Inventing Reality

by Michael Parenti

  In mid-December 1989, just days before the US invasion of Panama, ABC’s Ted Koppel reported that Noriega had declared war on the United States. Other media announcers made the same unsupported assertion. In fact, Noriega, who was making peace offers at that very time to opposition leaders, was quoted in a Reuters dispatch as saying that the United States, “through constant psychological and military harassment, has created a state of war in Panama.”24

  On December 20, 1989, President Bush ordered US forces to attack Panama. Television news, the medium reaching the largest audiences, provided coverage of “Operation Just Cause” that resembled a US Army recruitment film: helicopters landing, planes dive-bombing, troops trotting along foreign streets, the enemy’s headquarters engulfed in flames, friendly Panamanians welcoming the invaders as liberators. No TV reporter thought to point out that the Panamanians they interviewed were almost always well-dressed, light-skinned, and spoke English in a country where the majority were Spanish-speaking, dark-skinned, and poor. Left out of the picture were the many incidents of armed resistance by Panamanians.25

  TV correspondents enthusiastically or matter-of-factly reported the heavy bombings of El Chorillo and other working-class neighborhoods, treating these aerial attacks of civilian populations as surgical strikes designed to break resistance in what were considered “Noriega strongholds.” While admitting that the heavily populated working-class districts supported Noriega, the press continued to assert that he was without popular support in his own country.

  As usual, the news media focused on operational questions: Was the invasion going well? Was there much resistance? And the most important question of all: How many American lives were lost? Questions of international law and the critical responses of other nations were pretty much ignored. The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn the US invasion, but this was given scant notice in the mainstream media.

  The Pentagon claimed only twenty-three US troops were killed. Scores of others were wounded or injured. No consideration was given by our government or media to the thousands of Panamanian soldiers and civilians killed, wounded, or in other ways harmed by the invasion. Nothing was said of the many thousands left homeless. After a studied silence, the White House came up with the figure of 516 Panamanian dead, claiming that most of these were military casualties.

  TEAM PLAYERS

  In covering the Panama invasion, many TV journalists abandoned even the pretense of neutrality and independence. Network anchors used pronouns like “we” and “us” in describing the attack, as if they were members of the invading force or close advisors. NBC’s Tom Brokaw exclaimed (December 20, 1989): “We haven't got [Noriega] yet.” CNN anchor Mary Anne Loughlin asked a former CIA official (December 21): “Noriega has stayed one step ahead of us. Do you think we’ll be able to find him?” PBS announcer Judy Woodruff concluded (December 21): “Not only have we done away with the [Panamanian army], we’ve also done away with the police force.” So much for the separation of press and state.

  One NBC correspondent (December 21) labeled as a “lynch mob” the Latin American diplomats at the OAS who condemned the invasion. Many network correspondents couldn’t bring themselves to call the invasion an invasion; instead, they referred to it variously as a “military action,” “intervention,” “operation,” “expedition,” “affair,” and even “insertion.”

  A prestigious Canadian newspaper, the Toronto Globe and Mail, stunned by the national chauvinism displayed in the US media, ran a front-page article critiquing the United States and its press for “the peculiar jingoism of U.S. society so evident to foreigners but almost invisible for most Americans.”

  Adapted from Mark Cook and jeff Cohen, “How Television Sold the Panama Invasion,” Extra! January/February 1990, p. 5.

  On this question, the press did little investigation of its own. The media decided there was no way of verifying Panamanian losses, so no losses were reported. When television correspondent Fred Francis was asked about civilian casualties, he said he did not know because he and the other journalists in the Pentagon’s pool were traveling with the US Army.26 (At that same time, problems of verification did not deter the media from offering fantastically inflated reports about 80,000 to 100,000 demonstrators killed by the communist government in Romania. These figures—greater than the immediate Hiroshima death toll— should have been dismissed out of hand by any sane editor.27) Only months later did a few brief reports appear regarding mass graves of Panamanian dead buried hastily by US Army bulldozers.

