Writing for Truthout yesterday, Norman Solomon had an interesting different take on the Michael Gordon/Mark Mazzetti article in yesterday’s NYT that I posted about here, yesterday.
Solomon’s argument– by looking at that Gordon/Mazzetti piece alongside another one Gordon had in the NYT on Wednesday, under the title Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say, and an appearance Gordon made on CNN later Wednesday– was to claim that:
- The American media establishment has launched a major offensive against the option of withdrawing US troops from Iraq.
Personally, I think this may be overstating the case a little. Michael Gordon is, after all, only one reporter– though evidently his work at the NYT, and the way it is presented, in terms of headlines, placement, etc, is supported by colleagues there with significant editorial clout.
Still, Michael Gordon and the paper that pays his very handsome salary are not insignificant players; and regarding that group of journalists, Solomon has an excellent point.
He writes:
- If a New York Times military-affairs reporter went on television to advocate for withdrawal of US troops as unequivocally as Gordon advocated against any such withdrawal during his November 15 appearance on CNN, he or she would be quickly reprimanded – and probably would be taken off the beat – by the Times hierarchy. But the paper’s news department eagerly fosters reporting that internalizes and promotes the basic worldviews of the country’s national security state.
That’s how and why the Times front page was so hospitable to the work of Judith Miller during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. That’s how and why the Times is now so hospitable to the work of Michael Gordon.
I think, though, that the diagnosis that the NYT’s news department “eagerly fosters reporting that internalizes and promotes the basic worldviews of the country’s national security state” may only be part of the story. I mean, I don’t necessarily see this as a consciously adopted position on behalf of the managing editor for news and his/her staff, but more a case of intellectual and moral laziness toward the eager-beaver, source-cultivating work of one already very well-connected reporter…. Actually, very analogous to the way the WaPo’s news editors have treated Bob Woodward over the past 30 years– allowing him to do all kinds of things they would never let a “regular” reporter get away with, simply because of the guy’s good connections and personal celebrity value.
Since I grew up in England and have worked in both the British and the US media, I have often been struck by the different self-images and self-definitions that journalists seem to have within the two different national cultures. In the UK, as I understood matters, a “good” journalist was always expected to keep some distance from, and a huge degree of skepticism towards, the holders of or aspirants to political power. But in the US a “good” journalist was seen as one with good connections with the holders of power… The norm of US officials anonymously “leaking” tidbits of newsworthy information to favored journalists only strengthened this tendency of these journos– Tom Friedman comes to mind here for some reason– increasingly seeing themselves as part of the power structure, judiciously giving their advice to power wielders while helping the powerful to frame the image they presented to the voting public…
Of course, this is not an absolute division between the two bodies of journalism. There are some fine, independent-minded journos in the US MSM, and there are doubtless many bootlickers in the UK MSM by now, as well.
There is, however, also a keen structural difference between the two systems in that in the US, an entirely new body of top-level administration officials comes to Washington every four years or every eight years, and they desperately need some help in understanding how the levers of policy work in the capital, as well as in the world at large… A guy like Michael Gordon, Tom Friedman, or Jim Hoagland (or earlier, Judith Miller, as well) has been in DC for decades, and knows all the issues and all the players quite intimately. In one sense, these people are– and too frequently come to see themselves as– a non-trivial part of the “institutional memory” of the US governing class. In the UK, by contrast, by the tyime someone gets to be Prime Minister, Home Secretary, Forteign Secretary, or whetever, she or he will have spent years in parliament deliberating and bearing the responsibility of voting on all the weightiest national issues.
So does the US system tend to foster an elitist view of “journalism”? You bet! (And a very seductive one, too. The rewards are generous: not just in monetary terms, but also in terms of being taken “seriously”, and being kowtowed to by others as a well-connected person… )
Solomon has a great vignette at the end of his Truthout piece, that really captures this elitism. He recalls some footage from the CBS show “Face the Nation”, from the period in 1964 when the US involvement in Vietnam was mounting in a serious way. He writes:
- The show’s host on that 1964 telecast was the widely esteemed journalist Peter Lisagor, who told his guest: “Senator, the Constitution gives to the president of the United States the sole responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy.”
“Couldn’t be more wrong,” Senator Wayne Morse broke in with his sandpapery voice. “You couldn’t make a more unsound legal statement than the one you have just made. This is the promulgation of an old fallacy that foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States. That’s nonsense.”
