War against Iraq By Olivier Gaudreau
When the US initiated the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it gave the justification that the Iraqi dictator, Saddam aided the perpetrators of the September 11 attack on United States soil. The Bush administration also accused Saddam of engineering a nuclear program and amassing destructive weapons. All the US justification and the entire war have been highly criticized on many fronts. The media has taken the lead on shaping public opinion on both sides of the war, that is, the US or rather North America and the Middle East. It is a fact that citizens get to understand an issue such as the Iraq war through the perspective of the media (Al-Rawi, 2013). This paper focuses on the media, its portrayal of the war and the effect of its perspective.
North American Media’s Portrayal on the Iraq War
The Bush administration claimed that they intended to protect the American people from the imminent or future attacks by Saddam from the weapons of mass destruction. They further claimed that their goal was to install the much needed democracy in Iraq. What surprises is the fact that these arguments were not questioned as it should in the US media. The Iraqi war was depicted as USA verses Iraq or Bush verses Saddam. The perception assumed that the only players were Bush and Saddam and the goal being to win the war.
Media coverage only displayed the fact that Saddam`s regime was a threat to world peace and that the only solution was to go to war (Miller and Gordon, 2002). It failed to highlight past relations between the US and Iraq such as the 1991 war and its consequences on the Iraqi people over the decades. Coverage only focused on the past relations between Iraq and the Al-Qaeda. The US media could have consid...
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1. Although most journalists would state that their main objective in reporting on a story is to maintain impartial, this with the onset of cable news stations as well as the internet has become increasingly rare. Cable news stations such as CNN and FOX news are increasingly influenced by the politicians and corporations which control most of their funding. As Michael Moore states in his documentary “ Fahrenheit 9/11”, which ironically is another good example of bias in the media, the man in charge of Fox News’ decision desk on election night was none other then George Bush’s first cousin. I would seem impartially may be compromised in this situation. To say that the media worked together with the media to promote the Iraq war may be an exaggeration, however the media in know way held the government responsible for the fraud that they committed in invading Iraq. The media, whether knowingly or not, promoted the Bush Administrations agenda in Iraq by arousing overwhelming feelings of nationalism in the American people. It then became unpopular, or un-american to oppose the war. In the case of the Iraq war the media failed to properly fulfill its responsibility of maintaining accountability in government as well as most importantly reporting in an impartial style.
Bill Moyer’s PBS series, Buying The War, focuses on journalist’s impact and failure to go up against the Bush administration regarding the sought war in Iraq post 9/11. This documentary portrays how powerful the media was towards the nation, and how useless it was when challenging Bush and his team about whether America should go to war or not with Iraq. We can see how Bush and his administration persuaded the media enough, and to some extent controlled them, in order for them to communicate the message that going to war was the best choice. Patriotism played a vast role because reporters could not go against Bush and reject what he was saying or it would be considered “unpatriotic”. In addition to this, the bias in the media was also a major player that can be connected to patriotism. The media post 9/11 was
In conclusion, the media played a big role when it came to influencing people from all around the world. The media did an excellent job at manipulating millions of people. The sad part is they did it with absolute ease. As discussed throughout this piece, the media manipulated the feelings of people in regards to 9/11 on a daily basis, increased the belief of Islamophobia, and help create many lasting effects directly in relation with 9/11. Ultimately, 9/11 is an event that will go down in history as one of the most devastating events to ever take place.
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In September 1980, Iraq invaded Iran because of a territorial dispute. This led to a long drawn out war that cost many lives and billions of dollars in damages, with either side unable to claim victory. This paper will focus on the three things that distinguish this war from previous wars. First, it was an excessively protracted and attritive war, lasting eight years, essentially destabilizing the region and devastating both countries. Second, it was a disproportionate war in regards to the means employed by either side. Iraq was supported by Kuwait, the United States, and several other Western European countries, allowing them to acquire advanced weapons and expert training (History.com staff, 2009). Lastly, this war used three modes of warfare not seen in previous wars: ballistic-missile attacks, the use of chemical weapons, and attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf (History.com staff, 2009).
September 11, 2001 marked a tragic day in the history of the United States; a terrorist attack had left the country shaken. It did not take long to determine those who were behind the attack and a call for retribution swept through the nation. Citizens in a wave of patriotism signed up for military service and the United States found resounding international support for their efforts in the war on terror. Little opposition was raised at the removal of the Taliban regime and there was much support for bringing Osama Bin Laden and the leaders of al-Qaeda to justice. Approval abroad diminished approximately a year and a half later when Afghanistan became a stepping stone to the administration’s larger ambition, the invasion of Iraq. The administration would invent several stories and in some cases remain silent of the truth where would prove positive for the Iraqi invasion. It seems they were willing to say anything to promote the largely unpopular and unnecessary war they were resolved on engaging in.
