NATO’s decision to intervene in Libya on humanitarian grounds has become an alarming and revealing assessment of America’s understanding of war. The way the “established” media portrayed the Libyan conflict, and its subsequent reception, illustrates our society’s failure to recognize how the power dynamics of plutocratic governance shape our realities. There is significant historical evidence that during times of war propaganda is used to justify military action for special interests. If we are to believe the theme of “change” will define our generation, we must pierce through both the media and the government’s rationalization of war.
I have found the established media’s reporting on Libya to be lacking in depth and consideration of an alternative to military intervention. This is not unusual. History repeatedly shows that during times of war, the established media have a tendency to mislead, deceive, and (in some instances) fabricate to serve the interests of the rich and powerful. This is shown through the writings of Carl Bernstein, the Nayirah testimony, the treatment of former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and the beginning of the Iraq and Afghan wars. Essentially, the media has been used to facilitate consent, not dissent.
Given the assumption that we learn from history, our passive acceptance of such reporting is surprising. In 1758, author Samuel Johnson wrote, “Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.” Later, President Dwight Eisenhower warned us of the emerging military-industrial complex, which we learned has a tradition of lying in addition to tremendous governmental influence. If the military has to go to such lengths for approval, it is clearly not what we naturally desire. Thus, why has there not been more widespread skepticism and objection with regard to Libya?
Led by the U.S., NATO used reports of imminent danger to civilians as justification for humanitarian intervention. Yet, history shows that there is a good reason to approach this explanation with skepticism. In fact, it was recently reported that President Barack Obama exaggerated the humanitarian threat. Once we consider issues such as who the Libyan rebels are and what role oil, banking, previous planning, and geopolitics play in the situation, it seems that history is repeating itself.
The question for our generation becomes: At what point do we categorically reject war and its mechanisms from the beginning rather than in retrospect? We can do this by repudiating all war. We must reject the seemingly righteous theory of humanitarian intervention because it is divorced from how social conflicts actually arise and are resolved. The idea that bombing — an indiscriminate killing method the U.S. has become notoriously inaccurate at — can improve a situation is untenable. The most recent example is Kosovo; it was the nonviolent movement that ultimately resolved the conflict. Moreover, what right does any country have to determine the affairs of another country? This is the same expression of moral superiority used to justify imperialism.
If we want to live in a world of peace, we must learn from our history and see that war is an unnatural phenomenon; we need to reject it on a philosophical and spiritual level. Removing war from our conscience creates space for dialogue and diplomacy, and brings us closer to a shared utopia.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The Discussion
Great article. I agree with your views on war and intervention. Bombs and warfare are not answers. They are money makers for the arms and ammunition industries. The fact that people are still having wars thousands of years down the road is childish to say the least. The time has come to use our intelligence not our war tactics to create peace. Since that is unlikely to happen, perhaps we should just mind our own business, stop sending money and guns to other countries. After all, most of them just complain about how bad we are anyway. We have our own veterans coming home that need healthcare, jobs and a better life. I prefer the BBC news to our paid to be said politically correct media.
I am glad to say that we are not, but I would caution getting to involved. While we should help where we can, diplomatic pressure where it works, military options where is needed, we need to remember this is their fight. We fought for our freedom, they better be prepared to fight for their own.
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Considering the history of the regime in Lybia I would not say that the humanitarian crises was exagerated. How can we fashion ourselves defenders and promoters of Liberty and Democracy and yet stand aside and watch as tyrants try to crush Democratic movements?
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We do not have the right to determine the affairs of another country at all. The African Union should have been left to solve Libya's problems and we should have completely removed ourselves from the equation.
I am late to this debate and have not read all of the comments but re: Kosovo, you are incorrect in discounting the important of the bombing campaign on the Serb mainland. The Serb population, who up until that point had been unaffected by the conflict raging on their borders, lost alltasteforthewar
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Your essay gives us all a lot to think about. Regarding Libya I believe that participating in an operation that discourages human rights violations is just. Whether our bombs are really preventing innocents from being killed is up for debate and is certainly influenced by how the press reports the events. For me sitting by and allowing a megalomaniac to slaughter non-combatants is unacceptable and could easily lead to a mini-Holocaust. In fact the axis powers did turn away from the atrocities being perpetrated during the last world war. If you have any doubts about it you should visit Yad Vashem in Israel. I was there last week and was overwhelmed by what inaction by the US and Great Britain led to.
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Chris,
It is easy for a man holding a gun to claim that war and killing is a basic, unchanging part of human nature. Making such a claim helps to alleviate whatever sense of guilt or shame a person might have from taking part in what you admit is a criminal war against Iraq. I do not say this to be harsh. I say this to wake you up to the basic fallacy of what you're arguing. The overwhelming majority of human beings have never murdered their brothers and sisters. Your personal experience does little, if anything, to refute the claim that most mainstream war reporting constitutes pro-government, pro-war propaganda.
Man WILL reject war...as soon as the tiny minority who fight in them have the courage to put down their guns and the knowledge to stop listening to the liars who profit from senseless bloodshed.
As the saying goes: "The first casualty in war is truth."
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If you think that mankind will ever evolve to a point where we reject war, you misunderstand our nature as human beings. The first tools we made after starting to walk upright were made for killing and it didn't take long for one man to kill another. Man will never reject war. It is our oldest companion. So long as man doesn't reject war, the media won't either. The thing about war you have to remember is that there never has been 'bad war' and 'good war'. I thought the Iraq war was a crime, but, paradoxically, I fought as hard as I could in it every day. There are lots of stories I could tell you about the good war has done; but for every one of those I could tell you a story about its evils. To say that war is always bad and it is sheer progaganda to argue otherwise shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of war and, therefore, mankind. War is not good or bad, just like us.
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Some powerful ideas here, Coy. My biggest issue with your argument, however, is that it makes the media seem more conspiratorial than I believe it really is. Arguing that the media is deliberately misleading the public because it's in cahoots with big business doesn't cut to the real heart of the problem. With journalism losing money by the day, newspapers are cutting their staff overseas, and in turn becoming more reliant upon the government for their information. Rather than having a reporter embedded in Libya full-time, the media is forced to rely upon the news as handed down from the military and White House. To what extent can it serve as an independent check on power, then? To get seated at a White House press conference and called to ask a question, journalists cannot ask the tough questions about oil, banking, and geopolitics. Sadly, investigative reporting is a dying art form.
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You refer to the media as if it is a monolith, but I do not beleive this to be so. There are hundreds of news sources that have subtly different levels of bias, agenda and cultural context in their reporting. If Libya was indeed propogated by media "lies", as you claim, you must first tell us: which news sources you are referencing, which medium (radio, tv, internet) they operated in, from which country, culture and finance (revenue source) they operate under, and finally which audience (every news source has a designated audience) they appeal to, in which country, and so on. I will presume, for instance, that as a British male in Brussels, Belgium, predominatly utilising online english language news media, that I saw different aspects of the Libya coverage then you did in the U.S? Was this conspiracy to lie univeral amongst the worlds media? I am troubled by your thesis, on many levels.
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My biggest problem with this article is not that you are asking the media to be more truthful, but specifically to be more truthful according to you. Asking the media to look into peacful options isn't news reporting, it is what belongs in the editorial section (which does occur often). If you are inherently anti-war, then does any news which reinforces the need for force then become 'propoganda'. I'm not saying propoganda doesn't exist, nor will I go into whether sometimes propoganda can be appropriate (too long a discussion for this post), but just be careful not to espouse your own position as the news that should be reported. That is propoganda.
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