Page 176 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

166 Chapter 7

ror" with no concrete end in sight-a "war for peace" which may continue for
decades to come.
While the Bush administration's plans for peace through war initially elic-
ited few criticisms throughout much of the corporate press, media also relied on
doublethink in framing the U.S. as committed to the "humanitarian bombing" of
Afghanistan. CAN described "Operation Enduring Freedom" as "combining
humanitarian action with a military campaign,'"8 specifically in reference to the
37,500 food packages that were dropped alongside cluster bombs in Afghanistan
each day throughout October 2001 and after. The U.S. food drops of only two
million packages (each of which could only feed one Afghan for one day), as
U.S. leaders cut off U.N. food shipments to millions of Afghans, was not con-
sidered a major focus of reporting in terms of implicating the U.S. in massive
human rights violations. For example, Tom Fenton of CBS News interviewed a
soldier who praised the operation by explaining: "Your adrenaline starts pump-
ing, and you know you're doing a good thing for your country-and you're do-
ing a good thing for the people down below you."29 Support for the "humanitar-
ian" food drops coincided well with the rhetoric of President Bush, who
congratulated himself for the United States' "charitable offer" to the Afghan
people, explaining that: "the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the
generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we'll also
drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women
and children of ~f~hanistan."~'
What was largely ignored in the positive reporting of U.S. "generosity" was
that the drops were not part of a humanitarian campaign, considering that U.S.
bombing cut off food to millions of Afghans, while only supplying food to thou-
sands. How such a program could be classified as humanitarian was challenged
by many independent media outlets, which perceived the effort as a ploy on the
part of the Bush administration and corporate media to transform potentially
massive human rights violations into support for human rights. Conversely, in-
dependent American news outlets like Alternet linked the campaign to "Af-
ghanistan's Coming Humanitarian is aster."^' Some foreign press outlets were
quick to criticize the program as well, as George Monbiot of the Guardian of
London clarified some of the misconceptions of American reporters concerning
the extent of this "aid" program.
If you believe, as some commentators do, that this is an impressive or even
meaningful operation, I urge you to conduct a simple calculation. The United
Nations estimates that there are 7.5 million hungry people in Afghanistan. If
every ration pack reached a starving person, then one two hundredth of the vul-
nerable were fed by the humanitarian effort [for one day]. The US Department
of Defense has announced that it possesses a further two million of these packs,
which it might be prepared to drop. If so, they could feed 27 per cent of the
starving for one day.32

Another use of Orwellian doublethink is evident in the mass media's
framing of U.S. actions in Iraq as inherently "peaceful," in opposition to the
violent actions of Iraq's guerilla resistance. The image of the U.S. as a peaceful