MEDIA ROOTS – The U.S. corporate media avoids contextual analysis of complex issues solely to attract more viewers and obtain greater advertising revenue.  By promoting caricature and sensation, the establishment media avoids critical analysis of the political incentives which motivate modern conflict.  Translation helps overcome U.S. media’s deficiencies by allowing narratives to cross linguistic boundaries.  Dr. Nasr Ad-Din al-‘Aiadi’s chapter in the book Wars: Press Coverage in Arab Media analyzes the relationship between media and war.

Christian Sorensen for Media Roots

TRANSLATION

“War is like an aging actress: more and more dangerous and less and less photogenic.” – Robert Capa, American photographic journalist

What is the distance between certainty and delusion?

The literature and discussion, which circulated during the War on Iraq, confirms a lack of information about Iraq’s internal circumstances prior to 9 March 2003.  The bulk of battlefield operations remained far from the “parasitism” of journalists and covered up what the military produced: victims, prisoners of war, destruction, and ruin.  This confirmation implicitly reveals a prevailing silent faith in professional and academic circles, and assumes media present objective, complete information about war.  Why this faith?  Because there is a preconception that media have presented complete information about wars and previous conflicts.  To disperse this delusion, we can ask: What did we witness about the Falkland Island War (the Maldives War), which broke out between the British and Argentinians in 1982?  And what did we witness about the Iran-Iraq War, nicknamed “The Bus War,” which lasted eight years?  It earned this name because the Iraqi Army was organizing bus trips for journalists to see Iranian prisoners of war.  In turn, the Iranian military was transporting journalists in busses to view Iraqi prisoners of war.  Everyone knows that journalists were not permitted to move to the battlefield, which would have conveyed the destructive war’s reality and would have shown war’s multi-dimensional tragedies.

What did we see of the following wars: the Second Gulf War and the War on Afghanistan, the events of which are still alive in individual and collective memory, in front of insistence by the American Armed Forces and Taliban to prohibit media field work?  The Americans and the Taliban pushed the media to capture stereotypical images or clichés in order to signify the presence of war: images of planes taking off from battleships; planes hovering in the sky amid clouds of smoke; anti-aircraft missiles piercing the darkness; a man in Afghan garb smiling and shaving in front of the camera crews; and the corpse of a civilian slipping by the camera’s lens, lying on the sidewalk, without us knowing who was behind his death.

Indeed these images, to which one can add the “concentrations” of Afghan refugees along the Afghanistan-Pakistan and Iranian-Afghanistan borders, do not convey the war led by the five wealthiest countries of the world against the poorest countries of the world.  Rather, such visuals reproduced stereotypical imagery far from the furnace of war, which convert the scenes into a simplified visual record, and leave one to dig into prejudices without raising any questions.  In short, war coverage in Afghanistan was like trying to describe a black cat in a dark room, as the Vice President of Fox News Channel put it.

As a matter of accuracy, one can say there are indeed very few examples of media succeeding in highlighting war’s ugly face.  Among them: the early days of the launch of the War against Afghanistan and the latter years of the War against Vietnam.

Maybe some believe that confirmation of a lack of information about the War on Iraq translates practically into the following judgment.  Much has changed recently in the media world.  There has been a rise in the number of media outlets, an increase in furious competition among them, and development in their technological arsenals, especially the speed with which they transmit linked, digital information directly to studios and newsrooms.  There has been a rise in the pace of this flow, along with the potential to monitor events in a more professional manner.  Despite all, humanity still suffers from a scarcity of information and news regarding the war.  Indeed, technology cannot eliminate the distance between certainty and delusion.  War contributed to overthrowing this illusory visualization, which links advanced technology, the right to complete information, and freedom of expression and the press.  Perhaps this fact propelled some researchers to confirm “the demise” of the fourth power.  

A French cameraman, Jean Claude Cousteau once said:

War had been perceived through a set of familiar images: artillery shelling and air bombardment; anti-aircraft armed response; the movement of military units; ambulances racing onto the battlefield, transporting the wounded and injured; explosions; body parts strewn amid the rubble of a car bomb.  We can convey war in more depth and greater detail in the photographic image.  For example, consider highlighting a woman who is skinnier than her shadow, wrapped in sorrow, in a residential, grey neighborhood in the former Yugoslavia.  She lays out her laundry, limited to military uniforms.  This image might enrich the view of war.  We might likewise tell about the war in Bosnia through the image of a Bosnian grandfather displaced from his town.  He left aboard an old Fiat, carrying his humble belongings.  An old picture of his father wearing a Tarbush stands out among the man’s belongings.

However, in light of a view of war and armed conflicts still under “formation,” we believe the media condense some images, which turned into religious icons through their frequent repetition.  These images became evidence to comprehend the conflict on the one hand and to justify it on the other hand.  For example, many camera crews were physically standing amid the Israelis to capture images of the sons of the First Palestinian Intifada, but they were largely exempting the Israeli soldiers from their images!  Within this shortcut, we find that the Palestinian martyr is translated, in visual media in a solemn procession of large crowds, which raise his coffin wrapped in the Palestinian flag, to his final resting place, amid wails and gunfire, and slogans of various Palestinian organizations.  In contrast, a dead Israeli is symbolized by the remainder of a bus, by ambulances and tanks circling Palestinian villages and towns, by Apache helicopters pouring its wrath upon populated district in which “one who is wanted” by Israeli soldiers lives.  Indeed, the first images produce grief, sorrow, and perhaps compassion and empathy.  The second images don’t include the violent military response only, but justify it.

Can one develop a way of dealing with media without varying its content?

The U.S. Armed Forces created a new relationship with the press and various media known as “embedding,” whereby the Americans recruit “press representatives and attach them to military units” on the battlefield.  For the first time in media’s history, roughly 600 press representatives joined the allies’ forces.  Some professional organizations have indeed criticized this practice, expressing their fears that it is a serious violation of the journalist occupation, since the “recruited” press representative commits in writing to respecting 50 articles of a document that defines their “new” life.  This whole process revolves around a lack of penetrating “military secrets,” like that of any soldier!  Articles 41, 42, and 43 of the same document stipulate the prevention of airing images of military units without approval of the American military authorities!  Perhaps the concerned authorities realize verbal communication possesses the flexibility, word play, and metaphors, which allow one to communicate better than imagery alone.

