Page 202 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

192 Chapter 8

mainstream academics wholeheartedly reject the charge as ludicrous or un-
founded.
A standard definition of terrorism, declared by U.N. Secretary General Kofi
Annan, includes "any action. . . if it is intended [emphasis added] to cause death
or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of in-
timidating a population or compelling a government or an international organi-
zation to do or abstain from doing any act."55 Such a definition is critical when
discussing terrorism. At the heart of the debate over terrorism and the U.S.
bombing of Iraq are two questions: 1. Is the killing of civilians really "uninten-
tional" in the light of a U.S. bombing campaign which has led to a marked in-
crease in Iraqi civilian deaths, to the disinterest of American leaders?; and 2. If
such killings are unintentional, how important is "intent" when looking at the
actual consequences of American bombings, which have killed at minimum
thousands of innocents throughout Iraq? Does the "unintentional" bombing of
civilians constitute an act of terror, if not according to the definition provided by
Kofi Annan, than at least according to a more expansive definition that defines
terrorism through creation of an environment where civilians fear for their lives
in light of military attacks that systematically fail to distinguish between military
and non-military targets? These questions have been passionately discussed
(with answers presented) throughout much Progressive-Left media commentary,
but such a dialogue has been absent in mainstream media reporting and editori-
alizing.
Proponents of American bombing claim that Americans weapons are ex-
tremely precise in their targeting and that the death of civilians is unintentional,
but always regrettable. Critics of U.S. bombing maintain that such deaths can
never be fully unintended when American military planners and media pundits
already have a term established in advance to describe deaths resulting from
American bombing campaigns. For example, Howard Zinn claims that the kill-
ings of Afghan civilians during Operation Enduring Freedom were less acciden-
tal and more representative of reckless acts of terror. In the Nation, Zinn argued
about "precision bombing": "We have been waging a war on ordinary men,
women and children.. .these human beings have died because they happened to
live in Afghan villages in the vicinity of vaguely defined 'military targets'. . .
the bombing that destroyed their lives is in now way a war on terrorism, because
it has no chance of ending terrorism and is itself a form of terrorism."56 Zinn
argues against the notion that the United States was simply defending itself in
Afghanistan: "the term 'self defense' does not apply when you drop bombs in
heavily populated residential areas and kill people other than your atta~ker."'~
Zinn points to past experiences where American bombing was largely indis-
criminate, such as the first Gulf War, where over 90 percent of the bombs used
were not precision guided.58
Similarly, Gilbert Achcar claims that the use of terms like collateral damage
represent an attempt to deceive the American public over the realities of bomb-
ing heavily populated urban areas: "No civilized ethic can justify deliberate as-
sassination of noncombatants or children, whether indiscriminate or deliberate,
by state or nongovernmental terror." Achcar equates bombing of civilians with