Juanita Broaddrick was a nursing home administrator from Arkansas who claimed during an interview on Dateline NBC, in November 1998, that she had been raped by President Bill Clinton as far back as April 25, 1978 during his first campaign for governor- ship in Arkansas.
This was during the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal; this was the last thing the Clinton Administration needed to hear or deal with at this point in juncture.
If I was Clinton's Press Secretary, there would be certain procedures taken, as well as certain public statements given, depending how national opinion responded with each press release or action taken by our political opponents.
During the time when the Broaddrick story initially broke, if the White House needed more time to contemplate their next move, whether to admit to charges, concoct alternative scenarios, deny outright ever knowing her, or whatever response would yield the least painful result, I would inform the press that the White House recognized the seriousness of these allegations in order to show some empathy, and that further details had not been revealed to me at this time, taking some temporary pressure off of me from hounding reporters . If any popular event, foreign or domestic, had occurred congruently with the press release, I would mention that the White House had been too busy concluding business with said event to immediately respond, biding time with distraction.
If no consensus was reached as to what response the White House should release to the press, I would take advantage of my previously stated strategy of silence-and-distraction by waiting for Broaddrick's version to come out publicly; you never want your version to contradict certain details given by the accuser that could be proven factual.
Broaddrick gave very credible background details; she alleged that the rape occurred at the Camelot Hotel during a nursing home seminar in 1978 and NBC news discovered that a nursing conference took place at that hotel on August 25th of that year. Also, Clinton remarked shortly before the incident, as he pointed to a jail across the street, that once he'd become governor he would renovate it, and it turns out that a prison was situated across the street of the Camelot Hotel during that time, until its eventual demolition a few years later.
With this much revealed information, which could tie Clinton to Broaddrick with some form of meeting or interaction, I would release a confirmation that a platonic meeting had taken place.
If a sexual encounter had taken place between Clinton and Broaddrick, it would certainly have lacked witnesses, but there may have been persons whom Broaddrick had told almost immediately after the event, considering that a swelling lip injury would be a call for inquiry, which an explanation would follow, and the Republicans would search under every rock and leaf to find them and get their stories out.
At this point, it might be wise for the White House to gather their own search party to find and speak with these individuals before their adversaries could, unless such an action would only raise more suspicions against the Clinton Administration. If the Republicans had already found their witnesses, the best defense against an accuser is to counterclaim a motive: gather information on their personalities, their affiliations, their beliefs, and most importantly their histories. One can immune themselves from a hypocrite far more than a conspirator, and even the latter is advantageous.
As it turned out, there were 5 witnesses. It is never good to have this many witnesses against you, but luckily 60 percent of them could be labeled as having ulterior motives. Out of these five who had either claimed to hear her account, noticed her obviously disheveled state and injuries, or both within the short time after her alleged contact with Clinton, two may have had a grudge against Clinton for commuting a death sentence previously given to a man who killed their father, and a third was Broaddrick's second husband, David Broaddrick.
This was the bit of solid gold information on Juanita; during the time when Clinton had allegedly raped her, she was involved in an extra-marital affair. We know this because it was David, the very man she has been married to these last 18 years, and it was revealed when she recounted her conversation with Clinton that occurred within just minutes before the rape allegedly commenced.
Apparently, Clinton had proposed to Broaddrick that a sexual encounter between them would be less complicated because they were both married. While she had admitted to Clinton that she was experiencing a falling-out with her husband, she was emotionally involved with another man and insinuated her disinterest in sex with him.
This information could sway the public in either direction: either the public will conclude that Broaddrick had a “reputation,” which is synonymous with “incredulous” for any woman, or they will point out that she had married the very man whom she had cheated on her first husband with and remained bound to him for almost two decades, suggesting a matter of compatibility rather than infidelity. However, once the stigma of “whore” has entered into the public's perception, it's almost impossible to reverse it. So if I was to use this leverage against Broaddrick, the insinuation would have to be quick and repetitious.
As far as the case for “self-inoculation” is concerned, Broaddrick signed a sworn affidavit with Paula Jone's lawyers that Clinton had never sexually assaulted her; if there was any further evidence she wished to include, which would certainly contradict her affidavit statement, it would be forever suspect. She may have hastily signed this document, a faxed replica originally intended for another woman sent from the White House, with true concern and worry for both her family's privacy and especially her own reputation, not wanting to appear as Jane Doe #5 looking for press releases and book signings, but nonetheless the words written within the affidavit states:
“During the 1992 Presidential campaign there were unfounded rumors and stories circulated that Mr. Clinton had made unwelcome sexual advances toward me in the late seventies. Newspaper and tabloid reporters hounded me and my family, seeking corroboration of these tales. I repeatedly denied the allegations and requested that my family's privacy be respected. These allegations are untrue and I had hoped that they would no longer haunt me, or cause further disruption to my family.”
As Clinton's Press Secretary, if Broaddrick had pushed to assert that her affidavit statement was false or coerced, I would assert that Philip Yoakum, and anti-Clinton Republican businessman from Arkansas, had pushed for Broaddrick to initially come out with her story during the presidential campaign in 1992, and may have even revealed it without her prior consent, which may have appeared more like a political ploy than a cry for justice. Also, Broaddrick's lawyer, who had arraigned for Broaddrick's affidavit with White House deputy counsel Bruce Lindsey, was Republican State Senator Bill Walters; If Broaddrick could provide any credible rape allegation, would Senator Walters have made any effort to protect a Clinton during such a politically polarizing environment like the impeachment hearings?
Regardless of one's political affiliation, all can agree in this day and age that it's one thing for a president to engage in extra-marital affairs, it's another thing to be accused of rape. Since rape is such a grave issue, and no one in their right mind would ever publicly make light of it, it would be very important for a press secretary at this time to stress the White House's contemptuous position on rape... several times! I would even advise the president to even attend rape counseling fundraisers for photo-ops!
