MEDIA BEAT
BUILDING A MEDIA AGENDA FOR WAR
LISTEN UP, FUTURE LEADERS OF AMERICA. If you want to develop the necessary skills for promoting a war agenda in our country's news media, recent events are instructive. Going to war is not simply a matter of ordering soldiers to fire missiles and drop bombs. There's a lot more involved. The public must be induced to accept and even cheer the bloodshed. That requires some careful preparation.
Consider the steps taken by our leaders before missiles began to explode in Yugoslavia on March 24. Prior groundwork was needed. Top U.S. officials deserve a lot of credit--but they couldn't have gotten the job done without assists from reporters in Washington and their colleagues overseas.
Oh yes, there were exceptions--some skeptical journalists raised pointed questions about the harm done by launching a military assault on Yugoslavia--but they mostly served to underscore that dissent can be properly subsumed by a war agenda. Anyone who wants to wield the national-security apparatus of this great nation must learn to steer the mass media in the right direction. It's a matter of sustained guidance rather than turning on a dime.
Let's face it: The world is filled with countries run by governments that abuse human rights. (Yugoslavia is one of many.) But the USA has to be very selective. After all, a lot of those governments are closely allied with Washington. And you can't exactly bomb a government while you're sending it millions of dollars every week! An evenhanded approach to human rights would seriously damage the capacity of the United States to launch attacks across the globe. If you're going to demonize certain leaders--and that's just about a prerequisite for building a war agenda-then you've got to pick and choose.
To create the proper conditions for war, leave as little to chance as possible. Certain criteria must be met in order to exercise appropriate leadership for war:
·If you're going to bomb a country, it may as well be one that arrogantly refuses to allow U.S. troops to be stationed on its soil. (European countries are wonderfully hospitable in this regard, but Yugoslavia is a notable exception.)
·Steadily vilify the leader of the country you're interested in bombing. Repeatedly emphasize his evil deeds so that reporters, editorial writers and pundits will relay the message.
·Meanwhile, to avoid distractions, be careful to downplay or ignore the evil deeds of the governments of countries you're not interested in bombing. If a regime is allied with Washington, you'll want to ignore its human rights violations as much as possible.
·Don't even think about applying a single standard for human rights. The Pentagon would sure look silly firing cruise missiles at countries that receive massive amounts of U.S. aid, such as Egypt, Israel, and Turkey. Get it straight: Some torture is deplorable; some is fundable.
Most skills must be learned, so don't hesitate to sit at the feet of the masters of war. You can appreciate--and emulate--their achievements. The Clinton administration has put its dazzling media acumen behind the NATO forces dropping 2,000-pound bombs on a sovereign nation, in tandem with cooperative American news outlets.
About an hour before the first missiles struck Yugoslavia, viewers heard a Fox News Channel anchor make an understandable slip: "Let's bring in our Pentagon spokesman--excuse me, our Pentagon correspondent." The fact that it's so often difficult to tell the difference is a triumph for effective perception management.
Soon, all the networks were filled with exciting footage of U.S. planes taking off from bases in Italy and England. And, across television screens, a parade of former military officers began. A retired Marine Corps general named Richard Neal-now a "CNN military analyst"--bedazzled a fawning anchor with euphemisms like "neutralize," "take out" and "collateral damage." Just what the spin doctors ordered.
State-of-the-art TV graphics continued to enhance the war-viewing experience for a large nationwide audience of Americans who could see their tax dollars at work--dramatically underscoring President Clinton's longtime assertion that the government can do some things very well. More than one Pentagon spokesman--er, Pentagon correspondent--hailed the "combat debut" of the B-2 stealth bomber. The war was off to a fine start. The Fourth Estate functioned smoothly as a fourth branch of government. Let that be a lesson to you.
IF A CLUSTER BOMB COULD TALK
HI! MY NAME IS CBU-87/B, but let's not be formal. A lot of my friends call me Cluster Bomb. I've been busy lately, doing what I'm supposed to. And I sure appreciate the careful treatment that I receive from the American news media. My pals at the Pentagon put me in the category of a "Combined Effects Munition." My maker describes me as an "all-purpose, air-delivered cluster weapons system." Not to brag or anything, but such labels don't do me justice. When I explode, the results can really be quite awesome.
