US media: Israel's 'shocking' use of cluster bombs not newsworthy

Posted by David DeGraw at 2:30 PM on August 31, 2006.

The UN recently reported that they have "identified 359 cluster bomb strike locations with as many as 100,000 unexploded bomblets" in southern Lebanon. Amazingly, 90% of the bombs were dropped in the final 72 hours of the war. They also report that it can take years to clean them up and innocent civilians are being killed and wounded by these munitions every day.

In the first video clip to the right, Jan England, head UN Humanitarian official, calls this finding "shocking and completely immoral" -- and that's putting it lightly. The use of cluster bombs is illegal, and in this case it is a war crime.

Yet, US television "news" outlets don't consider these findings newsworthy. Could you imagine the coverage this would get if Hezbollah had done this to Israel? There would be endless coverage, pundits would have a much easier time comparing Hezbollah to Nazi Germany, and the Bush administration would certainly consider this grounds for bombing Iran.

I ran several searches to see what TV coverage I could find on this. And… I only found two very brief mentions -- one quick piece from CNN Headline News and a ridiculous mention from a local FOX affiliate in Philadelphia. Check out the second, bottom video to the right. This is all the information that a select few in Philly received -- notice how the FOX newscaster even gave this news a "hmm" before transiting to the next BIG story.

Ok, enough of this, I have to go catch up on the lastest JonBenet Ramsey twist.

David DeGraw is AlterNet's video blogger.