Peter Beaumont of the Observer has harsh, well-chosen words for Medialens, the “watchdog” organization that targets liberal journalists who fail to parrot the ultra-left party line. Beaumont of course mentions Medialens’s nasty campaign against the antiwar site Iraq Body Count, for allegedly underestimating the toll of the war on Iraqi civilians.
I won’t get into that debate here, but I’d like to note that John Pilger, the veteran radical journalist, has supported Medialens’s campaign against IBC vociferously. And yet here’s what Pilger, so terribly concerned about Iraqi civilian deaths, told an interviewer in 2004:
Q: Do you think the anti-war movement should be supporting Iraq’s anti-occupation resistance?
A: Yes, I do. We cannot afford to be choosy. While we abhor and condemn the continuing loss of innocent life in Iraq, we have no choice now but to support the resistance, for if the resistance fails, the “Bush gang” will attack another country. If they succeed, a grievous blow will be suffered by the Bush gang.
By this point the Iraqi “resistance” has slaughtered many thousands of Iraqi civilians, so I don’t think Pilger has even a sliver of the moral authority to criticize IBC or anyone else.
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