Page 182 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

172 Chapter 7

ished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France, and
other co~ntries."~~
It may be that the perception amongst many in the American media is that
implanting democracy in Iraq is tantamount to privatizing or dominating Iraq's
oil reserves and placing them under the jurisdiction and management of Western
corporations. David Ignatius of the Washington Post combines these two an-
tagonistic ideas (between democracy promotion and foreign control of Iraqi oil)
in one of his columns, as he speaks favorably about the "unambiguously positive
developments" of the Iraq invasion, in which surrounding Arab countries pro-
posed to assist the U.S. by "send[ing] troops to protect Iraq's oil fields" during
the U.S. occupation.57 That the pursuit of oil could be pursued alongside hu-
manitarian objectives was considered an axiom unworthy of question for those
who allude to imperial interests. Columnists like Ignatius, for instance, cheered
the U.S. for toppling "The region's most ruthless and feared dictator. . . his peo-
ple gone from cowering at his seemingly magical powers to taunting his
ghost,"58 while concurrently celebrating U.S. administration of Iraqi oil.

Empire as Democracy

Some pundits throughout the media attempted to re-conceptualize imperialism
as a force for good, rather than one of repression. Conservative Op-Ed writer
Max Boot of USA Today claimed there was "no need to run away" from the la-
bel of American imperialism. Boot contended that, "In [the] contest for control
of Iraq, America can outspend and outmuscle any competing faction." Since
U.S. imperialism "has been the greatest force for good in the world during the
past century" maintaining this position of prestige will "require selecting a new
[Iraqi] ruler who is committed to pluralism, and then backing him or her to the
hilt." Since "Iran and other neighboring states won't hesitate to impose their
despotic views on Iraq; we shouldn't hesitate to impose our democratic
views."59 To Boot, democracy necessarily means the imposition of American
military force and occupation on the Iraqi people. Boot is a strong proponent of
the idea that pacification and occupation are a vital part of the reconstruction
and rehabilitation of Iraq after over two decades of destruction and war. U.S.
occupation and dominance, then, is something that is vital in ensuring pluralist
democracy and national self-determination.
The nahe image of the right-wing, power-hungry imperialist who openly
acknowledges malicious aspirations for world domination should be shed in
favor of a more nuanced view which recognizes that both mainstream liberals
and conservatives see imperialism as the desirable means and ends of U.S. for-
eign policy in terms of promoting democracy and ensuring hegemony. Aside
from neoconservatives like Max Boot, John Lewis Gaddis, a professor of Politi-
cal Science at Yale University, argues in the New York Times that the United
States has "always had an empire. The thinking of the founding fathers was we
were going to be an empire. Empire is as American as apple pie in that sense.
The question is, what kind of an empire do we have? A liberal empire? A re-