How America Promotes "We're the Good Guys" Narrative

[Riaz Haq]

In a 2017 Super Bowl Sunday interview with President Donald Trump,  Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly authoritatively declared  Russian President Vladimir “Putin’s a killer.”  Trump replied with the question: “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”

Trump did something similar more recently after his Singapore Summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim JongUn.  When Fox News' Brett Baier  raised the question  in an interview about "Kim's oppression of his own people", Trump said: “Yeah, but so have a lot of other people have done some really bad things.”

American Narrative:

Both O'Reilly and Baier were essentially repeating the standard American narrative that wants the world to believe that "we (Americans) are the good guys and those opposing America are the bad guys".

Trump, an unconventional American leader, displayed rare candor in his responses.  The American  media and "research scholars", managed by the "Deep State", sharply criticized Trump and continued to parrot the standard American narrative asserting that "we're the good guys" while vilifying Vladimir Putin, Kim JongUn and other leaders and countries designated as "enemies".

Young and Barbaric:

Trump appears ready to drop all pretenses of US being "the good guys" standing for "freedom, democracy and human rights".  He is not alone in his assertion that "our country (United States) is not so innocent".  George Friedman, the founder of  Stratfor which describes itself as "American geopolitical intelligence platform", is the ultimate "Deep State" insider in America.  Friedman acknowledges that "America, like Europe in sixteenth century, is still barbaric, a description, not a moral judgment. Its culture is unformed. Its will is powerful. Its emotions drive it in different and contradictory directions."

Friedman argues that "perhaps more than for any other country, the US grand strategy is about war, and the interaction between war and economic life. The United States is historically a warlike country. The nation has been directly or indirectly at war for most of of its existence...the war of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam War and Desert Storm. And the US has been constantly at war in Afghanistan and Iraq since the beginning of this century."

More recently, the United States' interventions in the Middle East have destabilized and devastated Libya and Syria and created a major humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands have died and millions rendered homeless and trying to flee hunger and violence.

Narrative Promotion:

 

So how does America create and promote its "good guys" narrative in the world and demonize others? How do American image builders gloss over its past characterized by the genocide of the indigenous people, the enslavement of Africans and a history of assassinations, invasions, atrocities, proxy wars, and coups in the developing world? How do their actions escape the "terrorism" label that is liberally applied to others, particularly Muslims?  What modern image-making and promotional tools and techniques has Uncle Sam borrowed from the world of brand creation, promotion and management?

The first thing in creating a narrative is the basic story supported by effective language and vocabulary. It is fleshed out by writers, poets, musicians and artists.  The basic American narrative  goes like this:  America stands for freedom, democracy and human rights. It is a force for all that is good in the world. Those who oppose America are the "bad guys".

The narrative is then widely disseminated, promoted and incessantly repeated by Washington think tanks, book authors, major newspaper reporters and editors,  mainstream journalists, television channels and popular entertainment platforms.

Talking points are developed and shared to defend against any criticisms. Inconvenient truths are obfuscated.  Those who accept the talking points are rewarded and those who persist in criticisms are isolated and punished. Rewards come in the form of funding and access. Punishments are handed out by orchestrating attacks by peers and by denying funds and access.

Controlling the Narrative:

The United States government funds think tanks, hires consultants and directly and indirectly influences mass media and popular entertainment platforms to control and promote its "good guys" narrative and to vilify those seen as competitors.

1. Think Tanks:  Woodrow Wilson Center, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, US Institute of Peace (USIP), Rand Corporation and a several others are partially or fully funded by the US government. These are supplemented by dozens of other think tanks funded by major US corporations which have a stake in promoting a positive global image of the United States. These organizations organize conferences, publish books and "research papers" and offer scholarships to promote the American "good guys" narrative globally.  They have both resident and non-resident "scholars", including some from developing countries like Pakistan. Some of the Pakistani "scholars" working for Washington think tanks also work for major media houses in Pakistan. These "scholars" are widely quoted by the media on issues relating to US-Pakistan relations.

