John Whitehead's Commentary
Why Won't They Show Us What Is Really Happening in Iraq?
On Wednesday, March 31, 2004, jubilant Iraqis dragged the charred corpses of four American contract workers--who had been killed in a rebel ambush--through the streets of Fallujah, a city roughly 35 miles west of Baghdad. Chanting "Fallujah is the graveyard of Americans," the crowd cheered after the grisly ambush, which left the vehicles in flames. Others chanted, "We sacrifice our blood and souls for Islam."
Associated Press Television News footage (which can be viewed by clicking here or here) shows an Iraqi man gleefully beating the burnt head of a charred corpse with a metal pole. Others tie a yellow rope to a body that has been reduced to a mangled torso, hook the corpse to a car and drag it down the main street of town. Another Iraqi then displays what appear to be dog tags taken from one of the American bodies. Two burned, blackened corpses that have been reduced to something resembling charred meat are hung--like slaughtered animals--from a green iron bridge across the Euphrates River. Beneath the bodies, an Iraqi man holds a printed sign with a skull and crossbones and the phrase, "Fallujah is the cemetery for Americans."
On the morning of the attack, a news anchor casually mentioned the incident in several sentences. However, no footage or pictures of the massacre were shown, despite the fact that they are readily available. And then, as if all news stories were of equal importance, the anchor, with an insipid smile painted on her face, quickly moved on to speak of entertainment items.
It left me wondering why, while the actual footage is grisly, it wasn't shown on network television? Perhaps it wasn't shown because the sight of American bodies being mutilated forces us to face up to the tragic reality of the Iraqi situation. It pushes it in our faces. Yet, with American taxpayers providing the funding for what passes as the "occupation" of Iraq by American soldiers, isn't that exactly where it belongs? In our faces.
This recent burst of killings--which also included five American soldiers in a roadside bombing nearby Fallujah--brought March's death toll for U.S. soldiers up to the second-highest for any month since the end of major combat. Over 600 American soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. Of that total, some 500 have died since May 1, 2003, when President Bush flew onto an aircraft carrier off the California coast to declare the end of major combat in Iraq.
As the Seattle Times reports, some observers believe that the media's practice of not showing troubling scenes of what is really happening in Iraq could help the White House maintain public confidence in the war effort.
Yet with the continued killing of American soldiers and civilians, it is painfully obvious that Iraq has become a hotbed of hate directed at the United States. Indeed, Wednesday's slaughter and mutilation of the American corpses is, as Associated Press writer Sameer Yacoub notes, "reminiscent of the 1993 scene in Somalia, where a mob dragged a corpse of a U.S. soldier through the streets of Mogadishu." This eventually led to the American withdrawal from the African nation.
And lest we forget, it was the television networks that exposed some of the government subterfuge of Vietnam. Then, like now, Americans at home generally associated the Vietnam War with parades, patriotism and politics. However, when television reporters finally started showing footage of the war's devastation, opinions began to change. In fact, it was mere images of the Vietnam War, not actual in-depth coverage, that most affected viewers. Eventually, a factual and more honest press and television coverage of the war destroyed Lyndon Johnson's presidency. After viewing the war's blood and carnage, Americans reacted more negatively to Vietnam than any war preceding it. The same thing could happen with the war in Iraq if we are shown the actual incidents of slaughter and mutilation.
So, why aren't we being shown what is really happening in Iraq? Is it because network executives and government officials fear it might raise such a furor that we will be forced to evacuate Iraq? And why is the media, which supposedly exists to make sure that American citizens are getting the truth, hiding the gruesome facts from us?
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism, said networks' "sanitization of war may have helped the administration prosecute the war" a year ago. Given White House press secretary Scott McClellan's recent advice to reporters to act "responsibly in their coverage," this sanitization is obviously a practice the Bush administration would like to continue.
Yet doesn't the media have a responsibility to speak truth to power and make sure that we are receiving all the facts? Or has the media become so wedded to the bureaucratic government establishment and so dependent on information from the government that reporters now act more as mouthpieces of the state?
The people who founded this country--Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and others--argued that the best safeguard against authoritarian government is an educated citizenry. If the people are not informed, it stands to reason that they are fair game for statist propaganda which, sad to say, consistently emanates from government officials and, all too often, is presented to us over television.
