Want to know what corporate media look like when they’re reporting for duty?
On the most recent CBS‘s Face the Nation (9/28/14), host Bob Schieffer previewed the guests who would be appearing on the show:
We will get the latest on the mission and what it entails from Deputy National Security Adviser Anthony Blinken, retired General Carter Ham, former Pentagon official Michele Flournoy and former Deputy Director of the CIA Mike Morell.
So that’s a current government official, a retired general, and retired Pentagon and CIA officials. Now that‘s a diverse line-up.
On ABC‘s This Week (9/28/14), Martha Raddatz was reporting from Bahrain to give viewers a close look at a US aircraft carrier. The segment couldn’t have appeared more like an infomercial for the US Navy:
These sailors understand their jobs are critical. We watched these men and women assemble bombs, putting together a 500-pound precision-guided weapon capable of leveling a building, and above them, the bombs were loaded onto aircraft bound for the war zone.
Raddatz also told viewers that “the deck of an aircraft carrier is an incredibly dynamic place,” and that
throughout this deployment there has not been a single serious mishap, and well over 250 missiles and bombs have been dropped on Iraq and Syria.
This Week also tapped former military officials for analysis; here’s Raddatz introducing her guest:
And now our ABC contributor, former Marine Corps fighter pilot and State Department official Colonel Steve Ganyard, is here to help break down these new developments.
And, for the sake of diversity, the former military official was balanced later on by throwing softballs to a current military official:
RADDATZ: And we are now back on land, and joining us now is Vice Admiral John Miller, who is the commander of US naval forces for Central Command and the commander of Fifth Fleet here in Bahrain. Admiral Miller, let’s start with what you really have accomplished with those air strikes.
When government officials launch an ill-defined war based on dubious claims about a threat to the “homeland,” you might hope that would be the time for reporters to aggressively examine and question government claims. But corporate media see things differently; war time is when TV screens are full of former generals and hawkish politicians, and reporters are busy transmitting official claims. As CBS Evening News reporter Bob Orr (9/24/14) told viewers last week:
Pentagon officials said, in fact, the bombs and missiles hit every intended target.
When have they ever said any different?
The lap dogs of war
“Capable of leveling a buiding.” Yes, and all its occupants, men, women, and children. Fortunately it still causes many people in this country some distress when they learn that women and children routinely die as a result of US military actions abroad. So it’s best to refer to the leveling of a building rather the death of all the people inside. I’m reminded of the public relations campaign that the US government pursued leading up to the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Clearly, entire cities would be destroyed. Clearly these were civilian targets. One needs to dehumanize the enemy. And so the propaganda campaign pursued by the US was to turn these civilian targets into military targets by claiming all the citizens of Japan were soldiers: the elderly, the infirmed, the two-year old little girl, the mother, and so forth. They were really a military target because all of Japan from time immemorial was a militaristic society. So we need to make the problem go away. What was the lesson of the Vietnam War? Control the media. Egad! We don’t want any more pictures of My Lai. And to those who say all this is collateral damage or the enemy is just as bad or war is hell, I would ask, Who benefits from all this death? Cleary not the grunts dying on either side. Hmmm . . . maybe they should clasp hands and turn their guns on the real problem . . .
Is it just my imagination or does it not seem like, more so than ever before during the last ignominious dozen years of hugely dishonest hugely expensive American military debacle, our media are selling us a massive pro-government pro-war pile of shit.
Is it just my imagination or does it not seem like, more so than ever before during the last ignominious dozen years of hugely dishonest hugely expensive American military debacle, our media are selling us a massive pro-government pro-war pile of shit. Triton Scott
Nope, it’s not your imigination.
Thanks to Peter Hart for writing about the long tentacles of the war profiteering industry (aka MIC). This Middle East conflagration was predicted in the 1940’s by then Secretaries of State and Defense, who watched it get started. The historical facts are succinctly given in “War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror” at
http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
A message from one of the “collateral damage” candidates (a civilian woman in Syria) said:
We used to hear the Assad’s planes and helicopters roaring in the air, and run for our lives , some will be killed by the explosive barrels and others will escape death, now ,we will not hear or see anything, and all of the sudden an explosion will destroy a building and all who is there will be killed; No escape anymore, while the Assad’s planes are still doing their own job and killing more civilians, no worry about any international criticism or pressure to stop destructing people’s lives, all targets hit are now considered “extremists/terrorists” .
What an achievement for our brave world class army!
Scandalous
by the way my previous message was a message from a real woman in Syria , not an imagined one