Beslan, the Neo-Conservatives & the Media

William Kristol, one of the "big guns" in the Neo-Conservative movement, Chairman of the Project for the New American Century and editor of the Weekly Standard magazine, writes in the Financial Times (September 9, 2004): "...the forces of barbarism, holding high the banner of jihad, have murdered innocents from Bali to Istanbul, from Jerusalem to Madrid, Falluja and beyond. Will the forces of civilization be found wanting in the struggle against terror?"

To understand the above statement by Kristol, as well as the reporting of the Baslan tragedy by the U.S. media, we need to understand the blueprint or model based upon which such incidents are covered by specific interest groups or this media. At the heart of this model, which is almost uniformly followed, lies the violation of the principle of objectivity. By objective we mean the uniform application of standards regarding similar phenomena. Subjective on the other hand implies the arbitrary application of standards to phenomena. Similarly, subjectivity also implies the association of deliberately vague concepts so that when one is mentioned, an automatic association with the other is made-even though they are not connected- like the association between "barbarism" and "Jihad" in the Kristol statement, or the association of the war on Iraq with "civilization", in the same statement. Arbitrary application of standards reveals ulterior motive, what we term as the propaganda function of this media or various interest groups (like the neocons).

The Neo-Conservative movement is recognized for its unconditional support of Israel. It has also been credited with pushing the Iraq war agenda and passing sensitive U.S. intelligence to Israel (Washington Post, Sept 4 2004). Taking the Kristol statement above, we can apply the objectivity test and dismantle the illusion of manipulative sincerity that he is trying to convey to his readers. Application of objective standards would require that when children are killed there is clear condemnation, regardless of who does the killing. Such condemnation is missing in Kristol’s articles and in U.S mainstream media reports regarding Iraq and Palestine:

Regarding Iraq, over half a million children died in Iraq (hundreds of thousands more than those killed in Baslan) directly caused by U.S sanctions (several hundred were killed by U.S bombs during the current war), yet we did not see labels of "barbarism" being leveled by Kristol and his gang. Regarding Israel, when B’Tselem, the Israeli Human Rights Organization, working in the Occupied Territories, said that out of the thousands of Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli Defense Forces, over 80 percent have been children, we didn’t see Kristol making statements combining "barbarism" with "holding high the banner of Zionism", as he did with "Jihad".

Those who are in the business of fooling people don’t seem to realize that in time a full circle is made, they end up making a fool of themselves. Those who fooled the public on the Iraq war are now seeing the effects of the mess they created. They are also causing immense human suffering in the process, "holding high the banner of civilization"- to use Kristol’s terminology.