2. News Media:  Veteran American journalist Carl Bernstein, famous for his reporting on Watergate along with Bob Woodward, investigated CIA's use of the American media and wrote a piece describing "How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up". Here's what he said:

"Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were William Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), Henry Luce of Time Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the Louisville Courier‑Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the Associated Press (AP),  United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald‑Tribune".

3. Popular Entertainment:  It has been suggested that Hollywood has been working with the United States government for a long time.  Some have said that Hollywood is "the unofficial ministry of propaganda for the Pentagon".  Information obtained under FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) confirms that thousands of Hollywood films have received backing from the CIA and the US Department of Defense and other US agencies to promote America's "good guy" narrative. These include 24, Army Wives, Flight 93, Homeland,  Ice Road Truckers, NCIS,  Transformers, Iron Man, Terminator, etc.

Documents obtained recently under FOIA show that the relationship between the US national security establishment and American entertainment businesses is much deeper and more political than ever acknowledged.

4. Books and Literature:  Starting with the Cold War, the American CIA has infiltrated and influenced books and literature to promote the American official "good guys" narrative. "Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World's Best Writers" by Joel Whitney reveals how great writers such as Baldwin, Márquez, and Hemingway were recruited as soldiers in Cold War.

Editors of top literary magazines were used as a vehicle for this infiltration.  The first time the CIA's connections to the Paris Review and two dozen other magazines came to light was in 1966. The CIA used multiple guises to financially support young, promising writers as part of a cultural propaganda strategy with literary outposts around the world.

Summary:

The United States government has developed and aggressively controls and promotes America's standard narrative that "we are the good guys and those opposing us are the bad guys".  This narrative glosses over the history of native American genocide, enslavement of Africans and the CIA sponsored assassinations, coups and proxy wars in the developing world. In a couple of recent interviews, US President Donald Trump has acknowledged the problems with the American narrative. Nevertheless, the American narrative is promoted using a multi-pronged strategy that includes the use of think tanks, popular entertainment, books and literature and the mainstream media.

Here's a video of American journalist Mike Wallace asking Louis Farrakhan about Nigeria, calling the most populous African country "the most corrupt nation in the world": Here's Farrakhan's response: Every nation has its problems. Nigeria has serous problems. But it's only 35 years old. And America have been around for over 200 years old and it is in no position to judge others on corruption and democracy. Black people in America got the right to vote only a few decades ago. And America has blood on its hands, the blood of millions of native Americans and the blood of the Japanese who died in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Let's not moralize. Let's help them.

 
https://youtu.be/DfXLC4jQZ2M ;

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DfXLC4jQZ2M"; title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>" height="315" src="https://img1.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" width="560" style="cursor: move; background-color: #b2b2b2;" /> 

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Hollywood: America's Unofficial Ministry of Propaganda

Free Speech: Myth or Reality?

Social Media Tribalism

Social Media: Blessing or Curse For Pakistan?

Planted Stories in Media

Indian BJP Troll Farm

Kulbhushan Jadhav Caught in Balochistan

The Story of Pakistan's M8 Motorway
Pakistan-China-Russia vs India-Japan-US

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

[Riaz Haq]

Mehdi Hasan
@mehdirhasan
The person censoring pro-Palestinian content on IG is literally a former adviser to Netanyahu.

You can’t make this shit up.
Quote
Sam Biddle
@samfbiddle
·
9h
Cutler was hired by FB in 2016 as the company's first policy chief for Israel, having previously worked at the Israeli embassy, as a Likud staffer, and advisor to Netanyahu. In a 2020 interview she said "My job is to represent Facebook to Israel, and represent Israel to Facebook"

https://x.com/mehdirhasan/status/1848463078079234375

[Riaz Haq]

Amsterdam riots: what really happened | Media Watch

https://youtu.be/qQ0MJr6v0bI?si=VUv56E8pPGaIobBu

What really happened in Amsterdam’s soccer riots between supporters of Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv? We look at how the truth got lost in the rush to judgement.

————————-


The Mayor of Amsterdam has said she regrets using the word 'pogrom' to describe the attacks on Israeli football fans in the Dutch capital following the match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and AFC Ajax.

https://www.euronews.com/2024/11/19/amsterdam-mayor-says-she-regret...