  The demonization of Manuel Noriega continued in full force during the invasion of his country, thereby reversing the roles of aggressor and victim. TV footage of him brandishing a machete at a rally was repeatedly run, projecting the image of a violent individual. CBS anchor Dan Rather referred to the Panamanian leader as a “wily jungle snake” and a “swamp rat,” and “at the top of the list of the world’s drug thieves and scums.” ABC anchor Peter Jennings called Noriega “one of the more odious creatures with whom the United States has had a relationship.” ABC “Nightline” host Ted Koppel announced: “Noriega’s reputation as a brutal drug-dealing bully who reveled in his public contempt for the United States all but begged for strong retribution.”28

  The Pentagon reported that US troops entering Noriega’s headquarters discovered a desk stuffed with pornography, a portrait of Hitler, voodoo paraphernalia, and one hundred pounds of cocaine. Subsequent investigation found the pornography to be Spanish-language copies of Playboy. The picture of Hitler was in a Time-Life photo history of World War II. The “voodoo” implements turned out to be San Bias Indian carvings. And the “cocaine” was nothing more than an emergency stockpile of tortilla flour. But these belated corrective revelations received scant coverage compared to the original hype.29

  Supposedly the United States had invaded Panama to bring a drug-crazed dictator to justice. But once Noriega was captured and jailed in Miami, US military forces continued to occupy the entire country. US authorities installed Panama’s “new democratic” leaders: President Guillermo Endara, Vice President Guillermo Ford, and Attorney General Rogelio Cruz. Jonathan Marshall reported in the Oakland Tribune that all three of these rich White oligarchs were closely linked to companies, banks, and individuals heavily involved in drug operations or the laundering of drug money.30 Marshall’s revelations received little, if any, attention from the major media.31

  With Noriega deposed and the US military in firm control of Panama, conditions in that country deteriorated. Unemployment, already high because of the US embargo, climbed to 35 percent as drastic layoffs were imposed on the public sector. Pension rights and other work benefits were lost. Eight radio stations, two television stations, and two newspapers were shut down by US occupation authorities. A number of newspaper editors and reporters critical of the invasion were jailed or detained. Union heads were arrested by the US military, and some 150 local labor leaders were removed from their elected positions within their unions. Public employees who did not support the invasion were purged.32

  Some fifty deposed officials from Noriega’s government were still in jail as of late 1991, being held without charges or trial. Prisons, built to accommodate 1,500 inmates, held nearly three times that number under the occupation. Crime rates climbed dramatically after the invasion, along with poverty and destitution. Thousands remained homeless. Corruption was more widespread than ever. More money-laundering and drug-trafficking was going on under the US-sponsored Endara administration than under Noriega. These facts received little play in the major media.33

  A glimmer of truth peeked through now and then. Several years after branding Noriega the leading criminal of Central America, the New York Times observed that his alleged drug dealings were “relatively small scale by Latin American standards... . American officials strongly suspect high-ranking military officers in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador of similar, and in some cases even greater involvement in drug dealing—yet have not ta
ken harsh action against them.”34

  A 'Washington Post story about Panama’s overcrowded prisons reported that none of Noriega’s incarcerated associates had been brought to trial. The Post ascribed this delay to inefficiencies in the judicial system and not to the fact that there was little incriminating evidence against them. The story concluded—without benefit of any specifics— that human rights under the new regime had improved and “press freedoms have been restored.”35

  Thus did the news media hail the accomplishments of “Operation Just Cause.”

  CELEBRATING THE MASSACRE OF IRAQ

  For decades, US officials and media commentators told us that the US global military machine, with its 300 major bases around the world, was needed to protect us from a Moscow-directed Red Menace. But when the communist nations of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union dissolved into anticommunist, pro-capitalist states, the US global military machine did not dissolve along with them but remained largely intact. US leaders now maintained that the world was full of dangerous noncommunist adversaries, who apparently had been previously overlooked.