Of late, we the people seem to be floating in a never-never-land of disinformation. But if there is any hope for us to make informed decisions, we must know the facts. We must demand no less than this. And if we choose to ignore the facts at that point, then the fault lies in us.
Associated Press Television News footage (which can be viewed by clicking here or here) shows an Iraqi man gleefully beating the burnt head of a charred corpse with a metal pole. Others tie a yellow rope to a body that has been reduced to a mangled torso, hook the corpse to a car and drag it down the main street of town. Another Iraqi then displays what appear to be dog tags taken from one of the American bodies. Two burned, blackened corpses that have been reduced to something resembling charred meat are hung--like slaughtered animals--from a green iron bridge across the Euphrates River. Beneath the bodies, an Iraqi man holds a printed sign with a skull and crossbones and the phrase, "Fallujah is the cemetery for Americans."
On the morning of the attack, a news anchor casually mentioned the incident in several sentences. However, no footage or pictures of the massacre were shown, despite the fact that they are readily available. And then, as if all news stories were of equal importance, the anchor, with an insipid smile painted on her face, quickly moved on to speak of entertainment items.
It left me wondering why, while the actual footage is grisly, it wasn't shown on network television? Perhaps it wasn't shown because the sight of American bodies being mutilated forces us to face up to the tragic reality of the Iraqi situation. It pushes it in our faces. Yet, with American taxpayers providing the funding for what passes as the "occupation" of Iraq by American soldiers, isn't that exactly where it belongs? In our faces.
This recent burst of killings--which also included five American soldiers in a roadside bombing nearby Fallujah--brought March's death toll for U.S. soldiers up to the second-highest for any month since the end of major combat. Over 600 American soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. Of that total, some 500 have died since May 1, 2003, when President Bush flew onto an aircraft carrier off the California coast to declare the end of major combat in Iraq.
As the Seattle Times reports, some observers believe that the media's practice of not showing troubling scenes of what is really happening in Iraq could help the White House maintain public confidence in the war effort.
Yet with the continued killing of American soldiers and civilians, it is painfully obvious that Iraq has become a hotbed of hate directed at the United States. Indeed, Wednesday's slaughter and mutilation of the American corpses is, as Associated Press writer Sameer Yacoub notes, "reminiscent of the 1993 scene in Somalia, where a mob dragged a corpse of a U.S. soldier through the streets of Mogadishu." This eventually led to the American withdrawal from the African nation.
And lest we forget, it was the television networks that exposed some of the government subterfuge of Vietnam. Then, like now, Americans at home generally associated the Vietnam War with parades, patriotism and politics. However, when television reporters finally started showing footage of the war's devastation, opinions began to change. In fact, it was mere images of the Vietnam War, not actual in-depth coverage, that most affected viewers. Eventually, a factual and more honest press and television coverage of the war destroyed Lyndon Johnson's presidency. After viewing the war's blood and carnage, Americans reacted more negatively to Vietnam than any war preceding it. The same thing could happen with the war in Iraq if we are shown the actual incidents of slaughter and mutilation.
So, why aren't we being shown what is really happening in Iraq? Is it because network executives and government officials fear it might raise such a furor that we will be forced to evacuate Iraq? And why is the media, which supposedly exists to make sure that American citizens are getting the truth, hiding the gruesome facts from us?
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism, said networks' "sanitization of war may have helped the administration prosecute the war" a year ago. Given White House press secretary Scott McClellan's recent advice to reporters to act "responsibly in their coverage," this sanitization is obviously a practice the Bush administration would like to continue.
Yet doesn't the media have a responsibility to speak truth to power and make sure that we are receiving all the facts? Or has the media become so wedded to the bureaucratic government establishment and so dependent on information from the government that reporters now act more as mouthpieces of the state?
The people who founded this country--Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and others--argued that the best safeguard against authoritarian government is an educated citizenry. If the people are not informed, it stands to reason that they are fair game for statist propaganda which, sad to say, consistently emanates from government officials and, all too often, is presented to us over television.
Of late, we the people seem to be floating in a never-never-land of disinformation. But if there is any hope for us to make informed decisions, we must know the facts. We must demand no less than this. And if we choose to ignore the facts at that point, then the fault lies in us.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
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