De Commerciele Massamedia 117

'MEDIA ALERT: ‘WITH TOTAL DESTRUCTION’ - THE FAILURE OF JOURNALISM IN IRAQ

On March 22, an Economist magazine editorial described the recent violence in Tibet as a "colonial uprising", a "revolt" against foreign occupation. This was accurate, as was the implication that China has no legitimate claims over Tibet. (‘A colonial uprising - Tibet,’ The Economist, March 22, 2008)By contrast, recent media coverage of the fifth anniversary of the 2003 US-UK invasion of Iraq depicted the conflict as an "insurgency”, with the US military engaged in "counter-insurgency”. American media analyst David Peterson commented:“In other words, in Tibet, China is a +colonial power+ and +doesn't belong there+. Okay. But in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military forces are +not+ a colonial power imposing their will from the outside, but +do belong there+, quite unlike the people who are resisting the U.S. forces, who clearly lack this right.” (Email, March 22, 2008)Instead, in covering the fifth anniversary, the media emphasis was on the success of the “surge” in reducing violence. The invasion may have been a disaster, we were told, but the addition of 30,000 extra US troops has stabilised the situation, and so the troops should stay until ‘the job is done’. The presupposition is that the US-UK presence has some kind of legitimacy. Anyone seeking the logical basis for this idea need look no further than George Bush Sr’s comment towards the end of the 1991 Gulf War: “What we say goes.” An Independent editorial inevitably focused on “the totality of our failure” and “the intelligence debacle”, rather than on crimes and audacious lying. The editors commented: “Removing a dictator was only to be the start; the objective was a benign and democratic Middle East - an environment in which Israel and the Palestinians could make peace, and energy exports were plentiful and secure.” (Leader, ‘Five years after the invasion, the totality of our failure is clear,’ The Independent, March 19, 2008)The Independent is happy to take these claims on trust from the same leaders who lied about everything else. Compare this to an online BBC version written by Paul Reynolds, who has consistently shown a willingness to respond to the many net-based activists who have emailed him:"[The invasion] was intended, its proponents argued, to remove a threat to world peace and to plant the flag of freedom in a Middle East democratic desert." And:"The critics countered that the threat was an illusion, that the US was invading illegally and sought control over the region and Iraq's oil." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7293689.stm)

Lees verder: http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php