name: Yuram Abdullah Weiler

A Slight Uptick

03 May, 2009

“Despite the declining levels of violence in Iraq over recent months, the latest strikes reflect what appears to be a slight uptick from March to April of assaults on civilians, U.S. and Iraqi security forces, and the U.S.-backed militias called Awakening Councils or Sons of Iraq.”  --Published by CNN on 23 April 2009.[1]

In a breathtakingly expurgatory use of language, CNN refers to the gruesome deaths of over 70 Iraqis by a suicide bomber as “a slight uptick” in violence.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, “uptick” means an increase or upturn,[2] with the word’s etymology in stock market transactions referring to an increase in stock price as shown on the ticker tape.

It should come as no surprise that the mainstay of the capitalist corporate media would choose a word whose origins lie in the stock market to describe the human carnage produced by the U.S. occupation.  Award-winning independent Journalist Dahr Jamail, on the other hand, describes the on-going tragedy in Iraq in slightly different terms.

“The US occupation of Iraq, which has become the full responsibility of President Barack Obama, is once again a bloodbath. Not that it had ceased to be violent, brutal and chaotic, for not one day has passed since the US invasion of Iraq was launched that hasn't found several Iraqis being senselessly slaughtered.”[3]

A Bloodbath, violent, brutal and chaotic; contrast these words, from the vocabulary of a reporter with first-hand knowledge of the reality of the U.S. war and occupation in Iraq, with the sanitized, innocuous phrase employed by CNN, “a slight uptick.”

The U.S. Army Field Manual emphasizes the paramount importance of proper media spin.  “The American people expect decisive victory and abhor unnecessary casualties,” warn its authors, adding,  “They prefer quick resolution of conflicts and reserve the right to reconsider their support should any of these conditions not be met.”[4]

The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a media event from its inception, under full control of the Pentagon propaganda machine with “embedded” reporters obediently spewing out news reports consistent with the spin objectives of military censors. As a result, words like “bloodbath” or “carnage” rarely appear in the news.

As Professor Douglas Kellner of the University of California at Los Angeles points out, “The embedded U.S. network television reporters were gung-ho cheerleaders and spinners for the U.S. and U.K. military and lost any veneer of objectivity.”[5]

And CNN is sensitive to the desires of its American audience.  When an embedded reporter showed one picture of a slaughtered Iraqi, angry viewers swamped the switchboard with calls demanding that the news network not show any dead bodies.  Professor Kellner observes that it was “as if the U.S. audience wanted to be in denial concerning the human costs of the war.”[6]

Understandably, U.S. war planners want to minimize Americans’ perception of casualties so as to maintain public support for their war.  As Professors Stephen Bennett of the University of Cincinnati and Richard Flickinger of Wittenberg University explain, “it is in the interests of the policy makers seeking public support for a war to do what they can to minimize public perceptions of casualties.”[7]  However, if Professor Kellner’s observationis correct, the American people themselves don’t want to know about the grim realities of their government’s war on Iraq, making censorship a relatively easy task.

This desire for denial by Americans of the escalating human cost of the Iraq war finally showed signs of lessening with the November 2006 elections.  Voters seemed to send a clear message for withdrawing U.S. armed forces from Iraq, but the administration responded with an escalation of the conflict that it dubbed a ”surge.” 

The failure on the part of the Bush administration to yield to public opinion seems to be a blatant breach of the democratic process.  Professors Robert Entman and Steven Livingston of George Washington University, and Ms. Jennie Kim of the U.S.State Department address this issue and state, “Although surely not the only factor in producing the apparent breach, the media played an important role.”[8]

Clarifying the U.S. media’s role in the downplaying of the human costs of the war on Iraq, the authors elucidate, “As casualties and other consequences of policy in Iraq became routine, their news value diminished.”[9]  The idea, that Americans simply loose interest in and stop paying attention to the daily news of devastation wrought by their implicit support of the Iraq war, is even more disturbing than the allegation of denial.

The media tends to follow the strong-willed, unified policy voice of the White House, which contrasts sharply with the weak-willed and disorganized opposition offered by timid members of the U.S. Congress following their long, cacophonous policy debates.[10]

So, if the White House says there is no trend of increased violence in Iraq, only “a slight uptick,” the compliant corporate media, with its cautious, career-conscious journalists will be sure to parrot the words verbatim, and the American public will continue to pay attention to their denial-reinforcing news reports ...until they collectively loose interest.

“The responsibility for the conduct and use of military forces is derived from the people and the government,” states the U.S. Army Field Manual. “In the end, the people will pass judgment on the appropriateness of the conduct and use of military operations.”[11]

Which people?  TheAmericans?  No, it’s the Iraqis who are passing judgment on the appropriateness of U.S. conduct, as clearly seen by the recent “uptick” in attacks.

Yuram Abdullah Weiler

2009-05-03

Endnotes

 

Posted by yuram 07:40 | Iraq , Middle East , United States | Comment(0) | Permalink