She also condemned Israel for its swift portrayal of the incident as an attack on Israelis, despite prior behaviour by Maccabi supporters in which they chanted anti-Arab slogans and tore down Palestinian flags.

"We were completely caught off guard by Israel. At 3am, (Israeli) Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu was already giving a lecture about what happened in Amsterdam, while we were still gathering the facts," she said in Sunday's interview.

The football match violence has rocked the Dutch government, with country's finance secretary announcing her resignation on Friday following comments by Hard-right Dutch political leader Geert Wilders.

Wilders last Wednesday blamed Moroccans for the attacks on Israeli football fans, claiming that "we saw Muslims hunting Jews" and added it was fuelled by "Moroccans who want to destroy Jews." He said those convicted of involvement should be deported if they have dual nationality.

Announcing her resignation, Morocco-born Nora Achahbar of centrist New Social Contract party said that "the polarising manners have had such an impact on me that I could, or would, no longer fulfil my role as state secretary."

"Polarisation in society is dangerous because it undermines the bond between people. Because of that, we start seeing each other as opponent instead of fellow citizens," she said in a statement.

[Riaz Haq]

AIPAC Tracker
@TrackAIPAC
.
@BernieSanders
puts his Senate colleagues on blast: "Nobody is going to take anything you say with a grain of seriousness! You cannot condemn human rights [violations] around the world and then turn a blind eye to what the United States government is now funding in Israel. People will laugh in your face."

https://x.com/TrackAIPAC/status/1861288868932395380

[Riaz Haq]

Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Quite a sign when Stephen Walt, one of the most renowned scholars of international relations in the world (and Harvard professor), writes an article in Foreign Policy arguing that "Noam Chomsky has been proved right":

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-re...

Walt agrees with Chomsky that "the claim that U.S. foreign policy is guided by the lofty ideals of democracy, freedom, the rule of law, human rights" is "nonsense".

As he explains, all of US history proves the contrary, from the "genocidal campaign against the indigenous population" the country was founded upon, to the fact it intervened militarily "to thwart democratic processes in many countries, and waged or backed wars that killed millions of people in Indochina, Latin America, and the Middle East."

Walt also agrees with Chomsky that this is enabled by a massive brainwashing campaign on the US population: "government institutions work overtime to 'manufacture consent' by classifying information, prosecuting leakers, lying to the public, and refusing to be held accountable even when things go wrong or malfeasance is exposed. Their efforts are aided by a generally compliant media, which repeats government talking points uncritically and only rarely questions the official narrative."

Walt concludes: "If I were asked whether a student would learn more about U.S. foreign policy by reading [Chomsky's] book or by reading a collection of the essays that current and former U.S. officials occasionally write in journals such as Foreign Affairs or the Atlantic, Chomsky and Robinson would win hands down. I wouldn’t have written that last sentence when I began my career 40 years ago. I’ve been paying attention, however, and my thinking has evolved as the evidence has piled up."

https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1863383555386273996

[Riaz Haq]

Noam Chomsky Has Been Proved Right About U.S. Foreign Policy

By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-re...

The writer’s new argument for left-wing foreign policy has earned a mainstream hearing.

For more than half a century, Noam Chomsky has been arguably the world’s most persistent, uncompromising, and intellectually respected critic of contemporary U.S. foreign policy. In a steady stream of books, articles, interviews, and speeches, he has repeatedly sought to expose Washington’s costly and inhumane approach to the rest of the world, an approach he believes has harmed millions and is contrary to the United States’ professed values. As co-author Nathan J. Robinson writes in the preface, The Myth of American Idealism was written to “draw insights from across [Chomsky’s] body of work into a single volume that could introduce people to his central critiques of U.S. foreign policy.” It accomplishes that task admirably.


