Wednesday, February 12, 2014

THE MANUFACTURE OF CONSENT

Noam Chomsky's indictment of US news media has held up over time, as I noted below in the case of the Guatemala murders.  We also need to point the figure at the American elites who don't seem to give a damn, even a sweet middle-aged lady:

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
--60 Minutes (5/12/96)

At least one member of Britain's elite could tell the moral truth:
He is Carne Ross, once known in the UN as "Mr. Iraq." He is now a truth-teller. I read to him a statement he had made to a parliamentary selection committee in 2007: "The weight of evidence clearly indicates that sanctions caused massive human suffering among ordinary Iraqis, particularly children. We, the US and UK governments, were the primary engineers and offenders of sanctions and were well aware of the evidence at the time, but we largely ignore it and blamed it on the Saddam government. [We] effectively denied the entire population a means to live."

2 comments:

Ken Hoop said...

Korben would have cared deeply if it had been Israeli children.

Steve J. said...

PROBABLY