[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Solomon / The New Media Offensive for the Iraq War / Dec 05

Tue Dec 5 22:21:04 CST 2006

Begin forwarded message:

> From: ZNet Commentaries <sysop at zmag.org>
> Date: December 5, 2006 10:04:14 PM CST
> To: brussel at uiuc.edu
> Subject: Solomon / The New Media Offensive for the Iraq War / Dec 05
>
>
> Today's commentary:
> http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-11/26solomon.cfm
>
> ==================================
>
> ZNet Commentary
> The New Media Offensive for the Iraq War December 05, 2006
> By Norman Solomon
>
>     The American media establishment has launched a major offensive  
> against the option of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
>
>    In the latest media assault, right-wing outfits like Fox News  
> and the Wall Street Journal editorial page are secondary. The  
> heaviest firepower is now coming from the most valuable square  
> inches of media real estate in the USA -- the front page of the New  
> York Times.
>
>    The present situation is grimly instructive for anyone who might  
> wonder how the Vietnam War could continue for years while opinion  
> polls showed that most Americans were against it. Now, in the wake  
> of midterm elections widely seen as a rebuke to the Iraq war,  
> powerful media institutions are feverishly spinning against a  
> pullout of U.S. troops.
>
>    Under the headline "Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts  
> Say," the Nov. 15 front page of the New York Times prominently  
> featured a "Military Analysis" by Michael Gordon. The piece  
> reported that -- while some congressional Democrats are saying  
> withdrawal of U.S. troops "should begin within four to six months"  
> -- "this argument is being challenged by a number of military  
> officers, experts and former generals, including some who have been  
> among the most vehement critics of the Bush administration's Iraq  
> policies."
>
>    Reporter Gordon appeared hours later on Anderson Cooper's CNN  
> show, fully morphing into an unabashed pundit as he declared that  
> withdrawal is "simply not realistic." Sounding much like a Pentagon  
> spokesman, Gordon went on to state in no uncertain terms that he  
> opposes a pullout.
>
>    If a New York Times military-affairs reporter went on television  
> to advocate for withdrawal of U.S. troops as unequivocally as  
> Gordon advocated against any such withdrawal during his Nov. 15  
> appearance on CNN, he or she would be quickly reprimanded -- and  
> probably would be taken off the beat -- by the Times hierarchy. But  
> the paper's news department eagerly fosters reporting that  
> internalizes and promotes the basic worldviews of the country's  
> national security state.
>
>    That's how and why the Times front page was so hospitable to the  
> work of Judith Miller during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.  
> That's how and why the Times is now so hospitable to the work of  
> Michael Gordon.
>
>    At this point, categories like "vehement critics of the Bush  
> administration's Iraq policies" are virtually meaningless. The bulk  
> of the media's favorite "vehement critics" are opposed to reduction  
> of U.S. involvement in the Iraq carnage, and some of them are now  
> openly urging an increase in U.S. troop levels for the occupation.
>
>     These days, media coverage of U.S. policy in Iraq often seems  
> to be little more than a remake of how mainstream news outlets  
> portrayed Washington's options during the war in Vietnam. Routine  
> deference to inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom has turned many  
> prominent journalists into co-producers of a "Groundhog Day" sequel  
> that insists the U.S. war effort must go on.
>
>    During the years since the fall of Saddam, countless news  
> stories and commentaries have compared the ongoing disaster in Iraq  
> to the Vietnam War. But those comparisons have rarely illuminated  
> the most troubling parallels between the U.S. media coverage of  
> both wars.
>
>    Whether in 1968 or 2006, most of the Washington press corps has  
> been at pains to portray withdrawal of U.S. troops as impractical  
> and unrealistic.
>
>    Contrary to myths about media coverage of the Vietnam War, the  
> American press lagged way behind grassroots antiwar sentiment in  
> seriously contemplating a U.S. pullout from Vietnam. The lag time  
> amounted to several years -- and meant the additional deaths of  
> tens of thousands of Americans and perhaps 1 million more  
> Vietnamese people.
>
>    A survey by the Boston Globe, conducted in February 1968, found  
> that out of 39 major daily newspapers in the United States, not one  
> had editorialized for withdrawing American troops from Vietnam.  
> Today -- despite the antiwar tilt of national opinion polls and the  
> recent election -- advocacy of a U.S. pullout from Iraq seems  
> almost as scarce among modern-day media elites.
>
>    The standard media evasions amount to kicking the bloody can  
> down the road. Careful statements about benchmarks and getting  
> tough with the Baghdad government (as with the Saigon government)  
> are markers for a national media discourse that dodges instead of  
> enlivens debate.
>
>    Many journalists are retreading the notion that the pullout  
> option is not a real option at all. And the Democrats who'll soon  
> be running Congress, we're told, wouldn't -- and shouldn't -- dare  
> to go that far if they know what's good for them.
>
>    Implicit in such media coverage is the idea that the real  
> legitimacy for U.S. war policymaking rests with the president, not  
> the Congress. When I ponder that assumption, I think about 42-year- 
> old footage of the CBS program "Face the Nation."
>
>    The show's host on that 1964 telecast was the widely esteemed  
> journalist Peter Lisagor, who told his guest: "Senator, the  
> Constitution gives to the president of the United States the sole  
> responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy."
>
>    "Couldn't be more wrong," Sen. Wayne Morse broke in with his  
> sandpapery voice. "You couldn't make a more unsound legal statement  
> than the one you have just made. This is the promulgation of an old  
> fallacy that foreign policy belongs to the president of the United  
> States. That's nonsense."
>
>    Lisagor was almost taunting as he asked, "To whom does it belong  
> then, Senator?"
>
>    Morse did not miss a beat. "It belongs to the American people,"  
> he shot back -- and "I am pleading that the American people be  
> given the facts about foreign policy."
>
>    The journalist persisted: "You know, Senator, that the American  
> people cannot formulate and execute foreign policy."
>
>    Morse's response was indignant: "Why do you say that? ... I have  
> complete faith in the ability of the American people to follow the  
> facts if you'll give them. And my charge against my government is,  
> we're not giving the American people the facts."
>
>    Morse, the senior senator from Oregon, was passionate about the  
> U.S. Constitution as well as international law. And, while  
> rejecting the widely held notion that foreign policy belongs to the  
> president, he spoke in unflinching terms about the Vietnam War. At  
> a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Feb. 27,  
> 1968, Morse said that he did not "intend to put the blood of this  
> war on my hands."
>
>    And, prophetically, Morse added: "We're going to become guilty,  
> in my judgment, of being the greatest threat to the peace of the  
> world. It's an ugly reality, and we Americans don't like to face up  
> to it."
>
> _____________________________
>
> Norman Solomon's latest book, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and  
> Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," is out in paperback. For  
> information, go to: www.warmadeeasy.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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