Lisagor was almost taunting as he asked, “To whom does it belong then, Senator?”
Morse did not miss a beat. “It belongs to the American people,” he shot back – and “I am pleading that the American people be given the facts about foreign policy.”
The journalist persisted: “You know, Senator, that the American people cannot formulate and execute foreign policy.”
Morse’s response was indignant: “Why do you say that? … I have complete faith in the ability of the American people to follow the facts if you’ll give them. And my charge against my government is, we’re not giving the American people the facts.”
(Hat-tip to Jane C. for the Solomon piece.)
Speaking of the American government’s Pet Press, Nanny Nurturers, Kept Kommintariate, Sycophant Stenographers, Hapless Hagiographers, or whatever else one wishes to call I. F. Stone’s “Access Journalists,” I read today an AP article touting once more the on-again/off-again attempts by the U. S. Military to “advise” the Iraqis on how to “secure their own country” from their fellow Iraqi citizens through military violence directed against them in the interests of the occupying foriegn power and its obscure (even to its own citizens) foreign policy objectives. The article in question (“Marines in Iraq Expanding Adviser Teams,” by ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer, Nov 17, 2006) reminded me of my own experiences as a Naval Advisor to the now defunct Republic of South Vietnam more than three decades ago. One passage quoting a Marine Corps colonel in particular really set me off:
“We think that [this embedded advisor program] is clearly the way ahead,” [the colonel] said, adding that the Iraqis have proven themselves to be good “mimics,” emulating the tactics and procedures used by the Americans to be more effective against insurgents.”
When I read this completely credulous crap about young monolingual American marines (who by and large have nowhere near the intensive year of language and counter-insugency study that I received) resorting to monkey-see/monkey-do “mimicry” (a rather — and typically — arrogant put-down of their Iraqi counterparts), I could easily see why all such superficial attempts at Vietnamizing the Iraqis have failed to date and will go on failing until this debacle’s Gotterdammerung denoument decides things — as T. S. Elliot said: “Not with a bang, but a whimper.”
I feel even worse about things in Iraq now than I did last year when I sat down and wrote the following poem about P.A.D.S. (i.e., “Post Advising Distress Syndrome”):
“Soldier’s Soldier”
Scapegoat of the king’s ambition
Hostage to the prince’s crime
Sent upon a madman’s errand
Soldier of another time
Sworn to do as he is bidden
Not to think of why he came
From himself his purpose hidden
Soldier by another name
Searching for a mystic evil
Ever just a war away
Always beaten, not defeated
Back to fight another day
Battles always won, but cheated
Of the promised victory
Never lost but just depleted
Army of our history
Kill the chicken; scare the monkey
Centipede is dead, not stiff
Off to far Cathay he marches
Soldier diving off a cliff
War not done but just abated
Peace the only thing to fear
Power’s hunger never sated
Soldier’s orders never clear
Dragon’s teeth by Cadmus planted
Sprung from battle’s plain full grown
Men who kill them all if doubtful
Heathen gods will know their own
Burn the village, clear the jungle
Save them from themselves at least
Make excuses for the bungle
Soldier then becomes the beast
Wounds still fresh and redly bleeding
Bound up with a filthy rag
Something shapeless once a husband
Stuffed into a plastic bag
Squatting in the dusty swelter
Widowed woman once a wife
Never more to know the shelter
Of a tranquil married life
Head thrown back in boundless grieving
Mouth agape with soundless woes
Tears and snot now glisten, mingling
Coursing down from eyes and nose
Anguished face a tangled curtain
Clotted, matted, raven hair
Almond eyes with sight uncertain
Weeping pools of deep despair
Do not knock this war we’re having
It’s the only one we’ve got
Better dead than red we tell them
Mouthing slogans; talking rot
Fight them over there they tell us
Rather that than fight them here
Just invent some casus bellus
Danger’s best that’s never near
Ozymandias’ sneering statue
Crumbled in the desert bare:
Look upon my works, you mighty
See their ruin and take care
Told to teach and be creative
Soldier eager, bright and young
Learned instead and then went native
Speaking now an ancient tongue
Only they will now receive him
Who see not his bloodstained hand
None will hear for he can’t speak it
Stranger to his own lost land
Bringing with him what he carried
Losing only what he bought
To the cause no longer married
Soldier doing what he ought
Shipped away like so much baggage
Not to choose the things he’s done
Often bad and sometimes better
Soldier not the only one
Now he comes home like the others
Breathless lips and eyes shut fast
Lain to sleep beside his brothers
Soldier’s soldier to the last
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2005
So the AWOL Deputy Dubya Bush finally makes it to ‘Nam. Now, I have a decent education, a suitably extensive vocabulary, and even some fledgling poetic instincts; but I’ve got to admit that words simply fail to express how I feel when I read about yet another Texas stud hamster President with seriously unresolved manhood issues discoursing about how the “lessons” of America’s failed colonial wars teach Americans to stupidly go on perpetuating them. Anyway, besides the unprintable “&%$#@%*^&$#$#!!!!,” I can only offer:
“The Tunnel at the End of the Light”
See the light at the end of the tunnel
Look at all of the progress we’ve made
So then why, if we’ve made so much headway,
Do our bright hopes continue to fade?
