It is a well-known fact that the American public is painfully misinformed and misled. U.S. news outlets are internationally derided for their lack of balanced reporting.
It is interesting to note the differences between the BBC and CNN, for instance. Cosmetically, switching from the BBC to CNN is akin to stepping from College Library onto a roller coaster ride. This is keenly evident in the bumper promotions that both networks use. For instance, the BBC terms its special coverage “War on Iraq” while CNN glorifies the conflict as a “Showdown in Iraq.” CNN’s highly detailed cinematic trailers complete with footage of Saddam Hussein and an orchestral soundtrack are often between five and 15 seconds in length. On the other hand, BBC often has no trailers (the ones it does have are a mere few seconds).
In total disregard of professionalism, CNN often praises itself on the air (almost twice every half hour) as the “most trusted source in news.” Self-praise by a supposedly unbiased media outlet is unprofessional. The “most trusted” source of news would not need to engender more of this trust.
Though the BBC is government sponsored, CNN seems more the mouthpiece of the administration. On average, Headline News spends most of its time covering President Bush and a bevy of retired army personnel and former defense department analysts – all of whom have ties to the government. In a recent interview, the producer of “Bowling for Columbine,” Michael Moore, thanked Aaron Brown for letting him be one of the few non-administration personalities to speak on the air.
This unbalanced reporting has resulted in a war of mass distraction. We are not shocked by this war because we know little about it.
We aren’t shocked when we know this war is in blatant violation of international law. Imagine China unilaterally launching airstrikes against the West Coast because it believes that a Communist state, not a Republic state, is the natural order of things.
We are not shocked while committing a crime of epic proportions. A preemptive strike against a nation is never justified by a disagreement with its leadership. Imagine if those nations that disagree with Bush formed a coalition and declared war on us. After all, we also carry weapons of mass destruction – the largest arsenal in the world.
We aren’t shocked when we learn our nation is committing an act of terrorism. There’s no evidence that Iraq has ties to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks; many experts on the matter (like Daniel Benjamin, former terrorism adviser to the U.S. National Security Council) deny Hussein’s supposed cooperation with al-Qaeda. The Iraqi regime has not killed one American civilian, but over last two weeks the United States has killed scores of Iraqi civilians (not including the hundreds of thousands affected by a dozen years of sanctions). If the obvious killing of civilians is not terrorism, I do not know what is.
We are not shocked when we realize that to this day, Afghanistan suffers from the same maladies which plagued it before the U.S. intervention. In fact, it is in a worse condition than ever before. We are not shocked to learn that Osama bin Laden has yet to be found and that our troops continue to die in order to locate him.
In our distraction and misinformation, we don’t realize the United States has helped train and equip 2.3 million troops in more than 80 countries, including many military dictatorships; many of those matters have not been resolved. North Korea is still seeking to produce nuclear weapons, Somalia is still on the brink of starvation, and Afghanistan continues to be plagued by violence and human strife.
People learn best from their mistakes. Yet, buoyed by public support from a misinformed nation, President Bush continues to seek to change the fortunes of nations regardless of their wishes.
The fate of the Iraqi regime needs to be decided by its own people, not us. Their form of government needs to be drawn up by them, not by us. Their natural resources belong to them, not to Haliburton and Qualcomm. Instead of isolating Hussein and empowering the Iraqi people to overthrow their regime, we have isolated ourselves from the world.
The world is not misinformed, we are. It would be wise to trust the judgement of the 5 billion people who do not watch CNN.