Another editorial brought to you by the good people at Wombat
Ever since the first Gulf War, I have been troubled by what I see as the packaging of war by CNN as entertainment by CNN and its imitators. Of course, CNN, Fox, and CNBC are for-profit ventures first and foremost, and whether or not America is waging war these "news" companies are struggling for ratings, upon which their advertizing revenue is based. And they do not only compete with each other, but also with sitcoms and soap operas and sports. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that CNN and company have added fancy graphics and theme music that would be the envy of any post game show and start and end their broadcasts with MTV-style montages of half second shots of our brave troops punctuated by our fearless leader.
But it has gone beyond simple entertainment into the realm of pornography. We usually associate the word pornography with material that stimulates the viewer by allowing him to identify with people engaged in sexual conduct, and in particular with the dominant party. CNN's war-porn does just that, only violence is substituted for sex, cluster bombs are substituted for multiple orgasms. the American military is substituted for Long Dong Silver, and the nation of Iraq is... I don't know... Betty Bimbo. One minute CNN carries an "average" Iraqi saying how much she "wants" the American military, and the next minute Donald Rumsfeld is saying the military will "stay inside" Iraq "as long as it takes."
The American viewer can watch it all and vicariously participate in the rape of Baghdad, enjoying the feeling of power that comes with being a citizen of the most militarily powerful country in history. In sexual pornography, the physical act of rape is made palatable to the typical non-rapist view by having the woman want to be subdued, to enjoy the pain and humiliation, and to actually benefit from all the pleasure she derives from the gang-bang. On CNN, the rape of Baghdad is made palatable by equally ridiculous fantasies Iraq's desire to be liberated by the United States, about its willingness to endure surgical strikes that minimize "collateral damage," about Bush's vision of a democratic Iraq in which the nation's oil wealth goes towards the welfare of its people. It is pure fantasy that stimulates the viewer by degrading the viewed.
While nothing could be more tragic that the pain and suffering of those enduring death and dismemberment to themselves and their loved ones, there is another victim in this war on the other side of the planet from Iraq. This warporn has for all practical purposes supplanted America's free press. The news media already in the hands of a half dozen corporations, some of which (G.E. and Westinghouse) have major stakes in arms production and all of which know that their ratings go up 400% in times of war. They have little interest in questioning the government's war plans seeing as those plans spell profits for the media conglomerates. Turn on any so-called news show, and you will see little else than press conferences with government and military officials, reports from "embedded" (now there's a pornographic term for you) reporters who follow around the military showing only what the military wants to be shown and saying only want the military wants said, and "analysis" from former military and government officials. Only rarely does a dissenting voice slip through. In any other country this would be called government propaganda. On Fox it's called "fair and balanced." Feeble attempts by the so-called "public" networks PBS and NPR (which have become nothing more than non-profit commercial stations dependent on corporate sponsors) to actually show some balance may do more harm than good as they fail to point out the may obvious lies repeated ad nauseam by the government and corporate media and thus by default lend credence to them.
So the suffering endured in Iraq's overflowing hospitals will go on being shielded from America's eyes, as will the war profiteering of little Bush and his cronies, as will the daily atrocities committed by Israeli occupation forces in Palestine. There is no more such a thing as a free press than there is a free lunch. War pornography pays. Get used to it.
Titus North
Editor-in-chief, Wombat News
Center
April 8, 2003