  Any foreign power, even a noncommunist one, that tries to reclaim its own development at the expense of multinational corporate investors—risks feeling the crush of US power. American politico-corporate elites have long been engaged in a struggle to make the world safe for capital accumulation; to retain control of the markets, raw materials, and cheap labor of poorer countries; and to prevent the emergence of revolutionary socialist, populist, or even nationalist military regimes that challenge this arrangement. For this, a global military machine is still needed. The goal is to create a world populated by client states, ones that leave themselves completely open to multinational corporate penetration, on terms set by the penetrators.

  In early August 1990, Iraq, a nationalist state under the rule of Saddam Hussein, invaded the emirate of Kuwait after repeated disputes with that country over oil pricing and Kuwaiti border incursions— differences that Kuwait refused to negotiate. Shortly before the invasion, Hussein had received assurances from April Glaspie, the US ambassador in Baghdad, that the United States had no interest in Iraq’s dispute with Kuwait. Similar assurances were made by US officials to a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee and to the press.36

  Soon after the invasion, however, President Bush called for United Nations economic sanctions against Baghdad. He then sent US troops to Saudi Arabia, contending that Hussein intended to invade that country also. Making no independent investigation, the US news media uncritically transmitted the president’s assertion to the American public. Bush also claimed, “Our own freedom and the freedom of friendly countries around the world would all suffer if all the world’s great oil reserves fell into the hands of that one man, Saddam Hussein.”37 Again, most major news organizations unquestioningly reported this scare story, failing to note that it was impossible for Hussein or any other Arab leader to monopolize “all the world’s great oil reserves.” Little of the Gulf’s reserves came to the United States. American consumers were getting all the oil they wanted from other sources.

  Bush then claimed that Hussein planned to destroy Israel, another charge treated as established fact by the press. Hussein did eventually attack Israel with relatively ineffectual Scud missiles, but only in retaliation for the massive US aerial attacks against Iraq. Bush’s war policy did not prevent an attack on Israel; it incited one—a point the media consistently overlooked.

  Immediately after public opinion polls showed that Americans reacted negatively to the idea of an Iraqi nuclear capability, the White House charged that Iraq was a nuclear threat. Again, the press obligingly went along, never raising any question as to why a nuclear-armed Iraq was any more of a threat to the world than an already nucleararmed China, Pakistan, Israel, or South Africa.38

  Bush claimed he was upholding the United Nations commitment to defend its member-states from aggression. A year before, when the UN voted 75 to 20 to condemn Bush’s invasion of Panama as a “flagrant violation of international law,” NBC evening news completely ignored the vote, while CBS gave it all of ten seconds. But now, without blushing, the press hailed George Bush as a defender of the UN. Charter. The UN Security Council could act against Iraq as a collective peacekeeper “for virtually the first time in its history,” claimed the New York Times.39 When the United States was repeatedly outvoted in the UN General Assembly on resolutions relating to nuclear “first use,” the nuclear freeze, the militarization of outer space, US support for the contra war in Nicaragua, US support for Israeli aggression in Lebanon and on the West Bank, and the US invasions of Grenada and Panama, these developments received slight attention in the mainstream media.40 When the United Nations took positions critical of the White House line, the US news media treated it virtually as an invisible organization. When the United Nations went along with White House policy, as with the Gulf war, the media lavished attention on that organization.

  No questions were raised in the US media about why Iraq had to be ferociously attacked, while other aggressors went unpunished or were actually rewarded with US aid. Thus the White House never demanded that sanctions or military force be used against Syria’s invasion of Lebanon, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Turkey’s invasion of Cypress, South Africa’s invasion of Angola, or Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor. And certainly no UN member-state called for collective military action against the United States when it invaded Grenada and Panama, or when it waged covert action assaults on various other countries. UN collective security was something only the strong used against the weak.

