Don't Believe Initial Accounts of Drone Strikes Killing 'Al Qaeda Militants'

Foreign Policy has a perfectly awful account of a U.S. drone strike in Yemen this September that killed a dozen civilians. Begins like this:

SANAA, Yemen — The villagers who rushed to the road, cutting through rocky fields in central Yemen, found the dead strewn around a burning sport utility vehicle. The bodies were dusted with white powder—flour and sugar, the witnesses said—that the victims were bringing home from market when the aircraft attacked. A torched woman clutched her daughter in a lifeless embrace. Four severed heads littered the pavement.

"The bodies were charred like coal. I could not recognize the faces," said Ahmed al-Sabooli, 22, a farmer whose parents and 10-year-old sister were among the dead. "Then I recognized my mother because she was still holding my sister in her lap. That is when I cried."

What enables such state-sanctioned murder? One crucial ingredient is highlighted in the next paragraph:

Quoting unnamed Yemeni officials, local and international media initially described the victims of the Sept. 2 airstrike in al-Bayda governorate as al Qaeda militants.

Follow that link to the Sept. 2 Reuters article, and you'll see this loaded lead paragraph:

Five suspected militants linked to al Qaeda were killed by a U.S. drone attack on Sunday in central Yemen, in what appears to be stepped up strikes by unmanned aircraft on Islamists.

Note that "suspected" only modifies "militants"; Reuters treated as fact that the charred bodies were "linked to al Qaeda," and part of a broader campaign against "Islamists" who don't qualify as being "suspected."

This isn't just linguistic nitpicking of journalismese; this is how you midwife propaganda–straight from anonymous government sources who have a huge incentive to legitimize targeted death-dealing against undesirables, and unadorned with the kind of protective skepticism that such ultimate power (let alone fog of war) so richly deserves.

Link via the Twitter feed of Laura Pitter. Reason on drone strikes here.