-- advertisers apply pressure so content favors or at least won't offend them.
McChesney also explains that "balanced (journalism) smuggles in values conducive to the commercial aims of the owners and advertisers, as well as the political aims of the owning class." And as their power grows, so does their control over what news and information people get as well as a tsunami of sports and entertainment to divert and distract from what matters most.
Iraq - The Sanctions of Mass Destruction
The authors cite British Prime Minister Tony Blair's "big bad lie" in making a "moral case for war" for which there was none. Two years later, the Iraqi Planning Ministry and UN reported that almost one quarter of children aged five or under suffered from malnutrition. That condition was even worse than the appalling situation under economic sanctions and the destruction of the country that began after Saddam invaded Kuwait in August, 1990. Four days later, Operation Desert Shield was launched. It began with US-dictated economic sanctions, a large military buildup in the region, and a sweeping PR campaign for war that became Operation Desert Storm on January 17, 1991.
Before it ended on February 28, US forces committed grievous war crimes that included gratuitous mass killings as well as bombings to destroy essential to life facilities of almost everything imaginable. The dominant media ignored the human cost along with removed power, clean water, sanitation, fuel, transportation, medical facilities, adequate food, schools, private dwellings and places of employment. A defenseless nation was leveled by a ruthless superpower. It was only the beginning.
Twelve years of crushing genocidal sanctions followed. The results were predictable and devastating. Normal life was impossible and became a daily struggle to survive. By the mid-1990s, it was apparent many hadn't and wouldn't going forward. The media ignored it and instead blamed Saddam for what Washington and the West caused. The authors note that in the face of ugly facts, Tony Blair "once again employ(ed) his favoured strategy - passionately 'sincere' truth-reversal."
That and clear facts on the ground got two UN heads of Iraqi humanitarian relief to resign in anger with Dennis Halliday in 1998 saying he did so because he "had been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over one million individuals, children and adults" including 5000 Iraqi children monthly in his judgment. The media was silent then and ever since in spite of appalling evidence of war crimes in plain sight.
Consider the so-called Oil-for-Food program as well. It was adopted under UN Resolution 986 in 1995 but was hopelessly inadequate by design. An internal 1999 UN report revealed it provided about 21 cents a day for food and 4 cents more for medicines with vitally needed items banned or in short supply. Everything considered potentially "duel use" was blocked including chlorine to purify water, vital medical equipment, chemotherapy and pain-killing drugs, ambulances and whatever else Washington wished to withhold punitively. The consequences were horrific, the media was silent, and instead supported Blair's, Clinton's (and now Bush's) "moral war."
As the authors put it: "With the wholehearted complicity of the media, the US and UK governments were able to blame the Iraqi regime for the suffering" it didn't cause and could do nothing to prevent. "Supported by a wave of propaganda, journalists were able to pass over the West's responsibility for vast crimes against humanity." Examples abound like BBC's John Simpson restricting his comments on "Western responsibility for genocide" to 16 words in one sentence in a November, 2002 on-air documentary.
The authors noted that nine months after Media Lens was launched in 2001, they "began to realise the extent to which even high-profile journalists were unable to defend their arguments" in the face of overwhelming evidence refuting them. They tried nonetheless, still do and it keeps getting worse.
Iraq Disarmed - Burying the 1991-98 Weapons Inspections
To make its case for the March, 2003 invasion, Bush and Blair promoted two "myth(s) of non-cooperation" - that Saddam refused to cooperate with UNSCOM weapons inspectors up to 1998 and had retained deadly WMD stockpiles that threatened the region and western interests. One big lie followed another like Saddam expelled weapons inspectors in December, 1998. In fact, he was remarkably cooperative in the face abusive intrusions few nations would ever tolerate and if demanded of the US would be impossible.
