Again, it's apparently beyond Reuters to cite anti-war voices in the US who were disgusted by the game. Chuck Kaufman of the US-based Alliance for Global Justice said that the game was
capitalizing on negative and inaccurate US press stories about Venezuela and its leader, Hugo Chavez, in order to make a quick buck. It's another piece of anti-Venezuelan propaganda that serves only the US military, pure and simple.
Unlike Kaufman, Reuters predictably exonerated the corporate news media in its explanation of why murderous fantasies about Venezuela appeal to the US Entertainment industry:
The country's socialist politics, rampant crime and open confrontation with the United States has made it attractive to the US entertainment industry.
Incidentally, Mathew Alford and Tom Secker in their book National Security Cinema insightfully analyzed how the entertainment industry is frequently co-opted by US military and intelligence services. So those are two UK-based writers for Reuters to ignore.
In covering the Jack Ryan trailer, Reuters also said nothing about Amazon's lucrative CIA links (FAIR.org, 8/6/13). US anti-war activist (and FAIR associate) Norman Solomon wrote about them in 2014, and asked, "In view of Amazon's eagerness to dump the WikiLeaks site at the behest of US government officials, what else might the Amazon hierarchy be willing to do?"
Produce incredibly vile pro-war TV is one answer to Solomon's question, but Reuters also does its part for empire on a regular basis.
I've written before about how Reuters consistently reports the murderous impact of US economic sanctions on Venezuela as a mere allegation by the Maduro government. For a month after US economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffery Sachs published a study (CEPR, 4/25/19) linking US sanctions to tens of thousands of deaths, Reuters stuck with the "Maduro says" formulation, before finally mentioning the study in one article (6/9/19). Reuters has consistently reverted to the "Maduro says" approach since then-even the day after it finally mentioned the Weisbrot/Sachs study (Reuters, 6/10/19). In fact, the Jack Ryan article said "Maduro blames" Venezuela's dire situation "on US sanctions that have hobbled the country's oil industry."
The "Maduro says" approach has made Reuters flirt with wild conspiracy theory at times. Last year a drone dropped bombs on a military parade where Maduro spoke. This year, Reuters (8/14/19) said the incident is one that Maduro "describes as an assassination attempt."
This technique not only invisibilizes principled US-based dissent from Washington's aggression, but also associates anti-war and anti-imperial views with governments it has helped Washington vilify. This is not limited to Venezuela.
For example, an article about John Bolton's recent firing (Reuters, 9/11/19) says that "North Korea has denounced Bolton as a 'war maniac' and 'human scum.'" Do you have to be a North Korean official to think Bolton, an architect of the Iraq War that killed at least 500,000 Iraqis, is a despicable person? Reuters couldn't find a quote from peace activists in the US expressing revulsion towards Bolton?
RT America (9/6/19) did its own article about the Jack Ryan trailer, featuring several US anti-war voices-thereby showing that the US political culture, beyond the "mainstream" at least, is not the moral and intellectual wasteland you might think it is if you rely on sources like Reuters. Of course, if (aside from small independent media) the only place one can go to hear US critics of US propaganda is an outlet affiliated with another US enemy-Russia, RT's sponsor-then the propaganda system wins either way.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