Although the manners in which I speak of , acting as President Clinton's press secretary during the Broaddrick affair, are effective in saving an entire administration from going down in flames, I must confess that I place a higher value in certain principles than loyalty to any political party or short-sighted pursuit of wealth and prestige. If I was Clinton's press secretary and my instincts told me that what Broaddrick said was true, I would have either resigned from my post or leaked whatever damaging information I possessed to condemn a rapist, and in such a manner that would've made Mark Felt blush. My philosophy is simple: You show me a competent and just leader and you'll have my allegiance, show me a criminal which lies underneath the facade and you'll have my dagger in your back.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Procedures and Tactics Employed by the Bush Administration During All Phases of the Iraq War and Journalistic Strategies to Expose Them.
During any time of crisis, the ruling party would benefit from the suppression of information while the subjugated would benefit from its revelation. Knowledge is power, and whoever controls it, simply controls.
In the American political system, those who hold sway over the minds of the voting public are awarded reelection. As Machiavelli once pointed out, the difference between the honest and corrupt princes may only lie in survival of circumstances beyond anyone's control.
As for the Fourth Estate, those who reveal the corruption of politicians are rewarded the front-page, but not much reward can be found in stories about perfectly honest princes ruling during perfectly prosperous times.
As for the Iraq war scandal, there were methods employed by the Bush Administration in order to minimize the damage of public opinion due to the missteps and fubars taken. I will analyze both the attempts of government to hold sway over public sentiment and the attempts of the media to discern the truth during its aftermath, even if only in self-service to compensate for its lack of skepticism during its insipid “smoking gun” phase.
Second Your Own Motion
Dick Cheney had used a “leak preemptively, then acknowledge” tactic which came into full fruition during his interview on Tim Russert's, Meet the Press, aired September 8, 2002, only a few days before the one year anniversary of 9/11 which may suggest that even this was calculated for optimal public support and sentiment.
Judy Miller, during this time a star reporter for the New York Times specializing in Iraqi and terrorist WMD searches, had been practically obsessed with exposing Saddam Hussein as the state sponsor for Islamic terrorist organizations as far back as 1990 with co-authorship of Laurie Mylroie's Saddam Hussein & the Crisis in the Gulf. The end result of this was her unwaivering trust in all leads that support her previous bias, which certainly made her a “cry wolf” darling for the Bush Administration, as Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby had leaked the CIA's aluminum tube findings to Miller, though already defunct by nuclear experts.
So this is a brilliant tactic: Dick Cheney's underling leaks an incredulous story like aluminum tubes to Judy Miller, known for reporting without double-checking her sources, in the September 8, 2002 Sunday edition of the New York Times, then later in the evening Dick Cheney cites Judy Miller's “uncovering” of the aluminum tube story on Tim Russert's Meet the Press in order to further support his policy for preemptive invasion of Iraq.
As a reporter, this sort of story could have easily been exposed as hollow, by simply contacting those Department of Energy experts who had already determined that their previous usage was in artillery rockets and that they lacked the thickness needed for nuclear centrifuge. However, the emotional climate in America during this short stint in time left little room for public dissent, and although news media company Knight Ridder had maintained its journalistic skepticism it was certainly the exception to the post-9/11 status quo.
As a reporter, to continue with hard questions against an administration who had essentially been given a free pass from the usual checks and balances because of the new terror hysteria, one may have been viewed as unpopular or even blackballed from certain media in the short run, but eventually those who had stuck to their principles would be later reviewed as heroes while Judy Miller's career and credibility went down in flames, then up in smoke.
Keeping Your Enemies Closer
Embedded reporting was another smart maneuver by the neoconservative Department of Defense and their sympathetic military strategists. In the past thirty years, the Pentagon had suffered from what I call the “Vietnam Syndrome,” meaning that many within the American military and certain War Hawk politicians conveyed the myth that it was bad press, thus unpopular opinion, which failed the campaign in South Vietnam. Their fear of a repeat in Iraq lead to embedded reporting, an attempt at absolute control over what the media reports and where they will venture.
By default, it is fair to say that most reporters had either accepted this or at least felt they had no other choice; the sectarian and xenophobic turmoil in Iraq, and especially Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's kidnap-and-behead tactics, had made it quite impossible for an outside reporter to walk freely in public without armed protection from the military.
David Zucchino, embedded L.A. Times reporter, was interviewed by Mia Carter for Suite101.com, published July 28, 2008. Here is Zucchino's opinion on embedded reporting:
“The advantages were enormous. I didn't have to rely on canned statements from a public affairs person in the rear. I was able to witness event first-hand, and to interview people at the scene. there were no public affairs with my units, so I was completely unencumbered and was able to speak with everyone I came across,” Zucchino said.
“The disadvantage, of course, was that I had to rely entirely on the military for transportation, food, water, and access. I was't able to interview Iraqi soldiers, militia fighters, or ordinary Iraqis,” Zucchino said. “And I had to work hard every day to keep from adopting the point of view of the military people I was traveling with. I had to constantly remind myself to step back and keep an independent viewpoint.”
As an embedded reporter, I would adopt the tactics that Zucchino had engaged in during his correspondence in Iraq, as he described in his March 17, 2004 speech during the War & Media Conference at the University of California in Berkeley. He never stayed with one unit for any extended length of time and caught rides to areas of interest with mobile units; this considerably cut down the risk of camaraderie and it allowed him a little more freedom to choose where he thought the action might take place.
Discourse Metamorphosis
The sudden change of rhetoric in justifying the preemptive war in Iraq had allowed the Bush Administration additional time to try and justify the war with later favorable results. What this means is that when Saddam's regime was quickly toppled, the WMD search units were allowed full access in every corner of Iraq to finally uncover what Wolfowitz had always assumed was there...but they found nothing. Many American citizens and politicians alike, who had placed faith in the Bush Administration's assertions that Hussein was practically an imminent threat to American existence because of WMD stockpiling and subsequent terrorist sponsorship, were feeling a little deceived.
The Bush Administration immediately began to downplay the WMD case for war, distracting attention from those asking just where in the hell the evidence was of a reconstituted WMD proliferation, thus quipped, “The world is better off without Saddam.”
Those who were initially against the war were absolutely furious with this Orwellian balderdash, but for a while opponents of Bush foreign policies where temporarily disarmed of their indignation against an unjustified preemptive strike. For a short time, the question became less like, “Did the conservatives lead the United States into invading the wrong nation,” and more like, “Would liberals prefer if Saddam was able to continue committing atrocities on his own people?”
