It’s never wise to make categorical statements like “I challenge any reader of this post to tell me of one single US newspaper article that said anything against the US war on terror shortly after 9/11.”

There were many journalists, public intellectuals and social activists who opposed the ill-conceived US invasion of Iraq in 2003. They had the liberty and freedom to dissent in print, on the air, in campuses and on the streets. And they did, passionately and in large numbers. The more articulate and persistent ones also found expression in newspapers, radio and television. I was a student in California for much of that time, and speak with personal memories.

The Bush administration dismissed this opposition with disdain or contempt, and did their best to twist the arms of the mainstream media to provide favourable coverage for their war drum beat and exclude the dissenting voices. But the US is just too large a country, and too mature a democracy, for such manipulations to succeed fully. Even with the world’s mightiest army at their disposal, the Bush Administration did not unleash terror on dissenting voices as is happening in Sri Lanka.

True enough, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld used the patriot card very effectively and they had many senior reporters and media owners eating out of their hands. Embedded journalism reached new depths and the American media on the whole emerged from the Bush years and Iraq war with their credibility and standing severely tarnished.

But even in the darkest hour under the Dubya-Cheney-Rummy combine, there were journalists who spoke out, challenged them on assumptions and actions. Veterans like Walter Cronkite spoke out. PBS giants like Bill Moyers stuck their necks out. Media activists like Danny Schechter and Noam Chomsky commanded sufficient media attention and coverage. They all lived without personal harassment or repercussions.

In his hard-hitting documentary ‘Buying the War’, Bill Moyers posed these questions: How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? How did the evidence disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 continue to go largely unreported?

“What the conservative media did was easy to fathom; they had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President — no questions asked. How mainstream journalists suspended skepticism and scrutiny remains an issue of significance that the media has not satisfactorily explored. How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?”
Source: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html

There’s plenty more online, some written at the height of the Iraq war, and the rest after it ended with more hindsight and perspective. Just do a simple Google for keywords like Iraq, war and US media.

The above is the kind of questions we need to be asking, even at this late stage. But who among us can risk our life and limb to ask such questions of our own elected, supposedly democratic government? That makes pragmatists of us all.

Cleaning up the system is slow, but lets see if someone has the balls to run with this one. Audio evidence of an admission should be presented to courts. If anyone is stuck doing it, they should speak up.

I think what he meant was that – and I agree with him – there are countless more worthy individuals who have died in Sri Lanka, many at the hands of the LTTE. Why should Lasantha’s death be so special. Why should we treat him like a martyr and hold rallies in his honour. Why should we brush off the deaths of thousands of innocent people who’ve had no involvement in the war, and give such importance to this politician/paparazzo/gossip masquerading as a journalist? Is it because he was anti-Sinhalese? Is it because he was anti-government? Does this mean that unless you’re either of these things, your death is insignificant?

The response of most people of this country to his death was not so dissimilar to how the world received the news of the incident between Perez Hilton and Will.I.Am. After all, both were “journalists” of the same ilk.

The interview also reveals his murderer’s attitude towards human life. “Who is Lasantha?” he asks. “He is somebody who was writing for a tabloid,” he sneers. So, unless you are an important person, anyone can kill you? He has no respect for the inalienable right to life. This is Minister of Defence! He reminds me of village goondas in Tamil movies, not the gang leader but the hanger-on, the one who carries out orders, and is practically brain-dead except for the instinct for violence. Only instead of wearing a sarong and twirling his moustache, he is in Western dress and laughs like a hyena.

You can see how he finds the decent person’s moral values and democratic values totally strange. He does not understand where the journalist is going with his questions, ie to show the audience that he is a dictator, a murderer, who will brook no dissent, who will use the laws of treason to his convenience. He stupidly answers the questions and doesn’t even see that he is digging himself into a moral hole!

This is complete madness. They are taking away all the media establishments. Soon There won’t be any media to report on what exactly goes on in Sri Lanka. All of them are controlled either by Rajapakse family members or friends or close political friends. Once they started blocking the Internet also, nothing will get through to Sri Lankans who are already brained washed. Hopefully, people will wake up from this projected dream.

It makes no difference who actually pulled the trigger. Don’t get distracted by sick jokes of this thug Mervyn. Lasantha’s last editorial made it pretty clear as to who gave the orders. Since some of us have short memories, here’s the link to go back and read it: http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090111/editorial-.htm