"Media executives [have] to accept their responsibilities in time of war", argues Daniel Pipes, a rabidly pro-war US commentator. "On their initiative, they should exclude the enemy's apologists and advocates. Lively debate does not require such people; patriots with sharply differing views can also make sparks fly."
"Islamist motormouths and leftist attack dogs" should have no place on television, a unique medium for getting one's ideas out to large numbers of people, Pipes added.
This blatant call for the exclusion of anti-war voices from the mass media was made by Pipes in an op-ed feature in the August 4 Sydney Morning Herald, supposedly the most liberal of Australia's daily newspapers.
"Freedom of speech means speaking one's mind, without fear of going to jail; it does not imply the privilege to address a television audience", according to Pipes.
"... while unfettered free political speech is critical to debate tax rates, abortion, or for whom to vote, it makes no sense to promulgate the enemy viewpoint when a country is at war".
Pipes praised former Irish government policies silencing the IRA and Russian government censorship of Chechen separatist voices, holding them up as examples to be followed.
Meanwhile, back in the US, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has urged the US government to monitor not only those who advocate violence, but even those who argue that US government actions may encourage violent reprisals.
Friedman has urged the US State Department to create a quarterly "War of Ideas Report" on religious leaders and writers who are "inciting violence against others".
According to the US media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), Friedman said the governmental speech monitoring should go beyond those who actually advocate violence, and also include what former State Department spokesperson Jamie Rubin calls "excuse makers".
So if you argue that the occupation of Iraq is provoking terrorist bombings like those in London, you are an "excuse-maker" and should be put on a black list!
Recent polls show 54% of people in the US think this way, 85% in Britain and two-thirds in Australia. According to Friedman, if they speak their mind, they are "just one notch less despicable than the terrorists".
We shouldn't dismiss Pipes' and Friedman's calls for war censorship as the irrelevant ravings of a couple of right-wing columnists spicing up the op-ed columns of the corporate media.
As you read this, the US Congress is renewing the notorious Patriot Act and Washington's allies in the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan are all strengthening their secret spy organisations and dismantling your civil rights.
Laws aimed at severely weakening or even eliminating political dissent and organisation on campuses and in the labour movement are at the top of PM John Howard's legislative agenda as the new Liberal-National Coalition-controlled Senate comes into operation.
We face a serious struggle for our rights, and at times like this independent voices of dissent and resistance, like Green Left Weekly, are very precious assets.
From Green Left Weekly, August 10, 2005.
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