Aohell

Rumsfeld: Ignorance Is Strength!

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said today that the US is losing a media war to al-Qaeda. He said the negative images of war have poisoned the public's view of the US and that the US must respond with a 24-hour propaganda machine.

Absolute crap for a democratic people, Mr. Rumsfeld. But, then again, America is no longer a free nation, so your idea has exceptional merit in that light. Why, indeed, should the full horror of war be evident to anyone but those who will spend the rest of their lives fighting it? Why should the Stop Loss and other troop retention programs be made public? Why should the fact that the insurgency in Iraq escalated after Saddam Hussein was captured be publicized? (A bit of explanation: Many Iraqis didn't want to join the insurgency when there was a chance Saddam could come back. Once captured, they gleefully took shots at occupation forces, knowing the new leader would be someone different. Maybe another murderous jerk, but not Saddam. More likely a normal Arab authoritarian.)

Mr. Rumsfeld plans to wage wars on the headlines and national news teasers, so look for even less reliability from major US media outlets, struggle as they might to protest their continuing relevance. I simply won't believe it, though. The New York Times was all too willing to lie about Stalin to sell papers. That paper hasn't changed. It's ready and willing to print lies, and that paper's supposed to be a shining example of US journalism. Imagine the crap Fox will stoop to in order to bolster the government.

Journalists should be challenging power, especially during a time of war when the rich are making the poor die for their profits.

Thank goodness for places like Link TV which will show journalism that challenges power. Forget the commercial networks which are dependent on their advertisers and corporate parents. The worst war they will show is a traffic jam caused by an IED. The real war, the blood, the shredded bodies, the pistol shots to the face, the corpses piling up in the morgues of Iraq at the rate of about 3000 per month, THAT war is shown in other parts of the world.

I deplore violence, but the Arabs who hate America don't do it because they hate democracy and prosperity: it is because they hate authoritarian governments and poverty, which America has helped to impose upon them through its support of oppressive regimes. Be it Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, America backs nations built upon the oppression and political exclusion of vast parts of society. In the words of journalist Robert Fisk, "It's a wonder the Arabs are so restrained."

But no, the United States government will now work to erode freedom of thought. One cannot conceive of a thought for which there are no words, and if the US press is sanitized further, the very thought of opposing government policy will be alien to the minds of Americans.

To quote Robert Fisk again, "Watch out."