Censored 2014

by Mickey Huff

  Modern means of warfare may be inherently indiscriminate. This is a scientific finding worthy of discussion at the highest levels of academia, politics and international affairs. While it may yet get some attention outside the borders of the United States, its “controversial” nature (its implications of the US military’s guilt in creating possibly the worst public health crisis in history) ensures that it will be ignored at all costs by the callous and corrupt US government and its subservient media establishment.25

  To put the Fallujah birth defects in comparative perspective, Dahr Jamail noted: “From 2004 up to this day, we are seeing a rate of congenital malformations in the city of Fallujah that has surpassed even that in the wake of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” on which the US used nuclear bombs at the end of World War II.26

  One of the most egregious aspects of coverage of the US war on terror has been and continues to be the systematic exclusion of the voices of victims of US violence, whose lives, suffering, deaths, and mourning are invisible to news spectators, dehumanized into nonex-istence.

  RELATED VALIDATED INDEPENDENT NEWS STORY

  Oil and Fraud: Why We Went to Iraq

  In efforts to forestall the US invasion of Iraq, antiwar protestors marched with signs that read “No Blood for Oil” and activists called for a “separation of oil and state.” As Norman Solomon identified, advocates of the invasion of Iraq used the negative frame, “This is Not at All About Oil or Corporate Profits,” to build the case for war.27 Corporate news outlets acted as a verbatim megaphone for the government to sell a repeatedly rebranded war, from preemptive strike against nonexistent weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), Operation Iraqi Liberation, and dictatorial regime change, to installing democracy and freedom (better understood as free trade), to a necessary victory in the war against terror, to a refusal to “cut and run,” to the rhetorical detergent of Operation New Dawn.

  In 2007, the publication of former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan’s memoir, The Age of Turbulence, caused a stir, in part because he wrote, “I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil.”28 Dominance of the world’s second largest oil reserves was at the heart of British-backed US military policy toward Iraq. These recycled narratives of disavowal—the war was about oil but nonetheless it was not about oil—are continuously deployed.

  Since even before the start of the US bombing and invasion in 2003, independent reporters and alternative media sources have worked tirelessly to expose the war effort’s material motives. In 2013, on the tenth anniversary of war, the corporate media appear to remain convinced by the establishment line that anyone (besides Alan Greenspan, perhaps) who argues that oil motivated US military policy in Iraq is a conspiracy theorist. Indeed, this has been the fate of both Greg Muttitt, author of Fuel on Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq; and Antonia Juhasz, author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time and The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry—And What We Must Do to Stop It, among other critics with expertise on the topic. Thus, in 2008, the Washington Post’s energy correspondent, Steven Mufson wrote, “There is no single conspiracy theory about why the Bush administration allegedly waged this ‘war for oil.’“29 Then Muf-son identified and described a variety of critical explanations—including those advanced by Juhasz and Muttitt—before concluding in terms that redefine his conception of “conspiracy,” dismissing how private, corporate interests might have motivated Bush administration military policy toward Iraq in favor of collective complicity as the best explanation. “In a sense,” Mufson concluded:

  All Americans are part of that conspiracy. We have built a society that is profligate with its energy and relies on petroleum that happens to be pooled under some unstable or unfriendly regimes. We have frittered away energy resources with little regard for the strategic consequences. And now it’s hard and expensive to change our ways.30

  Over the past decade, even as Juhasz’s analysis of Big Oil in Iraq gained standing in the corporate media, editors consistently relegated her work to the opinion section. Thus, for example, in April 2013, CNN featured Juhasz’s “Why The War in Iraq was Fought for Big Oil,” as an opinion piece in its “complete coverage of the Iraq War anniversary.”31 In her article, Juhasz identified opening up Iraq to foreign oil companies as the “central goal” of the war, and she cited “top U.S. military and political figures” who had stated so in public, including General John Abizaid, former head of US Central Command in Iraq, in 2007; former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan; and Chuck Hagel, who served as a senator in 2007.32 “Big Oil” was the true winner of the war, Juhasz wrote. “Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq’s domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies. A decade of war later, it is largely privatized and utterly dominated by foreign firms.”33