Making false claims was part of the scheme to attack and occupy the country as Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill discovered in the earliest days of the administration. He saw a secret memorandum preparing for war and a Pentagon document that discussed dividing up Iraq's energy reserves among western Big Oil giants. The road to war was launched with no turning back even though Scott Ritter, UNSCOM's chief weapons inspector, confirmed the following: that Bill Clinton ordered his team out of Iraq in December, 1998 on the eve of Operation Desert Fox, and the country was fundamentally disarmed with 90 - 95% of its (chemical and biological) WMDs "verifiably eliminated" at the time. There was no nuclear program.
Further, whatever remained didn't "constitute a weapons program....only bits and pieces of useless sludge" past their limited shelf life. Conclusion: "Iraq cooperated in" its disarmament, but the US nonetheless manufactured a conflict in December, 1998 that was a precursor for the big one ahead. It was also learned that CIA spies operated with arms inspectors to get information the Clinton administration used for its attack. When it ended, Saddam wouldn't allow inspectors back in and justifiably called them spies.
All along, the media reported the official line, ignored the truth and were thus complicit in the crimes of state they supported. The authors noted a "remarkable feature of media performance - that large numbers of individual journalists can come to move as an obedient herd despite easily available evidence contradicting the consensus view." As it always is, "This was standard right across the media" that never lets facts conflict with their servility to power.
The authors also point to an "astonishing media omission" they call "the sludge of mass destruction" and cite CIA as the source. In a 1990 briefing, the spy agency stated: "(Iraq's) Botulinum toxin (its biological weapons) is nonpersistent, degrading rapidly in the environment" and only has a shelf life of a year when stored below 27 degrees Celcius. Further, Scott Ritter debunked Tony Blair's specter of an Iraq weaponized VX nerve agent. He confirmed UNSCOM found and blew up a VX factory in 1996. Iraq no longer could produce it and any amount remaining was worthless sludge. Comments from the media - support for Tony Blair and silence on the facts.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
Thank you for pointing the way to a UK site I had not heard about.
For some time I have written articles about the American situation and in the back of my mind was feeling guilty at not doing much on the UK situation, except for looking at George Galloway and the like.
Thanks for giving me a new 'renewal' for taking on, with others, the global corporations stranglehold on the the media, the breathtaking hypocracy of government, government lackeys et al.
P.S. I have read your work for some time and you are one of the ones I 'follow' whenever I see your name on an article. This one is long, comprehensive, informative and devestating. More power to your elbow!
by
ibrahim turner (25 articles, 31 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 176 comments)
on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 1:11:42 PM
All your articles are in my "don't miss" category, but I suspect you know that!!
This issue of getting media complicity on the WAR CRIMES agenda is a tough one to crack. I found this year, I couldn't put the Robert Parry video on my blog, which was the finest statement about the media I could find . it just took too long to load and I had to take it off, sigh.
I live in this kind of mind boggling world ... we sometimes see the war photos up here on the news in Canada (and at least we do see the Afghan war casualties, MOSTLY, we do) while the US is so smothered in patriotic claptrap on a regular basis.
As the war bs (I don't know what else to call it) grinds on from -- give them sanctions, to Gulf War I, to get Al Qaeda, to get Saddam, to create democracy, to the "surge" is working and the media just continues to whitewash and sanitize real human suffering .. it's simply amazing how much the corporate media gets away with, with hardly a peep coming from those who digest huge amounts of the "plug in drug" ..
Contrasting that with the amount you hear or see about impeachment which is virtually nil during the whole bloody fiasco.
As V. Lenin would say "what is to be done ..??"
Fox News interfering in the elections debate is the just the latest outrage. They're not even a US-owned entity and Kucinich is RIGHT.
I've TRIED to "work" with The Real News TV people and I don't see much help from them really either. It's basically a one man with control operation.
The mediums themselves create a lot the problem as the equipment to be "on the airwaves" is very expensive, not something that can be created very quickly.
I think your timing of this review, in light of what is happening, is impeccable.
So many thanks!!
ps - did you notice that ICH is FINALLY running the Michael Hudson podcast this week? about time .. I've left them links about it since August. Maybe Mike is finally "catching" on??
by
ladybroadoak (38 articles, 20 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 390 comments)
on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 1:56:38 PM
2 comments
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