Biased war reporting

I frequently hear news reports that some number N of U.S. soldiers were killed in a bomb attack in Iraq. These reports often go on to say that M Iraqis were also killed in the same attack, where usually M > N. This is blatantly biased reporting. On top of this there are the "incidents" where no U.S. soldiers were killed. You usually don't even hear about those at all.

Nationalism in war reporting is so pervasive that it's expected, and so nobody really comments on it. But the fact is that this kind of news is about one nation (ours) invading another, destroying its civilization and murdering its people. In such a case, this kind of bias is disgusting, because it takes the side of the country that started the violence, and minimizes the cost to the victim.

In perpetuating this bias, reporters are behaving immorally, because they are portraying the value of an Iraqi life as less than that of a US soldier's life. This kind of relativism is as evil as racism -- racism and nationalism are both about people in power ignoring the suffering of others because "they're not like us".

There's another aspect that makes this even more despicable. The death of a soldier is the death of someone who has voluntarily accepted the role of killer, and they knew from the start that they would run the risk of being killed in turn. Therefore their deaths are strictly less tragic than the death of innocent Iraqis. I say this even though my only sister is in the army, and is due to be deployed in Iraq this August.

The media made a big fuss over 1000 US soldiers dead, and then a slightly smaller fuss over 2000 US soldiers dead. In contrast, the number of Iraqi civilians killed surpassed 10,000 over a year ago, and it was barely mentioned.

American news media is accessible across the world. I know, because I've watched it in places like Thailand and Guatemala. When we present our citizens as being more important than the people of other countries, we aren't just talking amongst ourselves. We're talking right in front of the very people we're dismissing.

It's time to come to terms with the fact that as of 2006, the default world view of the average US citizen is aggressive, nationalistic, controlling, and dismissive. This point of view is immoral, unjust, and unsustainable.