Perhaps the most blatant example of ignoring the effect of US actions is Yemen, the country the United Nations has called, for some years now, the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” Some 24 million people (80% of the population) require assistance, as cholera and other diseases run rampant. If humanitarian intervention is necessary anywhere, it is here. Unfortunately, the US is already intervening—to make matters much worse. For years, the US has been arming, training and supporting the Saudi-led coalition’s onslaught, largely aimed at the civilian population, signing a reported $350 billion arms deal with Riyadh, and even helping with target acquisition for Saudi bombers. The Saudis have deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure; since the war began in 2015, they have carried out an attack on medical or water facilities once every ten days, on average. The US has defended its ally at the UN, and even pressured member states into reducing their donations to the relief effort. As a result, aid to Yemen halved to just 25 cents per person per day in 2020.
Yet outlets with comparatively progressive audiences have not been informing their audiences of these facts, let alone calling for a humanitarian intervention. In fact, MSNBC went over one year without mentioning US involvement in the world’s bloodiest ongoing war. For comparison, over the same period, it ran 455 segments on Trump’s connections to porn star Stormy Daniels. Yemeni journalists complain that the West sees Iraq and Syria as more “newsworthy” than the conflict raging further south, making it harder to find publishers for their work. A search for “Syria” on the websites of the New York Times, CNN or Fox News will elicit 3-4 times more results than one for “Yemen” over the same time period.
FYI I did my own analysis on this topic with different situations