American Media

Song: "Free Nation?" by Anti-Flag

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20040904-9999-1n4abuse.html

What constitutes a front page story? Browsing through today's Google news headlines, one can find stories monitoring the unfortunatley close presidential race, terror scares at LAX, and even two separate articles concerning ex-pres Bill Clinton's upcoming bypass surgery. And then, on page 5 of U.S. headlines (where very few people will ever find it) there is a story recalling the once-popular prisoner abuse scandal at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. And what's this barely-worth-mentioning story about? Oh, just about how 4 Navy SEALs abused a prisoner... until he died. More specifically, Navy SEALs detained an Iraqi suspected of being involved in a Red Cross bombing and beat him until he died of a cerebral blood clot (not unlike the type of injury one could sustain from being repeatedly struck on the head with the butt of ... oh, i don't know, maybe an M-16). In all fairness, the prisoner may have been a threat to the soldiers, considering he was restrained with handcuffs and a sandbag was placed over his head. Praise the Lord that the soldiers are being charged with "beating a Iraqi detainee." We can't try them for murder; after all, it was only an Iraqi that they killed...

First and foremost, I'd like to rant on the fact that this is on page 5! What the hell? One must wonder if this is a problem with the media or if this is a problem with the general public? Have we become so ethnocentric that the brutal murder of an Iraqi detainee (keep in mind, the victim was a suspect -- without any charges brought against him) is a page five story? If Iraqi officials detained an American journalist for suspected involvement in terrorist activites, our nation would be foaming from the mouth. Oh my God, who do they think they are detaining an American without any charges or evidence? Do you think Iraqi detainees hold the same rights that us Americans take for granted -- I'm sure we would have released him within 48 hours if we couldn't charge him with anything, right? Oh wait, that's why we have the PATRIOT act and martial law -- now we can detain them indefinately. Tangent, sorry... back to the point: ethnocentricity. Now imagine that Iraq beat our detained American reporter to death. Front page -- for at least a week! Shit, we've started wars for less. *cough* Iraq *cough* Actually, if we're following recent trends, we would have started the war if we could muster up enough phantom intelligence to show that they simply had the potential to beat our reporter to death -- they wouldn't actually have to do it. *cough* Iraq *cough* The point in all this jumbled mass of frustration is that us, as Americans, are sickeningly ethnocentric, and we are taught by the media (and by our leaders) to think this way. American lives are more valuable. God Bless America (and no one else). Think about it... the entirety of our social and economic policy upon the fact that the American people are more important than anyone else. Our immigration policy: don't let them in, they may take an American job! Anyway, I would love to see the general public start thinking about this as you're watching Fox News and wearing your metaphorical stars and stripes.