Chris Hedges criticizes mainstream media’s ‘cheerleading’ for Syria strike

“The corporate media has presented precisely the narrative and the images that the deep state wants.”

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Image credit: Jordi Bernabeu Farrús/Flickr

President Trump’s decision to strike a Syrian air base late Thursday was met with resounding praise in the mainstream media. Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges addresses this “knee-jerk cheerleading” as well as how corporate media and the “deep state” influence Trump’s policy in the segment below:

“They’ve fallen right into line and refuse to ask any substantial questions at all,” Hedges says of the media’s reaction to the U.S. attack. “This is precisely what the deep state wanted.”

Noting that Trump’s chose to act partly due to photos of victims of a chemical attack in Syria earlier this week, correspondent Anya Parampil asks Hedges why there are “double standards” when it comes to caring about victims of war.

War victims, Hedges says, “are manipulated to serve the interests of whatever warring party wants to hold up their corpses.” The missile strike, he argues, is the result of “the emotionalism of a very fickle, unstable, impulsive president who, frankly, sees the world through whatever is presented to him on a television screen.”

“The corporate media has presented precisely the narrative and the images that the deep state wants,” Hedges concludes.

End the U.S. policy of perpetual war:

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Chris Hedges, whose column is published weekly on Truthdig, has written 11 books, including the New York Times best seller “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012), which he co-authored with the cartoonist Joe Sacco. Some of his other books include “Death of the Liberal Class” (2010), “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009), “I Don’t Believe in Atheists” (2008) and the best selling “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” (2008). His book “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” (2003) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.

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