I have gotten to do my stuff in Yugoslavia this month. One of my memorable performances came at around noon on a Friday. Some people in the city of Nis were shopping at a vegetable market when--boom--I arrived. It was dramatic as hell.
A news article that I found in the May 8 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "the bombs struck next to the hospital complex and near the market, bringing death and destruction, peppering the streets of Serbia's third-largest city with shrapnel and littering the courtyards with yellow bomb casings."
This was one of my few moments in the U.S. media limelight, so forgive me while I quote some more: "In a street leading from the market, dismembered bodies were strewn among carrots and other vegetables in pools of blood. A dead woman, her body covered with a sheet, was still clutching a shopping bag filled with carrots."
I know, it's immodest to flaunt my press notices. But people don't get to see those sorts of news accounts very much in America! If the stories are reported at all, they're usually buried (ha ha) on back pages of newspapers and rarely even mentioned on the networks. Once in a while, some Western journalist decides to put me down. The moralizing can be unpleasant. For instance, a BBC correspondent named John Simpson has been reporting from Belgrade, and he did a rather brusque commentary that the Sunday Telegraph in London published a few days ago.
"In Novi Sad and Nis, and several other places across Serbia and Kosovo where there are no foreign journalists, heavier bombing has brought more accidents," Simpson carped. He complained that cluster bombs "explode in the air and hurl shards of shrapnel over a wide radius." And he went on to say: "Used against human beings, cluster bombs are some of the most savage weapons of modern warfare."
Cluster bombs like me could do without the overheated pejoratives, thank you. Fortunately, we hardly ever have to endure such indignities in the American press. But please don't forget the very real accomplishments that I can partially claim as my own. The next time you see a headline or hear a newscaster referring to the "air campaign," remember that my achievements are outrageously understated by such jargon!
You see, I'm a 1,000-pound marvel, a cluster bomb with an ingenious design. When I go off, a couple of hundred "bomblets" shoot out in all directions, aided by little parachutes that look like inverted umbrellas. Those 'chutes slow down the descent of the bomblets and disperse them so they'll hit plenty of what my maker calls "soft targets." Before that happens, though, each bomblet breaks into about 300 pieces of jagged steel shrapnel.
Sometimes, as a cluster bomb, I get a little jealous of the exaggerated notoriety that the news media confer on outfits like the National Rifle Association. They get credited with the proliferation of murder and mayhem. Well, they're rank amateurs! Piddling sidearms pushers! Compared to me, they're small-time retailers. I'm into wholesale. They don't know how to preserve, protect, and defend the Grim Reaper like I do. I just laugh when I read the nasty things that so many pundits have been writing about the NRA. While they rant and rail against assault rifles that take a few lives now and again in the United States, I've been busy slicing up tender human bodies in Yugoslavia.
When those high school students died in Colorado, the news media kept saying what a horrendous tragedy it was. But what about the work I've done on kids and grownups in Yugoslavia? Journalists merely echo the statements coming out of the White House, mumbling that it's regrettable and can't be helped.
The pundits keep talking about gun control. Meanwhile, big bombs like me are more and more out of control as we roam the skies above Yugoslavia.
Overall, this has been a great spring for me as I serve my lord, the Grim Reaper. And from the standpoint of public relations, I'm doing fine. Back in the offices of top Washington officials, and in the upper echelons of American news media, I've got lots of friends in very high places. They may pretend not to know me, but we understand each other very well.
Norman Solomon's new book, "The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media: Decoding Spin and Lies in Mainstream News," is now available straight from the publisher, Common Courage Press (with a 25% discount off the $15.95 retail price if you order direct by calling 1-800-497-3207). The 290-page book includes an introduction by Jonathan Kozol, a thorough index, and some great cartoons by Tom Tomorrow, Matt Wuerker, and other artists.