Page 214 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

204 Chapter 8

When the U.S. is directly involved in inciting potential humanitarian crisis,
its role is generally ignored or downplayed in media coverage. Such was the
case in late 2005, when the Independent of London reported that the United
States was "cutting off food and water" to areas where Iraqi civilians lived, forc-
ing them "to flee before attacks on insurgent strongholds."'32 The American
media's reaction was largely muted on the day the story broke in the Independ-
ent. USA Today's weekend edition contained no coverage; neither did papers
like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle, the Chi-
cago Sun Times, the Chicago Tribune, or New York Newsday, although the story
was printed in the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times after it was picked
up from Reuters news service.
Serous disagreement has ensued over the reasons for the "failure" of recon-
struction in Iraq. As discussed above, corporate media sources often blamed
developments such as growing "insurgent violence" and escalating "security
costs," as well as other bureaucratic and organizational problems. A number of
Progressive-Left media venues, however, argued that the U.S. consciously chose
not to adequately commit to reconstruction. In this point there is a serious diver-
gence between the mainstream reporting addressed above, which frames recon-
struction failings on factors other than U.S. disinterest in rebuilding Iraq, and the
Progressive-Left critiques of the Bush administration which claim that it is
largely uninterested in reconstruction. Indeed, the mass media's framing of the
reconstruction as "failing" already assumes that the U.S. is seriously committed
to reconstruction, rather than using such high-minded rhetoric for propaganda
purposes.
Critics throughout Progressive-Left media have suggested that the funds for
reconstruction originally set aside were known to be inadequate in terms of re-
building Iraq. Tom Englehardt and Nick Turse, for example, reported in Sep-
tember of 2005: "the reconstruction [of Iraq] is petering out, because the money
is largely gone. . . . Water and sanitation projects have been particularly hard hit;
while staggering sums, once earmarked for reconstruction, are being shunted to
private security firms whose reconstruction funds were spent without competi-
tive bidding amongst American companies, but handed out to companies like
Halliburton with close ties to the Bush administration." Edward Herman argued
in Z Magazine that: "The U.S. specialty is destruction, not reconstruction, in
accord with the U.S. elite's longstanding giving of primacy to military means,
and the use of force in dealing with target states. We save them by destroying
them, and then move on to the next creative project. . . . In Iraq, there has been a
lot of construction, but not much reconstruction. What have been constructed are
massive U.S. military bases and facilities, repairs of oil extraction facilities, and
protective walls in and around the Green Zone, which is essentially an occupied
fortress within Baghdad. Not much has been done for Iraqi benefit."'33