Some reporters who lived through this experience have tried to dispel these fears by affirming that what they’ve gone through is considered a positive step in news coverage on the conditions of war.  In previous wars, reporters were far from the battlefield and were only permitted to transmit what commanders clarified in press conferences, which were held regularly and which nearly turned the media into a loudspeaker for the military.  This war is different, as one of the French press “recruits” confirms: “I descended into the battlefield and witnessed what happened on the level of individual military units with whom I travelled.  I was content to write what I saw,” wrote one embedded French journalist.  Mr. Claude Bruillot, a broadcast journalist from France 24, affirms his side of the story: “While what I reported about war, originating from the American military unit to which I was attached, was partial and incomplete, it was still factual and real.”

If some war correspondents were considering their experiences with Coalition military units as embodying a development in their profession during wartime, then for the following reasons they had a hard time convincing the media masses of this “qualitative step,” which the media made in covering the aforementioned war: Armies don’t usually agree to publish images, except for those which highlight their victories.  History is always written by the victors.  If they do not, then they need to, maybe even forcefully, go against all who try to write it without their consent.

The formula for dealing with reporters has changed its shape.  But has its meaning changed in light of the absence of multiple sources and the absence of possibly using non-military news sources?  Certain circumstances justify asking that question.  Among them, the difficulty reporters face in moving around alone on the battlefield, the lack of space within which to work, and the fact that they’re unable to investigate what is presented to them as “official” information.

In war correspondents’ media discipline, freedom to act independently always remains in newsroom officials’ hands, far from battlefield realities.  Freedom to act independently takes on new meaning in the dictionary when dealing with the media: abolishing publishing and broadcasting; delaying or cutting off one’s broadcast to lose the real-time feed, and consequently its importance; rewording or summarizing the events, et cetera.

What do media do to war? Or what does war do to media?

We believe that the sharp debate over the relationship between media and war is still a prisoner of the ancient dilemma and represented in the question: What do media do to war?

This consuming dilemma loaded the debate, drawing attention to media’s coverage of war.  It revealed the dimension of propaganda and misinformation in war reporting, through covering up war’s tragic reality and through recording the allegedly neutral linguistic vocabulary of modern war.  For example, “clean war,” “surgical war,” “smart rockets,” “neutralizing the enemy force,” and other such vocabulary switch, in the long run, from explaining the misinformation to justifying it on one hand.  And on the other hand this vocabulary overlooks details known to the media establishment, like recent developments, the forms of their interaction, and comportment with the reality of wars and armed conflicts.  Many justifications are used to confer legitimacy upon media’s “deficiencies” in armed conflicts.  We recall two justifications, which begin from different starting points, but integrate well as the arguments progress:

The First Justification: Some believe that the media blackout in wars and armed conflicts is almost necessary and incontrovertible, because “armies are intent on secret planning and military operations, and are intent on not restraining the soldiers’ determination.”  One can infer from this statement that armies do not possess a deliberate intention to deny the public of their media rights, but rather are just striving to adhere to their legal right to protect military secrets!  Those who believe in the validity of this view argue that armies are changing their methods of dealing with journalists during armed conflicts.  So the armies no longer prevent journalists from reporting on war events, and no longer deal with the media by cutting their communications and content haphazardly, but rather become a frame within which media must work.  In this regard, Director of Press Service for Media Delegation and American Military Communication, Colonel Tangy, says:

“We came to establish press centers regularly on the battlefield.  The goal of setting up these centers is to put information and news at journalists’ disposal in all neutrality.  We began from a principle, which insists that whoever speaks in the name of the army should always tell the truth, but this doesn’t mean that he should speak the whole truth.”  

The Second Justification: The French researcher Armand Mattelard (1992) believes media’s forceful persuasion and its capability to “create” and erase events emerged at a very early time in the history of mass communication, and that war has only reinforced media’s persuasion.  These events resulted in giving legitimacy to media censorship.  This is the same legitimacy which competent authorities use to justify the measures they adopt in order to limit media activity in any armed conflict.  This all started from previous events in which public opinion impacted the course of military operations.

Consequently, one understands from the previous two components that war granted armies legitimacy to “control” the media.  Armies used this legitimacy to highlight an event, to conceal it, or to draw attention away from it.  Consider the U.S. invasion of Panama during a time when events in Romania led to the death of Ceausescu, the Romanian head of state.  Despite the fact that the number of casualties from the invasion of Panama was double the number of casualties from events in Romania, nobody talked about the heinous massacres that the U.S. military perpetrated in Panama.  The reason is clear.  The United States of America had imposed an airtight media blackout of this invasion.  In comparison, media exaggerated what happened in Romania in an immoral and unprofessional manner.  Media exaggerated events in Romania for the sake of hiding the massacres that the U.S. military committed in Panama.

The extent of this control in the media doesn’t stop at “filtering news and information,” but extends to the control media have over war’s image in the audience’s imagination, whether by altering the grounds which the concept of war covers, or by concealing its real goals and presenting them as if they are necessary to attain some humanitarian ideal.

This is the framework within which wars and armed conflicts were diagnosed.  In other words, wars and armed conflicts were linked to certain people, like political leaders and heads of state.  Indeed, this diagnosis explains wars and armed conflicts through factors far from the economy, society, or politics, where war is linked to certain individuals’ behavior and to subjective and personal inclinations.  In this context, it approaches chapters of war and armed conflicts as if they were Westerns, in which a good cowboy fights an evil cowboy.  Or media give a simple, naive explanation for wars, like saying that World War II broke out due to Adolf Hitler’s coarse disposition and mood swings!

Military experts, who comment on events and entice studio correspondents, also enter involuntarily within the aforementioned endeavor.  Television channels now have an honorable and defiant desire to use all possible means to transmit the facts of war and explain the military strategy used.

Due to repeated scenes and an absence of images and information about war’s on-goings, this presence slid into what resembles an athletic sports match: players are on the field, while coaches and specialists comment on the contest from the studio.  And so, on a symbolic plane, war transformed into a spectacle absorbing humane and permanent elements in order to open the field to dramatic content and commentary of the conflict.  The aforementioned concepts and methods used were incapable of changing the image of war, armed conflicts, and its goals pertaining to collective consciousness.  