As the title suggests, the central target of the book is the claim that U.S. foreign policy is guided by the lofty ideals of democracy, freedom, the rule of law, human rights, etc. For those who subscribe to this view, the damage the United States has sometimes inflicted on other countries was the unintended and much regretted result of actions taken for noble purposes and with the best of intentions. Americans are constantly reminded by their leaders that they are an “indispensable nation” and “the greatest force for freedom the world has ever known,” and assuredthat moral principles will be at the “center of U.S. foreign policy.” Such self-congratulatory justifications are then endlessly echoed by a chorus of politicians and establishment intellectuals.

For Chomsky and Robinson, these claims are nonsense. Not only did the young American republic fulfill its Manifest Destiny by waging a genocidal campaign against the indigenous population, but it has since backed a bevy of brutal dictatorships, intervened to thwart democratic processes in many countries, and waged or backed wars that killed millions of people in Indochina, Latin America, and the Middle East, all while falsely claiming to be defending freedom, democracy, human rights, and other cherished ideals. U.S. officials are quick to condemn others when they violate international law, but they refuse to join the International Criminal Court, the Law of the Sea Treaty, and many other global conventions. Nor do they hesitate to violate the United Nations Charter themselves, as U.S. President Bill Clinton did when he went to war against Serbia in 1999 or as President George W. Bush did when he invaded Iraq in 2003. Even when undeniably evil acts are exposed—such as the My Lai massacre, the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, and the CIA’s torture program—it is low-level personnel who get punished while the architects of these policies remain respected members of the establishment.

The record of hypocrisy recounted by Chomsky and Robinson is sobering and convincing. No open-minded reader could absorb this book and continue to believe the pious rationales that U.S. leaders invoke to justify their bare-knuckled actions.

[Riaz Haq]

Noam Chomsky Has Been Proved Right About U.S. Foreign Policy

By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-re...

The book is less persuasive, however, when it tries to explain why U.S. officials act this way. Chomsky and Robinson argue that the “the public’s role in decision-making is limited” and that “foreign policy is designed and implemented by small groups who derive their power from domestic sources.” In their view, U.S. foreign policy is largely the servant of corporate interests—the military-industrial complex, energy companies, and “major corporations, banks, investment firms, … and policy-oriented intellectuals who do the bidding of those who own and manage the private empires that govern most aspects of our lives.”

The importance of special interests is beyond question, as is the broader public’s limited role, but the picture is more complicated than they suggest. For starters, when corporate profits and national security interests clash, the former often lose out. For example, when Dick Cheney ran Halliburton, an oil-services company in the 1990s, he complained about the “sanction-happy” foreign policy that prevented the company from making money in Iran. Other U.S. oil companies would have liked to invest there, as well, but U.S. sanctions remained firmly in place. Similarly, tech companies like Apple oppose recent U.S. efforts to limit China’s access to advanced technologies because these restrictions threaten their bottom line. The restrictions might indeed be misguided, but the point is that corporate interests do not always call the tune.

Chomsky and Robinson also acknowledge that other great powers acted in much the same way that the United States has, and these states also invented elaborate moral justifications—the “white man’s burden,” la mission civilisatrice, the need to protect socialism—to whitewash their atrocious conduct. Given that this behavior preceded the emergence of modern corporate capitalism (let alone the military-industrial complex), it suggests that these policies have more to do with the logic of great power competition than the specific demands of the corporate United States. And if noncapitalist powers acted in similar ways, then something else is encouraging states to jettison their values to gain an edge on rivals, or to prevent them from gaining a similar edge themselves. For realists, that something else is the fear of what might happen if other states became stronger and decided to use their power in harmful ways.

Their portrait of the people who implement these policies will also strike some readers as simplistic. In their telling, U.S. officials are supremely cynical: They understand they are doing bad things for purely selfish reasons and don’t care much about the consequences for others. But many of them undoubtedly believe that what they are doing is both good for the United States and the world, and that the conduct of foreign policy inevitably involves painful trade-offs. They might be deluding themselves, but other thoughtful critics of U.S. foreign policy—such as Hans Morgenthau—readily acknowledged the impossibility of preserving one’s moral purity in the realm of politics. Chomsky and Robinson say very little about the potential costs or negative consequences of the policies they prefer—in their world, the trade-off between what is moral and what might be advantageous largely disappears.

