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Village Voices
By Mark Marcoplos
Media failure
It is reported that more than half of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein
is responsible for the terrorist attacks of 9/11. This means that the U.S. media
have utterly, spectacularly, shamefully and pathetically failed.
One of the most interesting aspects of this war has been the overall superiority
of the Internet as a source of news. In many cases, of course, this actually
means access to news reports from all the world's media except the United States.
Do the majority of the world's citizens, who oppose the war, really just hate
freedom or are they getting better information? At any rate, without the Internet
we are truth-deprived.
In one sense, the U.S. mainstream media has proved their total irrelevancy as
an accurate information source. Tragically, it is worse than that. They have
proved that they have neither the professional journalistic integrity nor the
individual ethical foundation to resist being enlisted to support a war that
they of all people are aware is based on lies.
First off, all you war-drum beaters and troop supporters out there, send in
your outraged letters. All I ask is that you provide a shred of real evidence
of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. Or tell the readers that
the Bush cabal didn't lie about the forged documents purporting to prove Iraq
had a nuclear program, or the plagiarized California grad students thesis that
Colin Powell claimed came from unimpeachable sources, or the aluminum tubes
that no one in the world considered evidence of nuclear weapons construc-tion,
not even the Pentagon fundamentalists who cynically put forth this nonsense.
I urge you to write, but spare me the sanctimonious, unpatriotic smearing and
give me some facts.
And please, don't play the "support the troops" bait-and-switch game.
The Carrboro Board of Alderman got snookered on that one, even going so far
as to say they wanted the troops to have all the logistical support they needed
to complete their jobs. Translation: Now that you are stuck fighting a war that
we already understand to be illegal and unnecessary, we will stand by quietly
while you kill thousands of Iraqis -- not only young men and boys in the Iraqi
army, but more than a thousand innocent people. And wound many thousands more,
including young children with their arms blown off or blinded by shrapnel. And
we will stand by quietly while you die, get wounded, or psychologically warped.
Supporting the troops apparently does not include opposing the use of depleted
uranium shells that ruined the lives of tens of thousands of Gulf War vets and
will do the same this go-round, with barely a mention in the media, those so
intent on supporting the war effort at the expense of authentic journalism.
Not to mention the hellish experience of war itself. Veteran war correspondent
Chris Hedges recently wrote in an essay decrying the censorship that has kept
images of the true face of war's destruction out of American living rooms, "If
we saw the deep psychological scars of slaughter, the way it maims and stunts
those who participate in war for the rest of their lives, we would keep our
children away."
Supporting the troops also apparently does not apply to the media that have
glossed over or ignored the lies and bribery that laid the groundwork for this
invasion. How absurd that the mother of a killed soldier was heard to say on
the radio that her boy died to protect Salt Lake City where she lived.
What did he die for? Put "Project For a New American Century" in your
search engine. The late '90s think tank membership reads like the Iraqi War
chickenhawk roster: Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney, Abrams, Jeb Bush and more. It's
a simple doctrine they crafted. Enlarge U.S. power and resource control by expanding
the military, choosing a conflict that would result in a quick win and an impressive
show of force to the rest of the world (Iraq was singled out by them as the
preferred country), and then continue on to invade other countries (with Egypt
and Saudi Arabia mentioned in order to gain control of the Mideast specifically).
Did we really think that the world's most incredible military machine would
not inevitably attract the type of maniacal people that throughout human history
have always been attracted to positions of enormous power? Do we think that
these people -- even though they exhibit the same disrespect for truth, the
same propensity for self-aggrandizement, the same contempt for democracy and
freedom as petty power-grabbers through the ages -- are somehow more trustworthy
because they are Americans?
Here's a quote from one of the most powerful people in the world today, Richard
Perle, close adviser to Bush who is also known in Washington as the Prince of
Darkness. "If we let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it
entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage
total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now."
Mark Marcoplos is a builder living in Orange County. Messages for him can be
sent to marcoplos@mindspring.com or left at 933-5562.