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| The war on media terror |
| 10.05.03 (6:53 pm) [edit] |
I watched John Pilger’s “Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror” on TV One last Friday. I found it to be a comprehensive critique on the American invasion of Iraq this year. Particularly interesting to me, was the overview of the part the media played in the invasion and how the media operates in such situations.
The documentary concentrated on the fact that the war was ‘sold’ to governments and the public through dishonesty. War was described to be the last resort for dispelling an imminent threat – the ‘fact’ that Iraq possessed a massive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. These were never found and it is estimated that up to 10,000 civilians died in the invasion. The documentary showed footage of Colin Powell as well as the US security advisor Rice’s media statements in February and July 2001, where they both unequivocally state that Saddam Hussein was not a threat to the US. This is now widely considered to be the truth – a truth that was then covered up and forgotten post September 11. A former CIA official stated that the claim of imminent threat from weapons was “95 Per cent a charade”.
The documentary considers that the media played a vital role in the invasion. This is because instead of challenging the proposal, they “amplified and echoed” it. In fact the doco goes as far as saying that if the media had been more aggressive regarding the proposal, there is a good chance that they would not have gone to war at all. As I discussed in my last blog concerning Paul Holmes, the public's voice can count if everyone speaks up – and it is the same for speaking out against government proposals. Despite this, because the media play such a significant role in society and inform us of what is going on, the public opinion is often shaped around what they say. Subsequently, because the politicians out-manoeuvre the media by feeding them propaganda and because the reporter’s show up and write down what the politicians say, our ‘news’ is not really investigative journalism but spoon-fed propaganda. This is why whenever Bush’s ratings decline, he stirs up fear in the American people, making them paranoid of the consequences of any alternative to what he considers to be right.
As one of the interviewees stated: “fact is fiction, fiction is fact.”
When will we stop allowing the media to dictate via the politicians, what we agree and disagree with? How can our own voices and opinions be heard and how can these be unbiased and not already shaped by what the media tells us? When it gets to the point where 10,000 innocent people are killed in part because of a passive media, we must see that something is wrong. I wonder if alternative media forms such as weblogs could help / are helping to change this. I guess time will tell.
I think it is quite clear to us all who really has the 'weapons of mass destruction'... and who is using them.
(Katie)
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