Written  6:18 pm  Jan 22, 1991 by peg:tribune in cdp:mideast.forum
 

 THE MEDIA WAR
 By Jan McKemmish

 The old cliche that the first casualty of war is truth has
 been done the rounds in the current Gulf crisis.
 Australian journalists have been refused positions on the
 naval ships in the Gulf, on the grounds that there is no
 room for them and they have not been trained in chemical
 warfare protection.

 After pressure from the media Senator Robert Ray, Minister
 for Defence, said Australian journalists could reboard ships
 if the Navy approved.

 Senator Ray denied that he was using censorship but admitted
 in the Sydney Morning Herald that "we have the ability to
 censor anything that comes [off the ships]."

 Meanwhile on Australian TV screens each night a ratings war
 is taking place. Brian Henderson has been recalled from
 holidays to front Channel 9 news in this crucial hour.
 Channels 7 and 10 are advertising their Gulf coverage.
 Channel 2 has given over the Seven Thirty Report to The Gulf
 Report.

 The first of these publicly funded programs went to air on
 January 15, the same day large anti-war rallies took place
 around the country. So what `news' did Channel 2 give us?
 First a specialist in Arab affairs told us negotiations
 would not work. Then a somewhat bemused Chris Masters, prize
 winning journalist with a reputation for getting to the
 heart of things, moved a pointer over a map of the Middle
 East, telling us how the war will happen.

 Then there was a military type who had one of those dinky
 models of the Middle East, also expounding on how the war
 will happen. Apart from Chris Masters' one sentence
 conclusion that we must not forget that war is about people
 dying, the whole program looked and sounded like propaganda
 for the American war machine.

 The anti-war rallies did not get a mention.

 There was no argument against the war and no analysis of the
 relationship between war, diplomacy, propaganda and news.
 There seemed to be a studied effort not to discuss
 Australia's military and diplomatic commitment. Nowhere was
 it being said that Australian warships will attack Kuwait/Iraq
 or that the first strike would be a US/British operation.

 For this sort of information you had to go to SBS and the radio.

 There was something obscene about the TV media's gung-ho
 fixation on weapons and scenarios. The `news' consisted more
 and more of speculation, will it be a long or short war; how
 many casualties will there be; who has the superior air
 power, the most tanks, soldiers, rounds of ammunition, and
 the best technology. With radar and satellites and lasers
 the US forces know when an Iraqi soldier moves. Stealth
 bombers.

 The tone and style of these `discussions' is reminiscent of
 the newsreels of the 1940s. And there is a mechanical
 repetition of the argument that appeasement does not work
 (look at what happened with Hitler). The result is a closed
 case to the whole media presentation of the crisis and war.
 By the end of the week the Australian media had started to
 change its focus. A Channel 7 phone-in poll on Thursday
 evening elicited over 60,000 responses with 63% voting
 against the war.

 And public and political calls for the recall of parliament
 escalated. The Network for Peace and the Conflict Resolution
 Network presented a 10,000 signature petition to acting
 Foreign Affairs Minister Neil Blewett. asking for the recall
 of parliament.

 Opposition Leader John Hewson and National Party member Ian
 Sinclair took up the call and on Thursday morning Senator
 Ray, Minister for Defence, supported the recall of
 parliament. Perhaps he knew what was going to happen as he
 spoke. Within an hour the Pentagon had officially
 acknowledged that air attacks on Kuwait and Baghdad had
 begun.

 Bob Hawke announced the recall of Parliament  for two days,
 it is in session as Tribune goes to press.
 The media has got its war, let us hope that the debate on
 Australia's role and the campaigns for peace in the Gulf,
 only just begun, do not go unreported or become silenced by
 the live-to-air excitement of people dying.

 Spokesperson Bob Boughton said last week that the people of
 Alice Springs are particularly concerned, "not only do we
 have a military personnel in the Gulf, but perhaps more
 importantly, the US controlled spy bases at Pine Gap,
 Nurrungar and North West Cape are playing a vital role in
 the US war plans. Pine Gap is just out of our town, it will
 be assisting commanders in the Gulf to kill many people
 through the provision of battlefield intelligence. This
 makes a mockery of previous statements by the Australian
 government that the functions of these bases are to preserve
 peace."

 Women Against War

 In Sydney last Friday women and children dumped two
 containers of bones on the second floor on the UN offices as
 a protest against the UN decisison to use force to resolve
 the Gulf crisis.

 In support of their action Women against War said: "The UN
 opposed the invasion of East Time by Indonesia and did
 nothing. The UN opposed the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and
 the West Bank and did nothing. The UN opposed the US
 invasions of Granada and Panama and did nothing. The UN
 found the US guilty of breaking Nicaragiuan sovreignty and
 did nothing."

 Greens (WA) Senator Jo Vallentine has called for an
 immediate ceasefire in the Middle East and demanded that
 negotiations begin.


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