Left I on the News

A week ago it was the BBC; today it's the New York Times finally revealing to the world what those who read the left press were well aware of from day one - events in South Ossetia and Georgia were not a "Russian invasion of Georgia," but a Russian reaction to a brutal assault on South Ossetia by Georgian forces.

In deference to the U.S. ruling class, the Times is still hedging its bets ("The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame"), but it's quite clear that the contemporary reaction of the entire U.S. ruling class, from Bush to McCain to Obama to the corporate media, was never based on a rational interpretation of the facts, but was instead entirely predicated on U.S. desire to isolate Russia in the world, not to mention a desire to fan the dying embers of anti-Communism as a "force that gives us meaning" (to steal from Chris Hedges).

Once again, as with the truth before the invasion of Iraq and so many other incidents throughout history, score one for the left and progressive media and zero for the corporate media (and minus a million or more for the people of the world who suffer the consequences).