Good morning, afternoon, evening, and night to whomever may be reading. I go by many names but the name I will be using here is nemoulysseus. I am honored to be the second writer of this blog. I may only be a student studying foreign relations but all teachers are only students who can explain what they understand. For now, I will be covering international politics and the underlying related topics but the scope of my participation in this blog may expand and shift with time.
This topic was decided before Trump’s rather unbecoming denouncement of the media’s non-existent failure to report terrorist attacks. Trump is currently pushing his own agenda of sensationalism, despite the fact that statistics report and reflect quite plainly that it is rare for American citizens to be killed by terrorists. Trump hopes that by further antagonizing the media, he can say “I dare you all to do this much.” This action is to trick the media into working for him despite his attacks against them during his campaign. If Mr. Trump would be so kind as to entertain the reality of the Islamic State and what they have done to establish their “caliphate,” then perhaps he can finally say that he is doing the right thing. Of course, this works against his argument as the Islamic State actually kills more Muslims because the area has, of course, a high density of Muslims as opposed to Christians. I can respect being afraid that waiting too long will mean that there will be missed opportunities but one must be educated to a respectable degree before acting on things that will have long-term effects. If Trump craves to be like Reagan, he should take note of Reagan’s meticulous planning.
Trump did point out to the shock of many patriotic Americans in a Super Bowl-timed interview that he acknowledged that the United States was by no means innocent and compared us morally to Russia. As we are all quite aware, Trump has a dubious relationship with the Russians. The post-Cold War US is not as fickle as Russia but it’s getting there from our various reneged promises about NATO, unilateralism, and American exceptionalism. That is all well and good and perhaps Trump decided that politicians tiptoe around the important issues without quite acknowledging the elephant in the room that only seems to grow bigger every year. Trump himself does the same thing by attempting to draw attention away from the important issues by slamming his hand on the podium and insisting that he knows everything, to give off the appearance of a disgruntled man with whom the world is against. That is not the case.
Moving beyond a commentary of the Trump administration, a critical eye must be turned upon the history of the Middle East. A history I myself did not learn until I arrived at college. It is important to understand how your enemy thinks and what enables them to act. That is how you can either reach a compromise or decide a course of action. The Middle East has been subjected to many of the proxy wars and limited warfare during the Cold War. This is after a generation saw the decline and the dissolution of what they knew to be a once great empire. No one teaches this to us in school. Does the history not matter anymore? I learn American history as far as to understand why things are the way they are in this country. Why do we not stress this before college? Do we believe that children cannot understand? Or are we desperately trying to hold onto the prized Superman position in the minds of those who are too willing to accept the familiar perspective? The BBC has covered possible radicalization in France following the Charlie Hebdo attacks and instead of striking a conciliatory note, the French instead condemned the religion ten-fold. We hadn’t thought it possible. It was covered by the British media, a part of the “all over Europe” to which Mr. Trump referred to.
The BBC does cover news in other regions such as Africa, Asia, and Australia. The CNN also has a similar setup but it is more concerned with national news and high-profile international news. We can blame the fact that CNN only covers the “big news” for why their watchers never seem to know about the “little things” despite excessive airtime. We should all understand that there are some things that we may repeat simply because we believe that people should hear about it (just as was done with Mr. Donald Trump’s presidential campaign). Trump’s campaign was the epitome of sensationalism by the media. CNN does cover ISIS destroying World Heritage sites and artifacts like the Arc of Triumph in the Palmyra ruins. Yet what we often discuss in class are things that people may not realize or be aware of because it does not directly affect them. ISIS has killed countless Middle Eastern peoples. They kill the Muslims who do not believe what they believe. ISIS considers them infidels. Trump wanted to give preference to the Christians in the area, but facts show that more Muslims are dying than Christians. This could be in part due to there being simply more Muslims living in the Middle East but for Trump to ban them when they are not safe from ISIS shows that this fact not covered enough in the media, least of all by Fox- the right-wing echo chamber that condemns America as the world’s policeman. Trump has made clear that he only appreciates applause, he is the insecure king who overestimates his power and only wants encouragement from his “subjects.”