  In August 1990, as already noted, Bush said that he was trying to prevent Hussein from grabbing “all the world’s great oil reserves.” But in October he asserted that, “the fight isn’t about oil, the fight is about naked aggression.”41 The aggressor was Hussein, who the president now described as having done things that were “worse than Hitler.” No major media commentators questioned that characterization. Saddam was labeled the “Butcher of Baghdad,” a “madman,” “psychologically deformed,” and a “beast.”42 The New York Times ran a David Levin cartoon across the top of its op-ed page entitled “The Descent of Man,” showing in descending order: a man, a gorilla, a monkey, a snake, and a distorted, dwarfed Saddam Hussein.43 Times journalist Leslie Gelb dehumanized Hussein with an odd science fiction metaphor: “If he were to survive the war as a hero, he would be like a giant starship emitting undeflectable death rays.”44

  When the White House opted for a military attack against Iraq, the press once more fell into step. The networks produced experts who told us that sanctions and negotiations (the latter never attempted by Washington) would not dislodge Saddam. The New York Times ran a frontpage story: “CAN SANCTIONS WORK? MANY AIDES ARE DOUBTFUL.”45 Newsweek asserted it was impossible to negotiate with Hussein for he violated “all standards of reasonable discourse” and rejected “every rational approach.”46 In short order, twenty-four of the twentyfive largest newspapers editorialized in favor of military force to “liberate” Kuwait and teach Hussein a lesson.47

  By demonizing Iraq’s leader, then equating him with an entire nation, the US was able to wage a ferocious war against the Iraqi people, all the while pretending the attacks were against the wicked Hussein. NBC’s Tom Brokaw asked: “Can the United States allow Saddam Hussein to live?”48 Cokie Roberts said the smart thing to do was to “go after him” and “end this.”49 Others talked of “hurting,” “punishing,” and “taking him out.” Meanwhile, Hussein was one of the few Iraqis during the war with a safe, warm place to sleep and plenty to eat and drink.

  Once the president began the all-out aerial war against Iraq, the US news media transformed itself into a virtual cheering squad, identifying totally with US forces, using “we” to describe military actions. CBS’s Walter Cronkite crowed: “We knocked one of their Scuds out of the sky.”50 Others talked of the heavy damages “we” inflicted on Iraqi defenses.

  Telecasters interviewed US Air Force pilots w
ho told how good it felt to drop bombs on Iraqi cities. “This was tremendous. Baghdad was lit up like a Christmas tree,” gushed one pilot on NBC. “It’s exciting. It’s the same adrenaline that a hunter has on the hunt,” enthused another on CNN. One NBC correspondent noted admiringly that the pilots were “cool under pressure.” And a CNN telecaster affirmed: “We have been hearing nothing but good comments from the pilots.”51

  After the first night of aerial attacks, a CBS correspondent remarked to anchor Dan Rather: “So far things look good.” On that same show Rather mentioned that the FBI was visiting hundreds of Arab Americans to investigate possible links to terrorist organizations. Far from seeing anything wrong with equating “Arab” with “terrorist,” Rather exulted: “The FBI has done a terrific job to defend us against terrorists.”52

  With an enthusiasm befitting Dr. Strangelove, journalists celebrated the use of high-tech weaponry in the systematic destruction of a small Third World nation.53 CBS correspondent Charles Osgood exclaimed that the bombing of Iraq was “a marvel.” CBS’s Jim Stewart praised “two days of almost picture-perfect assaults.” ABC anchor Peter Jennings extolled “the brilliance of laser-guided bombs,” but the next evening he labeled an Iraqi missile “a horrifying killer.”54 On the NBC affiliate station in Washington, D.C., announcer Jim Vance commented: “We can be proud of our men and women who are heroically and with devastating efficiency serving our country.”55

  While there was nothing but praise for the military, Jim Lehrer of PBS’s “MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour” wondered if the media were doing their job: “Has the public been adequately prepared for this war by the press and officials?”56 No question was raised as to why independent news organizations had to “prepare” the public for official policy. Such coordinated efforts between press and state in communist countries are usually denounced as totalitarian.