CBS stenographer gets ass kicked in cairo

CBS, via NYT

i don't much go for celebrity reporters -- in fact have always been uneasy with the media outlet being the story, or part of the story. so, i wouldn't have even  heard of lara logan, if not for her criticisms of wikileaks and rolling stone's michael hastings for breaching the protocol of deference to, and protection of, people they're supposedly covering.

then, of course, there was the story about how her mercenary boyfriend knocked her up in iraq, and they got married.

today's headline was that anderson cooper was shocked and appalled that she's been attacked and sexually assaulted by bad guys in cairo, while covering the exit of the dictator mubarak. according to the NYT's "media decoder" column:

Ms. Logan, 39, the network’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, was covering the celebrations in Tahrir Square in central Cairo with a camera crew and an unknown number of security staff members. The CBS team was enveloped by “a dangerous element” within the crowd, CBS said, that numbered more than 200 people. That mob separated Ms. Logan from her team and then attacked her.

it's a terrible thing, to be sure, and i wish her a speedy recovery. i admire journalists who risk their lives to tell stories that the world needs to hear -- even ms. logan.

it is worth noting, however, that someone as embedded into the corporate media culture as lara logan abets  the very same forces that brutalized her in the streets of cairo when she allows herself to be used as a stenographer for the forces of exploitation and oppression -- the same folks she literally loved in baghdad.

while no one deserves the kind of abuse logan suffered, when you're a booster for US imperialism around the globe, you are also complicit in the various forms of repression that are used against subject populations.

how many victims of extraordinary renditions ended up being tortured and brutalized by the same thugs that lashed out at logan? how many thousands suffered even worse fates at their hands, while apologists for US corporate state policies carried on their cynical business as usual?