Media Lens: Killing Gaddafi

Anyone feeling squeamish or uncomfortable over the reporting of recent events in Libya might find solace in the latest Media Lens Alert, Killing Gaddafi, a most welcome antidote to the toxic inhumanity that passes for mainstream 'liberal' media comment on this gruesome execution.

The ML editors also lay bare the considerable evidence of Western lies and disinformation that allowed Nato and the National Transitional Council to ignore every possibility of productive negotiations with Gaddafi, resulting - despite Nato's 'mandate to protect' - in the much greater killing of Libyan civilians and ruthless destruction of cities like Sirte.

As with previous plaudits for Blair, the Alert shows just how far the BBC and other herd media have gone in praising Cameron as a leader 'vindicated' in his 'first war'.

The last section of the article sees ML at their most eloquent and humane, a rare oasis of compassion amid this desert of propaganda.

Where, the authors ask, is the basic concern for suffering others, whatever crimes they've committed? In particular, to those 'liberal humanists' who diminish Gaddafi's murder against the 'higher moral imperative' of Nato action, this searching question:

"Does anyone doubt that a Jesus or a Buddha would not merely have harboured sympathy for Gaddafi but would have intervened to save his life? And who would dare claim that doing so would make them ‘apologists’ for tyranny?"

Recognising the systemic conditioning that inhibits honest, independent journalism, ML offer their own compassionate thoughts on what drives even our most 'caring' media towards such hateful output:

"We suspect that most journalists are not actually unfeeling brutes. They are conformists wary of the high price they can be made to pay for even the suspicion that they might be 'apologists' for an official enemy."

Thus does the conformity multiply as further media endorsement of newly-appointed enemies and the case for more 'noble intervention'.

Among their many fine articles, this ML offering deserves particular praise for highlighting not just Libya's true human suffering and media complicity in that avoidable tragedy, but the more pernicious language of cruelty and spite so-readily adopted in denouncing 'our' foreign 'foes'.

In exposing such media apologetics for war and destruction, it advances, by another promising increment, the urgent construction of a truly moral, compassionate and radical journalism.

John