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For a long time, massive propaganda has been the way for the US Government to influence public opinion for or against one cause or another. It is deliberately spread by both the government and the mainstream media to mold the public opinion in favor of our government’s particular agenda. All our mainstream media are usually complicit in the propaganda campaign. Throughout our violent history, the propaganda by our government has played a vital role in molding the public opinion in favor of its nefarious policies whether it was the created war with Mexico in 1846, or the coup d’état against Queen Lili’uokalani of Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and its ultimate annexation in 1898 or war with Spain in 1895 resulting in the acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America or resulting in the acquisition of Gaum from Spain in 1899, just to name a few. We Americans are led to believe that America’s intentions were and always are noble and peaceful. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Atomic Bombing of Japan
President Harry Truman threw not one but two atomic bombs on civilian targets in Japan’s cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 killing more than 250,000 people, many instantly and others succumbed to their injuries later. This criminal act was committed even though Japan was ready and desperate to surrender. Truman refused to its simple demand that its Emperor should be saved.
After this criminal act, Truman and his administration went on telling American people ‘Blatant lies’ that by atomic bombing of Japan, one million American lives were saved to end the war otherwise invasion of Japan would have been necessary with massive loss of half to one million American soldiers. Majority of Americans then and still now believe this lie.
The World War II
In this war with Nazi-Germany, Russians lost some 26 million people. It was Russia who was more responsible for the defeat of Nazis, not the allied forces as we are led to believe. At that time, the Russians were our friends, part of the Allied Forces. But after the war, President Truman and Winston Churchill decided that Russians were our enemies and should be stopped from advancing their influence in Eastern Europe. Truman followed up by creating NATO in 1949 to dominate Russia. Massive propaganda was carried out against the “Soviet threat” in the united States and Britain. Stalin became a boogey man, a dangerous dictator to be feared. It was projected that the Soviet Union and Communism was bent on conquering the world. A foolish cold war was started by the United States and huge arms development began in USA and UK. Soviets followed suit. What followed was the beginning of a massive, expensive, and foolish arms race that continued for decades and even now. Hundreds of trillions of Dollars were spent on weapons of mass destruction by the US, UK, the NATO countries and the Soviet Union was too forced to do the same. Trillions of Dollars were diverted towards arms development which could have been used for the welfare of the people. The threat of the Soviet Union was exaggerated. The soviets were recovering from massive war devastation and were in no position to threaten the United States. Yet, propaganda of the communist and Soviet threat was carried on for decades. The result was, the American people believed their leaders. Like they say, when a lie is repeated several times, people believe it.
The Vietnam War
I remember, during the Vietnam War, I was in college, and I used to watch Huntley/Brinkley News in the evening. These news gave the idea that we were winning. General Westmoreland–who was the Supreme Commander of our whole operation there–was assuring President Johnson that the war was turning around in our favor and that we were winning. It turned out that all this was a lie as final events of 1975 revealed when we were forced to flee by planes and helicopters from our Saigon embassy with our tail between our legs.
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
In August 1964, the U.S. escalated the Vietnam War based on the reports of an unprovoked attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 2, 1964, the US government claimed that the American destroyer USS Maddox which was stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam was attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Again, it was attacked on August 4th. After the second attack, the U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution almost unanimously, allowing the government to “take all necessary measures” to protect U.S. forces in Vietnam. It was tantamount to a declaration of war, but it was based on a lie. In early 2000s, nearly 200 documents were declassified and released by the National Security Agency. These documents revealed that there was no attack on August 2nd or 4th, 1964. The U.S. government had created this “lie” for their own gains and perhaps for Johnson’s own political prospects. This lie jumpstarted the war that would claim 58,220 American and more that 3 million Vietnamese lives. This is what our government does, and our mass-media always conspires with our government and follows through with these lies.
A North Vietnamese P-4 engaging USS Maddox, August 2, 1964 (Licensed under the Public Domain)
The Gulf War
Shortly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, an organization called Citizen for a Free Kuwait was formed. It hired a public relations firm—Hill & Knowlton–for $11 million paid by Kuwait’s government. It arranged for an appearance before a group of members of US Congress in which a young woman identifying herself as a nurse working in the Kuwait city hospital described Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators and letting them die on the floor. The story helped tip the Congress and the US public towards a war with Iraq. All our major compliant news media carried out these lies’ day and night to all Americans. Hence majority of Americans were convinced of the legality of this illegal war.
