Is the mainstream media taking a more adversarial stance to US foreign policy objectives? At first glance, this might seem to be the case, given all of the discussion in the media, especially this past summer, on events involving US human rights violations in detention facilities — Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, etc. Commenting on the exposure of outsourcing torture, Columbia Journalism Review’s Deputy Executive Editor proclaims that “Thanks to the news media of the world, the American people are finding out, a little more each day.” In a narrow sense, this is true; however, it is important to look at how these exposures are being framed in elite commentary.

 

As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, after atrocious events become too obvious to ignore, the media shifts into “damage control” mode. In this mode, ” “public attention is diverted to overzealous patriots or to the personality defects of leaders who have strayed from our noble commitments, but not to the institutional factors that determine the persistent and substantive content of these commitments.” This is in keeping with the “societal purpose” of the mainstream media, as Herman and Chomsky argue in Manufacturing Consent, which is to “inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state.”  Moreover, notes Chomsky,

 

“A threat to dominant ideology arises only when… [US foreign policy] is analyzed in terms of its specific social and economic components and is related to the actual structure of power and control over institutions in American society. One who raises these further questions must be excluded from polite discourse, as a ‘radical’ or ‘Marxist’ or ‘economic determinist’ or ‘conspiracy theorist,’ not a sober commentator on serious issues…But the principle that the United States may exercise force to guarantee a certain global order that will be ‘open’ to the penetration and control of transnational corporations- that is beyond the bounds of polite discourse”(Towards a New Cold War [New York: The New Press, 2003], pp. 146-147).

 

In sum, tactics may be scrutinized and debated but the legitimacy of the entire endeavor may not be touched. It is important to consider these presuppositions and assumptions that frame the argument for elite discussion.

 

Rod Nordland, Newsweek‘s Iraq bureau chief for two years, summarized mainstream opinion towards Iraq in a “reflection” piece titled “Good Intentions Gone Bad” (June 13, 2005, p. 40). He opens by declaring himself to have been “an unabashed believer” in the invasion of Iraq. The validity and legality of the false pretexts for the invasion were irrelevant to Nordland because “America’s good intentions would carry the day.” He concedes that US “good intentions” took a public relations freefall due to the revelation of torture at Abu Ghraib. Nordland blames the abuse on the “incompetence” of the commanding officers because “[a] few soldiers will always do bad things” and not on the fact that it was official US policy. “On top of that,” Nordland laments, “it didn’t work” because “[t]here is no evidence that all the mistreatment and humiliation [of Iraqi detainees] saved a single American life or led to the capture of any major terrorist…” One can only speculate as to the apologetics that would have been heard had the torture and murders of Iraqis led to “actionable intelligence.”

 

The New York Times editorial board (“Un-American by Any Name,” June 5, 2005) agrees with Nordland’s assessment that Abu Ghraib and the rest of the “tightly linked global detention system” managed by the US “does not seem to have been effective” in achieving US strategic objectives. The Times editors contend that “It is time to return to the basic principles of justice that served America so well even in the most perilous times of the past.” Examples of when the rule of law prevailed during “perilous times of the past” are not provided. Perhaps they are referring to the “justice that served” the thousands who were criminally prosecuted during the First World War under the Espionage Act of 1917 where, according to professor of law Zechariah Chafee,

         

“the courts treated opinion as statements of fact and then condemned them as false because they differed from the President’s speech or the resolution of Congress declaring war… [I]t became criminal to advocate heavier taxation instead of bond issues, to state that conscription was unconstitutional…, to urge that a referendum should have preceded our declaration of war, to say that war was contrary to the teachings of Christianity. Men have been punished for criticizing the Red Cross and Y.M.C.A.”

 

Or perhaps the Times editors are referring to the “basic principles of justice that served” Japanese-Americans “so well” during the “perilous times” of WWII when they were interned in concentration camps.

 

While Thomas Friedman, in his column (“Just Shut It Down,” May 27, 2005) does stray from the elite norm and condemns the abuse of detainees as “deeply immoral,” he quickly returns to a more appropriate topic within the mainstream, focusing on why violating international law is “strategically dangerous.”

 

Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek attributes the abuse to a “sense of toughness” within various elements of the Bush Administration, “a Jekyll-and-Hyde problem.” He agrees with the view of historian Walter Russell Mead that “the Bush Administration fits into the ‘Jacksonian tradition’ in American politics”- a “tradition” that Zakaria neglects to remind us included the systematic elimination of the native population in the United States. Zakaria has “some sympathy for the Jacksonian view” but warns that it generates “huge political costs.” “That’s the problem,” he believes, because in today’s world it is difficult to torture and murder with impunity since victims do not “return quietly to their villages…They hire lawyers, talk to human-rights organizations and organize public protests.” Zakaria also insists that the Bush Administration “deserve more credit than they have generally been given” for their “clear and laudable” policy of trying to be viewed as “champion of Muslim freedoms.” He blames the lack of credit on partisan politics as well as when this “clear and laudable” goal gets “mixed up with the botched occupation of Iraq,” which he sees as the rare exception to Bush’s championing of Muslim freedoms.