Had the Iraqi people been more accepting of American occupation, or even if military experts were allowed to oversee the post-war reconstruction and security rather than leaving it in the hands of civilian businessmen like Paul Bremer, Paul Wolfowitz, and Don Rumsfeld, I believe the American public would have quickly forgiven the Bush Administration for their side-tracking from pursuit of Bin Laden. Alas.
As a reporter, I would attempt to prevent such a red herring from changing the entire premise for the war on terror; just because the neoconservatives have been fixated on waging a Reaganesque arms race against another empirical nation-state boogyman since the Soviet collapse doesn't mean that the United States can afford to drain resources from Bin Laden and waste them against Hussein.
My journalistic approach would have been to interview experts on Middle Eastern affairs to find out just how plausible it would be for a Pan-Islamic terrorist organization like Al Qaeda to become bedfellows with a Pan-Arabic secular organization like the Ba'athist party: one tearing down racial barriers to promote a Middle Eastern Caliphate while the other forgoing Islamic Law to embolden the Arab people, at the expense of Persians and Kurds, working beyond national boundaries. I would also hound any members of the Bush Administration and haunt them with Bin Laden, Bin Laden, Bin Laden!!! Keep the focus on who really brought down the twin towers.
Suicidal Counter-blows
The Valerie Plame outing... Bad move. Period. The potential scandal behind this Rovian stunt far outweighs the vengeance against Wilson's scathing editorial, What I Didn't Find in Africa, published in the New York Times, July 6, 2003. It would have been suffice to blame NSA Stephen Hadley for giving Bush the green light to use the Nigerian yellowcake claim in his 2003 State of the Union speech.
As a Bush press secretary having to deal with the Valerie Plame aftermath, not much else to do but to send Scooter Libby up the river and to inoculate more powerful administrative figures like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. As a reporter, I would turn my attention towards Judy Miller's complete inability to double-check sources as well as her willingness to act like a parakeet for the Bush Administration. I find her behavior to be a complete embarrassment for the rest of American journalists and she needed to be taken down to prevent further damage to journalistic integrity.
Closure
The best conclusion would be my own admittance; I'll be starting a journalism career as an idealist who places faith in the principles of truth as bitter medicine against corruption. I say “bitter” because too often are the long-hauls very thankless while treading the dusty road.
I'm also fully aware that, as one with higher pursuits, I'll cross that finish line as either a hero, a fool, or a hypocrite... and I'm sure that those who are intimately familiar with the political realm has met all three.
In the American political system, those who hold sway over the minds of the voting public are awarded reelection. As Machiavelli once pointed out, the difference between the honest and corrupt princes may only lie in survival of circumstances beyond anyone's control.
As for the Fourth Estate, those who reveal the corruption of politicians are rewarded the front-page, but not much reward can be found in stories about perfectly honest princes ruling during perfectly prosperous times.
As for the Iraq war scandal, there were methods employed by the Bush Administration in order to minimize the damage of public opinion due to the missteps and fubars taken. I will analyze both the attempts of government to hold sway over public sentiment and the attempts of the media to discern the truth during its aftermath, even if only in self-service to compensate for its lack of skepticism during its insipid “smoking gun” phase.
Second Your Own Motion
Dick Cheney had used a “leak preemptively, then acknowledge” tactic which came into full fruition during his interview on Tim Russert's, Meet the Press, aired September 8, 2002, only a few days before the one year anniversary of 9/11 which may suggest that even this was calculated for optimal public support and sentiment.
Judy Miller, during this time a star reporter for the New York Times specializing in Iraqi and terrorist WMD searches, had been practically obsessed with exposing Saddam Hussein as the state sponsor for Islamic terrorist organizations as far back as 1990 with co-authorship of Laurie Mylroie's Saddam Hussein & the Crisis in the Gulf. The end result of this was her unwaivering trust in all leads that support her previous bias, which certainly made her a “cry wolf” darling for the Bush Administration, as Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby had leaked the CIA's aluminum tube findings to Miller, though already defunct by nuclear experts.
So this is a brilliant tactic: Dick Cheney's underling leaks an incredulous story like aluminum tubes to Judy Miller, known for reporting without double-checking her sources, in the September 8, 2002 Sunday edition of the New York Times, then later in the evening Dick Cheney cites Judy Miller's “uncovering” of the aluminum tube story on Tim Russert's Meet the Press in order to further support his policy for preemptive invasion of Iraq.
As a reporter, this sort of story could have easily been exposed as hollow, by simply contacting those Department of Energy experts who had already determined that their previous usage was in artillery rockets and that they lacked the thickness needed for nuclear centrifuge. However, the emotional climate in America during this short stint in time left little room for public dissent, and although news media company Knight Ridder had maintained its journalistic skepticism it was certainly the exception to the post-9/11 status quo.
As a reporter, to continue with hard questions against an administration who had essentially been given a free pass from the usual checks and balances because of the new terror hysteria, one may have been viewed as unpopular or even blackballed from certain media in the short run, but eventually those who had stuck to their principles would be later reviewed as heroes while Judy Miller's career and credibility went down in flames, then up in smoke.
Keeping Your Enemies Closer
Embedded reporting was another smart maneuver by the neoconservative Department of Defense and their sympathetic military strategists. In the past thirty years, the Pentagon had suffered from what I call the “Vietnam Syndrome,” meaning that many within the American military and certain War Hawk politicians conveyed the myth that it was bad press, thus unpopular opinion, which failed the campaign in South Vietnam. Their fear of a repeat in Iraq lead to embedded reporting, an attempt at absolute control over what the media reports and where they will venture.
By default, it is fair to say that most reporters had either accepted this or at least felt they had no other choice; the sectarian and xenophobic turmoil in Iraq, and especially Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's kidnap-and-behead tactics, had made it quite impossible for an outside reporter to walk freely in public without armed protection from the military.
David Zucchino, embedded L.A. Times reporter, was interviewed by Mia Carter for Suite101.com, published July 28, 2008. Here is Zucchino's opinion on embedded reporting:
“The advantages were enormous. I didn't have to rely on canned statements from a public affairs person in the rear. I was able to witness event first-hand, and to interview people at the scene. there were no public affairs with my units, so I was completely unencumbered and was able to speak with everyone I came across,” Zucchino said.