See the light at the end of the tunnel
See the end of the grief and the pain
So then why, when we take one step forward,
Do we take two steps backwards again?
See the light at the end of the tunnel
See the end of the shadow and doubt
Sure was easy to find our way in here
So then why can’t we find our way out?
“Stay the course,” says the fool in the White House
“See how much like a captain I look!
Oh, that’s right, I just pose in a flight suit
And I’ve only seen ships in a book.”
“None the less, I will steer the ship wisely.
See how manly and brave I appear.
If the bad guys would only stop winning
I could win some myself, never fear.”
“Last night I heard voices from Heaven
Saying `Smite them!’ so smite them I did.
But those people with homes in Fallujah
Spoiled my plans when they ran off and hid.”
“I have knowledge of Good and of Evil
And can tell them apart if I must.
Just because I’ve not done so means nothing.
So you’ll just have to take me on trust.”
“Get a life and start smirking like I do.
Why so sulky, and solemn, and sad?
Get some money like I’ve got behind me
And you’ll never say `Sorry, my bad!”‘
We must stop this analogy bullshit!
`Cause us new guys got knowledge to burn.
Why should we look at former disasters
And suppose we’ve got something to learn?
Vietnam and Iraq look so different
As any deep thinker can see
Why, Iraq begins with the letter “I;”
Vietnam, with the letter “V.”
And these differences go even deeper
As any sage pundit will say.
Vietnam has its jungles so shiny and green
And Iraq has it deserts of gray.
And the ex-pats who’ve hijacked the nation
Have such different names don’t you see?
In Vietnam we had us a Ngo Dinh Diem
In Iraq, it’s Ahmed Chalabi.
And the Asians don’t look like the Arabs,
And the Buddhists don’t look like Imams.
Yet the loathsome invader looks strangely the same
Flying over and dropping his bombs.
And the generals keep winning battles
Though the war keeps on slipping away
Yet it seems that in spite of their training and rank
They still can’t tell nighttime from day.
So the soldiers they keep getting slaughtered
In the fights that we always have won
But like Pyrrhus once said as he tallied a win:
“If we do this again, we’re undone!”
If you keep doing what you’ve been doing
You will keep getting what you have got.
But let’s not let intelligence get in the way
When we’re so busy talking rot.
If we shoot our own selves in the head, so they say,
Blood will splatter all over the floor;
But we’d rather keep shooting ourselves in the face
Than exit the open door.
Like the man who consulted his doctor
Having every remedy tried;
Saying, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.”
“Then, don’t do that,” the doctor replied.
For to stop acting dumb would not wash and not wear
And would leave our admirers bereft.
All our friends would lose faith, so the story line goes,
If we got smart and simply left.
Yes, you may think it strange that our allies would feel
Such respect for the clown of our age.
And would much rather trust to a stupid fool
Than a wise and prudent sage.
The analysis sure can get complex
With excuses so long and so lame.
So how come when we find so much difference
The result keeps on looking the same?
See the light at the end of the tunnel.
See the Brave New World under the gun.
Vietnam taught us so many lessons.
Let’s not learn them, though. Why spoil the fun?
But the boy in the White House keeps thumping his chest
Trying so hard to look fierce and wild,
While a war-weary world goes on shaking its head
At the spoiled and petulant child.
For this war stuff has gotten real ugly
When it started as so much fun!