 

Harvard Professor of Human Rights Michael Ignatieff agrees with the rest of the mainstream consensus that “The fetid example of these abuses makes American talk of democracy sound hollow.” It is important to realize, however, that democracy is assumed by Ignatieff to be one of the objectives of US foreign policy. To him, Abu Ghraib is the exception to what otherwise is a strong US commitment to democracy. Equally troubling are the other arguments and assumptions made in his New York Times Magazine article “Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom Is Theirs to Spread?” This pre-July 4th opus celebrates Thomas Jefferson, the “slave-owning apostle of liberty,” and his “vision” that shaped “the exceptional character of American liberty” which policy makers have selflessly been spreading and defending abroad.

 

Ignatieff laments that “Never has America been more alone in spreading democracy’s promise.” He comments on the “deafening silence” that the United States received from Canada and European nations that declined in “joining the American crusade to spread democracy.” However, Ignatieff assumes throughout the article not only that democracy was the reason for invading Iraq, but that war was the only option. Ignatieff contends that the US “is the last country with a mission, a mandate and a dream, as old as its founders.” He ignores that the United Nations, consisting of nearly 200 nations, also has “a mission, a mandate and a dream.” Equal rights, self-determination and universal peace are a few of the principles it seeks to promote. However, this institution (“the world’s most important multilateral body” according to Bush) received a “deafening silence” from the United States when democracy prevailed. It’s clear that the Bush Administration had no intention of saving succeeding generations from “the scourge of war,” to use the language of the UN Charter. It is revealing that a professor of human rights at one of the most elite institutions in the world is an avid cheerleader for US policy. Perhaps this is what Ignatieff means to “traffic in evils” (NYT Magazine, May 2, 2004)?

 

Ignatieff fails to recall that the world’s second “superpower” (public opinion) received a “deafening silence” from most corporate media institutions, as well as the Bush Administration, when the second superpower adhered to Jefferson’s “unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion.” The majority of citizens throughout the world wanted a peaceful resolution, which they have been advocating since Iraq invaded Kuwait. However, negotiating a peaceful resolution was a “nightmare scenario” for the administration of the senior Bush; the current administration was no different in regards to inspections, lifting sanctions or nonviolent options. This, apparently, is all irrelevant to Ignatieff; he’s more concerned about “damage control.”

 

Ignatieff asserts that “If democracy plants itself in Iraq and spreads throughout the Middle East, Bush will be remembered as a plain-speaking visionary.” According to international law, Bush will be remembered as a war criminal who waged a war of aggression, which is “the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole,” as the Nuremberg judgment puts it.

 

Additionally, Ignatieff begs the question, “Is Iraqi freedom worth this?” Aside from the assumption that “this” was about “Iraqi freedom,” it is revealing how Ignatieff frames this question of “worth.” Not, as an independent mind might assume, in terms of the scores of Iraqi civilians massacred, or the destruction of civilian infrastructure or the degradation of the environment (all of which are war crimes), but rather in terms of whether the rising death rate of US soldiers and diminishing domestic support are “worth” the price of this “[n]oble dream.”

 

It should also be noted that no “liberal” media institution or columnist has called for the resignation of Bush Administration members who have carried out what Friedman called this “deeply immoral” policy, nor has there been any substantive discussion of whether US officials should be charged with war crimes. It is extremely rare within the mainstream media to examine the criminal nature of US foreign policy and its actual motives. They are generally passed off as “good intentions gone bad” or flaws that make “American talk of democracy sound hollow,” which sometimes makes the “worth” of spreading and defending the “exceptional character of American liberty” too costly.

 

Jonathan Schell succinctly sums up the problem of the narrow ideological spectrum of mainstream discourse, similar to a totalitarian nation.

 

“Once the mind is in the grip of such a system, every ‘actually existing’ horror can be seen as a mere imperfection in a beautiful larger picture, every defeat a stage on the way to the glorious future. The simpler and more coherent an ideology, the better it can withstand the assault of fact. So today in Iraq, every act of torture, every flattened city, every gushing sewer, every car bombing and beheading, is presented as a bump on the road to ‘freedom’ for Iraq, or for the Middle East, or even for the whole world, in which our President has promised an ‘end to tyranny.’”

 

Presently, the United States is in violation of international law and does not seem to be changing course anytime soon. Unfortunately, events during this past summer show that US corporate media institutions have no intention of changing their efforts at “damage control” while instilling and defending the “economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state.”

 

 

Mark Major is a master’s candidate in the Public Policy and International Affairs Graduate Program at William Paterson University. Feedback is greatly appreciated: [email protected].

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