Untangling the False Narrative of a ‘New Humanitarianism’ for Darfur

In his book “Saviors and Survivors”, Mahmood Mamdani describes how US Secretary of State Colin Powell “made two pivotal presentations” during his term in Office under George Bush. The first presentation was his defense of the US government claim that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq, thus establishing the pretext for the illegal US invasion of Iraq. The 2nd false narrative Powell was instrumental in creating had to do with the claim that there was genocide being carried out in Darfur.

With respect to Powell’s claims of WMD in Iraq, much of the mainstream media in the US dutifully went along with the US government propaganda campaign by creating a false narrative to justify the US government’s military attack on Iraq.

There has been the general acknowledgement by some of the mainstream media that their advocacy on… weiter lesen

 
What is the significance of the recent Presidential election in the US? Barack Obama won the Presidency through a great effort by people in the US and around the world. Also, however, the election demonstrated the great weakness of the political party system in the US as there was little difference expressed on many of the issues in the run-up to the election. Instead of the election being a means for a broad ranging public discussion of the many problems facing the American people, and people around the world, the personality of the two candidates and their perceived capability became a basis for speculating on whether their election would be the basis for a hopeful outcome or not.

While some of the mainstream media have continued the hype of the election process by speculating on whether or not… weiter lesen