We believe that now is the time to approach the relationship between war and the media from other angles.  Among them: What do wars do to media?  This dilemma, if filled with scrutiny and precision, can withdraw the aforementioned debate from a domain of justification and place it on the platform of critical review in order to analyze what media does during wars and armed conflicts.  This will occur in order to upgrade the media profession, despite difficult circumstances which might ultimately take the journalists’ very lives.  This will also occur for a new debate to explode around media’s relationship to reality, around media’s moral and literary responsibility, and about standards to evaluate media’s credibility.

Who said media is satisfied with simply transmitting news during war?

The lack of information about the War on Iraq is reflected in a belief, which is considered genuine to some and naive to others.  This belief indicates that media’s job remains the same regardless of the context within which it is active.  In other words, the functions that direct media’s activities stay the same whether in circumstances of war or in a peaceful context.  Indeed, trying to escape from the burden of this belief should not be understood as a blessing to what media does, but should be understood as describing earlier experiences.  Has it not been said in the past that propaganda is the legitimate daughter of wars?  Historians confirm World War I created propaganda, and specified propaganda’s initial definition as follows: the overall activities and work that a government undertakes to influence the citizenry and public opinion.  This concept had developed in World War II to become synonymous with psychological warfare, which includes disinformation, rumors, spreading false reports, and misinformation.  Wars have changed media’s roles, since wars pushed media to incline towards propaganda more than information.  Can it be said that media, which belong to states involved in war or are a party to these states, had strove to stand up against this inclination and succeeded?

The examples that proved this success were regrettably very few.  The famous satirical French newspaper Le Canard Enchaine came into being for rejecting war propaganda and government censorship of the press.  Wars had supplied the public with a fundamental lesson: many media outlets toe the line between information and propaganda, a line which could be destroyed if the horrors of war intensified.

Then, one should ponder the most useful and most feasible ways to take a stand against media’s transformation into an obedient instrument of psychological warfare during armed conflicts, as evidenced by its submissiveness to the justifications, which we touched upon in asking “what do media do to war?”  We believe diversifying news sources and preferring neutral ones is the first way to take a stand.  And if neutral sources cannot be reached, then the source from which news is derived must be confirmed.  This assurance addresses the audience clearly and implicitly, and directs their attention to the necessity of dealing with this news cautiously or to put its content in parenthesis.

Offering parameters within which news and images should function is the second way to take a stand against media’s transformation.  Many armed conflicts have demonstrated that numerous television images, which pour forth abundantly, do not specify the time, place, or context within which the images were produced.  Television screens overflow with these images, manipulating the viewers’ emotions without teaching them anything.  Images fit for consumption without an expiration date; these scenes paint war as the military wants it to be and not as it occurs in reality.  So images, contrary to what some believe, are not credible documentation of events as they occur, but are rather less accurate in transmitting or expressing reality.  This is because images are tied to a framework, which introduces some elements into the visual field and excludes other elements.  It is sufficient that we alter the framework, which includes the image itself, until we change the meaning and exchange it with the “truth.”

Note:  For all original citations and formatting, please consult the original text.

Translation by Christian Sorensen for Media Roots

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Photo by Flickr User Truthout.org

MEDIA ROOTS – The Pentagon and corporate media actively promote the War on Terror meta-narrative, which restricts our society’s ability to view war.  As an educational activist, I’ve decided to start translating Arab political scholarship in order to present a necessary alternative narrative to the U.S. public.  The preface to the book Wars: Press Coverage in Arab Media is a specific text I chose with the intent of challenging readers.  By breaching linguistic hurdles and circulating diverse worldviews, concerned citizens can chip away at the War on Terror’s monopoly over our media.  

This translation offers a U.S. audience the opportunity to synthesize diverse viewpoints of recent armed conflicts.  In stark contrast with U.S. corporate media, this author (‘Abdullah al-Kindi) frames the 1991 and 2003 Gulf Wars within a broader historical and social context.  This background includes discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Islam, imperialism, pan-Arab unity, media failures, military propaganda, and the human suffering inherent to all wars.

Christian Sorensen for Media Roots

TRANSLATION

The Second Gulf War, 1990-1991:

In its entirety, the Second Gulf War (1990-1991) burdened all aspects of life in the world in general, and in the Arab world in specific.  With regard to the Arab world, this war put to test all theses about Arab unity and Arab national interest. The Arab world, with its diverse orientations and varied concerns, was not a unified tribal kinship following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990, despite statements from public figures regarding Arab unity, interest, and alignment.

Along with slogans and statements, border disputes were perhaps the most prominent among all the unresolved or pending problems in the Middle East.  In some cases these problems even developed into occasional skirmishes and led to dead border patrol troops.  By the end of the 1980s,  the majority of Arab countries had joined regional councils (e.g., Gulf Cooperation Council, Arab Cooperation Council, Arab Maghreb Union) in addition to the Arab League, which was the most comprehensive and important institution for Arab countries.  However, these councils and unions did not implement any real solutions for the unresolved border disputes, even though they’re “artificial,” “imperial” borders left over from the colonial period and from Western imperialism, which insists on the borders’ continuation to serve their regional interests.  Just as colonialism and the West have their own interests, Arab countries also have interests and wants, which should surpass those of the colonialists in order to eliminate these regional landmines, which could go off at any moment.  This problem exemplified the most important cause of the Second Gulf War.

The Palestinian Cause also represented one of the reasons for the Second Gulf War.  This Cause actually began with the Israeli Occupation of Palestine in 1948, and was followed by the wars of 1965, 1967, and 1973 between the Arabs and Israel.  Then the Israeli invasion of Lebanon came in 1982.  When Iraq decided to occupy Kuwait, it confirmed that it would liberate Palestine through occupying Kuwait, and demanded that Arab nationalists and Islamists support Iraq to confront the “imperial” force, which is allied against the Arabs and Muslims.

In connection with the goal of liberating Palestine, Iraq also announced its rejection of “imperialistic” and “artificial” borders among Arab countries as a means to achieve Arab unity, along with re-dividing the wealth among the Arab countries in order to bring about balance and to achieve comprehensive development throughout Arab countries.  Since the beginning of its occupation of Kuwait on 2 August 1990, Iraq cited many reasons for its invasion, which were the subject of controversy and disagreement among Arabs, Muslims, and across the world.  The Arabs and the world were divided between supporters and opposition.   Accounts overlapped, alliances varied, and issues renewed.  Each party gathered their opinions, demands, and aims, just as each one of them employed all they owned, including media, material, and military means.