“The disadvantage, of course, was that I had to rely entirely on the military for transportation, food, water, and access. I was't able to interview Iraqi soldiers, militia fighters, or ordinary Iraqis,” Zucchino said. “And I had to work hard every day to keep from adopting the point of view of the military people I was traveling with. I had to constantly remind myself to step back and keep an independent viewpoint.”
As an embedded reporter, I would adopt the tactics that Zucchino had engaged in during his correspondence in Iraq, as he described in his March 17, 2004 speech during the War & Media Conference at the University of California in Berkeley. He never stayed with one unit for any extended length of time and caught rides to areas of interest with mobile units; this considerably cut down the risk of camaraderie and it allowed him a little more freedom to choose where he thought the action might take place.
Discourse Metamorphosis
The sudden change of rhetoric in justifying the preemptive war in Iraq had allowed the Bush Administration additional time to try and justify the war with later favorable results. What this means is that when Saddam's regime was quickly toppled, the WMD search units were allowed full access in every corner of Iraq to finally uncover what Wolfowitz had always assumed was there...but they found nothing. Many American citizens and politicians alike, who had placed faith in the Bush Administration's assertions that Hussein was practically an imminent threat to American existence because of WMD stockpiling and subsequent terrorist sponsorship, were feeling a little deceived.
The Bush Administration immediately began to downplay the WMD case for war, distracting attention from those asking just where in the hell the evidence was of a reconstituted WMD proliferation, thus quipped, “The world is better off without Saddam.”
Those who were initially against the war were absolutely furious with this Orwellian balderdash, but for a while opponents of Bush foreign policies where temporarily disarmed of their indignation against an unjustified preemptive strike. For a short time, the question became less like, “Did the conservatives lead the United States into invading the wrong nation,” and more like, “Would liberals prefer if Saddam was able to continue committing atrocities on his own people?”
Had the Iraqi people been more accepting of American occupation, or even if military experts were allowed to oversee the post-war reconstruction and security rather than leaving it in the hands of civilian businessmen like Paul Bremer, Paul Wolfowitz, and Don Rumsfeld, I believe the American public would have quickly forgiven the Bush Administration for their side-tracking from pursuit of Bin Laden. Alas.
As a reporter, I would attempt to prevent such a red herring from changing the entire premise for the war on terror; just because the neoconservatives have been fixated on waging a Reaganesque arms race against another empirical nation-state boogyman since the Soviet collapse doesn't mean that the United States can afford to drain resources from Bin Laden and waste them against Hussein.
My journalistic approach would have been to interview experts on Middle Eastern affairs to find out just how plausible it would be for a Pan-Islamic terrorist organization like Al Qaeda to become bedfellows with a Pan-Arabic secular organization like the Ba'athist party: one tearing down racial barriers to promote a Middle Eastern Caliphate while the other forgoing Islamic Law to embolden the Arab people, at the expense of Persians and Kurds, working beyond national boundaries. I would also hound any members of the Bush Administration and haunt them with Bin Laden, Bin Laden, Bin Laden!!! Keep the focus on who really brought down the twin towers.
Suicidal Counter-blows
The Valerie Plame outing... Bad move. Period. The potential scandal behind this Rovian stunt far outweighs the vengeance against Wilson's scathing editorial, What I Didn't Find in Africa, published in the New York Times, July 6, 2003. It would have been suffice to blame NSA Stephen Hadley for giving Bush the green light to use the Nigerian yellowcake claim in his 2003 State of the Union speech.
As a Bush press secretary having to deal with the Valerie Plame aftermath, not much else to do but to send Scooter Libby up the river and to inoculate more powerful administrative figures like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. As a reporter, I would turn my attention towards Judy Miller's complete inability to double-check sources as well as her willingness to act like a parakeet for the Bush Administration. I find her behavior to be a complete embarrassment for the rest of American journalists and she needed to be taken down to prevent further damage to journalistic integrity.
Closure
The best conclusion would be my own admittance; I'll be starting a journalism career as an idealist who places faith in the principles of truth as bitter medicine against corruption. I say “bitter” because too often are the long-hauls very thankless while treading the dusty road.
I'm also fully aware that, as one with higher pursuits, I'll cross that finish line as either a hero, a fool, or a hypocrite... and I'm sure that those who are intimately familiar with the political realm has met all three.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The Cuban Missile Crisis and Self-Censorship by the New York Times
The Cuban Missile Crisis was the quintessential Cold-War conflict of interest: Soviet Premier Khrushchev felt it was necessary to arm Castro with nuclear capabilities in order to prevent an eventual American invasion of Cuba, while Kennedy perceived this armament as an act of aggression that would justify an invasion even more so than any condition during the Bay of Pigs.
President Kennedy was in the middle of campaigning in Wisconsin when Kennedy was urged to return to Washington and deal with this crisis. To prevent any cause for public alarm, the official statement made by the administration was that Kennedy was ill to explain why he rushed back to Washington prematurely.
The New York Times had known what Kennedy's early departure from Wisconsin was truly about, yet they had decided to engage in self-censorship. What little information about the Cuban Missile Crisis that was either discovered by or leaked to the press was postponed until the Administration decided upon their next course of action.
The administrative decision to suggest to the American public that Kennedy suffers from illness must not have been an easy decision, for according to Lawrence Altman and Todd Purdum's article in the November 17, 2002 issue of the New York Times titled, In J. F. K. File, Hidden Illness, Pain and Pills, President Kennedy was suffering from far many illnesses and dependent on medication than the general public was led to believe, which might have provoked a general attitude that Kennedy was neither competent or coherent to take on presidential responsibility. The administration must have determined that mushroom clouds were a greater threat to national security than any leak of Kennedy's colitis.
Kennedy urged newspapers to carefully examine sensitive material before revealing it publicly, as made in his speech only days after the Bay of Pigs fiasco:
“If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war posed a greater threat to our security. Every newspaper now asks itself with respect to every story: 'Is it news?' All I suggest is that you add the question: 'Is it in the interest of national security?'”
