US press justifies slaughter in Iraq

By Bill Van Auken
13 April 2004
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/prss-a13.shtml
Excerpt:
No such critical approach is to be found today. For the most part, the media act as cheerleaders for US military atrocities. To the extent that the press even questions the Bush administration’s policy, it is entirely from the standpoint of its tactical expediency in suppressing the resistance of the Iraqis to foreign occupation. Not a single prominent voice in the media has been raised in protest against the barbaric siege against a city of over 300,000 inhabitants, an act of collective punishment that violates the most basic laws of war.

The press is marching in lockstep because the criminal war in Iraq represents a policy embraced by the entire US ruling elite. To the extent that the Times raises doubts and criticisms, it is from the standpoint of advising the Bush administration that it must repackage its message to stem the growing popular demand for the withdrawal of US troops.

The Washington Post, the other authoritative voice of the US establishment, is even more blunt. It’s Sunday editorial also criticizes the Bush administration’s tactics—specifically, its failure to get UN assistance and its over-reliance on the US-led Iraqi security forces that have melted away in the face of the mass insurrection.

But on the essential question of the occupation of Iraq, the Post advises the American people to get used to the killing and dying. Suppressing Iraqi resistance, the paper warns, “will require military power and probably more of the woeful casualty reports and gruesome television footage that have been shocking the country. More troops will be needed.”