What began as a romp in Grenada
Has turned into cut and run.
You can easily make a fire bigger;
But to make one grow smaller — not so!
When you feel the flames lighting the hairs on your head
Then it’s past time to pack up and go.
But the tunnel and darkness keep calling
Who can sail past that siren song?
When America heads for a hole in the ground
Why do others not just go along?
See the light at the end of the tunnel
Hear the end of the bitter refrain.
Let’s just hope that the bright light approaching
Doesn’t herald an oncoming train.
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2005
Please indulge me the inclusion of just one more little verse here, since the subject of Judith Miller and her shabby “work” for the New York Times did come up in the original thread posting. Those who have kept abreast of the Libby/Plame/Wilson affair will understand the Aspen references, no doubt. Hence:
“America the Dutiful”
In the Land of the Fleeced and the Home of the Slave
Where the cowed and the buffaloed moan
Where seldom we find an inquisitive mind
And the people pay up with a groan
While at home on the range when the firing begins
Not a word of encouragement sounds
The temp workers leave for their other day jobs
And the cops and the guards make their rounds
When the rich ones start wars that the poor have to fight
And the chickenhawks glare as they cluck
The recruiters hold raffles and promise the moon
In the neighborhoods down on their luck
Where the clouds hang around for the length of the day
Casting shadows and fear all around
A lost mother grieves and starts haunting the land
Having just laid her son in the ground
As the war against someone somewhere at some time
Never quite seems to end or conclude
War itself becomes reason for having this war
Leaving no room for thought to intrude
Unreported out west by vacationing scribes
Seeking rest from Access Mentalpause
The tombstones in Aspen turn up all at once
Having roots that connect with their cause
Now the Fig Leaf Contingent has answered the call
From a time long ago it’s returned
Once again to buy time for the guilty to mime
More excuses for lives that they’ve burned
So the dead really died so that more dead can die
Goes the “logic” that once more holds sway
Understanding, the Fig Leaf Contingent steps up,
Packs its gear and then marches away
Late at night out on runway strips hidden and dark
Where the citizens can’t see what shocks
The Contingent comes “home” one-by-one, all alone,
In a wheelchair or flag-covered box
So the long-promised “victory” ever recedes
As the Fig Leaf Contingent fights on
Keeping faith with the faithless who’ve ordered its doom
Like a poorly schooled chess player’s pawn
In the dutiful land of the fruitcakes and nuts
Where the sun shines between the two seas
The hills in their lavender majesty stand
Unaffected by men’s howling pleas
For to go with no reason where no purpose calls
Leads to nothing but more of the same
Till the Fig Leaf Contingent’s utility fails
To deflect any more of the blame
And since something was lost surely someone has failed
Only whom could those proud persons be?
Not the chickenhawks glaring and clucking for war!
Not the neo-new, know-nothing “we”!
As the first mate harpooner admonished his crew
In the mad Captain Ahab’s vast tale
He would not have along for a ride in his boat
Any man not afraid of a whale
For the ocean is great and my ship is so small
And the winds blow beyond all command
Only fools and the drowned ever this truth forget
Which is why they should stay on dry land
But the day-trippers out for a float on the pond
Seldom think of the perilous shoals
So they send off the Fig Leaf Contingent to fight
Absent only some well-defined goals
Thus they played on TV what in real life demands
More than Hobbits, and wizards, and elves
Thus they taught us our duty much better by far
Than they put into practice themselves
So we’ve come back again from our exile abroad
With our tattered ranks bitter and sore
Having done what our Maximum Leader would not
All of that and a hundred times more
We are here `cause we’re here `cause we’re here `cause we’re here
And for no other reason on earth
But for us in the Fig Leaf Contingent, we know
What our duty and honor are worth
So we will not abandon to memory’s hole
Those we loved and who loved us in turn
And we go to our graveyards secure in our trust
That with us, maybe someday you’ll learn
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2005
Your comparison of British and American journalism really struck a chord. Before the last Brisish election I happened to see Tony Blair being interviewed on BBC. The questioner asked tough and pointed questions. When Blair tried to get away with the prepared talking points that avoided the questions, the questioner hounded him relentlessly until he finally either forced an answer or forced Tony to admit he wouldn’t answer. What a refreshing change from the usual American interview where Bush and other figures are allowed to simply ignore interviewers questions – which are usually pretty softball to begin with – and proceed directly to their previously prepared talking points. They are never pushed or followed up. If any American reporter or interviewer ever pressed Bush the way BBC pushed Blair, I believe he would be fired for being disrespectful. Since Blair is so much more sharp and glib than Bush, the interviewer did not get all clear answers, but he did ,at least , clearly show that the Prime Minister was avoiding the issues. Perhaps someone at the BBC could volunteer to do a spine transplant for the American media.