For the first time since the Palestinian Cause began in 1948, Arabs differed regarding an issue’s fundamentals: Iraq raising the goal of liberating Palestine as a slogan for invading Kuwait.  Consequently, the “fundamental” nationalist cause weakened, and wasn’t even considered an issue after the Arab armies faced one another.  On a religious level, after Iraq opposed Iran and its Islamic Revolution in a war that lasted eight years (because it didn’t affect Arab nationalism and control over the region) Iraq returned in the Second Gulf War (1990) to demand Arab and Islamic unity in the face of the imperial invasion.

In the name of the Islamic religion, two seminars were also held during the build-up to the war.  The first was held in Mecca on 13 September 1990 to justify summoning foreign forces to expel Iraq from Kuwait and eliminate Iraq’s threats and greed from the region.  Earlier, a counter-seminar was held, also in the name of Islam, in Iraq on 17 August 1990, which refused to accept the summoning of foreign forces and forbade recourse to the infidel.  Iraq invoked Islam despite an indication from Denis Halliday, who was Director of Personnel at the United Nations Development Program at the time, that Saddam Hussein didn’t ever occupy the forefront of radical Islam, since Saddam had fought with Islamic Iran and had broken with dissenting religious men within Iraq.

As for the global media’s coverage of the crisis in the Gulf, I will be content mentioning some examples of research, which clarify some media characteristics.  Then I will touch upon the layout of the Arab media and its positions regarding the crisis in the Gulf.  Two researchers, Abbas Malek and Lisa Leidig, conducted a study that analyzed the American press’ position on the Gulf War, and whether U.S. newspapers had put forward diverse ideas or whether the press, in short, relied upon the official viewpoint in assessing the crisis, and consequently mobilized the general opinion commensurate with the political administration and Pentagon’s narrative.  

Malek and Leidig selected the New York Times and the Washington Post for analysis.  According to the researchers, these two newspapers covered a wide range of local and international events.  These two newspapers are also considered liberally elitist and critical, and do not hesitate to publish what might contradict the governmental point of view.  The Washington Post’s disclosure and publication of the Watergate scandal and the New York Times’ publication of the Pentagon Papers are considered notable examples confirming such descriptions.

Malek and Leidig’s study spanned 2 August 1990 – 16 January 1991, before Operation Desert Storm began on 17 January 1991.  Through this study, one can determine some observations about U.S. press coverage of the Gulf War.  The first observation, based on the study’s results, is that the tacit relationship between the government and the media might affect the democratic process in the U.S. through influencing the newspapers’ positions.  These two newspapers under study did not dispute or oppose the U.S. government’s decision to send its troops to the Gulf, because some government officials, according to the researchers’ opinion, had influenced the newspapers to not oppose the government’s decisions, especially since those officials were the lone official sources of news and information regarding the administration’s positions on the crisis.  The study’s second observation is that the U.S. newspapers presented the Gulf crisis in a manner, which bolstered the legitimacy of the administration’s decisions and consequently the legitimacy and validity of the administration’s decision to go to war against Iraq and send troops to the Gulf.

Perhaps one of the most important indicators about global media coverage of events in the Gulf is the absence or scarcity of a critical or dissenting tone from within the allied countries against their respective governments’ decision to go to war, as indicated by a University of Oklahoma study.  This study, entitled Telling the Gulf War Story: Coverage in Five Papers, focused on the news stories published about the Second Gulf War in five international newspapers.  These papers were: the Washington Post, Germany’s Frankfort Algamaina, France’s Le Monde, Britain’s The Times, and Japan’s Asahi Shimone.  This research group indicated media content during wartime didn’t reflect the events of the crisis, but simply was reconstructing events and presenting them to society in accordance the media’s preconceived visions and orientations, and not necessarily reflecting the reality of events in the Gulf.  The research team expected the five newspapers under study to have similar positions on the Gulf crisis on the grounds that the newspapers predominately belong to similar economic and political ideologies, and also all belong to countries that give more space to their newspapers to inquire and debate their governments’ respective policies.  Although this study confirmed the absence of a voice critical of the allied governments’ entrance into the Gulf War, it also clarified some discrepancies, which arose among the newspapers studied in their presentations of the Gulf War story.  For example, Le Monde was the one newspaper, among the five, which focused on the war’s moral and humanitarian side and inquired about the war’s necessity.  However, the other four papers presented the Gulf War story in a context of military operations with only slight differences among them.

These observations about the U.S. position and global press may raise some questions about the media establishment.  If these observations lead to demands for media independence and pride in finding the proper balance of professionalism, objectivity, and rich history, then the following observations of the Arab press shouldn’t surprise anyone about the work of this press.  The Gulf War divided the Arab world into two groups.  The first group consisted of the six members of Gulf Cooperation Council, in addition to Egypt, Syria, and Morocco.  These countries not only refused to accept Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but also participated in the international coalition.  Besides Iraq, the second group consisted of Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, Algeria, Libya, and the Palestine Liberation Organization.  A third group of Arab countries didn’t clarify their respective political positions on the Gulf War.  This force, which included Lebanon, Tunisia, Mauritania, and Somalia, affiliated with both the first and second groups.

To a large extent, the Arab press aligned its positions on the Gulf crisis with Arab government policies, as was shown in the previous paragraph where Arab newspapers were divided into three main categories.  The first category included newspapers of the Arab countries allied against Iraq, specifically the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Egypt, Syria, and some Moroccan newspapers.  Nicolas Hopkinson’s 1992 book War and the Media indicates the majority of Egyptian national newspapers, like al-Jumhurria, al-Ahram, and al-Akhbar, rejected Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.  Likewise, the Wafd Party’s eponymous newspaper, al-Wafd, forcefully criticized the Iraqi regime and called on Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait.  ‘Adil Darwish’s 1991 essay Allah Is Enlisted by Arab Armies confirms the most important observation regarding this type of newspaper coverage, especially al-Ahram’s.  He states that space was given to authors who oppose war in the Gulf, and to those who were occasionally indicating the war in the Gulf was an oil war for the sake of Western interests and was not about liberating Kuwait.

Syrian media conveyed the official government viewpoint and mobilized Syrian public opinion to support it.  Consequently, Syrian media presented a single picture of the crisis in the Gulf.  Through the media, it rejected the Iraqi invasion and sought to persuade Syrian public opinion of the legality and validity of the official Syrian decision to send troops to the Gulf.  The situation didn’t differ much in newspapers of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries – if they didn’t match up completely – from the Syrian newspapers’ positions and most of the Egyptian newspapers.

