![\"\"](\"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/ft-on-ukraine-papers-leak.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nThe more time you spend talking about whether the leaker is a good person, the less you\u2019re devoting to the official deception and misbehavior the leaks have shed light on. This is not an accident. But ask yourself: What\u2019s more corrosive to US democracy? That the president secretly put US boots on the ground in an incredibly dangerous, constantly escalating war zone, explicitly breaking a\u00a0<\/span>promise<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in the process and acting against the<\/span>\u00a0wishes<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0of the majority of the voting public? Or that the public was finally told about it?<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/blockquote>\n
With oceans of corporate column space given over to musings on the character of a 21 year old US airman with allegedly far right leanings, it fell to a short piece in Jacobin yesterday to remind us – since mass media’s job is to do the precise opposite – of the weightier matters at stake.<\/p>\n
(Thanks are due yet again to Caitlin, whose own post today<\/strong><\/a> alerted me to Branko Marcetic’s piece in Jacobin.)<\/p>\n
After the Ukraine Documents Leak, Mainstream Media Is Missing the Story<\/a><\/h2>\n
The recent leak of Ukraine war documents reveals much about how the US government has been misleading the public. But the corporate media is more concerned with catching and punishing the leaker, all in the name of defending democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n
The Ukraine leak is a big deal. Among other things, the documents<\/span>\u00a0reveal<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that the Biden administration has been misleading the public about its upbeat assessment of the Ukrainian war effort. The leak lays bare the extent of\u00a0US spying<\/a>\u00a0on friends and enemies alike, including the United Nations\u00a0<\/span>secretary general<\/a><\/strong>. It shows that friendly nations dependent on US largesse<\/span> have\u00a0<\/span>quietly<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0been\u00a0<\/span>undermining<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0Washington\u2019s geopolitical interests. It makes clear that the world\u00a0came far closer<\/a>\u00a0to unimaginable catastrophe during last year\u2019s September run-in between British and Russian pilots than we were told at the time. And it confirms that the United States and NATO allies\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0have<\/span>\u00a0boots on the ground<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in the war-torn country in the form of ninety-seven special forces personnel.<\/span><\/p>\n
But for some reason, that is not what anyone is talking about in response to these leaks.<\/span><\/p>\n
Rather than the jaw-dropping disclosures this brief list only<\/span>\u00a0scratches<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0the<\/span>\u00a0surface<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0of and which have<\/span>\u00a0major<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0implications<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>for US security, the political establishment has instead fixated on the leaker, his motives, his personal faults, and what the government is doing to make sure this doesn\u2019t happen again. Before we even knew the identity of the leaker, major press institutions like the<\/span>\u00a0Washington Post<\/em><\/a><\/strong> proclaimed the leak a grave violation and threat to national security, practically calling for the leaker\u2019s head on a plate.<\/span><\/p>\n
Before long, a host of journalists at outlets like NPR and\u00a0Vice<\/em> were volunteering their time to help the Department of Justice (DOJ) track down the person responsible, poring over photos for clues \u2014 acting as \u201cheroes of the hunt,\u201d as one commentator approvingly<\/span>\u00a0put it<\/a><\/strong>. The\u00a0<\/span>New York Times<\/em><\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 two outlets, incidentally, that have reported extensively on the content of the leaks, and therefore spread them much further than they otherwise would have gone \u2014 finally exposed him to the world last week, revealing details about a twenty-one-year-old National Guard airman who had sent the photos to his gamer buddies on Discord, including a seeming penchant for offensive and racist rhetoric. In the process, as the\u00a0Intercept\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0Nikita Mazurov<\/span>\u00a0pointed out<\/a><\/strong>, reporters cavalierly made public potentially identifying details that could incriminate the leaker\u2019s teenage associates.<\/span><\/p>\n
Six years after the liberal and media establishment roundly condemned the Intercept<\/em>\u00a0for accidentally exposing a leaker and getting her railroaded by Donald Trump\u2019s DOJ, these same voices are cheering on as a different president does the same \u2014 and have even been deliberately helping it to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n
And because no issue can be discussed in today\u2019s US political discourse without having the country\u2019s partisan-coded culture war superimposed, discussion has <\/span>devolved<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0into a partisan food fight over whether or not the leaker is really a<\/span> \u201cwhistleblower<\/a><\/strong>\u201d or even a \u201c<\/span>hero<\/a><\/strong>.\u201d This isn\u2019t surprising: whenever there\u2019s a major, politically sensitive leak, the establishment does everything possible to turn the terms of debate to the supposed character deficiencies, real and imagined, of the leaker. Just look at the media coverage of<\/span>\u00a0Edward Snowden<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Chelsea Manning<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Julian Assange<\/a><\/strong>, and<\/span>\u00a0Daniel Ellsberg<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0to be reminded.<\/span><\/p>\n
The more time you spend talking about whether the leaker is a good person, the less you\u2019re devoting to the official deception and misbehavior the leaks have shed light on.<\/span><\/p>\n
This is not an accident. The more time you spend thinking and talking about the leaker and whether or not he\u2019s a good person, the less you\u2019re devoting to the substance of the leaks and the official deception and misbehavior they have shed light on.<\/span><\/p>\n
But ask yourself: What\u2019s more corrosive to US democracy? That the president secretly put US boots on the ground in an incredibly dangerous, constantly escalating war zone, explicitly breaking a\u00a0<\/span>promise<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in the process and acting against the<\/span>\u00a0wishes<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0of the majority of the voting public? Or that the public was finally told about it? If we truly believe that \u201cDemocracy Dies in Darkness,\u201d then it makes little sense to vehemently oppose turning on a light. (US officials, for the record,\u00a0<\/span>say<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0that the special forces are merely working in the US embassy, but then US officials also\u00a0<\/span>told us<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0a week ago Russia was responsible for this leak.)<\/span><\/p>\n
It also means less time and energy spent on the years-long, bipartisan<\/span>\u00a0war on leaks<\/a><\/strong> this young airman is the latest to be ensnared in. It means no one discusses the government\u2019s now-routine practice of<\/span>\u00a0ruining<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0people\u2019s lives over even <\/span>inconsequential<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>leaks, and how the point of it is to intimidate future leakers and ensure the political and economic elite can continue to operate in secrecy. The moves we\u2019ve seen to track down and prosecute this leaker<\/span>\u00a0closely mirror<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0the punitive response to the explosive 2021 IRS leak that revealed to the public just how little tax the US ultra-rich were paying.<\/span><\/p>\n
As\u00a0Jacobin<\/em>\u2019s Ben Burgis recently\u00a0<\/span>wrote<\/a><\/strong>, \u201cCitizens in a democracy should be able to make informed decisions about their country\u2019s foreign policy.\u201d The terror we\u2019ve seen break out among the establishment over this prospect is a reminder that some of those who most eagerly invoke democracy don\u2019t seem to really believe in it.<\/span><\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The more time you spend talking about whether the leaker is a good person, the less you\u2019re devoting to the official deception and misbehavior the leaks have shed light on. This is not an accident. But ask yourself: What\u2019s more … Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-ukraine-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103120"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103246,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103120\/revisions\/103246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}