As a reporter, this situation would complicate both my principles for freedom of information and my loyalty as an American citizen, pitting one against the other.
I firmly believe the cultural myth that a well-informed public is crucial for an honest government making rational decisions; I am also wary of allowing a government to deceive the public, for this is a slippery slope into circumstances where the government no longer fears the general public adequately enough for democracy to thrive. However, this was a time for bomb shelters stacked with 5-year supplies of canned goods and school-sponsored duck-and-cover programs where children learn how to inoculate themselves from fallout with study desks; an atomic apocalypse was a very grave possibility in the minds of Americans and Soviets alike. Also, the deception by the administration would have been unforgivable if used to hide their corruption or illegality, but this was not the case. If the president needed more time to diffuse this situation with my cooperation, so be it.
Once the crisis had died down, when loose lips no longer threatened to sink ships, I would reveal to the general public that such an agreement took place, defending my position with the rhetoric that “once the crowd is aware of a crisis, the government must appear ready to tackle the problem rather than look equally blind-sided, lest morale and confidence is compromised, so long as the decisions made by said government fall with the boundaries set by Rule of Law.”
Strange times indeed: there were political factions, like Barry Goldwater's gang, that despised President Kennedy for what they perceived the Cuban missile/no-invasion compromise as being “soft on Communism.” Of course, these very same ideologues, whom I affectionately refer to as, “hard-lining right-winged lunatics,” also theorized that a preemptive but “limited” nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union could result in an eventual American triumph. In other words, if they suffer more megadeath casualties, then we'd win.
But this wasn't the only time of crisis in American history where American journalism had worked with an Administration to not leak sensitive information that could embolden the enemies against the nation... leaving aside the blind-faith fiasco of the WMD fallacy that led to the Iraq invasion of 2003.
Even in examples limited to the New York Times, James Rerston squashed a story about troop movements in Florida upon Kennedy's request, Herbert Matthews' articles were censored due to “potentially embarrassing” information against the United States, and the level of cooperation with the military in regards to plans for the D-Day invasion are unprecedented.
Theodore Windt even went so far to suggest that self-censorship was already standard practice of the New York Times when Kennedy made his speech calling for cooperation from journalists. In his book, Presidents and Protesters, Mr. Windt made a startling claim of “paradox” within Kennedy's relationship with the press:
“...even as President Kennedy was meeting with the committee from the Publisher's Association and berating the New York Times' representative, he turned aside to Turner Catledge and said: 'If you [the New York Times] had printed more about the operation, you would have saved us from a colossal mistake.' Eighteen months later, only a little more than a month before the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy told Orvil Dryfoos of the New York Times: 'I wish you had run everything on Cuba... I am just sorry you didn't tell it at the time.' On the public level Kennedy suggested that the press shared the blame for the Bay of Pigs fiasco because it leaked information. But on the private level, Kennedy implied that the press could have helped the country avert a major disaster by printing even more information than it did.”
And this is where I stand on the issue: there has always been a delicate balance of power between the government and the governed, between two competing empires for the same resources, and it involves weighing the benefits between what information you select for dissemination and what knowledge you keep suppressed.
As a journalist and an American citizen, I understand the dangers of tyrants against the democratic process, both foreign and domestic, and my civic aid towards the status quo are limited to the guarantee that said powers will not, and especially cannot, suppress my liberties before the battle's over... And I believe I am not alone in this art of secrecy with the free world.
Melvin Small wrote in his book, Democracy & Diplomacy, what sums up to be the natural equilibrium found within the history of American journalism, between issues of national security and the public's right to know:
“Since the 1960's, American conservatives have attacked the media for being too liberal. It is true that working journalists tend to be more liberal, on the average, than the rest of the population, but gate-keepers, editors, and especially publishers tend to be more conservative and more than willing to cooperate with an administration in the name of national security,” Mr. Small wrote.
President Kennedy was in the middle of campaigning in Wisconsin when Kennedy was urged to return to Washington and deal with this crisis. To prevent any cause for public alarm, the official statement made by the administration was that Kennedy was ill to explain why he rushed back to Washington prematurely.
The New York Times had known what Kennedy's early departure from Wisconsin was truly about, yet they had decided to engage in self-censorship. What little information about the Cuban Missile Crisis that was either discovered by or leaked to the press was postponed until the Administration decided upon their next course of action.
The administrative decision to suggest to the American public that Kennedy suffers from illness must not have been an easy decision, for according to Lawrence Altman and Todd Purdum's article in the November 17, 2002 issue of the New York Times titled, In J. F. K. File, Hidden Illness, Pain and Pills, President Kennedy was suffering from far many illnesses and dependent on medication than the general public was led to believe, which might have provoked a general attitude that Kennedy was neither competent or coherent to take on presidential responsibility. The administration must have determined that mushroom clouds were a greater threat to national security than any leak of Kennedy's colitis.
Kennedy urged newspapers to carefully examine sensitive material before revealing it publicly, as made in his speech only days after the Bay of Pigs fiasco:
“If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war posed a greater threat to our security. Every newspaper now asks itself with respect to every story: 'Is it news?' All I suggest is that you add the question: 'Is it in the interest of national security?'”
As a reporter, this situation would complicate both my principles for freedom of information and my loyalty as an American citizen, pitting one against the other.
I firmly believe the cultural myth that a well-informed public is crucial for an honest government making rational decisions; I am also wary of allowing a government to deceive the public, for this is a slippery slope into circumstances where the government no longer fears the general public adequately enough for democracy to thrive. However, this was a time for bomb shelters stacked with 5-year supplies of canned goods and school-sponsored duck-and-cover programs where children learn how to inoculate themselves from fallout with study desks; an atomic apocalypse was a very grave possibility in the minds of Americans and Soviets alike. Also, the deception by the administration would have been unforgivable if used to hide their corruption or illegality, but this was not the case. If the president needed more time to diffuse this situation with my cooperation, so be it.
Once the crisis had died down, when loose lips no longer threatened to sink ships, I would reveal to the general public that such an agreement took place, defending my position with the rhetoric that “once the crowd is aware of a crisis, the government must appear ready to tackle the problem rather than look equally blind-sided, lest morale and confidence is compromised, so long as the decisions made by said government fall with the boundaries set by Rule of Law.”