The second category of Arab press coverage of the Gulf War included newspapers from countries that supported Iraq’s positions, demands, and claims.  Perhaps the clearest examples of newspapers in this category, after the Iraqi newspapers, are the Jordanian newspapers, which supported Iraq without exception and continually criticized the international coalition.  In Jordan, the newspapers presented a single image of the crisis, reflecting the official government position.  Consequently, the newspapers shaped public opinion in line with support for Iraqi demands, and over time accepted the idea that occupying Kuwait would lead to the liberation of Palestine.  Karam Shalaby, in his 1992 book Media and Propaganda in the Gulf War: Documents from the Operations Room, indicates that the Jordanian media aligned its positions with the government’s official stance throughout the crisis.   It even “became an extension of the Iraqi media and propaganda, in all its aims and approaches, even in the vocabulary that this propaganda used in its daily rhetoric to the Arab masses.”

The third category of Arab newspapers – consisting of papers from Egypt and Morocco – represents a distinct phenomenon in the characteristics of Arab press coverage of the 1990-1991 Gulf War.  These two countries rejected the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and even sent their troops to join the international coalition.  However, some of the newspapers in these two countries adopted different positions in evaluating the crisis.  ‘Awatif ‘Abd al-Rahman, in her essay entitled Manifestations of Media Dependency in the Gulf War, indicates the Moroccan newspapers adopted an anti-Western position  and tried to emphasize the necessity of an Arab solution to the crisis.  According to ‘Abd al-Rahman, the Moroccan press criticized the government’s decision to send Moroccan troops to the Gulf, and confirmed that this war only aimed at controlling oil in the Middle East.  The newspaper Al Bayane, the voice of the Party of Progress and Socialism, was the lone exception to the Moroccan newspapers’ positions on the crisis in the Gulf.

Karam Shalaby’s results are summarized as follows: 1) Media in countries with totalitarian regimes didn’t permit the allotment of space for opinions, which diverged from or opposed the official viewpoint.  Consequently, under these regulations the media resorted to adjusting to the public’s desires or to besieging the masses with inflammatory propaganda. 2) There was space in multi-party Arab countries for other opinions that differed from the official viewpoint, however only in newspapers, party pamphlets and political rallies.  Meanwhile, these same multi-party countries kept rejecting any expression or indication of viewpoints that disagreed with the television viewpoint, which was broadcast on government television channels and radio media. 3) The two sides of the Arab media – supporters and the opposition – relied on international news sources. 4) Media of the two sides – the supporters and opposition – relied on the use of Islam as a text, legal canon, and symbol as propaganda to justify their stances and to validate their claims.

‘Arafan Nidtham ad-Deen continues in the same critical direction. He determines that because of the Second Gulf War, the Arab media in all its contrivances and means “paid an exorbitant price for this disaster. This occurred at the expense of its reputation, the honor of its profession, its ability to interface with events and be affected by them, affect public opinion, and translate its hidden and declared aspirations and emotions.”

Nidtham ad-Deen’s results do not differ from those which Karam Shalaby and other researchers recorded about the Arab media’s performance during the Second Gulf War, except in some points, such as: 1) The Arab political division was reflected in the media, which led to political excitement and positions attempting to control professional work, and consequently affecting the media’s credibility. 2) Passion trumped logic and instincts overcame reason. 3) The prevalence of a case of apparent confusion over the media’s performance – the supporters and the opposition – from the beginning of the crisis until the ceasefire.

Overall, Karam Shalaby spoke about the Arab-Arab confrontation with respect to the Arab media’s performance in the Second Gulf War (1990-91). Khalil ‘Ali Fahmi’s 1991 study entitled A Gulf of Misunderstanding confirmed that this war created another confrontation between the Arabs and the West, represented in the Arab and Western media’s respective positions on this war.

Fahmi’s study focused on the op-ed sections in The Times (London) and al-Ahram (Cairo) and their coverage of the Second Gulf War.  Through his analysis of these op-ed sections, Fahmi arrived at the conclusion that the War wasn’t presented as a confrontation between the Arabs and the West or between the Christian West and the Muslim East, which Fahmi considers a positive aspect in terms of cultural continuity between the West and  the East.  However, the two newspapers’ stances on the Second Gulf War contradicted the stances they had recorded on the First Gulf War between Iraq and Iran.  Fahmi described this contradiction as media hypocrisy.  At a time when The Times tried to justify the 1991 War on Iraq from a moral standpoint and refused to tie the war to the Palestinian Cause, al-Ahram wasn’t able to present an Arab or Middle Eastern narrative for that war.

Carrie Chrisco’s 1995 study, entitled Reactions to the Persian Gulf War: Editorials in the Conflict Zone, analyses six daily, English-language editorials in Middle Eastern newspapers.  Carrie confined her research on the 1990-1991 Gulf War to the following newspapers: The United Jordan Times, The Arab News (Saudi Arabia), Syria Times, Jerusalem Post (Israel), Arab Emirates News (United Arab Emirates), and Kayhan International (Iran).

In chapter one of her study, Chrisco depicts media’s role in covering the crises and wars, confirming media manufacture war’s image and reality that it wants in accordance with its political and cultural affiliations.  Chrisco believes she should focus on editorials and study them in order to explore what media actually manufacture during periods of crises and wars.  In the same chapter, Chrisco presents many studies of media’s performance, focusing on analysis of newspaper editorials.  She catalogued twelve separate pieces of research spanning 1935 to 1991.  Chrisco’s study relies on two levels of analysis.  On the first level, she analyses the six newspaper editorials’ topics, analyzing the actors and themes contained within.  On the second level of analysis, she appraises the values in Middle Eastern newspapers (through the sample research).

The Third Gulf War, 2003:

Before the American-British campaign against Iraq began on 20 March 2003, the world had entered a phase of psychological and practical readiness for a new war.  The media presented continual coverage of the events that preceded the war, especially hearings and debates of the United Nations Security Council and international and regional organizations.  This coverage helped the public to achieve a high degree of what to expect in terms of the war’s timing, probable results, and its particular strategic scenarios.

