The media here thought the terrorism in Australia fell from the deep blue sky and had no relationship to the help John Howard gave to George Bush in the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. The Australian media continue to fail us badly over its coverage of the Middle East wars, terrorism and the continuing human disaster and political and sectarian confusion.
News Corp media has been most at fault. No wonder Robert Manne called it the ‘Murdoch War’.
There is probably no more obvious example of how News Corp works than the way it supported George Bush’s invasion of Iraq, assisted by Australia. The war was illegal, unprovoked and unnecessary. Before the invasion, during it and in the years since, neither News Corp nor any other mainstream media in Australia has ever confessed to error, its unprofessionalism.
Media organisations such as the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Economist have all apologised for their mistaken assessments and their encouragement of the invasion of Iraq, and its terrible consequences, particularly for the Iraqi people, the region and even the lives of the invaders. We are less safe in Australia because our troops are still over there.
Of the 175 Murdoch papers worldwide all but one, the Hobart Mercury, supported the war. But the Mercury was soon brought into line. Murdoch editors and opinion writers are great mind readers
Just consider what News Corp told us about the Iraq war – and it is best to start at the top with Rupert Murdoch. He said in 2003:
“We can’t back down now where you hand over the whole of the Middle East to Saddam. … I think Bush is acting very morally, very correctly. … The greatest thing to come of this to the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $US20 a barrel for oil.’ (Bulletin, 12 February 2003).
He added a few weeks later:
‘We worry about what people think about us too much in this country, [the US]. We have an inferiority complex it seems. I think what’s important is that the world respects us … The US troops would soon be welcomed as liberators.’ (Associated Press, 3 April 2003)
When things fell into chaos, Murdoch said:
‘Australia had no choice but to see the job through. The situation in Iraq has been misrepresented. … There’s tremendous progress in Iraq. All the kids are back at school, 10% more than when Saddam Hussein was there. There’s 100% more fresh water. … Most of Iraq is doing extremely well.’ (ABC radio Sydney, 7 April 2004)
In an editorial The Australian mocked the critics of the war whom it described as ‘the coalition of the whining’. It added:
“Never underestimate the power of ideology and myth – in this case anti-Americanism – to trump reality.”
Heaping scorn on its critics, such as the Labor Party, the foreign editor of The Australian, Greg Sheridan said that ‘George W Bush was really a modern Winston Churchill’ (The Australian, 15 August 2002).
He added later that:
‘The Blair dossier should transform the debate over the Iraqi threat. Either Tony Blair is a monstrous liar or Saddam Hussein is. Take your pick.’
In The Australian on 26 April 2003, Sheridan really let himself go.
‘The eagle is soaring. The bald eagle of American power is aloft, high above the humble earth and everything it sees is splendid. For as it soars and sweeps it sees victory, power, and opportunity.’
More than three months after the invasion Sheridan still thought ‘WMD doubts are ludicrous’. He said that hawkish US official John Bolton “had provided him, almost as an afterthought, with the sensational evidence that would prove the existence of Saddam’s WMD’.
On September 9, 2002, Andrew Bolt wrote:
‘Let me spell it out slowly for [Labor politicians}, (Crean and Rudd). Saddam. Won’t. Let. In. Inspectors.’
Two weeks later when inspectors were admitted, Bolt didn’t think it worthwhile apologising. He thought the opponents of the war were ‘in effect pro-terrorist’.
Following the 2005 Iraqi election Bolt said:
“At last democracy has come to Iraq. And yet our sneering “elite” insist it would have been better to leave the murderous Saddam alone. This is what we who backed the liberation of Iraq dreamed of”.
Some liberation!
Rod Tiffen described succinctly News Corp’s performance on Iraq in his book.
‘The result was that the US and its allies mounted a pre-emptive war against Iraq and their stated reasons for doing so proved to be a fiction. The gravity of this has rarely been apparent in the Murdoch press. (Tiffen page 148).
None of our media has called for an inquiry like the Chilcot inquiry in the UK as to how we got involved in this disaster. John Howard is never seriously questioned by the media for his role in the appalling death and destruction in the Middle East that he, along with George Bush and Tony Blair, helped trigger. That is perhaps not surprising because the media were complicit from the beginning, led on by Digger Murdoch, the US citizen.
Having performed so badly on the Iraq war and its consequences, our media then cooperated in helping the Coalition government promote the fear of terrorism. But none of our media, as far as I know, asked the critical question:
‘What is the relationship between these terrorist attacks in Australia and our intervention in Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan.’
Surely the obvious answer is that terrorists were active here because our troops were over there. Our media refused to acknowledge the clear link.
But when the terrorism threat looked to be fading the media in association with Scott Morrison decided that the threat theme should be changed to Muslims. He told the Liberal caucus that members should be banging the anti-Muslim drum more. Then the threat was changed to Muslims coming to our shores by boat.
Now the China threat is the order of the day for much of our media and particularly some who know little of China, let alone can speak Chinese.
The big three failed media companies that have served us so badly then queue up at the trough to get money from Google and Facebook, heroically supported of by Josh Frydenberg.
Rupert Murdoch, Peter Costello and Kerry Stokes love welfare handouts when their businesses are failing and they fail as responsible media companies. Pity about JobSeekers.
John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.
Comments
11 responses to “The Iraq war, the Murdoch war and media culpability”
Japan has still not sent that Plutonium to Europe. In any war involving China, Japan will be the main platform, as Taiwan/Formosa will be neutralized early on. Is the idea that Japan will be encouraged to use up the Plutonium on the Asian mainland and not against USA?
