In article <bhbqa0$2d0m$1@pencil.math.missouri.edu>, Dan Clore says...

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FAIR
Terrorism, Television and the Rage for Vengeance 
By Norman Solomon 

We stare at TV screens and try to comprehend the suffering
in the aftermath of terrorism. Much of what we see is
ghastly and all too real; terrible anguish and sorrow. 

At the same time, we're witnessing an onslaught of media
deception. "The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been
accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from
doing," Aldous Huxley observed long ago. "Great is truth,
but still greater, from a practical point of view, is
silence about truth." 

Silence, rigorously selective, pervades the media coverage
of recent days. For policy-makers in Washington, the
practical utility of that silence is enormous. In response
to the mass murder committed by hijackers, the righteousness
of U.S. military action is clear -- as long as double
standards go unmentioned. 

While rescue crews braved intense smoke and grisly rubble,
ABC News analyst Vincent Cannistraro helped to put it all in
perspective for millions of TV viewers. Cannistraro is a
former high-ranking official of the Central Intelligence
Agency who was in charge of the CIA's work with the contras
in Nicaragua during the early 1980s. After moving to the
National Security Council in 1984, he became a supervisor of
covert aid to Afghan guerrillas. 

In other words, Cannistraro has a long history of assisting
terrorists -- first, contra soldiers who routinely killed
Nicaraguan civilians; then, mujahedeen rebels in Afghanistan
.. like Osama bin Laden. 

How can a longtime associate of terrorists now be credibly
denouncing "terrorism"? It's easy. All that's required is
for media coverage to remain in a kind of history-free zone
that has no use for any facets of reality that are not
presently convenient to acknowledge. 

In his book 1984, George Orwell described the mental
dynamics: "The process has to be conscious, or it would not
be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to
be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of
falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while
genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has
become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary
again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it
is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and
all the while to take account of the reality which one
denies -- all this is indispensably necessary." 

Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced "people who feel
that with the destruction of buildings, with the murder of
people, they can somehow achieve a political purpose." He
was describing the terrorists who had struck his country
hours earlier. But Powell was also aptly describing a long
line of top officials in Washington. 

It would be very unusual to hear a comment about that sort
of hypocrisy on any major TV network in the United States.
Yet surely U.S. policy-makers have believed that they could
"achieve a political purpose" -- with "the destruction of
buildings, with the murder of people" -- when launching
missiles at Baghdad or Belgrade. 

Nor are key national media outlets now doing much to shed
light on American assaults that were touted as
anti-terrorist "retaliation" -- such as the firing of 13
cruise missiles, one day in August 1998, at the Al Shifa
pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. That attack,
depriving an impoverished country of desperately needed
medical drugs, was an atrocity committed (in the words of
political analyst Noam Chomsky) "with no credible pretext,
destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and probably
killing tens of thousands of people." 

No one knows the exact number of lives lost due to the
severe disruption of Sudan's meager drug supply, Chomsky
adds, "because the U.S. blocked an inquiry at the United
Nations and no one cares to pursue it." 

Media scrutiny of atrocities committed by the U.S.
government is rare. Only some cruelties merit the spotlight.
Only some victims deserve empathy. Only certain crimes
against humanity are worth our tears. 

"This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil,"
President Bush proclaimed. The media reactions to such
rhetoric have been overwhelmingly favorable. 

But the heart-wrenching voices now on the USA's airwaves are
no less or more important than voices that we have never
heard. Today, the victims of terrorism in America deserve
our deep compassion. So do the faraway victims of America --
human beings whose humanity has gone unrecognized by U.S.
media. 

Underlying that lack of recognition is a nationalistic
arrogance shared by press and state. Few eyebrows went up
when Time magazine declared in its Sept. 10 edition: "The
U.S. is at one of those fortunate -- and rare -- moments in
history when it can shape the world." That attitude can only
bring us a succession of disasters. 

Norman Solomon's latest book is The Habits of Highly
Deceptive Media. 

-- 
Dan Clore

Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord Werdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
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