------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Oct. 24, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
CLIMATE OF WAR, RACISM AND VIOLENCE: WHAT THE MEDIA LEAVE OUT OF SNIPER COVERAGE By Deirdre Griswold There is much speculation in the media on what kind of person would meticulously plan the killing of women, men and youths who have done nothing to offend him other than merely exist. It is known that he carries out his crimes from a safe distance. His command of deadly weaponry with pinpoint accuracy shields him from retaliation. He does not know his victims, never looks them in the face. They are expendable, it seems, merely to prove a point. And what is that point? Here the speculation turns to the question of power. Is he driven by the compulsion to prove that he has the power, the invulnerability, to defy the world and impose his will on society? All this is being dissected in great detail in the media. Oh, you thought this was about George W. Bush? No, the media are discussing the D.C.-area sniper, who is nameless and has killed nine people, as of this writing. Whether the murders in the suburbs ringing Washington are being committed by one person or several is still a matter of speculation, although the pronoun "he" is increasingly used to describe the one-shot sniper who has gunned down victims at shopping malls and gas stations. We have no information on who the killer or killers may turn out to be. But we do have an observation to make on the media coverage. A notable amount of prime time is being devoted to countering the growing assumption by the public that the killer received military or police training. Many experts-- some of them officers, others from the "privatized" armed groups better known as mercenaries--are being trotted before the cameras to say that anyone can learn to shoot this accurately just by playing video games or reading about marksmanship on the internet. One such expert, representing a guns-for-hire company, explained that it couldn't be a professional sniper because outfits like his only train the "good guys." Can the networks really get away with dressing up drivel like this as "news" in the reign of George II? People in the rest of the world don't see it this way. They look at what the U.S. military is doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Yemen, the Philippines and Colombia, and it doesn't fit their idea of the "good guys." They see the U.S. as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today--to quote the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Vietnam War. They draw their own conclusions when a killer with what is described as a military-type weapon turns up right near the capital of the nation that is sending hundreds of thousands of troops around the world. They remember that the U.S. has produced pilots who were caught on tape cheering when their missiles blew up impoverished villages in Afghanistan or when they incinerated tens of thousands of retreating Iraqi soldiers at the end of the Gulf War on what came to be known as the "Highway of Death." The U.S. had suffered only a handful of casualties in that war, and most of them from what is called "friendly fire," so this terrible coldness to human suffering did not come from battle fatigue or the trauma of front-line troops exposed to the death of their comrades. People in other lands are offended that this corporate- controlled culture--through its movies, television and other forms of mass media--has tried to strip Arabs and other Third World people of their humanity. In so many of the televised discussions here that shape public opinion on whether there should be a war, the ordinary people of the Middle East are barely referred to. In fact, they are treated merely as obstacles to the driving ambitions of U.S. politicians, commanders and oil capitalists for domination of the area. Is it outrageous to suggest that this attitude toward the people of other countries could be transferred, by someone who had been trained to kill coldly and without an iota of sympathy for the "enemy," into contempt for ordinary people here? In other words, that the killer could have been trained by the military, not just in the use of weapons but in a callous attitude toward civilians? With all the coverage of this unfolding saga of mass murder, much of it extremely repetitive and even trivial, there has been no discussion of this question, which is on so many people's minds. It may turn out that there is some other explanation for what is happening. We don't know. But the Pentagon is becoming more directly involved in the investigation. It is now supplying aerial photos to the police. One thing is clear. The military brass and the police are not eager to find that one of the thousands of snipers trained by the government committed these crimes. The Pentagon's involvement also sets a dangerous precedent in the growing encroachment of the military, which has been barred by law from civilian police work, into all areas of life. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