Strange times indeed: there were political factions, like Barry Goldwater's gang, that despised President Kennedy for what they perceived the Cuban missile/no-invasion compromise as being “soft on Communism.” Of course, these very same ideologues, whom I affectionately refer to as, “hard-lining right-winged lunatics,” also theorized that a preemptive but “limited” nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union could result in an eventual American triumph. In other words, if they suffer more megadeath casualties, then we'd win.
But this wasn't the only time of crisis in American history where American journalism had worked with an Administration to not leak sensitive information that could embolden the enemies against the nation... leaving aside the blind-faith fiasco of the WMD fallacy that led to the Iraq invasion of 2003.
Even in examples limited to the New York Times, James Rerston squashed a story about troop movements in Florida upon Kennedy's request, Herbert Matthews' articles were censored due to “potentially embarrassing” information against the United States, and the level of cooperation with the military in regards to plans for the D-Day invasion are unprecedented.
Theodore Windt even went so far to suggest that self-censorship was already standard practice of the New York Times when Kennedy made his speech calling for cooperation from journalists. In his book, Presidents and Protesters, Mr. Windt made a startling claim of “paradox” within Kennedy's relationship with the press:
“...even as President Kennedy was meeting with the committee from the Publisher's Association and berating the New York Times' representative, he turned aside to Turner Catledge and said: 'If you [the New York Times] had printed more about the operation, you would have saved us from a colossal mistake.' Eighteen months later, only a little more than a month before the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy told Orvil Dryfoos of the New York Times: 'I wish you had run everything on Cuba... I am just sorry you didn't tell it at the time.' On the public level Kennedy suggested that the press shared the blame for the Bay of Pigs fiasco because it leaked information. But on the private level, Kennedy implied that the press could have helped the country avert a major disaster by printing even more information than it did.”
And this is where I stand on the issue: there has always been a delicate balance of power between the government and the governed, between two competing empires for the same resources, and it involves weighing the benefits between what information you select for dissemination and what knowledge you keep suppressed.
As a journalist and an American citizen, I understand the dangers of tyrants against the democratic process, both foreign and domestic, and my civic aid towards the status quo are limited to the guarantee that said powers will not, and especially cannot, suppress my liberties before the battle's over... And I believe I am not alone in this art of secrecy with the free world.
Melvin Small wrote in his book, Democracy & Diplomacy, what sums up to be the natural equilibrium found within the history of American journalism, between issues of national security and the public's right to know:
“Since the 1960's, American conservatives have attacked the media for being too liberal. It is true that working journalists tend to be more liberal, on the average, than the rest of the population, but gate-keepers, editors, and especially publishers tend to be more conservative and more than willing to cooperate with an administration in the name of national security,” Mr. Small wrote.
Valerie Plame's Anonymity or Judith Miller's Informants?
In February 2002, Joseph Wilson was asked to look into claims that Iraq sought uranium yellowcake from Niger. As a previous ambassador, Wilson agreed to inquire then found no credible leads.
In Bush's State of the Union Address speech of 2003, Bush added Iraq's supposed search into Nigerian yellowcake as reasons to invade Iraq.
Wilson was upset with the administration's willingness to lie in spite of Wilson's research into the whole yellowcake matter; he then ran an Op-Ed article in the New York Times on July 6, 2003.
One week later, conservative columnist Robert Novak, “just so happened” to have mentioned Valerie Plame's name as “an agency operative.” Perhaps done by mistake... perhaps it was some passive-aggressive Rovian tactic willingly employed by a neoconservative apologist.
Patrick J. Fitzgerald was called in by the Justice Department to serve as special counsel for the Valerie Plame case, after Democrats pressured for Ashcroft's removal... in the same way that you wouldn't expect a condemned man to hang himself, I reckon.
After Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper had testified before a grand jury about his conversations with I. Lewis Libby and Dick Cheney, New York Times star reporter and WMD specialist Judith Miller was mentioned as another source, then was ordered by Chief Judge Thomas Hogan to testify.
Judith Miller refused to cooperate in providing the prosecution her list of informants, citing a journalist's right to protect her sources, thus was judged in contempt of court and served 85 days in prison.
Merits for the Defense...
Guaranteed under the First Amendment of the Constitution is the “Freedom of the Press,” which allows journalists the ability to write unfavorable articles about the ruling government or reveal information that might not be within the best interest of the status quo, so long as the information is not defined as “classified information” for the sake of national security.
However, and pragmatically speaking, the First Amendment cannot totally inoculate a whistle-blower from vindictive repercussions made by ruling parties; there are always loopholes within the law to serve harsh treatment against those who reveal ugly truths, if not outright criminality from the more clandestine organizations.
With that in mind, a journalist's pledge to protect the identity of their sources is the greatest tool for which to encourage someone to speak the truth when either group-think or the iron law of oligarchy demands otherwise.
One such case, and perhaps the most quintessential one, where journalists had fought fiercely for the right to remain faithful to the journalist's pledge, was the Branzburg Case of 1972.
Earl Caldwell, correspondent for the New York Times who had almost exclusive coverage of the activities engaged in by the Black Panther Movement in Los Angeles, was approached by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to reveal the identities of those Black Panther Members who had engaged in “criminal” activities, such as professing a civilian's right to armed resistance against an oppressive government... which is similar to what Thomas Jefferson had preached almost two hundred years prior, by the way.
Caldwell had said, “Certainly not!” and was subpoenaed to testify in front of grand testimony a mere few days later.
If Caldwell's sources were criminally charged for activities he actually witnessed and covered, why did he not feel it was his duty as a civilian to cooperate with the law?
James Goodale, General Counsel for the New York Times during the Branzburg Case, explains why the media must remain distant from the efforts of law enforcement in Frontline's documentary called, NEWS WAR:
“The Press can't be the arm of law enforcement because if it is, there is no ability of the public, for which the Press is a surrogate, to criticize the government,” Mr. Goodale said.