“I read today an AP article touting once more the on-again/off-again attempts by the U. S. Military to ‘advise’ the Iraqis on how to ‘secure their own country’ from their fellow Iraqi citizens through military violence directed against them in the interests of the occupying foriegn power and its obscure (even to its own citizens) foreign policy objectives.”
Michael, if I may say so, I like your prose better than your poetry. The above is a gem.
Speaking of the media, Charles Krauthammer has the official neocon explanation of “what went wrong” in Iraq. In a nutshell, the Iraqis weren’t fit to be liberated by us. Their political culture was too primitive and stubborn to take advantage of the unique opportunity we brought them by invading their country. Of course, CK acknowledges there were a few things we could have done better. We should have (1) shot more civilians, (2) forcibly installed “an Iraqi exile government,” and (3) wiped out the populist/nationalist movement led by Moqtada Sadr, before they were able to form an effective opposition party. See how democratic that would have been? Still, we shouldn’t blame ourselves for the current debacle, because the Iraqis are the ones who really blew it. While politely noting that Arabs in general are “less prepared for democracy” than other ethnic groups, CK concludes that the “Iraqi national consciousness is as yet too weak and the culture of compromise too undeveloped” to appreciate the spiritual and intellectual beauty of neocon-style “democracy.” As evidence of the moral weakness and democratic failure of the puppet government, he cites two incidents in which the upstarts actually gave orders to the occupying forces to stop arresting government employees and putting up barricades in the capital city. Such insolence! As he says, it’s “no way to conduct a war.” Next time, we should invade a country more deserving of our benevolence.
It’s kind of hard to believe that CK is a “respected journalist” instead of an inmate in some state mental hospital.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601359.html
Since I’ve already exhausted my verbosity allotment in this thread, let me try to do something unusually concise. Always remember, fellow Crimestoppers:
We invaded Iraq to depose a dictator we did not fear, to dispossess him of weapons he did not possess, in retaliation for an attack upon us in which he did not participate.
Daniel Ellsberg said we did it for (1) oil, (2) Israel, and (3) domestic political considerations.
At any rate, “Imposing our will” upon the Iraqi population, as the venal Vicreoy L. Paul Bremer III once indelicately admitted, had nothing whatsoever to do with “spreading Democracy,” at the point of a bayonnet or otherwise. That lame canard only became “operative” as the proverbial last straw upon which a desperately floundering George W. Bush — like any drowning man — finally came to focus.
Be on the lookout!
We recently received credible intelligence that there have been seven terrorists working in your office. Six of the seven have been apprehended.
Bin Sleepin, Bin Loafin, Bin Goofin, Bin Lunchin, Bin Drinkin and Bin Butt-Kissin have all been taken into custody.
At this time, no one fitting the description of the seventh cell member, Bin Workin, has been found.
We are confident that anyone who looks like he’s Bin Workin will be very easy to spot.
You are OBVIOUSLY not a suspect at this time. So keep on doing what you Bin Doin!
“US forces must negotiate an immediate withdrawal with the Iraqi resistance”
The American people must hold their leaders responsible for the crime of aggressive war
In the November 2006 congressional elections, the American people expressed their clear rejection of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. However, a broad movement of opinion is needed to force U.S. leaders to heed the will of their own people and, still more, the people of Iraq.
U.S. military leaders admit that their invasion and occupation of Iraq have produced “chaos”. The logical conclusion is that the U.S. presence itself, based on criminal aggression and multiple crimes against humanity, is responsible for such chaos, and that to bring about stability, the United States should withdraw immediately.
However, U.S. leaders continue to claim that they must remain in Iraq in order to achieve “stability”. To this end, they speak of creating an American-trained puppet Iraqi army to fight the resistance, and of enticing foreign powers to aid in ending the resistance.
http://www.brusselstribunal.org/WayOut.htm