MEDIA MIND CONTROL IN THE WAR ON TERROR

By Craig Roberts

July 15, 2005

http://www.newswithviews.com/Craig/roberts7.htm

In the movie “The Wizard of Oz,” Dorothy and her compatriots finally come upon the palace of the Wizard, and in the main hall a huge head faces them, talks, breaths fire and smoke and holds the terrorized but rapt attention of anyone who looks upon his face. That is until a curtain is moved and we find that the Wizard is actually a little wimpy old man who just works levers and pushes buttons to make the huge head talk and move.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” the Wizard yells into a microphone, hoping the huge talking head will make Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow ignore the facts and concentrate on the illusion.

As in the Wizard of Oz, the American people are transfixed on our own talking heads that come from our own Wizard boxes every night on the evening news. And the “news media” understands completely how much power they have over the minds of the masses, even those who say “it’s all lies and you can’t trust the media.”

By using graphic images, focusing only on what they want you to see and hear, shaping events by reporting only on those that fit the media’s political agenda, ignoring anything that is counterproductive to their goals, they control an empire that is actually a fourth arm of government. And, they control our minds.

One example that occurs nightly since the “War on Terror” began, and especially since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, is the “tributes to our fallen heroes.”

Wrapped in a thin veil of alleged “patriotism”, the evening news now makes a daily point of “honoring” those killed that day with color photos of them in uniform, photos of them as children, and quotes from their parents, school teachers, coaches, and then a brief bio to humanize the subject.

But what is really happening is that the body count, kept like a scorebook, is being paraded in front of us in a manner that psychologically affects us as individuals. Instead of “honoring” the casualties, in reality we see more people being lost, and for what? We see the young faces, the faces of our kids and our family members who are trying to help a country get on its feet after decades of dictatorial oppression, and we think “It’s not worth it! We need to get out of there and let the country sink of its own weight.”

This psywar maneuver of “bringing out the dead” is as old as warfare itself. By displaying dead enemy corpses to the enemy soldiers, ancient armies hoped to frighten and influence the morale of the opponents in such a manner it would shape the outcome of the battle or the war. However in many cases it only enraged the enemy into an even more combative mindset, which had the opposite effect.

However in Vietnam, by late 1965, our socialist media discovered that the power of television could actually influence politics by bringing the war into our living rooms on a daily basis. One early case in point was when CBS reporter Morley Safer flew in a helicopter into a village complex near Da Nang shown on the map as Cam Ne. While there he and his cameraman filmed some Marines burning the roofs of grass huts with lighters, then solemnly spoke into the camera that we were burning down the ancestral homes of the villagers, implying it as almost a war crime, or at least a wanton act of American savagery.

However, he did not mention the fact that Cam Ne was a huge underground tunnel complex and the headquarters of the Viet Cong’s Doc Lap R-60 Battalion, which was the guerrilla unit that continuously attacked the Da Nang airbase with mortars and satchel charges, booby trapped all the local trails and roads, and emplaced mines on the main highways and bridges. Nor did he mention that the “village” was actually only camouflage for the underground complex and we had suffered casualties in the vicinity for three weeks before that particular search-and-clear mission, and that no one lived there. Instead, the American people saw the first images of the anti-war reporting that was to follow on the Vietnam war. They saw what appeared to be the US Marines committing an act of barbarism in graphic detail. And it was all lies.

But the media learned well on that day and after. Simply get the footage, get plenty of smoke and mirrors and blood and dust, and then make up any story you want. The motto evidently was “guilty until proven innocent” for our forces. Never mind the atrocities the VC committed, nor the number of schools and orphanages and hospitals and roads that we built. Forget about the aid and the food and the medical supplies we provided. Concentrate on the dead. Theirs and ours. Count the bodies. Show the cost. And do it every night.

Now we are seeing a more subtle, more polished form of Body Count Mind Control. Under the guise of “honoring our fallen heroes” we are instead subjected to a parade of “what this war is costing us.” The message is clear: Get Out!

The questions we should be asking of our media is why they are not reporting all the other things we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why not show the schools open, women being treated with more equal rights, roads being rebuilt, electrical grids being constructed with modern technology and equipment, pipelines and refineries being brought into usage, water purification and distribution networks being rebuilt and so on. In other words, why are we not seeing the “happy Iraqis and Afghanis?”

When was the last time you saw an interview with a single Iraqi or family that liked the Americans or what we were doing? There are tens of thousands who hope we never leave, because they are afraid other sects of their Moslem religion will gain enough power to take over, or worse. They fear that their country will be vulnerable and fall back into chaos, like Iran did after the fall of the Shah, and Cambodia after the Khmer Rhouge took Phnom Penh.

When was the last time an in-depth report was done on the “insurgents” and who they really are and where they really came from? The dictionary defines “insurgent” as “rising in revolt against established authority, especially a government. Rebelling against the leadership of a political party.”

The so-called “insurgents” in Iraq are not insurgents. They are foreign terrorists, criminals and murderers who attack any soft target of opportunity, including women and children and babies.

They are evil scum who do not hesitate to kidnap unarmed civilians and behead them on camera. These rodents only understand one thing, and that is the result of superior firepower. Ours.

By identifying them as “insurgents” instead of what they really are, our media actually softens their image and lends a degree of credibility and justification to their actions. And by parading our own casualties in an up-close and personal way every night, they are actually aiding and abetting them as well. The Islamic terrorist organizations never had it so well.

In World War II, the media was actually censored from showing photos of dead Americans in battle, or using any imagery that would hurt our military and civilian morale or aid the enemy’s. It was not until after the war ended that so many photos of the aftermath of battle were actually shown to the American public. Today, the media uses our casualties as subtle mind control subjects to show us a continuing “cost of the war” story. Maybe it is time that our media is recognized for what it is: Al Jazeera West.

In the same vein, I would like to pose another question that goes unanswered. Why is it that when we try to send a package to Iraq or Afghanistan to our troops we are asked by our post office if there are any religious materials inside (specifically any Bibles)? Our own government won’t let us send Bibles to our kids because it might offend some local in a country that we just paid for in our own sweat and blood. The media has never addressed this issue, but if someone claims that some form of disrespect happened to Quarans (issued by our government, by the way) in Guantanamo Bay, then it is on the news for days—and echoed by the liberals in congress for weeks.

Excuse me, but what is our government doing issuing religious materials to prisoners of war on a government installation anyway? Is this not a conflict of “church and state”? And what are these people doing praying on a government installation?

The point of this column has nothing to do with whether one believes in the military efforts or not, nor whether we should send our troops abroad or bring them home, nor whether or not there are weapons of mass destruction hidden somewhere. The point is that we have a one-sided media that is using mind control methods to shape our consciousness, regardless of the facts or the truth of the matter. They are not “honoring our fallen heroes”, they are actually dragging a cart piled with the casualties through your village, shouting “Come out and see the dead! Come out and see the dead!”

And our enemies cheer.

For the complete story on Morley Safer at Cam Ne, go to www.riflewarrior.com and click on the article titled “Fact, Fantasy and Film at Eleven.”

© 2005 Craig Roberts - All Rights Reserved

Craig Roberts has lived a life many people only dream about. He is an internationally published author of over a dozen books, has written hundred of magazine and newspaper articles, appeared in several shows on The History Channel, written for Time-Life books, hosted a radio talk show and appeared on scores of radio talk shows. He is a US Marine Vietnam combat veteran, where he served in a line company and as a Marine sniper -- hence his extensive writing on marksmanship, sniping, weapons and the 2nd Amendment.