Page 240 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

230 Chapter 9

bles" in every province of Iraq who would attend caucuses in order to select,
rather than elect, the members of the new Iraqi government as nothing more than
a democratic "fa~ade.''~ Addressing claims that the U.S. and Britain are occupy-
ing Iraq in order to gain control of the country's oil, Tariq Ali maintains: "The
majority of Iraqis will not willingly hand over their oil or their country to the
west. [Iraqi] politicians who try to force this through will lose all support and
become totally dependent on the foreign armies in their country."65 Steele and
other British reporters' portrayals of the U.S. as diametrically opposed to Iraqi
elections and democracy represent a serious departure from the American media
portrayals of U.S. leaders as unconditionally and selflessly committed to further-
ing Iraqi democracy.
Like the British media, the Australian press has also generally been more
balanced in its portrayals of the Iraq war. While the Sydney Telegraph has taken
more pro-war editorial positions, the Sydney Morning Herald reports many con-
troversial stories attacking the American campaign in Iraq. Aside from its re-
porting of American use of firebombs in Iraq, the Sydney Morning Herald also
reported the explosive allegations that Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi
murdered Iraqi prisoners "in cold blood." Paul McGeough reported that, accord-
ing to witnesses on the scene, Allawi killed as many as six alleged "insurgents"
who were blindfolded and handcuffed in a Baghdad police station shortly before
the "transfer of power" to the interim authority in June 2004.~~
Attending to possible charges of dishonesty against the "witnesses" to the
event, McGeough reported that: while the witnesses were approached by the
paper (rather than the other way around), "the witnesses did not perceive them-
selves as whistle-blowers. In interviews with the Sydney Morning Herald they
were enthusiastic about such killings, with one of them arguing: "These crimi-
nals were terrorists. They are the ones who plant the bombs."67 McGeough con-
sidered Allawi to be the strongman the Bush administration preferred to replace
Saddam Hussein. McGeough framed Allawi's motivations for holding power in
occupied Iraq as follows: "He wants the tools that Saddam had. Ominously, he
is restructuring security and intelligence in the image of what Saddam had and
his defence minister, Hazim Shaalan, caused some in Washington to blanch last
week when he told Newsweek: 'We'll hit these people and teach them a good
lesson they won't forget.. .we will cut off their hands and behead them."'68
McGeough's accounts of events in Iraq consistently question the Bush ad-
ministration's viewpoint of the "progress" of democracy. He is critical of the
validity of Iraq's 2005 election, maintaining that the large-scale Sunni boycott of
the election, the inaccuracy of voter rolls (as a result increasing lawlessness and
violence that have deterred voter registration), and illegal U.S. occupation and
supervision have all tested electoral legitimacy.69
Fellow Sydney Morning Herald reporter Tony Kevin also condemns what
he sees as the "indiscriminate effects" of American attacks "on civilians and
civilian homes and infrastructure-acts that are morally indefensible by any
civilized standard." In his news story, "All the Makings of a War Crime," Kevin
condemned the U.S. for its bombing of Falluja. Since Falluja became a symbol
for Iraqi resistance to the U.S., it was "made an example'-its residents pun-