Year: 2003

What caption would you write for a photograph that shows an anti-war protestor with a head-scarf emblazoned with the slogan “Kill Jews.” The Times of London went for: “A university student protests against the war in Iraq.”

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, could it? Good for NBC.

ANTI-WAR = ANTI-ISRAEL: One thing to remember in the somewhat hysterical anti-war mood in France: this was a country that gave unprecedented support to a neo-fascist only last year. At least part of the French anti-war movement is really about the Jews. And as the movement has grown apace, so too has the phenomenon of anti-Semitic violence:

In its annual report on racism in France, the National Consultative Committee on Human Rights said there had been a sixfold increase over 2001 in acts of violence against Jewish property and persons. Of 313 acts of racist violence documented in 2002, 193 were anti-Semitic, it said. In a second category of racist acts – threats, graffiti and insults – more than 70 percent of the nearly 1,000 incidents were aimed at the Jewish community, while most of the rest were aimed at the North African immigrant community, the report said.

That’s today’s France: the home of Euro-enlightenment, sophistication, nuanced objectivity and Jew-hating.

A long, long time ago, I voiced an offhand fear that some parts of the left (and far right) in this country were so disenchanted with America, so contemptuous of president Bush, so full of misplaced attraction to the thugs and despots of the developing world, that they could mount what amounts to a fifth column in the event of serious conflict. For the new class especially, the journalists and academics and chatterers, some of whose loyalties extend only to their latest publicist, the notion of simple loyalty to country is and was, as Orwell, noted a contemptible emotion. I was denounced for such a thought – even though it was an aside in an essay devoted to celebrating America. But it turns out I was right. My piece opposite deals with the fulminations of a Columbia University professor, Nicholas de Genova, who blurted out what some of his fellow leftwing academics truly feel: that they want the United States to lose this war, and if that means that Saddam wins, so be it. There is no question in my mind that that is also a simmering sentiment among several important media institutions, like the BBC and, to a lesser extent, the New York Times. (Reading the Sunday New York Times yesterday was to read a paper whose editors have already assumed – or can barely conceal the conjecture – that the war is lost.) And now we have Peter Arnett, mouthing Ba’ath Party propaganda, lying about declining support for the war in the U.S., sucking up to the Stalinists who control the Iraqi police state, and generally making a huge ass of himself. This interview is disgusting. It is propaganda. It could demoralize Iraqi resistance to Saddam; it could therefore increase the likelihood of a longer war and cost American lives. This after barely two weeks of warfare. Two weeks.

THE AMERICAN PRIME MINISTER: Blair has an approval rating in the U.S. of 72 percent – five points higher than the president. Here’s why.

Here’s what I’m beating myself up about. I long believed that Saddam was a Stalinist; that he ran a brutal police state; that totalitarian regimes – again, as Orwell noted – are often extremely successful at what they do. (Remember Orwell’s fear was that totalitarianism would work.) So why did I believe that Saddam’s shock troops would not put up that fierce a battle? In retrospect, of course they would. They’ve been terrified into obedience; and the higher up you go the more that terror is manifested by terrorizing others in turn. It’s one big police state. The experience of the collapse of the Soviet Union perhaps lulled us into over-confidence. But Saddam’s terror-state is younger, more Stalinist than end-of-empire USSR, and is allied with some of the most fanatical barbarians in the world. I should have thought of that. Not that it changes much now. After the initial adolescent disappointment that we didn’t have insta-victory, the longer this goes on, the more confident I’m becoming. Above all, observing the methods of this police state confirms my feeling that this was always the right thing to do. There was no alternative to war, it is now transparently clear, except leaving Saddam entrenched and getting more dangerous. Now to finish the job.

THE NYT ON THE BBC: The Axis of Bias now exists. But check out the simply glorious Times’ description of the BBC’s coverage of the war: “nuanced objectivity.” I think I’m going to rename our regular media bias updates as “Nuanced Objectivity Watch.”

A friend was actually at the Columbia meeting where far left professor de Genova called for the murder and mutilation of American troops. My account was based on Newsday’s story. Here’s an alternative version:

You’re right that no one objected to the Mogadishu line: I sat there astonished he was even saying that. But it’s bullshit to say the final line of his speech drew “loud cheers from an Ivy League audience.” A significant portion of the room (I’d guess a quarter) did start clapping, but I heard no cheers, much less loud cheers. Of course, I was in shock, hissing, shaking my head that ANYONE was clapping rather than booing. All I can tell you is that I paid close attention to see if further speakers over the next few hours would repudiate those comments. And when two speakers did disagree with him (including Foner), the applause was louder. It says something that Columbia students are not willing to stand up en masse and disagree with such disgusting comments, but it does not say that most of them agree with what was said. He certainly was not representative of the other professor’s thoughts. On the contrary, the speaker was a last minute addition replacing someone who was sick, and he was alone in the type of comments he made.

I’m glad Foner objected at the time.

THE MARKETPLACE BOMB: I don’t know what to believe about the explosion in the Baghdad market place that the BBC is touting as more American criminality. In general, my rule of thumb is to find out what Robert Fisk is saying and believe the opposite. But this story in the Daily Telegraph was interesting. It will probably take the allied occupation of Baghdad to get to the truth.

Here’s a very insightful piece by Stephen Glover in the London Spectator. It deals with some of the emotional and ideological reasons behind some reporters’ and pundits’ eagerness to portray the dark lining of every silver cloud in Iraq. Money graf:

There were lots of reasons for opposing the war against Iraq. But even anti-war people would always admit that Saddam Hussein is a dictator who has tortured and killed many people, and impoverished his nation. They worried about legality and fretted about whether it was right to invade a country which had not made a declaration of war. I shared these anxieties. The anti-war brigade has also been sustained by anti-Americanism. Now that the allies have embarked on war, it is natural that many of the opponents in the media should want to be proven right. This helps to explain why the BBC and the anti-war press have seized on every small setback as potentially a vast misfortune. There is the war between the allies and Saddam Hussein, and there is the other, hidden war between the opponents of war in the media and those in the field who seem to be prosecuting it with remarkable success.

