Fun with headlines
(or how to win fear and influence paranoia...)
Current headline of the FoxNews webiste: At Least One American Believed Killed by Freed Gitmo Prisoners
Fair enough. This definitely makes it sound like this is a matter of course, doesn't it? Maybe there's a reason to fuel the paranoia after all, right? The first line from that article certainly makes it sound that way.
If the Guantanamo prison base is shut down, critics say, some military combatants currently held there will be sent back to their home countries - where they will rejoin terrorist groups and ultimately kill Americans.
This is "Why we shouldn't close Gitmo 101" right here. They're only there because they want to kill Americans, that's all they think about, and that's all they do - right? It's all right here in the article.
Except...
You keep reading, and you find out that the man released from Gitmo, the one that's a "suspect in the attack" that killed this American girl... was in Saudi Arabia at the time and could not possibly have taken part in an attack in Yemen.
Wow... that kinda kills the paranoia factor there, doesn't it? So who is it suspecting him, actually? Just FoxNews?
And then you read the last couple of lines of the article, and it finally hits you just how manipulative the press really is.
Susan Elbaneh was related to Yemeni-American Jaber A. Elbaneh, who is on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists" list for allegedly being the seventh member of the Lackawanna Six, a group of men convicted for providing material support to Al Qaeda.
Another day, the headline of this article might have been, Cousin of Most Wanted Terrorist Killed in Bomb Attack or Al Qaeda Kills Cousin of Man Who Funded Them.
In other words, on another day, in the hands of another editor... she'd have deserved it for daring to be related to a suspected terrorist. After all, isn't that what we're supposed to believe? That they're all related to terrorists because they all are terrorists and they all just want us dead?
Isn't that the whole reason we're supposed to be paranoid about them closing Gitmo? Because they're all terrorists, they have to be, they can't be innocent people who just happened to be related to someone who might have possibly done something wrong, right?
Except for this woman, apparently. According to FoxNews, she is apparently the only Muslim on the planet - who was related to someone suspected of terrorism - who wasn't actually a terrorist herself and therefore *her* death should make us paranoid, whereas the continued imprisonment and torture of those *other* Muslims - some of whom are only related to someone suspected of terrorism - should make us feel safe.
Um... wha?
Do I believe this woman deserved what happened to her? Absolutely not. Do I believe that her cousin has anything to do with her death? Absolutely not - and her brother said as much in the article.
What I do think is that FoxNews - for whatever reason - has chosen this woman's death to fan the flames of paranoia that they're spreading over the impending closing of Gitmo.
And that, my friends, is disgusting.
Current headline of the FoxNews webiste: At Least One American Believed Killed by Freed Gitmo Prisoners
Fair enough. This definitely makes it sound like this is a matter of course, doesn't it? Maybe there's a reason to fuel the paranoia after all, right? The first line from that article certainly makes it sound that way.
If the Guantanamo prison base is shut down, critics say, some military combatants currently held there will be sent back to their home countries - where they will rejoin terrorist groups and ultimately kill Americans.
This is "Why we shouldn't close Gitmo 101" right here. They're only there because they want to kill Americans, that's all they think about, and that's all they do - right? It's all right here in the article.
Except...
You keep reading, and you find out that the man released from Gitmo, the one that's a "suspect in the attack" that killed this American girl... was in Saudi Arabia at the time and could not possibly have taken part in an attack in Yemen.
Wow... that kinda kills the paranoia factor there, doesn't it? So who is it suspecting him, actually? Just FoxNews?
And then you read the last couple of lines of the article, and it finally hits you just how manipulative the press really is.
Susan Elbaneh was related to Yemeni-American Jaber A. Elbaneh, who is on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists" list for allegedly being the seventh member of the Lackawanna Six, a group of men convicted for providing material support to Al Qaeda.
Another day, the headline of this article might have been, Cousin of Most Wanted Terrorist Killed in Bomb Attack or Al Qaeda Kills Cousin of Man Who Funded Them.
In other words, on another day, in the hands of another editor... she'd have deserved it for daring to be related to a suspected terrorist. After all, isn't that what we're supposed to believe? That they're all related to terrorists because they all are terrorists and they all just want us dead?
Isn't that the whole reason we're supposed to be paranoid about them closing Gitmo? Because they're all terrorists, they have to be, they can't be innocent people who just happened to be related to someone who might have possibly done something wrong, right?
Except for this woman, apparently. According to FoxNews, she is apparently the only Muslim on the planet - who was related to someone suspected of terrorism - who wasn't actually a terrorist herself and therefore *her* death should make us paranoid, whereas the continued imprisonment and torture of those *other* Muslims - some of whom are only related to someone suspected of terrorism - should make us feel safe.
Um... wha?
Do I believe this woman deserved what happened to her? Absolutely not. Do I believe that her cousin has anything to do with her death? Absolutely not - and her brother said as much in the article.
What I do think is that FoxNews - for whatever reason - has chosen this woman's death to fan the flames of paranoia that they're spreading over the impending closing of Gitmo.
And that, my friends, is disgusting.