  Of approximately 2,000 comments posted online in response to Juhasz’s article, over 500 asked why it has taken ten years to say this; and many questioned CNN’s decision to label Juhasz’s piece as “opinion,” rather than “news.” When corporate outlets have filed “news” stories on contracts secured or lost in Iraq, these reports have typically failed to connect critical dots to examine the strategic relationships in the planning and execution of the war, thus serving to fragment understanding of the oil agenda beyond comprehension, coherence or concern.

  As evidenced by the US attempt to overhaul the Iraqi economy at gunpoint, war is corporate globalization by other means.34 Indeed, after the start of its “shock and awe” bombing campaign, the Bush administration announced its plans for a Middle East Free Trade Area initiative (MEFTA) by 2013. In 2013, years after former Bush officials publicly stated that securing access for Western oil companies in Iraq was central to the drive for war, “Oil and Fraud: Why We Went to Iraq” is still a censored story—a stunning indictment of the corporate me-dia’s failure to investigate war crimes in anything like a timely, independent manner. Any mea culpas from the corporate media, regarding their central role in promoting the Bush administration’s case for the war to mobilize public support, have appeared in the opinion section, rather than as front-page news stories in their own right. To the extent that corporate media do look back on their own performance with a critical eye, they often give voice to government and military sources who, on looking back, identify and acknowledge “mistakes.” But there should be no ambiguity: what they call “mistakes” are, in fact, crimes. And now our leaders ask us to look forward.

  TARGOL MESBAH, PHD, is a member of interdisciplinary studies and anthropology & social change faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she teaches critical theory, postcolonial critique, global studies, and film and media studies. She received her BA in film studies from the University of California–Irvine and her PhD in History of Consciousness from the University of California–Santa Cruz. She is cocurator of MENA Experimental: Experimental Film and New Media from the Middle East, North Africa and their Diasporas. She is currently writing a book on the multiple temporalities of war and media.

  ZARA ZIMBARDO, MA, is member of the interdisciplinary studies faculty at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She has a background in independent media as producer of an alternative current events television series highlighting grassroots movements for social and environmental justice, and has developed critical media literacy workshops, presentations, and curricula in collaboration with schools throughout the Bay Area. As a member of the National Council of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, she has worked in solidarity with nonviolent activists resisting militarism in the US, Palestine/Israel, and Colombia. She is an anti-oppression facilitator and consultant, and cofounder of the antiracist feminist resource and training group, the White Noise Collective. Her ongoing research interests include the politics of representation; Islamophobia; collective memory; US militarism; and nonviolent social movements.

  Notes

 
; 1. Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Iraq War and History as Self-Flattery,” Atlantic, March 20, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/the-iraq-war-and-history-as-self-flat-tery/274192/.

  2. Bob Woodward, “CIA Told to Do ‘Whatever Necessary’ to Kill Bin Laden,” Washington Post, October 21, 2001, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800655.html.

  3. Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011).

  4. “Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation,” Censored2009: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007–08, ed. Peter Phillips and Andrew Roth with Project Censored (New York: Seven Stories, 2008), 20–25.

  5. Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008).

  6. Ibid., 61–90.

  7. For analysis of these films, see Rob Williams, “Screening the Homeland,” ch. 8 in this volume.

  8. Marc Pilisuk, “Occupying the Merchants of Death,” Project Censored, November 22, 2012, http://www.projectcensored.org/topstories/articles/occupying-the-merchants-of-death/. See also, National Nuclear Security Administration, “Budget,” no date, http://www.nnsa.energy.gov/aboutus/budget.

  9. Pilisuk, ibid.

  10. For analysis of corporate news coverage of US drone policy, see Andy Lee Roth, “Framing Al-Awlaki: How Government Officials and Corporate Media Legitimized a Targeted Killing,” Censored 2013: Dispatches from the Media Revolution, Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth with Project Censored (New York: Seven Stories, 2012), 345–373.

