The Role Of Media In Promoting War

In the beginning of the documentary “The War You Don’t See” we are shown a clip from a shooting attack on innocent people by American soldiers. I am unsure what the motive behind this attack was. Did the American soldiers believe they were shooting at enemies? It appears as if they knew the people, they were shooting at were innocent civilians. Watching this deadly attack was outraging. Why did they attack innocent people? The prime minister of Great Britain once said, “If people really knew the truth the war would be stopped tomorrow, but of course they don’t know and can’t know” This film continues to ask what is the role of the media during wartime?

My conclusion is that the media is used to influence the masses. The media is used as a tool to convince people of an idea that benefits the government. With today’s technology we have access to news 24/7. There is always news being shown on television and now we can receive updates on our phones as well. All this exposure to the media can make people easily influenced by what they see or hear on the news. People can be convinced that our country should be at war. Fear is used to convince people to do things that they might otherwise not do. For many years now, fear has been used to convince people to go to war. Propaganda was used to scare people into fighting. The pentagon spends almost a billion dollars a year on advertising propaganda, and the selling of war. The pentagon has contracts with news corporations to manipulate the news. Misinformation is used to manipulate public opinion. As a result of the invasion of Iraq on March 2003, 4. 5 million people were forced out of their homes, this included innocent men, women, and children. The war takes a massive toll on civilians. This is what we do not see in the media. Embedded journalists are most often controlled by the military meaning that they are limited with what they can report. Although there is much corruption there are also independent journalists who are able and willing to freely report as they wish to. These independent journalists do so at their own risk as there can be backlash from people who don’t want their story told to the public. Independent journalism can be very risky and even life-threatening. These journalists have good intentions and want the truth to be known.

The New York Times, a respectable newspaper has played a critical part in promoting war. In the past this paper has published a claim that Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, this was false, and the paper apologized one year later. If the media had further investigated rather than believing the narrative that they were told and relaying that to the public perhaps a war could have been avoided. The war on Iraq was created for the purpose of profit. Our government could have benefited from the war by obtaining resources from another country such as oil. In the war fought in Iraq, nearly 90% of all deaths were civilians. These were innocent people who were not posing a threat to anyone. Not only is war highly unethical it is also very expensive. The cost of war is paid by American taxpayers. A b1 lancer bomber costs $283 million dollars each. The damage that this aircraft can cause is deadly. These aircrafts were used to drop bombs upon poor communities. Entire villages were destroyed with these aircrafts.

Watching this documentary has opened my eyes to the devastating reality that the United States has created for these countries. I understand that this has been done in the selfish interest of profit. War is a business and the American people are unaware that our tax dollars are being spent to terrorize innocent people, including children. A lot of the people who think that they need to fight to defend our country are sadly misinformed. Our country is responsible for the attack of many other countries. Although most of the public is being kept from the truth, there are whistleblowers who fight to deliver honest, uncensored news. These truth tellers are often subjected to ridicule or worse including death threats. They are threatened with criminal prosecution for making the truth known to the masses. This is done in an effort to silence the truthtellers.

I hope that the current state of the nation changes for the better. I wish that people will stop watching television and instead do their own research on what is going on in our world. I would like people to make their own opinions rather than believe the media, who has their own agenda. I have known about the corruption that surrounds our government for some time now, but this documentary is informative and should be seen by everyone. The information shared can help many people wake up to the real world.