We
stare at TV screens and try to comprehend the suffering in the aftermath of
terrorism. Much of what we see is ghastly and all too real; terrible anguish and
sorrow.
At the same time, we're witnessing an onslaught
of media deception. "The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been
accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing," Aldous
Huxley observed long ago. "Great is truth, but still greater, from a
practical point of view, is silence about truth."
Silence, rigorously selective, pervades the
media coverage of recent days. For policy-makers in Washington, the practical
utility of that silence is enormous. In response to the mass murder committed by
hijackers, the righteousness of U.S. military action is clear -- as long as
double standards go unmentioned.
While rescue crews braved intense smoke and
grisly rubble, ABC News analyst Vincent Cannistraro helped to put it all in
perspective for millions of TV viewers. Cannistraro is a former high-ranking
official of the Central Intelligence Agency who was in charge of the CIA's work
with the contras in Nicaragua during the early 1980s. After moving to the
National Security Council in 1984, he became a supervisor of covert aid to
Afghan guerrillas.
In other words, Cannistraro has a long history
of assisting terrorists -- first, contra soldiers who routinely killed
Nicaraguan
civilians; then, mujahedeen rebels in Afghanistan ... like Osama bin Laden.
How can a longtime associate of terrorists now
be credibly denouncing "terrorism"? It's easy. All that's required is
for media
coverage to remain in a kind of history-free zone that has no use for any facets
of reality that are not presently convenient to acknowledge.
In his book "1984," George Orwell
described the mental dynamics: "The process has to be conscious, or
it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be
unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of
guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget
any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary
again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny
the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the
reality which one denies -- all this is indispensably necessary."
Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced
"people who feel that with the destruction of buildings, with the murder of
people, they can somehow achieve a political purpose." He was describing
the terrorists who had struck his country hours earlier. But Powell was also
aptly describing a long line of top officials in Washington.
It would be very unusual to hear a comment
about that sort of hypocrisy on any major TV network in the United States. Yet
surely U.S. policy-makers have believed that they could "achieve a
political purpose" -- with "the destruction of buildings, with the
murder of people" -- when launching missiles at Baghdad or Belgrade.
Nor are key national media outlets now doing
much to shed light on American assaults that were touted as anti-terrorist
"retaliation" -- such as the firing of 13 cruise missiles, one day in
August 1998, at the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. That
attack, depriving an impoverished country of desperately needed medical drugs,
was an atrocity committed (in the words of political analyst Noam Chomsky)
"with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and
probably killing tens of thousands of people."
No one knows the exact number of lives lost due
to the severe disruption of Sudan's meager drug supply, Chomsky adds,
"because the U.S. blocked an inquiry at the United Nations and no one cares
to pursue it."
Media scrutiny of atrocities committed by the
U.S. government is rare. Only some cruelties merit the spotlight. Only some
victims deserve empathy. Only certain crimes against humanity are worth our
tears.
"This will be a monumental struggle of
good versus evil," President Bush proclaimed. The media reactions to such
rhetoric have been overwhelmingly favorable.
But the heart-wrenching voices now on the USA's
airwaves are no less or more important than voices that we have never heard.
Today, the victims of terrorism in America deserve our deep compassion. So do
the faraway victims of America -- human beings whose humanity has gone
unrecognized by U.S. media.
Underlying that lack of recognition is a
nationalistic arrogance shared by press and state. Few eyebrows went up when
Time magazine declared in its Sept. 10 edition: "The U.S. is at one of
those fortunate -- and rare -- moments in history when it can shape the
world." That attitude can only bring us a succession of disasters.
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Norman Solomon's latest book is "The Habits of Highly Deceptive
Media." His syndicated column focuses on media and politics.