  11. George Monbiot, “In the US, Mass Child Killings are Tragedies. In Pakistan, Mere Bug Splats,” Guardian, December 17, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/us-killings-tragedies-pakistan-bug-splats. Monbiot quotes Michael Hastings, “The Rise of the Killer Drones: How America Goes to War in Secret,” Rolling Stone, April 16, 2012, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-rise-of-the-killer-drones-how-america-goes-to-war-in-secret-20120416.

  12. Greg Miller, “Plan for Hunting Terrorists Signals U.S. Intends to Keep Adding Names to Kill Lists,” Washington Post, October 23, 2012, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-23/world/35500278_1_drone-campaign-obama-administration-matrix.

  13. Pilisuk, “Occupying.”

  14. “Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon,” Onion, February 9, 2012, http://www.theonion.com/articles/iran-worried-us-might-be-building-8500th-nuclear-w,27325/.

  15. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1949).

  16. David Barsamian, Targeting Iran (San Francisco: City Lights, 2007), 20.

  17. Gareth Porter, “Bush Blocked Iran Disarmament Deal,” Consortium News, June 6, 2012, http://consortiumnews.com/2012/06/06/bush-blocked-iran-nuke-deal/.

  18. Nicholas D. Kristof, “Pinched and Griping in Iran,” New York Times, June 16, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/opinion/sunday/kristof-pinched-and-griping-in-iran.html.

  19. Hamid Dabashi, “War by Other Means,” Al Jazeera, June 27, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/06/2012625113228557622.html.

  20. Nixon, Slow Violence, 204–205.

  21. For Project Censored’s coverage, see, for example, Censored story #9, “US Troops Exposed to Depleted Uranium During Gulf War,” Censored 1997, ed. Peter Phillips and Project Censored (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1997), 47–51; Censored story #5, “US Weapons of Mass Destruction Linked to the Deaths of a Half-Million Children,” Censored 1999, ed. Peter Phillips and Project Censored (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999), 43–46; Censored story #6, “NATO Defends Private Economic Interests in the Balkans,” Censored 2000, ed. Peter Phillips and Project Censored (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2000), 40–43; Censored story #4, “High Uranium Levels Found in Troops and Civilians,” Censored 2005, ed. Peter Phillips and Project Censored (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2004), 48–54; and Censored story #25, “Extension of DU to Libya,” Censored 2012, ed. Mickey Huff and Project Censored (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2011) 45, 52–53.

  22. Nixon, Slow Violence, 217–218.

  23. M. Al-Sabbak et al., “Metal Contamination and the Epidemic of Congenital Birth Defects in Iraqi Cities,” Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 89, no. 5 (November 2012), http://www.springerlink.com/content/u35001451t13g645/fulltext.html.

  24. Sarah Morrison, “Iraq Records Huge Rise in Birth Defects,” Independent, October 14, 2012, http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-famalies/health-news/iraq-records-huge-rise-in-birth-defects-8210444.html.

  25. Ross Caputi, “The Victims of Fallujah’s Health Crisis are Stifled by Western Silence,” Guardian, October 25, 2012, http://www.guardianco.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/fallujah-iraq-health-crisis-silence?INTCMP=SRCH.

  26. Dahr Jamail, “Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq with Mass Displacement & Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers,” Democracy Now!, March 20, 2013, http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/20/ten_years_later_us_has_left. In the Democracy Now!interview, Jamail attributes the comparison of Fallujah to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Dr. Samira Alani, a pediatrician at Fallujah General Hospital, whose work he had previously covered. See, for example, Dahr Jamail, “Fallujah Babies: Under a New Kind of Siege,” Al Jazeera, January 6, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/2012126394859797.html.