The global media’s fundamental and early attendance to the Third Gulf War came as a professional accumulation and reflection of actual developments in the global media layout after the Second Gulf War, the war in the Balkans, and the U.S. campaign against Afghanistan.  This war, more so than any other wars or crises, became present in media and television coverage in general, and was shown around the clock on most global television channels in an unprecedented manner.  Hence, a few comparisons between the latest war and the Second Gulf War (1990-1991) might assist in clarifying some professional developments – whether negative or positive – which materialized over twelve years of war coverage.

In quantitative terms, the global public was becoming acquainted with the idea of live and direct broadcasting on CNN and BBC from the site of any event in the Second Gulf War (1990-1991).  However, with the Third Gulf War, satellite channels from all over the world, in their various languages and perspectives, competed with armies to enter Baghdad.  While some observers had indicated the presence of close to 1,400 journalists in the Saudi desert to cover the Second Gulf War, the number of journalists who deployed to cover the Third Gulf War reached roughly 5,000.

The strategy of “news briefs and press conferences” had proven its importance in the Second Gulf War, so it was consequently kept as a strategy of dealing with the media in the Third Gulf War, this time from U.S. Central Command headquarters in as-Sulailia, Qatar.  On the other hand, the 1990-1991 strategy of news pools, which prevented the press from getting close to the battlefields unless accompanied by a military escort, was replaced with a new strategy in Third Gulf War.  This new strategy was named embedded journalism.  However, through reading the available literature on the coverage of wars and crises, it became clear that the concept of embedded journalism was not a new invention particular to the War on Iraq.  Morand Fachot indicates that embedded journalists materialized for the first time during World War II at the hands of the Americans, and specifically through the Office of War Information, as it was called at the time.

In the Third Gulf War, war activities doubled in the media, when the latter declared itself as a Third Army trying to take a neutral stand.  By “activities,” I mean the collective practices that are advanced by the belligerent parties militarily in dealing with the media.  These practices affect media’s performance.  In the Third Gulf War, the following practices fall within the expression media war activities:

Military control over press coverage: The two belligerent parties (the Coalition and Iraq) adopted a strategy of military control over media coverage.  The British-American alliance seemed very concerned with military briefs from U.S. Central Command headquarters in as-Sulailia, Qatar.  Included within the concept of military control, the Americans confirmed the importance of the idea of embedded journalism through the clear and candid justification presented by the Defense Department, which says:  “This system’s goal is to present the facts to the American public and the public in coalition nations, which can affect their opinions and positions regarding the Coalition.”  Military-media briefs were also an Iraqi strategy, but the Iraqi spokesman, Information Minister Mohammed S’aid, was a journalist and not a military leader, as in the case of the Coalition.

Harassing journalists, preventing them from performing their media jobs, and even expelling some of them:  This kind of harassment started even before the war began on 20 March 2003.  For example, the United States banished Iraqi news reporters from New York in the beginning of February 2003.  So the Iraqi government responded on 16 February 2003 by expelling four Fox News reporters.  These practices escalated during the war, which affected media coverage of the war.  At this point, one must point out some examples that many institutions, associations, and unions concerned with protecting press rights witnessed:  Iraqi authorities demanded CNN reporter Nic Robertson leave the country on 21 March 2003;  Coalition Forces bombed the Iraqi Information Ministry on three consecutive occasions: on the 25^th, 29^th, and 30^th of March 2003;  On 31 March 2003, Iraqi authorities prevented the Reuters news agency from supplying CNN with images of inside Iraq;  American forces bombed the Palestine Hotel, which is located in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. The Palestine, as it is known, was the headquarters of most international media reporters.  American forces also bombed the headquarters of two news channels: Abu Dhabi and Al-Jazeera.

Killing journalists through bombing their media centers. Some others die in separate instances:  The Third Gulf War was described as the most dangerous war and the most lethal in terms of journalist casualties.  From 20 March 2003 – 8 April 2003, fourteen journalists from various countries died.  This number is considered large when compared to the four journalists who had died over a longer time period during the Second Gulf War.  Although journalists had advanced knowledge about the high degree of danger they face in warzones, including death, the phenomena of intentionally targeting journalists is considered a dangerous development in the Third Gulf War. Suffice it to say, the bombing of Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi headquarters and the Palestine Hotel, both of which were known and clearly defined media centers, provides evidence of this premeditation.

Consequently, the belligerent parties presented media with much danger, prohibition, distortion of facts, and misinformation.  Media personnel were even exposed to the dangers of bodily harm and “friendly fire,” which is when friendly military forces accidentally shoot allied units.  A component of intentional bodily harm reinforces the idea that the media are turning into a “Third Army” in wars and crises, as it also gives evidence to new precedents in dealing with the media.

Despite the dangers inherent to journalism in war zones, intentional bodily harm is a new precedent set by this war.  Describing 9 April 2003 as “Black Journalist Day” is a logical and natural portrayal.  For on that day, the American forces decided to intentionally confront or terrorize the “Third Army” when they bombed the Palestine Hotel, out of which journalists from around the world were based.  Taras Protsyuk from Reuters and Jose Couso from one of the Spanish channels were killed in the bombing.  American forces also bombed Al-Jazeera’s headquarters, claiming the life of Jordanian journalist Tareq Ayyoub.

The Third Gulf War was a suitable opportunity for some Arab media establishments to impose their presence on the regional media layout, and even embrace internationalism when many global media outlets began transmitting war developments and activities of some Arab satellite channels in Iraq, like Al-Jazeera, Abu Dhabi, and Al-Arabiya.   Professional evidence attests to these channels’ intensive and outstanding presence.  Examples of this include live and direct broadcast around clock, which contributed to their transformation into essential news sources for some global television channels.  These Arabic satellite channels, which are supported by numerous correspondents across the Arab world, are no longer just a source of television images for global satellite channels.  For example, some global newspapers in France and Britain even allocated sections in their daily prints to familiarize their readers with Al-Jazeera’s on-going coverage of the Third Gulf War.  Differences and debates remain over the Arabic channels’ performance, which is a testimony to their vitality.  While the global media were busy with the war in the Gulf, many observers and parties concerned with media, military, and political issues were preoccupied with the performance of some Arab satellite channels.  One can read these debates about the Arab media in a lot of literature, which became available in an unprecedented manner.  The political circumstances in the Arab world and media in general had assisted in achieving this new global presence.

