US Imperialism — Media Framing and Foreign Policy Lingo
Whether we want to admit it or not, media plays an integral part in shaping our worldview. I wanted to make this article as more of an opinion piece than my previous foray into the world of American colonial actions, and talk about how the language we chose when speaking about these things has affected us as a nation. I also hope that by the end of this, you will be ready to approach these topics with a more skeptical eye and call them out in front of family and friends for what they are: disingenuous and one-sided.
There’s no partisan lines to be found here, because right and “left” media act in unison to uphold in perpetuity the status quo: capitalist interests. For the last couple of decades, they’ve chosen to focus on small aspects of culture, conflating instances of private censorship or diversity efforts with authoritarianism. This serves as a massive and effective distraction as the US pillages countries around the world (particularly the global south) for resources and destroys our planet flagrantly and without remorse. I used to think the solution to climate issues was regulation, now I am certain we need a total upheaval. Capitalism is at odds with our happiness, longevity as a species, and in particular the sustainment of our natural world. It puts the upmost focus on profits over people and the natural world is an afterthought at best, used only in shallow policy measures to virtue signal and distract from the larger issues that go unaddressed. With this overarching context in mind, let’s talk more specifically about the themes and reoccurrences we can find on both sides of the spectrum when it comes to mass media outlets.
There are several tropes that I want to use as pivot points to discuss the framing for US military action abroad, which I will dub: Permanently Lacking/Slacking, In Response Only, and Democracy Deliverer.
Permanently Lacking/Slacking
If you subject yourself to watching enough MSNBC, Fox News or CNN, you will soon understand that the United States is perpetually “modernizing” to keep up with other world powers. In February of 2020, Ex-President Trump sent a budget proposal totaling $740.5 billion for national security, around 700 of that going directly into the coiffeurs of the DOD. The budget proposal included four focus areas, the first of which was to “continue to improve military readiness and invest in the modernization of a more lethal force”. This language is often used to justify exorbitant spending on a military that must keep up with China and Russia, to name a few. According to the media, these two countries represent permanent, dynamic, and ever focused threats on national security. They are the boogeymen of modern news media, easy talking points to help fill the 24 hour news cycle. The way it is discussed via media is usually absent of skepticism, framed to be simply logical and the safest route: updating and upgrading planes, bombs, and complexes.
In Response Only
What’s interesting about this semantics game is that we are nearly always doing these things in response to foreign actions. This is another common trope in discussions of American global action. America is always responding to something, be it human rights infractions, potential nuclear weapons, or just a country in desperate need of democracy. We are seen as passive and reactive, never overstepping and always waiting for our opponents to make the first move before we fly over in our bombers and liquify their citizens. We’ve even illegally “responded” to foreign affairs, but the media and American citizens have short memory it would seem. Look no further than the start of the Iran War, which since 2001 has been dubbed an legally dubious war, if not entirely illegal. Even more recently, Biden’s drone attack on Syria has drawn criticism far and wide, and for good reason. A barrage of rockets was fired in mid February 2021 at coalition forces stationed outside Irbil International Airport, killing a US-led coalition contractor and wounding a US service member, among others. Now, if we want to look at this from an external perspective and step away from the knee jerk reaction that America is always justified, this attack makes a lot of sense. We have been waging an unending war for two decades in the Middle East, started on faulty premises and continued despite each president promising about backing out. Steps have been made to withdraw, but our presence still looms large. The following week, the Biden administration dropped seven bombs in what was deemed a “proportionate” response by the Pentagon. The bombings killed 9 targets (soldiers on their own bases, in their own country, mind you). It gets very frustrating to never hear media attempting to inject even the slightest bit of nuance into the discussion of foreign military action. They never stop to question what the motives of our “enemies” are, and simply whine and lament wondering “why they hate us”. A country that engages in constant conflict, framed as justified action from a single terrorist attack in September 2001, while extracting the natural resources (oil) of said foreign country and bombing its citizens and military in an indiscriminate fashion…well it starts to make a little bit of sense. And that is only when it comes to our most salient political agendas. Interference in Venezuelan elections, funding of military coups in Brazil, Chile, the Congo, etc. These don’t even need media attention or explanation, because they fly under the radar when you can use mass media to stoke an internal culture war over meaningless things like Dr. Seuss or a children’s toy with detachable, starchy parts. Media has a responsibility to cover topics from a global perspective, not simply parroting the Pentagon and DoD press releases without scrutiny. Unfortunately, the toxic individualism of late stage capitalism makes this an impossibility in the United States.
Democracy Deliverer
This is probably my favorite one. It is also the one that I had a very hard time shaking myself. I grew up thinking that the US was more or less consistently valued, just and fair in its dealings with foreign countries. To me and many Americans, our way of life seemed a gift to other countries. It always felt like we had the moral high ground, and simply had to step in to right wrongs on the global scale, or no one else would. We were and are at times considered the white knight in shining armor that comes in to save the day. I’d like to think this sentiment originates around the time of World War II, when the US stepped in late in the game and helped turn the tide. However, we’ve continued to use this same sentiment to justify military action ranging from bombings to assassinations to meddling in elections. In fact, this democracy we speak of? A facsimile for capitalism. Cuba. Venezuela. China. “The United States has almost always opposed — whether by slaughter, spies or sanctions — any government or movement that seeks to freely choose its own political and economic path if it diverges from the corporate capitalist order backed by Washington and Wall Street” — Brett Wilkins [1]. It would be difficult to cover all of the destabilizing actions that the United States has made in countries attempting to build a socialist or communist economic system. Unfortunately, as history is always written by the victors, America has used this opportunity to slander socialism as a zero sum game, one that always leads to failure. If you look a little more closely, nations like Cuba and Venezuela are often experiencing incredible periods of low poverty, higher education, higher productivity, and overall improved quality of life: directly before foreign powers like the US or its allies interfere in some way. Sanctions are a perfect example of this. Sanctions cut off a country from external aid, leading to massive poverty, starvation and death, but are somehow seen as a justified alternative to war. Sanctions cripple economic systems, and once they are on their knees, the US can support local capitalist opposition to the current system and usurp the current leadership. Once this is done, sanctions can fade away and capitalism will be seen as the hero of the story, bringing the country out of the imposed state of decay. It happens time and time again, leading to a world where socialism in its purest sense has never been allowed to exist.
Meanwhile, back home, the headlines denounce socialism/communism (the end goal of a socialist nation, one that is stateless, classless, etc.) as being inhumane, cruel and an utter failure. They avoid any nuance, inflate death statistics and/or attribute imposed poverty and death as evidence against the proletarian backed system of governance…all to appease the owner class that presides over and funds our major media outlets. I hope this article has given you an itch. An itch that needs to be scratched through further research. Be sure when you go about this intensely personal and important task of political discovery, that you vet your sources. Follow the links cited by the articles, follow the trail and see where it goes. Often you will find obvious conflicts of interest and vapid corporations pulling the strings.
Thank you for reading and be sure to let me know what you think!
[1] Wilkins, Brett. January 28th, 2019. The History — and Hypocrisy — of US Meddling in Venezuela. https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14263