The Myth of American Idealism raises two further puzzles, but only one is addressed in any detail. The first puzzle is: Why do Americans tolerate policies that are costly, often unsuccessful, and morally horrendous? Ordinary citizens could benefit in countless ways from the trillions of dollars that have been lavished on an overstuffed military or squandered in unnecessary and failed wars, yet voters continue to choose politicians who give them more of the same. How come?

[Riaz Haq]

Noam Chomsky Has Been Proved Right About U.S. Foreign Policy

By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-re...

Their answer, which is generally persuasive, is twofold. First, ordinary citizens lack the political mechanisms to shape policy, in part because a supine U.S. Congress has allowed presidents to usurp its constitutional authority over declarations of war and to cloak all manner of dubious actions under a deep veil of secrecy. Second, government institutions work overtime to “manufacture consent” by classifying information, prosecuting leakers, lying to the public, and refusing to be held accountable even when things go wrong or malfeasance is exposed. Their efforts are aided by a generally compliant media, which repeats government talking points uncritically and only rarely questions the official narrative.



Having written about these phenomena myself, I found their portrait of how the foreign-policy establishment purveys and defends its world view to be broadly accurate. That said, it is not obvious that greater public awareness would lead to better U.S. policies. Chomsky and Robinson believe that if more Americans understood what their government was doing, they would raise their voices and demand change. I would like to think so, but it is possible that a better-informed public would favor a foreign policy that was even more selfish, shortsighted, and immoral, especially if they believed that Chomsky and Robinson’s prescriptions would require them to make costly or painful adjustments. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has never expressed the slightest commitment to any ideal other than naked self-interest, yet he commands the loyalty of more than half the U.S. electorate.

One might also question whether the traditional elite’s ability to manufacture consent is waning as news sources multiply and mainstream media is increasingly mistrusted. For that matter, is the problem the manufacture of consent or the specific policies for which public consent has been obtained in the past? If people like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, or Jeff Bezos emerge as the core of a new elite, they are likely to favor a less interventionist foreign policy that is closer (though hardly identical) to what Chomsky and Robinson would like to see. If that were to occur, would Chomsky and Robinson still decry this new elite’s ability to manufacture consent for policies they might support?



The second puzzle—which is not addressed in any detail—concerns the rest of the world. If U.S. foreign policy “endangers the world” (as the subtitle of this book proclaims), why aren’t more states trying to stop it? Washington faces several serious adversaries at present, but it still has a lot of genuine and enthusiastic allies. Some of its partners might be opportunistic, or perhaps intimidated by the United States’ vast power, but not every pro-American leader is a tame dupe or a self-interested comprador. Global surveys still show a surprising degree of support and admiration for the United States, even though the populations of some areas (such as the Middle East) are deeply and justifiably angered by what the country is doing. The United States’ global image has also exhibited striking resilience in the past: It plummeted while George W. Bush was president and recoveredsharply as soon as voters elected Barack Obama.

In many parts of the world, the concern is not the oppressive nature of U.S. power but rather the possibility that its power will be withdrawn. Chomsky and Robinson are correct that the United States has done many bad things over the past century, but it must have been done a few things right, as well. The positive aspects of U.S. foreign policy get short shrift in this book, and that omission is its greatest limitation.

[Riaz Haq]

Noam Chomsky Has Been Proved Right About U.S. Foreign Policy

By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-re...

Despite these reservations, The Myth of American Idealism is a valuable work that provides an able introduction to Chomsky’s thinking. Indeed, if I were asked whether a student would learn more about U.S. foreign policy by reading this book or by reading a collection of the essays that current and former U.S. officials occasionally write in journals such as Foreign Affairs or the Atlantic, Chomsky and Robinson would win hands down.

I wouldn’t have written that last sentence when I began my career 40 years ago. I’ve been paying attention, however, and my thinking has evolved as the evidence has piled up. It is regrettable but revealing that a perspective on U.S. foreign policy once confined to the margins of left-wing discourse in the United States is now more credible than the shopworn platitudes that many senior U.S. officials rely on to defend their actions.