Invasion of Afghanistan
After 9/11 attacks, George Bush asked the ruling Janata of Afghanistan to hand over Osama Bin Laden who was living there. The Taliban spokesman requested the proof that Osama was behind the attacks. This was a fair demand. The Bush administration in its arrogance said, “we don’t negotiate with the terrorists” and refused to give any proof of Osama’s involvement in the crime. As a matter of fact, according to reports, they had no proof of Osama’s involvement in this crime. Most of the terrorists were Saudi Arabians and few were from Egypt. Still today, they don’t have any proof of Osama’s involvement in this heinous crime. After 20 Years of criminal invasion and war with Afghanistan, once again we were forced to run away from it like we did in Vietnam. But no American politician admits to this blunder and no lessons are learned from our criminal wars.
Invasion of Iraq
Then came the immoral and disastrous invasion of Iraq. The whole war was based on a lie. George W. Bush and his administration carried out a major campaign of lies that Iraq was developing weapons of ‘mass destruction’. Remember the ‘Mushroom Clouds’? Saddam Hussein was projected as a bogeyman, a new Hitler. Some 72% of Americans approved of this invasion.
What was the result? Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq as a country which was doing well, was destroyed. More than a million Iraqi civilians were killed, and $2 trillions of taxpayers’ dollars were squandered. Thousands of our young men were injured, many of them were maimed for a miserable life while war criminals like George Bush is playing golf and his war criminals like Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and Wolfowitz are enjoying their lives today.
According to the Costs of War project at Brown University revealed that 20 years of post -9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion and have killed more than 900,000 people.
“American Democracy”
There is massive propaganda in this country as well as around the globe. All the time, our president and other politicians tout the greatness of America and its great democracy. In reality, America is controlled by the oligarchs and the superrich. They buy and control our politicians and these politicians do their bidding, paying back their paymaster. Average American has no voice. But most Americans still buy the media narrative and believe that America is a great democracy.
Israel
Image is from The Unz Review
Ever since the 1967 Arab-Israel War, the pro-Israel propaganda and the narrative by the US Government and the mass media in our country is so strong that nobody, from the president down to the Senators or the Congressmen or any professor or any public figure dare to criticize Israel in its apartheid policies towards the Palestinians or their illegal occupation of Palestinian lands. No politician dares to criticize Israel without losing the next election or no professor can criticize Israel without losing his/her tenure from any prestigious college or university in America. Because the powerful Jewish lobby AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee) is watching every politician in this country. Is that freedom of speech? And the American people accept this because they have no choice. Our government doles out $3.8 billion military aid every year—total aid given since 1949 depending on the source, varying from $133 to $146 billion–while some 33.98 million of Americans were living below the poverty line in 2019 and as of 2020, some 14 million American children or 1 in 5 children don’t get enough food to eat. To our government, who is more important? Few millions of Israelis some 6756 miles away or close to 40 million of American citizens who are very poor? But nobody dares complain because it will never be reported by our mainstream mass media or see the light of the day. The poor have no voice in this country. They are kept there to serve the rich and the powerful.
Ukraine War
Take a recent example of Ukraine War. The whole war was the work of the United States. Since the collapse of the Soviet union in 1989-90, Russian president Gorbachev was promised –in exchange for his allowing East Germany to merge with West Germany—that “NATO will not move one inch eastward towards Russia”. But afterwards, Bill Clinton added 3 nations to NATO and George Bush Jr. added 7 more. NATO expanded to include 30 nations. When Putin came to power in 2000-2001, he said that Ukraine joining NATO will be a red line for Russia. But they invited Ukraine to join NATO. So, Putin was recklessly provoked to invade Ukraine. Immediately, massive American propaganda machine went to work full throttle. Every American mainstream news media has been blaming Russia for this war and are demonizing Putin, comparing him with Hitler. Ever since the invasion of Ukraine, every mainstream mews media is carrying anti-Russia propaganda taking their clue from our government. Unfortunately, most Americans are unaware of the real reasons behind Russia’s attack on Ukraine. So, they believe every word of this propaganda by our news media as well as by our government. History repeats itself many times like they believed weapons of mass destruction story about Iraq in 2003.