What if Japan and China appreciate this tactic and want to free the world of the wonders of American Peace?
I feel that the ABC is now caught up in the net controlled by the commercial media and their controlling entities and agents. We have neo-cons like Tom Switzer, David Spears and Amanda Vanstone with free airtime, Red neck think tanks like ASPI having their in-house people spruiking for them like Stan Grant and Andrew Green, Fran Kelly presenting David Crowe, Peter van Onselen (Porter’s close mate), Michelle Grattan and Phil Coorey as fearless independent journalists, Q&A and pointless other programs including The Drum where inept journalists give space and time to lobbyists, retired politicians, Sydney City councillors, and other irrelevant persons. Perhaps so infuriating is the time given to government ministers to spread the bullshit messages where ill-informed presenters are totally unable to bring ‘our servants’ to task Think of Geraldine Doogue, Ellen Fanning, Julia Baird, Patricia Karvalas, Sabra Lane. But, it needs to be said, these women are ‘set-up’ by their utterly incompetent bosses namely Gaven Morris and David Anderson
Nice work John, there needs to be more analysis of Murdochs role across many areas of our public policy. Murdoch of course would say he’s just a humble newspaper man trying to ekk out a small living, (see his performance at the UK investigation into the phone hacking) but he really is the demon of the ethical human journey, Murdoch hates people that think, he hates people that might question him and his beliefs, he chides them, bullies them, belittles them so that he can do what ever the fk he wants. He calls critics ‘elites’ when in reality he is the elitist rich. He calls people names rather than look at the issue, he’s a bully and promotes bully hatred, he isolates and piles on those that don’t agree, he is anti truth and pro-himself and other rich destroyers of the civil world and the planet. He despises science even more as it actually seeks truth, he belittles academics in any way possible, never engaging with the issue just the person. He and his minions undermine anyone that gets in their way, for personal gain under the guise of truth telling yet they are the fake news. He deliberately clouds the issue(s), playing the person (he/ she is politically motivated etc). His tactics are truely evil and if we are to survive Murdochs attacks on our ‘rules’ or ethically based society, we need to develop a response that actually works and I’m not sure we have any idea how to do that. His money / power consistently works people over. People still work for him and his companies and then give up their souls to his insidious ways. These people that work for him think they are corporate warriors (or just grateful for the job) but they are just shock troops in the war against humans.
It appears in Australia, that once a country is established as an enemy once Iraq and now China, any need for reasonable evidence to attack them can be forsaken and those who demand evidence are derided as useful idiots or fools.
You’ve nailed it M McGreevy. We’ve ad nauseam been hearing lately about “the presumption of innocence” and “the rule of law”; however this apparently stridently argued and held belief has been conveniently discarded when our political leaders have repeatedly, and with impunity, supported and participated in internationally illegal, disastrous and human rights violating foreign invasions and incursions.
“Rules based order” being yet another irritating and obfuscatory weasel phrase, providing pollies with plenty of room for manoeuvring and deception. Who’s “rules” may I ask ?
Wasn’t Murdoch known as ‘the dirty digger’ in the UK? Worth reading : ‘Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War’ by Bob Drogin.
Our governments are owned by Big Carbon as RM understands and JM shows. All roads lead back to them and their political managers and media spruikers. The deals over Iraq and the tossing about over China are starkly revealed under the forensic light of media analysis, which shows us what trial by media should mean and could expose. See also Andrew Jakubowicz and Liz Jacka“The Invisible Ally” in L Artz and Y Kamalpour (eds) Bring ‘em On: Media and Politics in the Iraq War, 2004, Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield. 101-120.
Was it not the late Phillip Knightley whose seminal book ‘The First Casualty ‘ concluded that wars have always sold newspapers from the Crimean War in the 1850s through to the American-led war on Vietnam, and more recently in the book’s third edition, through to the invasion of Iraq. And as Knightley demonstrates, the first casualty in war is truth.
Rupert Murdoch obsessive quest to ever expand his media empire globally, has built on this principle to his own commercial advantage. It is unsurprising therefore that Murdoch’s media influence in the English speaking world, has underscored what George W. Bush dubbed ‘ The Coalition of the Willing ‘, and in turn, a consequence of Murdoch publications’ strident calls for the invasion of Iraq.
Thanks for this article John Menadue, a paper that so clearly lays out John Howard’s folly in following the American response to Iraq from 2003.
Future historians will note the incredible corruptive influence of one Rupert Murdoch across the leading Anglo nations of the UK, Australia and the US. He might arguably also have significantly caused the political and socio-economic decline of these 3 nations.
Murdoch operates with the notion that truth is for sale, justice is for idiots and power runs everything, as long as you control the power. On the one hand it’s all just a game to Murdoch but on the other hand its a deadly serious game to destroy the internal enemies so that he maintain power and money flows. Shadow enemies are created for the paying dumb public so that the real war is enacted against those that seek truth or critical thinking. It all becomes entertainment. Truth is irrelevant when it comes to serious entertainment. I think that Murdoch is responsible for the biggest shift to unethical behaviour in the anglo civil society and the destruction of any semblance of democracy in the english speaking worlds in the last 100 years. His puppet Trump showed exactly what Murdoch really wants – a society that disrespects government (ie the people) for the benefit of a small group of narcissists (the rich).
John, you are spot on. The China threat is being ramped up. A Hong Kong dissident and family granted special travel exemption to come to Australia. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-china-hong-kong-activist/former-hong-kong-lawmaker-lands-in-australia-to-continue-pro-democracy-work-idUSKBN2B10YI
To hell with the trade consequences, and too bad for Australian exporters. The LNP political imperatives are far more important!