I, for one, agree… not only with James Goodale's statement, but also with Earl Caldwell's decision to resist the FBI's demands. For one thing, the Black Panthers would never have garnered as much public support from the counter-culture movement if their motives weren't so legitimized by an overtly racist and brutal Los Angeles police department.
Second, although the Black Panthers had publicly armed themselves within legal boundaries as a political statement, it was the police department who was responsible for first blood, and several Black Panther members were already assassinated at this time.
Third, this was J. Edgar Hoover's FBI!!! They engaged in criminal activities under COINTELPRO to silence and discredit those parties involved in political dissidence, such as the Black Panthers. What kind of liberal idealist would have complied?
I stress the defense of the Branzburg Case because it was one of the greatest causes for opposing any collaboration with suspiciously corrupt law enforcement. But if we were to leave the “Robin Hood” romanticism aside a take more selfish measures into account, once a journalist caves in under legal pressure to reveal the identities of his sources, then he might as well kiss his career good-bye; his credibility is forever tarnished.
Merits for the Prosecution...
Alas, the Supreme Court ruling in the Branzburg Case was 5-4 against the defense, and this established a precedent that the First Amendment did not grant journalists the special privilege in refusing to provide evidence in grand testimony, especially when the rest of America is not awarded such a protection.
Justice White did provide a controversial “however” clause to the Supreme Court ruling, which kept the argument far from over. Justice White did recognize the press' ability to gather news, and although he validated the Supreme Court's decision in the Branzburg Case specifically, he did cite the Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigative Committee case in showing that for a subpoena to override the importance of a free press, the government must "convincingly show a substantial relation between the information sought and a subject of overriding and compelling state interest."
In other words, was Fitzgerald searching for specific and relevant information from Judith Miller that was so important in a criminal case, it would justify in overriding her right to protect her informant? According to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, Fitzgerald's subpoena was valid.
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act makes it a federal crime to intentionally reveal the identity of secretive intelligence agents, which was made into law shortly after Richard Welsh was assassinated by the Greek terrorist group called the “November 17” after his identity had been revealed through previously legal means by CounterSpy magazine.
Fitzgerald had a valid case to find the leak, not only in law but in the interests of national security as well. By leaking Valerie Plame's name, thus rendering her services in the CIA as forever null, had especially compromised her entire Counter-Proliferation Division, threatening the identities of her division subordinates as well. During a time when certain anti-American terrorist organizations are actively seeking WMDs is not appropriate to expose the one intelligence faction in charge with locating loose nuclear missiles, or the activities of unemployed nuclear scientists for that matter, in ex-Soviet rogue states.
Conclusion...
In my opinion, Judith Miller was known to be a ruthless social climber, disrespectful to other journalists, who seemed to be so in love with her own legend that the principles of Journalism, and especially certain time-tested practices such as double-checking the validity of one's own sources for credibility and ulterior motive, all seemed to have played second fiddle to Miller's priorities in life and pursuit of awardship.
With that said, Miller's grandstanding display of “a journalist's principle to protect the identity of her sources,” and the subsequent martyrdom to follow, all seemed so hollow and hypocritical that I couldn't have care less if her career was destroyed.
For Miller to repeat the concerted efforts of Earl Caldwell and James Goodale was insulting the very meaning behind their struggle, for Caldwell and Goodale sought for the right of journalists to act as a counter-balance against the powers of state, so that the public may remain well informed of the actions taken by their government and decide for themselves if those who govern them were honest and competent.
Miller, on the other hand, was the Bush Administration's little darling, and treated administrative efforts to “prove” Hussein's guilt of harboring both terrorists and WMDs as de facto from the get-go... so much so that the idea that neoconservatives MIGHT have been wrong in their theories of “Saddam, the great overlord and terrorist mastermind” had never seemed to be a possibility. Good work, Judy, and I hope your stay was lovely.
In Bush's State of the Union Address speech of 2003, Bush added Iraq's supposed search into Nigerian yellowcake as reasons to invade Iraq.
Wilson was upset with the administration's willingness to lie in spite of Wilson's research into the whole yellowcake matter; he then ran an Op-Ed article in the New York Times on July 6, 2003.
One week later, conservative columnist Robert Novak, “just so happened” to have mentioned Valerie Plame's name as “an agency operative.” Perhaps done by mistake... perhaps it was some passive-aggressive Rovian tactic willingly employed by a neoconservative apologist.
Patrick J. Fitzgerald was called in by the Justice Department to serve as special counsel for the Valerie Plame case, after Democrats pressured for Ashcroft's removal... in the same way that you wouldn't expect a condemned man to hang himself, I reckon.
After Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper had testified before a grand jury about his conversations with I. Lewis Libby and Dick Cheney, New York Times star reporter and WMD specialist Judith Miller was mentioned as another source, then was ordered by Chief Judge Thomas Hogan to testify.
Judith Miller refused to cooperate in providing the prosecution her list of informants, citing a journalist's right to protect her sources, thus was judged in contempt of court and served 85 days in prison.
Merits for the Defense...
Guaranteed under the First Amendment of the Constitution is the “Freedom of the Press,” which allows journalists the ability to write unfavorable articles about the ruling government or reveal information that might not be within the best interest of the status quo, so long as the information is not defined as “classified information” for the sake of national security.
However, and pragmatically speaking, the First Amendment cannot totally inoculate a whistle-blower from vindictive repercussions made by ruling parties; there are always loopholes within the law to serve harsh treatment against those who reveal ugly truths, if not outright criminality from the more clandestine organizations.
With that in mind, a journalist's pledge to protect the identity of their sources is the greatest tool for which to encourage someone to speak the truth when either group-think or the iron law of oligarchy demands otherwise.
One such case, and perhaps the most quintessential one, where journalists had fought fiercely for the right to remain faithful to the journalist's pledge, was the Branzburg Case of 1972.
Earl Caldwell, correspondent for the New York Times who had almost exclusive coverage of the activities engaged in by the Black Panther Movement in Los Angeles, was approached by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to reveal the identities of those Black Panther Members who had engaged in “criminal” activities, such as professing a civilian's right to armed resistance against an oppressive government... which is similar to what Thomas Jefferson had preached almost two hundred years prior, by the way.