While the Second Gulf War (1990-1991) had divided the Arab world into two groups, the Third Gulf War was causing disagreement and dissent among the majority of official Arab organizations.  Even the Arab League rejected the war, in case the United Nations was unable to provide international legal cover for the war.  In comparison to the official Arab hesitancy in announcing positions on the recent Iraq War, the overwhelming majority of public Arab opinion was acute and candid in rejecting this war.  This rejection took the form of demonstrations, marches, and institutional, popular, and public protests through some organizations, associations, and professional unions.  This type of clear and obvious distinction between official Arab hesitancy and popular, mass visibility, even if only superficial in appearance, had provided a suitable climate for a new Arab media, especially satellite media, to go in new directions in terms of intensity of coverage and content.

Translation by Christian Sorensen for Media Roots

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Photo by Flickr User The U.S. Army

MEDIA ROOTS — On June 28, 2012, the Supreme Court upheld the controversial Affordable Healthcare for America Act, which will enact an individual mandate forcing Americans to buy health insurance or face a fine. In a tight 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that mandated healthcare is legal under the Commerce clause. Instead, the Court rested its decision on the fact that any fine assessed for non-compliance is a tax and therefore the federal government’s authority to tax is upheld.

Abby Martin of Media Roots and RT interviews Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, concerning the mainstream media rush to erroneously report the decision and the practical merits of the Affordable Healthcare Act ascension to law.

Abby Martin Interviews Cenk Uygur on Obamacare

Cenk Uygur provides a sober and honest evaluation of the Act better known as ‘Obamacare.’ He focuses in on the conservative nature of an individual mandate, mentioning how its origin stems from the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. Uygur hammers this idea home by clarifying the bill does not do enough as it provides no public option outside of private insurers.

Hats off to Cenk Uygur for sharing an honest and unique perspective on the Affordable Healthcare Act that you will not find anywhere in the mainstream.

Chris Martin for Media Roots

Photo by flickr user Texas GOP Vote

MEDIA ROOTS – Dr. Ursula Wilder, a clinical psychologist and Fellow at the Brookings Institution, recently wrote a piece entitled Inside the Mind of a Terrorist, in which she offers “provisional thoughts about [the most recent terrorist] bomb maker’s psyche.”  Instead, her rudimentary, superficial insight about terrorism unintentionally exposes the shroud of ignorance under which the U.S. war machine functions. 

Wilder describes the bomb maker as shadowy, enigmatic, compelling, fascinating, repellent, disciplined, meticulous, logical, adaptive, imaginative, and persistent.  These daunting adjectives depict a formidable mastermind.  However, she never mentions how the plot would never have gotten off the ground without CIA entrapment.  Regardless of the standards to which a “terrorist” inventor adheres, entrapment by security apparatuses are increasingly becoming the defining trait of so-called “terrorist plots.” 

The article claims without evidence that the bomb maker is unwilling to compromise ideologically, but completely neglects the rigid ideological underpinnings of the U.S. War on Terror.  According to Wilder, the bomb maker’s “unrestricted quality of thought is evident in the very concept of a device that conceals lethal explosives beneath the groins of operatives.”  Grasping at straws, she affords the bomb maker too much credit.  He is simply trying to circumvent airport security measures.  Placing bombs around one’s groin is merely a tactical exigency, yet Wilder classifies this act as being “eerily free” from the “boundaries of common decency.”  

Wilder never considers that dropping bombs of awesome power from an altitude of 30,000 feet is far more indecent.  U.S. government sponsored bombs and missiles rain down on civilians and resisters in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere on a daily basis.  Meanwhile, a lone “terrorist” underwear bomber sputters to get off the ground once a year.  Working within the blinding saturation of the War on Terror meta-narrative, Wilder insists positioning a crude bomb within underwear means the bomb maker’s mind lacks “some critical element endemic to the human spirit and to moral psychology.”  Wilder’s hypocrisy is deafening.  According to her rationale, those who invade, occupy, displace, murder, and rain terror, do not merit psycho-analysis; a lone bomber is the one who clearly lacks the fundamental attributes of humanity.

Continuing down the path of illogic and imprudence, Wilder affirms that the bomb maker views “the bodies of terrorist operatives and the anonymous bombing victims” as mere “tools” and “not the foundation of their personhood.”  The same can be said about U.S. war machines vis-à-vis innocent victims, except the U.S. public actually profit financially from war with the latter.  What about the collateral damage from our tools?  Wilder unintentionally answers this question when stating “terrorism is about hijacking the attention of the public with scenes of random carnage, and what locks the attention of viewers is fear and sympathetic horror.”  Although she intended to describe underwear bombs, her words accurately portray the slaughter of U.S. bombings, night raids, and drone strikes.

When applied to the U.S. war machine, Wilder’s words are quite precise.  She describes the bomb maker as lacking courage, since “courage requires persevering in the face of danger that is fully understood in all its facets – physical, psychological, moral, spiritual.”  But it is the generals, the rear-echelon feather-merchants, and the executives of war corporations that lack courage, since they deliberately ignore all academic, moral, and psychological traits of the “terrorist” fighting against the U.S. war machine.  When attempting to summarily describe the bomb maker, she unintentionally defines the main deficiency of U.S. militarized foreign policy: “Judgment – that ephemeral mental quality that captures maturity, wisdom, sympathetic understanding of the totality of reality, including tolerance for the complexities and ambiguities of shared morality – is quite broken.”  Wilder’s ultimate failure – typical of most individuals who are tied so intricately to the military-industrial teat – is her inability to introspect.

The sad truth is: we are the pathologically deficient.  We, citizens of the most powerful nation, could have used the trillions we spent on war since 2001 on good deeds.  Instead, we use trillions to kill on a mass scale.  We could have ended deforestation of the Brazilian rainforest, saving our planet’s lungs and enriching the lives of every living being on the planet.  We could have provided years’ worth of shelter and food for all U.S. citizens.  Instead, our pathologically noxious society idles, wages interminable war, deliberately pollutes our only environment, and exists in intentional disharmony with nature.  Who are the real fiends?  

Written By Christian Sorensen for Media Roots

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Photo by Flickr User Red-Pill Photo Gallery

MEDIA ROOTS —  A month ago, Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange and Abby Martin of Media Roots confronted Senator Rand Paul on camera at the Capitol building as he left a press conference.  The question they both asked him repeatedly is why he endorsed Mitt Romney if he stands in opposition to almost every Libertarian principle that both he and his father, Ron Paul, hold so dear.  Rand’s handler tried to shield Paul from Luke and Abby but failed to do so, creating a few cringe worthy moments that made Rand seem like an utter coward.  He silently looked down in embarrassment without even giving them a glance as he skirted away.