And yes, Glover is right to point out the success. What has struck me forcibly so far is not so much the “Simpsons”-like backseat-driving of the media (“Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.”) than the absolute refusal of the military brass or the administration to concede even an inch. Like you, I don’t know what’s really going on. The press could be being babyish; the military could be putting on a brave face. One day, we’ll know. But if I had to believe someone, it would probably not be the BBC.

FIGURE THIS ONE OUT: Check out this story in the Washington Post. It’s about Bush’s advisers “splitting.” I can’t tell who they’re talking about, except the vague description of “former senior Republican government officials and party leaders”; what the split is precisely about; who may be leaking; and much else. Whoever was the source for this piece is so deeply on background he or she or they are completely invisible. Scowcroft? Baker? Eagleburger?

An email worth sharing:

I am a retired US Army officer.
The de facto policy in the military has always been that you never run a “witch hunt” after a really good soldier who keeps it out of the barracks.-“Witch hunts’ went after the women for the most part because lesbians for some reason were much more likely to be in the barracks than male homosexuals, who would take it off-post.
When I was a kid sergeant in the 101st Airborne, working on air movement, one of the most important people around was the division air-movement NCO.-This guy knew more about loading US Army equipment on US Air Force aircraft than anyone.-If he said if was rigged right, it was right– even the Air Force called him for rulings.-But if he said it was wrong – no arguing, no appeal – your stuff wouldn’t get on the airplane.
The first time I had to take paperwork to him, my platoon sergeant called me aside and said, “DeeTee, this guy is the biggest fag you’ve ever seen.-But you better make him a happy fag.”-Platoon Daddy was right – the guy was a mincing flamer – but he knew everything.-I watched him chew out officers and senior NCOs right and left who had their paperwork examined ahead of me.-And I was really proud when it was my turn and he praised me and my unit in a very loud voice for knowing what the real deal was.
Several years later, as a young lieutenant, the company command and I had our best clerk come into the office and say that he wanted a discharge because he was queer. We told him, bullshit, we’ve seen your hippie chick girlfriend.- He fell back on, well, I’m bisexual.- We told him no you aren’t – you just want to get out of the Army, go to college, screw, and smoke dope.-We made him a deal – stay on through the summer (while we prepared for our annual general inspection), and then when college classes start in the fall, we’ll give you a homosexual discharge if that’s what you still want.-He said OK.
Two weeks later, our worst clerk got busted for driving under the influence.-His lawyer called us saying that his client was just being prosecuted because he was black, and that he’d told him that we had a notorious queer we were protecting. We were, of course, shocked, shocked, to get this news.-On his own confession, we discharged our best clerk in 48 hours.-It took over three months, and repeated incidents of misbehavior to get rid of our worst.

Some political predictions:

Once again the media -which is almost genetically anti-Bush- has whipped itself into hysteria fueled by the hope that he will fail. I believe their hatred of him is the motivator and they are indulging in a kind of optimism that this will be his Waterloo. The most obvious comparison is of course Modo and Afghanistan.

But my point is that the more they screech that we are losing, the GREATER the glory of victory.
–
They are walking into a political trap of their own making. I believe they are about to make utter fools of themselves one more time.- On some level, a substantial portion of the public senses this, “gets it” and in the end, this will only enhance Bush. They will be doing him a political favor.

Any politician’s career is hardly an important thing compared to the outcome of a war. Bush knows this.-He does not care that he is risking all on this.-His ultimate goal is life is not political, that is secondary.– He has a deeper aspect to him that Clinton -a more “intelligent” president- never had.-For Clinton, political victory is the epicenter of the universe.– For Bush in this particular, protecting the country is.
–
Once again, the second guessers have underestimated Bush, this time by underestimating temporarily our military. I believe they shall, -little by little, -destroy the Republican Guard and like a well oiled machine,- crush the enemy.-I believe that inside of the-enemy’s universe right now,- there is-mostly fear and a growing despair. They have seen the casualties on their side.-They can do the math, comparing our twenty something deaths with their hundreds, perhaps already thousands.
—
Our strategy will work and all -that will be lost, is time.-Not more lives, not more infrastructure,- just some time.-This may not be a happy fact for the Nasdaq nor Helen Thomas, but for the rest of us,-we are content.
—
The media has once again given an opportunity to Bush in the longer run. I think he knows this. I think they will rue their hysteria in the not so distant future.

I think it’s too soon to predict the course of this war. But there’s a pretty good chance this emailer could be right.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune thinks Al Jazeera is less biased than the Fox News Network:

But the Al Jazeera reporters and anchors themselves generally avoid commentary. And Al Jazeera also provides its Arabic audience with many pro-war, pro-U.S. perspectives, including those from top U.S. military and Bush administration officials. On Wednesday, Al Jazeera carried the U.S. military briefing and the beginning of a Bush speech in Florida, then it left the speech early for a live, exclusive interview with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Fox, despite its slogan of “fair and balanced,” doesn’t disguise its pro-war and pro-American sentiments.

I’m not making this up.

Check out this story. Notice the profound skepticism toward Tony Blair’s assertion that two British POW’s were executed. Now notice how the Saddam spokesman’s comments are simply reprinted without comment. The BBC trusts Baghdad more than London. But then they would, wouldn’t they?