Drumming Up Support for War
In addition, the owners of American media companies have long actively played a part in drumming up support for war.
It is painfully obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that the large news outlets studiously avoided any real criticism of the government's claims in the run up to the Iraq war. It is painfully obvious that the large American media companies acted as lapdogs and stenographers for the government's war agenda.
Indeed, veteran reporter Bill Moyers criticized the corporate media for parroting the obviously false link between 9/11 and Iraq (and the false claims that Iraq possessed WMDs) which the administration made in the run up to the Iraq war, and concluded that the false information was not challenged because:
"the [mainstream] media had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked."But this is nothing new. For example, the mainstream media also played footsie with the U.S. government right before Pearl Harbor. Specifically, a highly-praised historian has documented that the Army’s Chief of Staff informed the Washington bureau chiefs of the major newspapers and magazines of the impending Pearl Harbor attack BEFORE IT OCCURRED, and swore them to an oath of secrecy, which the media honored (page 361) . Also listen to this interview.
And an official summary of America's overthrow of the democratically-elected president of Iran in the 1950's states, "In cooperation with the Department of State, CIA had several articles planted in major American newspapers and magazines which, when reproduced in Iran, had the desired psychological effect in Iran and contributed to the war of nerves against Mossadeq." (page x)
In fact, the large media companies have drummed up support for all previous wars. For example, Hearst with the Spanish-American War. And the military-media alliance has continued without a break (as a highly-respected journalist says, "viewers may be taken aback to see the grotesque extent to which US presidents and American news media have jointly shouldered key propaganda chores for war launches during the last five decades.")
Indeed, the American press has always served the elites in disseminating their false justifications for war.
Why?
One of of the reasons is because the large media companies are owned by those who support the militarist agenda or even directly profit from war and terror (for example, NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the largest defense contractors in the world -- which directly profits from war, terrorism and chaos).
Another seems to be an unspoken rule that the media will not criticize the government's imperial war agenda.
9/11 was one of the main justifications for the Iraq war, as well as the entire American imperial war agenda. Revealing the truth about 9/11 would undermine the main reason for those wars, and therefore, is in direct conflict with the media giants' efforts to drum up support for war.
And the media support isn't just for war: it is also for conspiracies by the powerful. For example, a BBC documentary shows that
there was "a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by a group of right-wing American businessmen . . . . The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression."Moreover, "the tycoons told General Butler the American people would accept the new government because they controlled all the newspapers." See also this book.
Have you ever heard of this conspiracy before? It was certainly a very large one. And if the conspirators controlled the newspapers then, how much worse is it today with media consolidation?
Censorship by the Government
Finally, as if the media's own interest in covering up things like 9/11 and in promoting war is not strong enough, the government has exerted tremendous pressure on the media to report things a certain way. Indeed, at times the government has thrown media owners and reporters in jail if they've been too critical. The media companies have already felt great pressure from the government to kill any real coverage of 9/11 other than the official story and attacking straw men.
For example, the head of CNN said:
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
