Page 181 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

A World of Orwellian Doublethink 171

What We've Found." In the article, Fouad Ajami, while admitting that the U.S.
has been guilty of human rights violations at places like Abu Ghraib, continued
to support the war in deference to the humanitarian rhetoric of the President,
congratulating U.S. "leaders [who] took up the sword against Arab-Muslim
troubles and dared to think that tyranny was not fated and inevitable for the Ar-
ab~."'~ The message implicit in this editorial was that, despite the administra-
tion's ultimate responsibility for human rights violations in Iraq, its members
still deserved the benefit of the doubt in their humanitarian attempts to transform
Iraq for the better. Such a view was presented under the assumption that the acts
at Abu Ghraib were not supported by the Bush administration, but rather the
isolated acts of soldiers whose behavior was not representative of the policy
goals of U.S. leaders. Ajami argued that, "there can be no doubting the nobility
of the effort. Abu Ghraib isn't the U.S. war, but merely the failure of a small
number of our soldiers to honor the mission entrusted to them."53 Many critics
of Abu Ghraib maintained the opposite in light of the Bush administration's
circumvention of the Geneva Conventions' protections of POWs during the war
in Afghanistan, as well as other efforts of the Bush administration (noted in
chapters 6 and 8), to ignore or downplay human rights violations on the part of
the U.S. military.
Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek speaks of "a Jekyll-and-Hyde problem" in
which the Bush administration "has wholeheartedly embraced the view that
America must change its image in the Muslim world. It wants to stop being seen
as the supporter of Muslim tyrants and instead become the champion of Muslim
freedoms." At the same time, Zakaria admits that the administration has also
subscribed to a "warrior ethos that believes in beating up bad guys without much
regard for such niceties as international law."54 Zakaria espouses a grand trans-
formation in which the U.S. wants to shed its image amongst many critics as an
oppressor, while also continuing its support of despotic regimes throughout the
region, such as the Saudi royal family and the Egyptian government of Hosni
Mubarak, among numerous others. The tension clearly evident here between
espoused humanitarian goals and realist support for repressive leaders is unsur-
prisingly ignored in most media commentary.
Doublethink also encompasses specific admissions in the media that U.S.
policy, at its core, is driven by a desire for economic domination, most notably
seen in the concern with Iraq's oil reserves, which are amongst the largest in the
world. A full seven months before the war started, the Wall Street Journal
speculated over "the possibility of a long-term bonanza" for U.S. oil companies
"in a region [the Middle East] that contains about two-thirds of the world's
proven oil reserves, but is still largely closed to western companies." A prefer-
able scenario for American companies, according to the Wall Street Journal,
would entail a return to "A pro-American Iraqi government" that "keeps the
country stable and united, opens up to Western companies, and starts raising oil
At about the same time, the Washington Post also drew attention to
the "importance of Iraq's oil," as well as the possibility that "A U.S. led ouster
of Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long ban-