  27. Norman Solomon, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2005), 87ff.

  28. Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (New York: Penguin, 2008), 463. On immediate controversy over Greenspan’s assessment, see, for example, Bob Woodward, “Greenspan: Ouster of Hussein Crucial for Oil Security,” Washington Post, September 17, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/16/AR2007091601287.html?nav=rss_business.

  29. Steven Mufson, “A Crude Case for War?,” Washington Post, March 16, 2008, http://artid.es.washingtonpost.com/2008-03-16/business/36886089_1_oil-revenues-oil-fields-cheap-oil.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Antonia Juhasz, “Why the War in Iraq Was Fought for Big Oil,” CNN, April 15, 2013, http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz.

  32. Ibid.

  33. Ibid.

  34. See “Interview with Vandana Shiva,” In Motion Magazine, August 27, 2003, http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/vshiva4_int.html, for the quote, “Globalization is war by other means and war is globalization by other means.”

  CENSORED NEWS CLUSTER

  Health and the Environment

  Susan Rahman and Liliana Valdez-Madera

  Censored #14

  Wireless Technology a Looming Health Crisis

  James F. Tracy, “Looming Health Crisis: Wireless Technology and the Toxification of America,” Global Research, July 8, 2012, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31816.

  Student Researcher: Lyndsey Casey (Sonoma State University)

  Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

  Censored #15

  Food Riots: The New Normal?

  Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, “Why Food Riots Are Likely to Become the New Normal,” Guardian, March 6, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2013/mar/06/food-riots-newnormal.

  Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, “Can a Collapse of Global Civilization Be Avoided?,” Proceedings of the Royal Society 280, no. 1754 (March 7, 2013), http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1754/20122845.full.

  Student Researcher: Julian Kuartei (College of Marin)

  Faculty Evaluator: Andy Lee Roth (College of Marin)

  Censored #18

  Fracking Our Food Supply

  Elizabeth Royte, “Fracking Our Food Supply,” Nation, December 17, 2012, http://www.thenation.com/article/171504/fracking-our-food-supply.

  Michelle Bamberger and Robert E. Oswald, “Impacts of Gas Drilling on Human and Animal Health,” New Solutions 22
, no. 1 (January 2012): 51–77, http://www.psehealthyenergy.org/Impacts_of_Gas_Drilling_on_Human_and_Animal_Health.

  Student Researchers: Rayne Madison and Nayeli Castaneda (College of Marin)

  Faculty Evaluators: Susan Rahman and Andy Lee Roth (College of Marin)

  Censored #21

  Monsanto and India’s “Suicide Economy”

  Belen Fernandez, “Dirty White Gold,” Al Jazeera, December 8, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/2012125759352 8550i.html.

  Jason Overdorf, “India: Gutting of India’s Cotton Farmers,” Global Post, October 8, 2012, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/america-the-gutted/india-cotton-farmers-monsanto-suicides.

  Student Researcher: Nicole Anacker (College of Marin)

  Faculty Evaluator: Susan Rahman (College of Marin)

  Censored #24

  Widespread GMO Contamination: Did Monsanto Plant GMOs Before USDA Approval?

  Cassandra Anderson and Anthony Gucciardi, “Widespread GMO Contamination: Did Monsanto Plant GMOs Before USDA Approval?” Global Research, May 4, 2012, http://www.globalre-search.ca/widespread-gmo-contamination-did-monsanto-plant-gmos-before-usda-approval/.

  Student Researcher: Adam Hotchkiss (Sonoma State University)

  Faculty Evaluator: Greg Hicks (Mendocino College)

  RELATED VALIDATED INDEPENDENT NEWS STORIES

  Hydraulic Fracturing: United States vs. United Kingdom

  “Fracking Can be Undertaken Safely if Best Practice and Regulations are in Force,” Royal Academy of Engineering, June 29, 2012, http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/releases/shownews.htm?NewsID=771.

  Fiona Harvey, “Gas ‘Fracking’ Gets Green Light,” Guardian, April 16, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/17/gas-fracking-gets-green-light.