6). At home, though, the media can often be co-opted by being made to feel that public opinion would be against it if it reported something other than the prevailing public sentiment. After't he 9-11 attacks, the public wanted the perpetrators and their leaders punished, so the war in Afghanistan had the support of the public. By extension, the idea of the war on terror also had support, though the parameters of that war were never clearly defined and were certainly not explained to the public. The Bush Administration made use of this support when it decided to invade Iran and suggested in many ways that this was a continuation of the war on terror and even that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11. The news media did not do its job as well as it should and did not question most of these assertions until some time had passed. In the early period, the media served more as a conduit for Administration claims and for the continuing drumbeat of right-wing analysts and pundits about the need for this war right now to avoid another attack and a worse attack. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was explicit in this regard when she referred to the possibility of a mushroom cloud over an American city, fostering the false idea that Iraq had nuclear weapons and would use them on the U.S.
Gary Kamiya writes, "It's no secret that the period of time between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq represents one of the greatest collapses in the history of the American media. Every branch of the media failed, from daily newspapers, magazines and Web sites to television networks, cable channels and radio" Kamiya para. 1).
Kamiya says that the lies fostered by the Bush Administration were not challenged or were actively promoted, and he then states that "the press's most notable failure was its inability to determine just why this disastrous war was ever launched" (Kamiya para. 2). This failure is seen as all the greater because the decision to go to war requires more information for the public than other decisions because of the nature of the consequences: "To answer this, we need to look at three broad, interrelated areas, which I have called psychological, institutional and ideological. The media had serious preexisting weaknesses on all three fronts, and when a devastating terrorist attack and a radical, reckless and duplicitous administration came together, the result was a perfect storm" (Kamiya para. 4). Kamiya admits that deciding what is an appropriate action is hard to define and may change under different circumstances, but he also says that in this case it is more clear that the media should have raised more questions and should not have promoted false information that it had not even tried to verify.
One problem may be that the long-term problems in the Middle East are difficult for many in the news media to sort out, given the long and complex history of the region and of U.S. involvement in the region. The U.S. has had a presence in that part of the world for decades and has an ongoing interest first because of the importance of oil from the Middle East and second because of support for Israel and the protection of that country and its people. The U.S. role has become more active in some ways since the 1990s, with military actions twice in Iraq, first with the Gulf War and now with the ousting of Saddam Hussein. The U.S. has also had an ongoing conflict with Iran and close ties to Saudi Arabia. The U.S. Role in the Israel and Palestinian peace process has given the U.S. The role of mediator, a difficult position when two such intractable foes are facing off and are so resistant to accommodation.
The U.S. involvement in Iraq extends back decades and at first was supportive of the regime of Saddam Hussein because Hussein was seen as an ally. Later, the actions taken by Hussein were seen as a threat to world order. This was apparent in the Gulf War in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait to take over the Kuwaiti oil fields, causing the United States and several other countries to join together to expel the Iraqis from Kuwait and restore the balance of power in the region.
In the fall of 1990 the United States, in conjunction with a number of other nations, including several Middle Eastern states, launched an offensive against Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein, in response to the Iraqi invasion of neighboring Kuwait. This offensive...
His treatment of civilian casualties is caustically glib, and his support of the war is spurious and irresponsible. His insensitivity is most apparent when he claims of the war, "the people who ought to have been most affected by it, the population of Iraq itself, seemed scarcely to give it their attention," (p. 4). Keegan takes enormous liberties to make such a ludicrous assertion and without any proof. The
The primary targets of the war are still at large, rendering all use of American and British weapon technology useless and in fact, more damaging to Iraqi civil society. Indeed, weapon technologies are only as effective as the people who manage and use them. The American military, despite its sophisticated weapons, failed to capture Al-Qaeda because their weapons were not used strategically -- that is, weapons only become effective when
" (Campo, PAGE) Such statements remind historians of colonialism, where invaders believed that their society was superior to the culture they were supplanting, while reaping significant financial rewards for doing so. However, the United States has never claimed financial gain. The real criticism of this war is the rush to get there. The United States planned to solve the Iraqi war with force of arms even while the U.N. was
Iraq War-Justification So much has already been said about Iraq War and the grave error that United States made by invading Iraq that it seems absurd to even suggest that this war was justified. But we must not ignore both sides of the coin. We have already discussed the anti-war arguments and have come to believe that serious judgment errors were made when United States, Britain and Australia agreed to launch
What makes me cringe even more is the continued claim that we are "liberators (Byrd, 2003)." The facts don't seem to support the label we have so euphemistically attached to ourselves (Byrd, 2003). True, we have unseated a brutal, despicable despot, but "liberation" implies the follow up of freedom, self-determination and a better life for the common people (Byrd, 2003). In fact, if the situation in Iraq is the result
Iraq War Since the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration was determined to invade Iraq. Although no weapons of mass destruction were found, the Bush administration maintained that Iraq was an active threat to the peace and security of the United States and its citizens and so felt the need to invade Iraq. The United Nations refused its support for the war on Iraq
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