Some people may say that any form of ‘ambush’ journalism is unfair; since you don’t have permission to confront someone, don’t expect a friendly attitude or response.  However, in the past, a pre-Senate Rand Paul was spotted on the street by WeAreChange and asked about Bilderberg.  He seemed eager to speak candidly about the subject, throwing out a lot of anti New World Order rhetoric.

When Abby’s video hit YouTube, the comments and reactions were evenly split.  Some WeAreChange fans said they were okay with his endorsement, and that Rand Paul had to ‘make a deal’ in order to gain ground for their cause.  Others were furious at Abby and Luke for challenging ‘one of their own.’  Overall, many expressed the thought that Rand had sold out and betrayed his own father by catering to the Republican establishment.  Rand and Ron have been big allies with WeAreChange’s philosophical agenda for years, dovetailing off of WeAreChange’s association with the Alex Jones and Infowars.  To those unfamiliar with these different groups’ involvement in underground politics, WeAreChange acts as emissaries of the confrontational style of journalism Alex Jones has been known for, i.e. bullhorning in public buildings and confronting politicians about the New World Order.  Arguably, Alex Jones is following in the footsteps of Bill Cooper and David Icke with a heavy philosophical dose of the John Birch Society.

I started listening to Alex Jones in early 2004, and from the very first broadcast he spoke very favorably of one politician in particular, a Congressman named Ron Paul.  At the time I knew of people like Cynthia McKinney and Dennis Kucinich, but had no knowledge of anyone on the ‘right’ who held strongly to some of my personal beliefs about foreign policy, freedom and civil liberties.  After doing a bit of research on Ron Paul, he seemed like the real deal.  It made sense why Alex Jones was such a fan since Jones considered himself a ‘paleo conservative,’ neither Republican nor Democrat. 

Many years later, Paul’s son, Rand, came onto the scene and became a U.S. Senator in Kentucky; this was directly after the media coverage of the Tea Party movement had reached its peak.  Originally, the Tea Party phenomenon was started by 9/11 ‘truthers’ who were fans of Ron Paul and Libertarianism in general because of its focus on restoring liberties and cutting back on military intervention.  Eventually, the Tea Party was co-opted by the likes of Fox News and the RNC which turned it into a mainstream commodity to package and sell.  Rand stood side by side with the Tea Party and even considered himself one of the first Tea Party Senators.  His father, Ron Paul, seemed generally pleased at its success–the Tea Party’s growing appeal would only catapult him to more fame.

Slowly it became clear that Rand was following in his father’s footsteps in a lot of ways, sometimes being one of the few Senators to vote “no” on a bill simply because of a possible threat to civil liberties.  However, it was also clear from the beginning that he was different from his father and didn’t have enough political cache to speak ill of American foreign policy or the War on Terror.  He definitely didn’t risk saying anything remotely close to his dad’s statements about 9/11 being a result of CIA blowback.

Alex Jones still promoted Rand, along with his father Ron, regardless of their differences on 9/11 and the War on Terror.  WeAreChange and the Infowars community seemed to be mostly excited about Ron and his son becoming such well known fixtures in the mainstream media and Republican party.  But there were exceptions–early on I noticed that certain fans became leery of these events, wondering why elements of the RNC would accept Rand and his father with open arms unless there was a bigger chess game at play.

The attention reached its peak during the 2011 Republican presidential primaries, when Ron Paul collected over 200 delegates. Just like in 2008, Ron Paul hinted at running third party if he lost the primary, but didn’t end up launching a third party bid after losing the nomination.  After discovering that Mitt Romney was the clear victor, it’s most likely that both Pauls were asked by their ‘friends’ in the Republican party to endorse him for president.  Apparently, Rand felt compelled to do just that.  Less than a month after the dust had settled, he went on television to announce his endorsement for the war mongerer.

Was he offered a sweet deal or did he go into it with the underlying understanding that if he solidified his friendship with the Republican overlords it would pay off in the long term?  Surely he knew that the liberty movements’ reaction would range anywhere from mildly unhappy/confused to feeling betrayed–but he decided to do it anyway.  Or, is a third possibility conceivable–that Ron and Rand Paul have been used as tools by the Republican party for longer than the Romney endorsement; now they may actually be inadvertently helping this so called ‘New World Order’ they both profess to oppose?

If you have been following the history of the evolution of the Pauls as I have, you can see that Abby and Luke’s video confrontation at the Capitol asking Rand about his curious endorsement of Romney blew up the internet with a heated albeit much needed debate.  Many Paul fans feel as if they have been mislead, and that the Pauls are playing into the hands of the very untrustworthy establishment that has shut out their movement for so long.  Can we blame them?

UPDATE: A week after this confrontational video was broadcast, Abby’s workplace, Russia Today, received an ominous phone call from a Senate committee staffer who represents mainstream media access to the Capitol building.  This representative implied that Abby had trespassed (she did not, they were both credentialed press for the event) into the Capitol to ‘harass’ Rand Paul.  It turns out that it was Rand Paul’s staff that put the pressure on this committee to try to strip Abby of her press credentials and intimidate her.  Luckily, the Rand Paul campaign was extremely naive and had no idea that Abby only becomes stronger and more aggressive in the face of adversity and threats.  Rand Paul has opened a can of worms on this that they will not be able to close. Trying to get a journalist in trouble or even fired from their organization for simply asking a question is one of the sleaziest and oldest tricks in the book; we are even surprised that politicians still employ these strong arm techniques instead of more subtle and nuanced approaches.

I’ve been on the fence for a long time about what the Pauls are really trying to accomplish.  Now that we know for sure that Rand Paul tried to threaten and intimidate Abby simply for asking him why he endorsed Mitt Romney, I think I can safely hop to one side of the fence–the side in which Rand and possibly Ron Paul are clearly working on behalf of the “establishment.”

Robbie Martin for Media Roots

To hear Abby and I discussing these events on our most recent podcast click here, or stream below


Media Roots Radio – Rand Paul Crackdown, Gay Rights, Illuminati & NWO Distraction by Media Roots

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