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As Americans, we believe that world events over the next few years will unfold from September 11 th. The safety and security that we all felt before will never be the same. While Americans continue to recover our enemies continue to plan a way to bring us to our knees once again. Many of us will never again be able to fly without a fear of what if and many of us will never again be able to turn on the morning news without the fear of what if.
We tend to have the attitude that terrorist attacks are events that happen in other countries like Israel where peace is unsteady. Many of us never dreamed of having it in our own front yard and to compound those affects by seeing parts of the world celebrating at the sight of a super power falling to its knees. While the attacks themselves are a focal point for many scholars, I will focus not on the attacks, but rather I will ask questions as to why the attacks happened and why it hurt so much to see others smile happily at the sight of our pain. Americans are shocked to see that others would ever wish us pain. Much of this is taught to us at an early age, that everyone wants to be American and that the American Dream is the only way to live a full and happy life.
What role does the media play in continuing this naivet of American society and how does the media in other countries account for our pain? How does our super power mentality play in this picture and why do many citizens of the world feel ill will towards Americans? I will address these questions by reviewing foreign newscasts and magazine articles, interviewing international politics experts, and finally interviewing an expert in American foreign policy. As citizens in a democracy we deserve the truth.
The truth about how our government treats citizens of other countries and other accounts of how bad U. S. Foreign Policy creates negative feelings towards American citizens themselves. To understand how the American media plays into a bigger picture of the foreign media it is important to understand how they both operate. In The Politics of Illusions by Lance Bennett he writes about notable media differences.
Lance writes: A fascinating example of how these work routines affect news content was discovered by Timothy Cook in a study of Gulf crisis coverage in the United States and France. Immediately following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, television networks assigned their reporters to get reactions from key sources. American newscasts flipped through the golden triangle of Washington news beats: the White House, State Department, and Pentagon. Since the invasion had just occurred, there was no official reaction to be had. However, the reporters were pressured to say something, and they effectively invented the kinds of vague pronouncements that one might expect from officials in sensitive political posts at the early stage of world crisis. By contrast, French reporters (who do not operate on U.
S. -style beat system) interviewed various political party leaders and generated a comparatively broad range of political views about the meanings and implications of the invasion. (Bennett 119) To understand that most U. S. reporters not only have lost sight of real journalism is to also realize that those same reporters sometimes knowingly hide the truth beneath many lays of non-important information. The reporter and political official relationship is set to operate off one another. The politics could never play out without the reporters but on that same side the politics could never play out without a reporter willing to report what the political official wants to be heard. A politicians public fate often lies in the trustworthiness of a reporter.
Lance talks about how fragile this relationship is by stating, When those sources are powerful officials surrounded by an entourage of eager reporters clamoring for news, it is always possible that those who report what officials want them to will be rewarded while those who fail to convert key political messages into news will be punished. (Bennett 120) Foreign policy encompasses more than war and peace, it also has to tackle economic problems and globalism issues, foreign trade, international investment, and foreign aid are all an integral part of this system. In conjunction with NATO and the United Nations, most of American foreign policy is now focused on peacekeeping. And many debates over foreign and national security issues continue to be drawn along left-right lines. But who draws these lines and who is really in charge of American foreign policy, the President or the press?
The media plays a crucial role in the formulation of U. S. foreign policy. While the President is often the leader externally of foreign policy, he realizes he is a co-equal partner with the media, and this is essential to ensure that policy will succeed.
If the media dislikes policy adopted by the President it limits its success and also limits the support given to the President by the American people. Public debate on the national interest and goals of foreign policy is vital if practical and logical policy is to be formulated. Unfortunately, most of the time this debate does not appear on the news unless it is directly conducted from politicians themselves. While the press does cover stories and give some detail they cannot actually participate in the debates most of the time. This makes particular sense for those reporters assigned to the executive branch because of the career risks in directly opposing presidential intentions. (Berry 145) To relate the media directly to our case study we should look at a specific example being broadcast from the Middle East. Most Americans receive their news from privately owned television stations while in the Middle East almost all television station there are government owned and regulated.
So the people hear what the government wants them to hear. Since September 11 th Americans see a lot of reporting coming from a station called Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera is the exception to the rule. It is broadcast out of Qatar, in the Persian Gulf. The station is targeted to its Arab neighbors and Arab speakers around the world, including the United States. Al-Jazeera makes sure that the Arab view is heard, but it also reports news that is unwelcome to Arab governments.
As New York Times reporter John Kifner wrote, In a part of the world where news has always been the news the government wants, true or not, Al-Jazeera is truly a phenomenon. (Kifner B 7) Now that we have a brief introduction as to how the media operates in general pertaining to policy and the government, it is important to look at why these other countries sometimes express hatred towards the U. S. While hate coming from anyone can always cover a broad range, in its simplest form, hatred towards America tends to cover two areas, bad American Foreign Policy and jealousy towards Americans. Again, while everyone has many ideas of which foreign policy and American lifestyle create anger, we will try to focus on more concentrated areas. Most foreign policy issues come from problems in the Middle East and most lifestyle issues are broad ranging but generally targeted towards specific freedoms and rights we have versus their homeland. Be aware that not all Middle Easterners hate Americas foreign policy that other countries do as well; we will just use that area as a region to concentrate the study on.
Also not all foreign citizens envy America, so my intention is not to imply that they do, but research has shown that many citizens of the world would like to live in the U. S. Has the United States become so large and so powerful that we forget that the rest of the world has to live with us and not around us? For many Americans and most of the world, anti-Americanism came to a head on September 11 th 2001 when terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Centers in New York City, when terrorists flew a plane into the nations defense headquarters, the Pentagon, and when terrorists caused a plane to crash in the Pennsylvania countryside. Americans live life in a way that we do not see that others in the world may see something that we do as negative because of the influence that it has on their religious beliefs, cultural heritage, or economic struggles.
Exactly a month after September 11 th Kenneth Zapp, Economics professor from Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis wrote, Unfortunately, Americans are famous for assuming that others see the world as we do. (Zapp par. 3) Zapp continues, While Americans like to believe that our government treats all fairly or equally, our actions are viewed differently abroad. (Zapp par. 4) The United States has to carry a large burden from other countries. Being considered the worlds super power carries the responsibility of being able to protect all interest equally and playing big brother, which sometimes means our own interest conflict with the interest of those we are suppose to be aiding. An excellent example of this triangle is the current conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. For many years the U. S.
has protected and supported Israel with large amounts of money and weapons. Now in times of conflict the world looks upon us to be a peacekeeper and to fix the problem and make it go away. Is it possible for us to play a neutral role in a conflict where we have historically supported one side more than the other? Caught in this conflict is also a certain amount of blame placed on the U. S. because we allowed, or at the very least supported Israel and let this happen.
Zapp addressed this situation in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, he wrote But why do they blame us for actions of Israel? Because our government has bankrolled that countrys policies with $ 3 billion to $ 4 billion of aid each year. Most damaging to our claim of evenhandedness, we continued these subsidies even when the Israeli actions were condemned widely by our Western allies and the United Nations. (Zapp par. 6. ) Even in these situations many Americans still do not know the truth behind our governments actions. Today anti-Americanism is often dismissed as an unavoidable by-product of superpower dom or as mere hypocrisy. Many will ask if these complaints against America warranted the actions of September 11 th. While many put it very crudely, none has stated that the Americans ever deserved it.
A week after the attacks the Toronto Star published an editorial from the papers own editor emeritus, Harbor Siddiqui. Siddiqui wrote, The public, more than the media, senses this. Some...
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Research essay sample on American Foreign Policy U S Foreign Policy
