The More Nefarious US Foreign Policy, The More It Relies on Media Complicity

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/08/06


Former Guatemalan special forces soldier Pedro Pimentel Rios at his trial for his role in the Dos Erres massacre, one of the worst genocides of the post-war era. (Photograph: Moises Castillo/AP)

The US still has military spending that is higher in real, inflation-adjusted terms than it was during the peak of the Reagan cold war build-up, the Vietnam war and the Korean war. We seem to be in a state of permanent warfare, and – we have recently learned – massive government spying and surveillance of our own citizens. This is despite an ever-receding threat to the actual physical security of Americans. Only 19 people have been killed by acts of terrorism in the US since 11 September 2001, and none or almost none of these was connected to foreign terrorists. Also, there are no "enemy states" that pose a significant military threat to the US – if any governments can be called "enemy states" at all.

One of the reasons for this disconnect is that most of the mass media provide a grossly distorted view of US foreign policy. It presents an American foreign policy that is far more benign and justifiable than the reality of empire that most of the world knows. In a well-researched and thoroughly documented article published by the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), Keane Bhatt provides an excellent case study of how this happens.

Bhatt focuses on a popular and interesting National Public Radio (NPR) show, "This American Life" and, most importantly, an episode that won the Peabody Award. The Peabody Award, for distinguished achievement in electronic journalism, is a prestigious prize. So, it makes the example even more relevant.

The episode was about the 1982 massacre in Guatemala. The story gives compelling eyewitness accounts of a horrendous slaughter of almost the entire village of Dos Erres, more than 200 people. The women and girls are raped and then killed; the men are shot or bludgeoned with sledgehammers; and many, including children, are dumped into a dry well – some while still alive – that would become their mass grave. The broadcast walks the listener through a heroic investigation of the crime – the first ever to win punishment for such murders. And finally, it provides a moving account of one survivor who was three years old at the time. Three decades later, while living in Massachusetts, he discovers his roots and his biological father as a result of the investigation. The father lost his wife and his eight other children, but he survived because he happened to be out of town on the day of the massacre.

[PETRUS]

1. K&R

"a compelling illustration of how censorship and self-censorship operate in the US media."

[HughBeaumont]

2. Hell, this could just as well apply to domestic policy.

Example: Getting, at any given time, at least half (or a little less than half) of America to support economic actions against their own interests and worship the affluent. Oh, and convincing people to also blame themselves or anyone to the left of Joe Lieberturd when it all comes crashing down.

A complicit media is more than instrumental in making this happen.