by Mickey Z.
 On the cover of the latest issue of Newsweek you'll find the image of a
young Middle Eastern boy against a stark white background holding an
automatic weapon. Above him are the words: "The Next Jihadists."
Inside, the article begins: "Ammar will tell you he's proud to be carrying a
gun. His father was a brigadier in Saddam Hussein's Army, a man who saw
combat in his country's several wars, and from an early age Ammar had
accompanied him to the shooting range. 'I got used to the sound of guns
then,' Ammar says."
Most Americans won't bother reading this or any other article. However, the
cover image will be more than enough to provoke knee-jerk reactions about
towelheads raising their kids to wage war.
Anyone who makes time to actually read the NewsWeak article might encounter
this quote from Hassan Ali, a sociologist at the Ministry of Labor and
Social Affairs: "These children will come to believe in the principles of
force and violence. There's no question that society as a whole is going to
feel the effects in the future."
What if NewsWeak had opted to instead present the image a young American boy
holding any number of weapons? Imagine that above this tow-headed, lily
white lad were these words: "The Next Imperialists." Or perhaps even: "The
Next War Criminals."
To find Ammar-like quotes, NewsWeak need look no further than a January 2004
New York Times fluff piece about American snipers ("In Iraq's Murky Battle,
Snipers Offer U.S. a Precision Weapon"). "Most snipers are familiar with
firearms even before joining the armed forces," the newspaper of record
explains, going on to discuss two snipers who "grew up on farms, and both
owned their first rifles before they were 10. They fondly remember hunting
deer as youngsters." Fondly?
Factoids are important so here's one from the National Center for Health
Statistics: "Every two years, more Americans die from gunshots than there
were American soldiers killed during the entire Vietnam War." Toss in a few
mentions of violent movies and sadistic video games, paint ball, war toys,
street gangs, and the endless parade of U.S. military interventions, and
you'd almost have yourself a NewsWeak cover story. All that would be missing
was a pull quote from someone‹anyone‹with a PhD blabbing on about how the
brutal American culture would lead its children to "believe in the
principles of force and violence."
Journalism sure is easy, huh?
Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.
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