I’m a frequent traveler. When doing regular traveling one gets to compare and contrast different cultures on regular basis. Most of these comparisons include foods, clothes or simple social attributes. Lately however I have to come to realize a sharp and quite disturbing difference in US media. Whenever I have the chance to compare news coverage in the middle-east I find myself confused and parted. I often find American news coverage, TV and newspapers alike, being bias, especially those covering problems in the Israeli/Palestine conflict. It seems as if I am watching two different wars. In America I am watching a stronghold power, Israel, fighting the endless terrorism brought by Palestinians. In Europe I see a war between two nations in despair thoroughly trying to fight terror from both sides of the conflict. I consistently find myself questioning American newspapers, as they use overly strong terminology and definitions on top of puzzling omission of essential facts. This paper was made to research and analyze the cause of my questioning while comparing these causes to Europe in order to see if my questioning is justified. I found that because of small groups with pro-Israeli interests dictating this country, U.S government has a need to manipulate and slant media in order to get accord for their action. The questionable U.S actions include extremely imbalanced aid to the Middle/East conflict, favoring Israel. However, before I could draw any conclusion of a U.S bias I had to analyze whether my accusations for U.S media bias was justified. The manipulation becomes quite evident if one analyzes seven common violations of objective journalism: selective omission, misleading definitions and terminology, imbalanced reporting, opin...
The Just War theory has some moral contents, but it is significantly pragmatic in its character and application. Both sides of a war want to claim that their causes are just. They frame the war aims as ‘just’ to achieve support of the public and the international community. Even Generals project the justness of the war which tends the soldiers to fight longer and fiercer against the enemy. Hence, ‘justness’ or ‘rightness’ of a war are important for any military intervention. However, it is very difficult to define what is ‘just’ or ‘unjust’. I argue that elites give the interpretation of the ‘justness’ of a war and media coverage helps to reach that interpretation to the public. Existing literatures of public opinion argue that information about the successes or the failures, objectives of a mission, number of casualty or elite cues are variables regarding public support for the wars. I argue that elite consensus is most important variable for shaping public opinion concerning war and it determines rightness of waging, continuing and ending a war. In this paper, I analyze the relationship between elite consensus and media coverage in shaping public opinion about justness of military intervention.
Harpreet, Paul. “‘The War You Don’t See’: Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine.” Global Policy in Brief. N. p., 24 June 2011. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
In the book, The Media and Foreign Policy, Simon Serfaty, Executive Director of the Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute in Washington, D. C., and research professor of American foreign policy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced international Studies, shares his own and fellow authors collected essays on the media's effect on foreign policy and foreign policy decision making of the United States, if there is any. Serfaty has edited several books on foreign relations and foreign policies as well as authored many of his books and essays. His work has been primarily focused on foreign policy and foreign relations since the onset and ending of the "Cold War". In The Media and Foreign Policy, Serfaty brings together a collection of essays that defend the media's current and past role of reporting the United States' foreign policy decisions and relations.
9, 10) ?War, Propaganda and the Media? (2003). Online at: <http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Propaganda/Iraq.asp#SomeExamplesofPropaganda>, consulted on March 30th, 2004.
In times of War, the media plays a crucial role both in reporting, monitoring and giving updates. During the Vietnam War of 1955-1975, the American press played crucial roles of reporting until it ended up shifting its tone under the influence of occurrence of some events like the Tet Offensive, the My Lai Massacre, the bombing of Cambodia and leaking of Pentagon papers resulting into lack of trust in the press (Knightly 1975). From the beginning of the war up to present times there have been undying debates over the role of media in the war. The have been various criticisms over the American News Media’s actions and influences on the outcome of the war. The debate is embedded on the particular political assumptions perceived across the American political spectrum. Those criticizing the media for its role are of the opinion that the media misunderstood the United States military effort hence hindering succession of the American will in a war which was to be won.
Since World War II, forms of mass media have significantly changed. The majority of information that was disseminated during World War II was in forms of newspapers, radios, and photos. Over 1,500 cameramen documented World War II with either pictures or video for the world to see (Schickel). A scene in the documentary, “Shooting War: World War II combat cameramen”, a Marine combat cameramen named Richard Brooks asked Lieutenant General Holland Smith ”Mad”, “General, is there a way that we can carry a side arm because we only have our cameras?” the General responded, “I don’t care if the cameras have no film, I want the cameras there in front of you and the cameras there at all times because those are the eyes of the world” (Schickel). The importance of media was one of the efforts that the government wanted to use in order to persuade the American people into supporting the war. A photographer named Jimmy Hare said, "Photographs seem to be the only thing the War department is really afraid of”(Neuman82). The enemi...