven in Yemen amid the ongoing civil war there between government loyalists and Houthi rebels.”

Missing from the story is the fact that it is Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies — enabled by the U.S. military — that are warring against the Houthis and “carv[ing] out a safe haven” for the disciples of Osama bin Laden. The merciless Saudi bombing campaign and naval blockade — which could not be taking place without U.S. assistance — threaten mass starvation in the Middle East’s poorest country. The Obama administration joined the Saudi effort nearly two years ago apparently to placate the Gulf states, which were upset by the Iran nuclear deal. Donald Trump, who’s obsessed with Iran, shows no sign of ending that war. The Houthis, who practice a form of Shi’ite Islam, are wrongly portrayed as Iranian agents.

So while Navy SEALs kill al-Qaeda operatives and others — including unaffiliated tribesmen, women, and children —  the U.S. government also helps al-Qaeda because of its obsession with Iran and its alliance with the cradle of “radical Islamic terrorism”: Saudi Arabia.

Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies; former editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education; and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation. His latest books are Coming to Palestine and What Social Animals Owe to Each Other.

View all posts

Our Books

Shop books published by the Libertarian Institute.

libetarian institute longsleeve shirt

Our Books

15 books

Recent Articles

Recent

“Riviera of the Middle East…”

“Riviera of the Middle East…”

There’s optimism among the small government conservatives, liberty nationalists and MAGA hardliners from the first weeks of Trumps second presidency. The exposure of USAID to the world, revealing waste, nefarious conduct and ideologically bias that only proves that...

read more

Fixing Fight Club: A Missive to DOGE

President Trump, SECDEF, Mr. Musk and DOGE, I am the host of Chasing Ghosts: An Irregular Warfare Podcast and WarNotes: A Conflict Podcast. You are about to embark on a dark journey to discover the existential mismanagement and beggared martial imagination of the...

read more

Abolish Antitrust!

"That there is inequality of ability or monetary income on the free market should surprise no one. As we have seen above, men are not 'equal' in their tastes, interests, abilities, or locations. Resources are not distributed “equally” over the earth.16 This inequality...

read more

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This