Media Silence on Libya

[marmar]

Media Silence on Libya

Saturday, 14 March 2015 00:00
By Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report | Op-Ed


Despite the all-encompassing belief in democracy and a free press, Americans have very little democracy left and perhaps the worst media in the world. Even people who make efforts to be informed don’t know what is happening domestically and internationally because of the constant lies and disinformation they are exposed to by the corporate media. They act as spokespersons for the powerful instead of providing analysis and information for readers and viewers. The result is a world turned upside down, with lies being sold as the truth. Libya is just the latest example of press malfeasance.

In 2011 the leaders of NATO appeared to pull off the perfect crime. That year they used the Arab Spring democracy movement as a cover to destroy Libya, kill its president, Muammar Gaddafi, and turn that nation over to jihadists supported by the Persian gulf monarchs.

Regime change was the only issue ever on the agenda. They used the dubious doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, R2P, as a means of getting away with murder. This was no mysterious conspiracy either. The American secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said quite publicly that her government wanted Gaddafi dead. “We hope that he can be captured or killed soon,” said the characteristically undiplomatic diplomat. After the deed was done she again spoke openly about killing a head of state. “We came, we saw, he died.”

.....(snip).....

It is staggering to see the depth of manipulation directed at the people of this country. If the president openly calls for the overthrow of a sovereign state, networks and newspapers go along and regurgitate every word. When the project goes south, no one who bragged about it in 2011 will now admit to their role in the disaster and the press continues to repeat official policy like the good little scribes they have always been.

The ISIS story has been dumbed down to tired analysis about a clash of civilizations and whether or not Islam is a religion of peace. Muslims can be peaceful or warlike but the hand of American involvement and the silence about it is the real story. ...........(more)

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/29588-media-silence-on-libya

[KoKo]

1. Recommend....

and while the Hillary "E-Mail Scandal" and Obama reads his "Tweets" along with other "Election 2016" rhetoric sucks up air time we have the Middle East in Chaos, more troops on the way to Afghanistan (the war we supposedly ended) and a new "Cold War" with Russia brewing.

All this and nothing is examined to hold accountable those responsible for our Western policies which have failed and caused Millions to suffer death, loss of homes, family and businesses, dislocation into refugee camps or forced to flee into any country that will hire them for menial wages to survive.

[malaise]

2. ThHey didn't just kill their former ally

They celebrated the desecration of his body.

Yep the silence is deafening because Gadaffi told them what would follow.

I ignore most of the ISIS BS because it's BS.

[Igel]

3. I missed the media silence.

Even now, the media aren't silent. As a topic grows stale, they move on and return to it when it's again perceived as fresh or there's enough info to warrant an update.

Same with the drought in NE S. America, ash-Shur and the IS, Ukraine, ebola, Chinese military infringement, Typhoon Pam, the drought in the American SW, etc., etc.

Just recently there was a spate of articles on Libya. Then the articles went away (mostly because they were days or weeks old) and the press went on to another issue. If something changes, they'll be back. Right now Libya is status quo, and the real issue is that people aren't (still) outraged at what happened 4 years ago.

At the time, even on DU the majority of the volume was in favor of the NATO mission in Libya. Gaddhafi's "gates of hell" line about what he'd do in Benghazi was taken as weirdly literal, even though it was boil-plate Mid-Eastern hyperbole. It didn't help that Gaddhafi had gone from being a thorn in the West's side for years to being a Bush II-appeaser when he admitted getting N. Korean aid and "repented". What he did domestically stayed the same, but Gaddhafi went from being basically beyond reproach to beyond redemption.

And with all that "Arab Spring" nonsense, hope for change or whatever, it seemed that a government that had been repressive for years could be acknowledge to be repressive just before it fell and bunnies flew and the desert bloomed with flowers. DUers who didn't like the NATO intervention in Libya had a fairly difficult time, given the binary, black/white thinking that often dominates. (I called Qaddhafi a pig long before it was fashionable to do so; and I said that while he may be a pig, he was almost certainly better than whoever or whatever would replace him, and suddenly was deemed a Qaddhafi supporter.)

[KoKo]

4. "...and the real issue is that people aren't (still) outraged at what happened 4 years ago."

Indeed...