The corporate media divides us, it induces fear, and survives off of sensationalism

VIDEO: How The Corporate Media Beats The Drums Of War, Smears Alternative Voices
This speech was delivered by Mnar Muhawesh, editor-in-chief of MintPress News, in Minneapolis, MN on Sept. 10, 2014. Ms. Muhawesh was invited by peace advocacy group Military Against Military Madness to bring attention to how the media manipulates conflict narratives to drive public support for war and how alternative voices and independent journalism are smeared to discredit them to ensure control over US foreign policy narratives.
By Mnar Muhawesh @mnarmuh | November 12, 2014

Syria intervention plan fueled by oil interests, not chemical weapon concern

So what was this unfolding strategy to undermine Syria and Iran all about? According to retired NATO Secretary General Wesley Clark, a memo from the Office of the US Secretary of Defense just a few weeks after 9/11 revealed plans to "attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years", starting with Iraq and moving on to "Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran." In a subsequent interview, Clark argues that this strategy is fundamentally about control of the region's vast oil and gas resources.


Exploring different scenarios for this trajectory, the report speculated that the US may concentrate "on shoring up the traditional Sunni regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan as a way of containing Iranian power and influence in the Middle East and Persian Gulf." Noting that this could actually empower al-Qaeda jihadists, the report concluded that doing so might work in western interests by bogging down jihadi activity with internal sectarian rivalry rather than targeting the US:


These strategic concerns, motivated by fear of expanding Iranian influence, impacted Syria primarily in relation to pipeline geopolitics. In 2009 - the same year former French foreign minister Dumas alleges the British began planning operations in Syria - Assad refused to sign a proposed agreement with Qatar that would run a pipeline from the latter's North field, contiguous with Iran's South Pars field, through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, with a view to supply European markets - albeit crucially bypassing Russia. Assad's rationale was "to protect the interests of [his] Russian ally, which is Europe's top supplier of natural gas."


The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline plan was a "direct slap in the face" to Qatar's plans. No wonder Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, in a failed attempt to bribe Russia to switch sides, told President Vladmir Putin that "whatever regime comes after" Assad, it will be "completely" in Saudi Arabia's hands and will "not sign any agreement allowing any Gulf country to transport its gas across Syria to Europe and compete with Russian gas exports", according to diplomatic sources. When Putin refused, the Prince vowed military action.

VIDEO: How The Corporate Media Beats The Drums Of War, Smears Alternative Voices
This speech was delivered by Mnar Muhawesh, editor-in-chief of MintPress News, in Minneapolis, MN on Sept. 10, 2014. Ms. Muhawesh was invited by peace advocacy group Military Against Military Madness to bring attention to how the media manipulates conflict narratives to drive public support for war and how alternative voices and independent journalism are smeared to discredit them to ensure control over US foreign policy narratives.
By Mnar Muhawesh @mnarmuh | November 12, 2014

The fact that U.S. intelligence assesses that ISIS poses no current threat to the U.S. is repeatedly ignored by our politicians and media. In the last two months, President Obama and John Kerry have presented the American public with the idea that ISIS could pose a threat to the U.S. — which is why our “no boots on the ground” initiative against ISIS has begun, completely contradicting evidence provided by U.S. intelligence.

In fact, what the media has done is provided unlimited airtime to these politicians, analysts and pundits who directly profit from war, who represent the defense industries, who work for the oil companies and construction industries, without questioning them once.

It’s sectarian. They can’t get along. ISIS will attack us. The people in the Middle East need us. Our allies in the region support U.S. involvement.


Our media became the official mouthpiece for President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to promote airstrikes on Syria because, as our administration put it, the Assad regime is using chemical weapons against his own people.

It was weapons of mass destruction all over again. It was nearly the same narrative we used to justify the war in Iraq and we’re now using it to justify war in Syria. The Obama administration used the chemical weapons attack as a pretext for war.



Two days later, a MintPress article went viral. It was on-the-ground reporting from our journalists who spoke with Syrians in Ghoutha. We spoke with doctors, with rebels themselves, their family members, and we asked them, because those were the experts, those were the witnesses, and those are the people at the heart of the story: Who committed this chemical weapons attack?

And they told us that the al-Qaida-linked rebels let off the sarin gas and that the rebels were receiving arms, funding and even the sarin from Saudi intelligence.



But MintPress is not alone. Just a few months after our newsroom was bullied and attacked, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist by the name of Seymour Hersh made international headlines when he published an article called “Whose Sarin?,” which detailed leaked intelligence he had received about the U.S. knowing that the al-Qaida rebels had most likely propagated this sarin gas attack to frame the Assad regime as a pretext for war.

But Obama was being pressured by Turkey and Saudi Arabia to strike Syria.

And this Seymour Hersh we’re talking about here: [He’s] the same journalist who exposed the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam and its cover-up and exposed abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.


The role of journalism in the United States, as defined by the U.S. Constitution, is to act as a government watchdog and to work in the interest of the public to hold those in power accountable and prevent them from abusing their power.



The corporate media divides us, it creates boogeymen, it induces fear, and survives off of sensationalism and to hate what is different. Although the world is complex, we are actually interconnected more than we know.


Malcolm X once said, “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

Today it’s the Muslims, yesterday it was the Russians, and many years ago it was the Communists. Different enemies, altered narratives, same motive: money, oil, gas, resources and influence.

　なるほど。

　中東の英米の動きの背後には油あり、と。サウジや、カタールなどの米国の友好国の油のパイプラインを守りたい。それに反するイラン、イラク、シリア、ロシアなどは許さない。それには、　例えば、地元のスンニ派とシーア派の対立を煽ればよいと見込んだが、その結果がスンニ派の過激派が増長して、ＩＳＩＳのようになってしまった、と。

　動機は、金、油、資源、影響力なのだが、国民や国際社会に与えるメッセージは、イスラム教徒なり、ロシアなど、共産主義などの怪物をしたてて、脅威を煽り、われわれ同盟国とその国民を、その被害から守る必要がある、と表向き、言うわけですね。

　アメリカの大手メディアは政府の監視役ではなく、政府の口になっている、と。政府に会わないジャーナリストは誹謗され、いじめられ、大手メディアから除外される、と。

　新聞は脅威を煽り、対立、紛争、戦争の太鼓を打ち鳴らしているわけですね。マルコムＸを引用して、新聞を読んでいると、弾圧されている人を憎みようになり、弾圧している側を敬愛するようになってしまうから気をつけないと、と。

　この間、ＮＹＴの記者のタブチさんがオバマ大統領を絶賛していましたね。