Just like during mid-1960s our generals were telling the government that we are winning the Vietnam War…a blatant lie. They were losing the war. The same way, our media taking their clue from the government is telling Americans that Ukraine is winning the war with Russia; another lie like before.
Talking about the 2020 election, Donald Trump and his cronies went on falsely claiming that the election of Joe Biden was fraudulent; it was stolen. Millions of Americans still believe that. They are die-hard believers in Trump’s lies.
Just last September, as per Seymour Hersh, the Nord Stream pipeline was destroyed by the United States’ Navy and that of Norway, an international terrorist act by any standard but no attention was given to this major news in American mainstream news-media. A total black out. That is called “the censorship by omission”, to borrow a phrase from veteran journalist John Pilger.
There are protests by thousands of people in France, Germany, and Britain. As the people of NATO-Europe are suffering from very high energy costs due to sanctions on Russia, they are demanding that their country get out of NATO, stop the Ukraine War, stop supporting Ukraine, be friends with Russia etc. But amazingly, you don’t see any of these protests being reported in mainstream news media in America. Is that freedom of information? No. That is, once again “the censorship by omission”. The media is censoring any news which can change the public opinion in America or Britain against supporting this proxy war.
Noam Chomsky, the famous expert, and critique of US foreign policy has described this Ukraine War as “the proxy war by the United States to the last Ukrainian”. But you will never see famous critiques like him, Chris Hedges, Ralph Nader or professor John Mearsheimer ever being interviewed on our mainstream news media. Because if given an opportunity, they will demolish the current narrative of our government and the mass media about this proxy war.
Vietnam veteran and author Andrew Bacevich so aptly writes in his interesting book of 2021, After the Apocalypse: “That much is certain, however: In Washington, refusal to abide by the expressed rhetorical conventions of American global leadership offers sufficient grounds for being effectively silenced. Critics of empire like Noam Chomsky on the left and Patrick Buchanan on the right offer examples. Each may be allowed his say and each may even attract large audiences. But in this instance, the audience does not translate into influence. To question American Exceptionalism and oppose the American Empire is to become persona non grata wherever members of the foreign policy establishment congregate. That describes Chomsky and Buchanan’s fate.”
Capitalism
Have you ever seen or heard on our mainstream media, the criticism of capitalism? It will never happen. Because it is capitalism or our current economic system that keeps our billionaires and superrich in power. It is our “winner take all” economic system that keeps the rich getting richer and the poor staying poor today. These superrich know that if people realize that it is this unfair system that keeps them poor, then the majority will try to change this system for a more equitable system like socialism or social democracy. The superrich then will lose their wealth and power. So, they will never allow public opinion to form against capitalism. Hence the unfair system continues uninterrupted.
Majority of Americans get their news from the mainstream news media. So, they don’t get the real unbiased story or facts. They believe everything our mainstream news media and our government tells them. And the government and our news media have an agenda to mold Americans’ public opinion in certain way like supporting a future war or future law or future plan. Like Noam Chomsky famously wrote many years ago about “Manufacturing Consent”. That is what they are doing and are successful at that.
Majority of Americans believe in America’s exceptionalism. Many Americans believe that America is a God Chosen country to do good in the world.
From early childhood, we are all led to believe that America is a “free country”. The fact is that America has largest number and percentage of people in jail than any other country including China or Russia.
Our leaders constantly tell us that we are “the leaders of the free world”. Most Americans believe this propaganda. The fact is that in most UN Resolutions, America and its satellite states like Israel vote on one side while the rest of the world votes the opposite way. But the propaganda machine keeps churning. The tragedy is, most Americans keep believing in this propaganda and lies.
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Chaitanya Davé is a Chemist and a Chemical Engineer and a businessman. He has authored three books: CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: A Shocking Record of US Crimes since 1776-2007, COLLAPSE: Civilization of the Brink-2010, Capitalism’s March of Destruction. Author of many articles on politics, history, and environment Founder/President of a non-profit charity foundation helping the poor villagers of India, Nepal, Haiti, USA-homeless and other poor countries. He can be contacted at [email protected].
