With The Drone Bombing Victims?
Or With Who Ordered The Strikes?
By Jay Janson
19 July, 2009
Countercurrents.org
How many Americans in their hearts are on the side of the humble families of Pakistani citizens slaughtered in Predator drone airplane Hellfire missile attacks, and how many are on the side of the angelic, charming, Harvard Law School educated first black president of the United States, who, a few days after his inauguration, ordered these drone airplane Hellfire missile attacks in the name of 9/11? (Something he had said he would do if he were elected.)
President orders air strikes on villages in tribal area, Guardian, UK, Jan. 24, 2009
“Barak Obama gave the go-ahead for his first military action yesterday, missile strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan which killed at least 18 people. Four days after assuming the presidency, he was consulted by US commanders before they launched the two attacks.”
Obviously, there are overwhelmingly more Americans with President Obama - no matter what orders he gives. How is this so? Weekly grisly reports of massacres, some with accompanying heartrending photos from wire service news releases and articles that many of us read on the Internet, and often enough see in the New York Times and other widely read print media.
But the majority of Americans are spared these AP reports. They get their impressions of the news from conglomerate owned TV, radio, tabloids and local home town newspapers, in which a massacre has to be nearly, or over, one hundred bodies counted to make it into these news channels.
Many years ago Noam Chomsky of MIT and Ed Herman of the Wharton School of Economics explained how public consent is manufactured by corporate run media through selection, filtering and repetitious emphasis of what it presents as news worthy while not reporting or underreporting that which might make for a well informed and discerning public.
Seems commercial media also manufactures DISINTEREST as well. There would appear to be many more millions of Americans leading a lifestyle that does not include interest in political current events, much less interest what their government is doing halfway around the world.
This perhaps largest group of citizens would tend to be not taking sides on foreign issues - Pakistan? - ‘not my problem!’ - ‘what could I do?’ Beyond the self-centeredness pushed on hedonistic entertainment consumer oriented TV programing, millions of ordinary working Americans are suffering with their day to day family finances, especially during the recession and have little time left over for practicing citizenship.
However, those who WILLINGLY choose to be neutral about the loss of human life during these Predator Drone pilotless missiles strikes might consider the warning of the great Italian poet Dante, who, believing in citizen responsibility, wrote sometime before his death in 1321, "The HOTTEST fires in Hell are reserved for those, who in times of moral crisis, maintain neutrality."
Indifference to deaths and maiming of non-Americans who fall in harms way of U.S. military action is a tradition in the United States. This attitude or non attitude is sponsored by American major media, anchors and commentator personnel consciously working hand in glove with U.S. military propaganda.
Both corporate media and the corporate governance it represents and protects by managing the news, are above all laws, whether constitutional, international or common moral law. (Forget about the Fifth Commandment.)
Obama’s CIA Head Leon Panetta has restated as recently as May 19, that the Predator drone strikes will continue:
CIA Chief Panetta: Obama Policies Have Disrupted al-Qaida
NewMax, Tuesday, May 19, 2009
‘Responding to a question, Panetta said unmanned drone strikes - whose use has caused tension with Pakistan - had been "very effective" in targeting Al-Qaeda's leadership.
"I think it does suffice to say that these operations have been very effective," Panetta said.
"It is very precise, it's very limited in terms of collateral damage and very frankly, it's the only game in town in terms of confronting and trying to disrupt the Al-Qaeda leadership."
[author Janson’s underlining]
Predator drones run by the CIA are regularly flown covertly in Pakistan, ...
Pakistani officials say the drone strikes, which have killed more than 390 people in about 42 attacks since August 2008, violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment”
Its a free country, anyone can 1) speak up in support of the Predator Drone missile attacks, 2) speak up for the Pakistanis who will die as the stikes continue, or 3) just be silent and ignore it all.
Then again what good is free speech if no one is listening except to the television. .