The media cannot fixate on the attacks that happen in European countries without properly covering the background. The BBC effectively does this in their articles, however I can say nothing for the program as I do not watch the news so much as I read it. CNN, for which I can speak, does not typically give background information unless it is in the form of their famous multi-volume documentaries. As for their articles, they do not redirect to pages that offer further information but instead are linked to more current events, which can be very distracting at times and is useless for those who want to learn more. They offer highlights of stories. This may be more time effective but it can also discourage actual research and only places an emphasis on threadbare facts. This is what gives fake news outlets a better chance of exploiting what should be common knowledge and making their lies so elaborate that it cannot be false. Most times, it is simply conspiracy theories. I suppose that the header function (highlights) may be necessary in some cases but this is a major disadvantage. More people should know of Al-Shabab’s own terror attacks. I understand that perhaps the media doesn’t want to do the recruitment for these terrorist groups by giving them air time. Yet it is only when they attack– when it was obvious that it would happen– that we become shocked and ask ourselves, “How could this have possibly happened to us?”
Forget not that the one moment that you relive forever is something that people in other countries live on a daily basis because of their proximity to the actual conflicts. We have but a taste of it. When we only document the attacks, the shock value is real and that’s the whole point of the attack in the first place. We cannot champion compassion if we do not explain how this incident is different and connected to a previous. We should be highlighting movements more. Some try to liken this to Vietnam and it truly is like that at this point in time. We do not want another Tet Offensive yet how are we discussing the ethics and the actual target of these terrorist groups? That is how the Tet Offensive happened. We only sold what would encourage morale or at least convince the public why the war is necessary. We were weary from the constant fighting, we wanted out. When we saw how grisly and unforgiving we were when the Vietcong invaded the base, we were disgusted. The US government fought back the invaders but we then sought to understand what other evils occurred there in that faraway land in our name by our government. They were fighting for their country. What were we fighting for? An abstract threat. We were fighting an idea. Something that you cannot tell by looking at someone but rather by their actions. Even more damaging was that we had made international politics bipolar at this point. To them, it was a matter of reclaiming their land from the foreigners (the French). ISIS is trying to turn back time like the Khmer Rouge tried in Cambodia. Should we not explain what effects this would have or how much harder the Middle Eastern peoples would have to work if they ever escape the nightmare in order to get back to where they were before the war began? We still maintain the ideology that we do not have to understand what is different from us. Neo-conservatives actually say that the US cannot work with non-democracies. Immigration is intermestic policy, that is to say it is an intersection of domestic and international policy. How we approach it speaks volumes for our values as we have demonstrated time and time again (especially in the argument for the Civil Rights Movement).
You want to know why ISIS is so successful in recruitment? They are able to incite sympathy. We embrace humanism, dear media. The US needs to know how these innocent people are being driven from their homes and then come unwelcomed here. The fact that those who make it to relative safety often live in the projects and that increasing discrimination may make it difficult to support themselves on a poor economy. Take our jobs? There are many manual jobs that do not pay well but immigrants, especially illegal, cannot benefit from unions or receive protection. If we’d only focused more on education, we would have more specialized workers of our own. How can one curse an immigrant who came to get an education when we know that they’ll eventually either return to their own country or contribute to ours? What about the fact that immigrants sympathize because they don’t understand how US citizens can live so happily and unaware and give their government the freedom to terrorize their people. How often do we report civilian casualties that are not our own but are caused by us?
It is that sense of entitlement that is difficult to address because people do not want to be told that their feelings are invalid. I sympathize better because I am a woman who is disadvantaged by the system, so I can distance myself from privilege. That is not to say that just because I am a woman but that it is one of the reasons. If we are really going to leave it up to people to decide what they think for themselves, then we should report everything. Journalism holds the principle that they report the truth whether it be pleasant or revolting. It is not as if we are uncovering operations by the CIA although it is understood that one cannot report if there is not solid evidence. The media may not have the statistics at any given moment because it is breaking news. A practice would like to be the first to report it but having the first scoop is not the same as having the right scoop. I can ask you for chocolate and just because you get me vanilla before the store stocks up on chocolate doesn’t leave me any more satisfied than if you’d simply forgot. I would settle.
The public has settled. This is why it is so easy to fight more emotionally as opposed to the facts. It is the sense of familiarity we now cling to. As long as it does not seem wrong to us, anyone who rejects it is themselves an anomaly to our system. We need to remind the public that this is an ongoing problem, not a Whack-a-Mole event that it’s advertised as. In this tumultuous time, we should promote solidarity and diversity.
As always, leave a comment or drop us a line at whentheskyisovercast@gmail.com and I’ll talk to you again soon.
Some Reference Sites
thenation.com has quite a few good articles, but you need to sign in to read them
The Wiki Rundown of Recent Conflicts in the Middle East
Outlet 
Leave a Reply