Page 237 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

Catapult the Media 227

Major media sources in the U.S. have been successful, not only in ignoring
and downplaying U.S. use of WMD in Iraq, but also in narrowly defining what
constitutes a weapon of mass destruction in the first place. U.S. use of incendi-
ary and chemical weapons, or widespread conventional bombing are not defined
as a reliance on weapons of mass destruction, even though the use of such
weapons has led to a minimum of tens of thousands of deaths of Iraq civilians
(see Iraq Body Count and the Lancet Report in chapter 8). Only foreign dictators
who use such weapons are targeted for possessing weapons of mass destruction.
As a result, the definition of what constitutes a WMD in media reporting is in-
herently loaded in favor of those who hold power in the United States. The
theme was taken as axiomatic: official enemies use WMD, the U.S., conversely,
uses "shock and awe" that somehow spares civilian casualties, even while media
sources admit that tens of thousands are dying from such attacks.
The British and Australian media have been characterized by a broader
spectrum of conventional and critical opinions concerning many aspects of the
Iraq War. The British media consists of newspapers such as the Sunday Times
and the Telegraph, which have been less critical of the war, in addition to a
number of mainstream anti-war leaning papers including the tabloid the Daily
Mirror, and daily papers including the Guardian and the Independent. Because
an extensive analysis of the pro-war aspects of the British media has been ex-
plored in depth in other it will not be repeated here.
Australia's Sydney Telegraph (owned by Rupert Murdoch), and the Sydney
Morning Herald have also countered each other in terms of their pro-war and
anti-war dispositions respectively. Little of the sort can be said about the Ameri-
can mainstream media, with its most prestigious newspapers that have been
overwhelmingly pro-war in their support and criticisms of the U.S. occupation
of Iraq. An assessment of the editorial reporting of British and Australian jour-
nalists on issues regarding the Middle East reveals a foundational level of criti-
cism of U.S. and British intentions in Iraq unseen in American mainstream me-
dia. Patrick Cockburn of the Independent, for example, disagrees with the
argument that the U.S. is in Iraq to foster democracy: "the supposed handover of
power" to the Iraqi interim government "has turned out to be no such thing." It
"was always a misnomer. Much real power remained in the hands of the U.S. Its
140,000 troops kept the new government in business. . . . For all their declara-
tions about Iraqi security the U.S. wanted to retain as much power in its own
hands as it Cockburn also takes issue with the assumption in the
American media that Iraqi resistance groups are the enemy of the Iraqi people.
"The simple reason for the rising strength of the Iraqi resistance," according to
Cockburn, is that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are "against the U.S. oc-
cupation" of Iraq, and see it as a means for stifling Iraqi sovereignty.49
Robert Fisk, a veteran reporter of Middle East affairs for the Independent,
calls high unemployment in Iraq, reaching upwards of 80 percent of the popula-
tion, a "recipe for rage and rebellion." Taking issue with the International Mone-
tary Fund and CPA's neoliberalization of Iraq's economy, Fisk believes that the
"free market" model "cannot bring democracy" to Iraq, as it "has been proven
repeatedly to spread unemployment, disaffection, and the hollowing out of