mrshl | blog

CNN & Blackwater: A Lesson in Propaganda

In the past 8 hours, I’ve noticed an interesting technique in the way CNN is handling the Blackwater issue. Blackwater employs people, American citizens, who murdered Iraqi civilians in cold blood. Some of our own indiscriminately killed those people. We get the article, “Blackwater incident witness: ‘It was hell’”.

Then, less than two minutes later, the following two stories are posted.

Pilot said ‘this is fun’ before fatal Blackwater crash

Mom: Blackwater should never forget my boy

Is it just me, or is Blackwater being isolated as some horribly negligent company? Their employees are victims of mismanagement and neglect. Such monumental mismanagement and neglect, in fact, that Blackwater must be the exception rather than the rule. It’s the company, not the soldiers or the contracting system!

According to CNN, those guys who killed who-knows-how-many civilians are regular, every-day, hunky, rock-climbing folks like you and me, fer chrissakes.

It will be interesting to me to see what bent this coverage takes in the future. It seems like a deliberate attempt to steer the dialogue about the most important issue, which is that private companies hired by our government are committing severe and high crimes in the name of the United States, and they’re getting away with it.