Caldwell had said, “Certainly not!” and was subpoenaed to testify in front of grand testimony a mere few days later.
If Caldwell's sources were criminally charged for activities he actually witnessed and covered, why did he not feel it was his duty as a civilian to cooperate with the law?
James Goodale, General Counsel for the New York Times during the Branzburg Case, explains why the media must remain distant from the efforts of law enforcement in Frontline's documentary called, NEWS WAR:
“The Press can't be the arm of law enforcement because if it is, there is no ability of the public, for which the Press is a surrogate, to criticize the government,” Mr. Goodale said.
I, for one, agree… not only with James Goodale's statement, but also with Earl Caldwell's decision to resist the FBI's demands. For one thing, the Black Panthers would never have garnered as much public support from the counter-culture movement if their motives weren't so legitimized by an overtly racist and brutal Los Angeles police department.
Second, although the Black Panthers had publicly armed themselves within legal boundaries as a political statement, it was the police department who was responsible for first blood, and several Black Panther members were already assassinated at this time.
Third, this was J. Edgar Hoover's FBI!!! They engaged in criminal activities under COINTELPRO to silence and discredit those parties involved in political dissidence, such as the Black Panthers. What kind of liberal idealist would have complied?
I stress the defense of the Branzburg Case because it was one of the greatest causes for opposing any collaboration with suspiciously corrupt law enforcement. But if we were to leave the “Robin Hood” romanticism aside a take more selfish measures into account, once a journalist caves in under legal pressure to reveal the identities of his sources, then he might as well kiss his career good-bye; his credibility is forever tarnished.
Merits for the Prosecution...
Alas, the Supreme Court ruling in the Branzburg Case was 5-4 against the defense, and this established a precedent that the First Amendment did not grant journalists the special privilege in refusing to provide evidence in grand testimony, especially when the rest of America is not awarded such a protection.
Justice White did provide a controversial “however” clause to the Supreme Court ruling, which kept the argument far from over. Justice White did recognize the press' ability to gather news, and although he validated the Supreme Court's decision in the Branzburg Case specifically, he did cite the Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigative Committee case in showing that for a subpoena to override the importance of a free press, the government must "convincingly show a substantial relation between the information sought and a subject of overriding and compelling state interest."
In other words, was Fitzgerald searching for specific and relevant information from Judith Miller that was so important in a criminal case, it would justify in overriding her right to protect her informant? According to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, Fitzgerald's subpoena was valid.
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act makes it a federal crime to intentionally reveal the identity of secretive intelligence agents, which was made into law shortly after Richard Welsh was assassinated by the Greek terrorist group called the “November 17” after his identity had been revealed through previously legal means by CounterSpy magazine.
Fitzgerald had a valid case to find the leak, not only in law but in the interests of national security as well. By leaking Valerie Plame's name, thus rendering her services in the CIA as forever null, had especially compromised her entire Counter-Proliferation Division, threatening the identities of her division subordinates as well. During a time when certain anti-American terrorist organizations are actively seeking WMDs is not appropriate to expose the one intelligence faction in charge with locating loose nuclear missiles, or the activities of unemployed nuclear scientists for that matter, in ex-Soviet rogue states.
Conclusion...
In my opinion, Judith Miller was known to be a ruthless social climber, disrespectful to other journalists, who seemed to be so in love with her own legend that the principles of Journalism, and especially certain time-tested practices such as double-checking the validity of one's own sources for credibility and ulterior motive, all seemed to have played second fiddle to Miller's priorities in life and pursuit of awardship.
With that said, Miller's grandstanding display of “a journalist's principle to protect the identity of her sources,” and the subsequent martyrdom to follow, all seemed so hollow and hypocritical that I couldn't have care less if her career was destroyed.
For Miller to repeat the concerted efforts of Earl Caldwell and James Goodale was insulting the very meaning behind their struggle, for Caldwell and Goodale sought for the right of journalists to act as a counter-balance against the powers of state, so that the public may remain well informed of the actions taken by their government and decide for themselves if those who govern them were honest and competent.
Miller, on the other hand, was the Bush Administration's little darling, and treated administrative efforts to “prove” Hussein's guilt of harboring both terrorists and WMDs as de facto from the get-go... so much so that the idea that neoconservatives MIGHT have been wrong in their theories of “Saddam, the great overlord and terrorist mastermind” had never seemed to be a possibility. Good work, Judy, and I hope your stay was lovely.
Iraqi Mojo: Patriotism Tied at Both Ends
Iraqi Mojo is the pen-name of an Iraqi American, meaning “magic” or “unexplained source of power to heal and change.” To anyone familiar with his writings and its subject matter, which aims to expose whatever acts of injustice may be inflicted upon the innocent and with silent bias granted to none, perhaps it is his motivation to enlighten his readers wherever ignorance perpetuates the suffering which reflects his chosen name.
Iraqi Mojo, whose blog can be found at http://www.iraqimojo.blogspot.com, began writing at this URL address in October, 2006, during the height of Iraqi insurgency and dangerously close to civil war. It was also during this time when American presence was seen in a negative light throughout the world, for the hardships that came with post-war aftermath had been realized and threatening to overshadow the memories of conditions under Saddam.
“I started my blog after I realized that many Arabs, maybe even a majority, do not know what Saddam's regime did to Iraqis,” Iraqi Mojo said. “They are either just ignorant or they have a skewed view of happenings in Iraq before 2003. I wanted to document my own stories, such as things that happened to our friends and relatives.”
Iraqi Mojo was born in Baghdad but spent much of his early life in the United States where is father was earning a degree. It was 1980 when his family made preparations to return to Iraq, visiting relatives in London while en route; it was also when Iraqi Mojo had first learned of Saddam's true tyrannical nature: two of his older cousins were killed during a time when Hussein's regime began to exterminate Da'wa party members and anyone else engaging in residual Islamic revolutionary activities reminiscent of Ayatolla Khomeini's Shia uprising in Iran.
Iraqi Mojo's mother tried to convince his father to stay in the UK but he insisted on returning because of previous contract obligations. The decision was finalized, and his family made home in Iraq, and shortly after began the Eight-Years War.
Iraqi Mojo explains how many of his extended family members were conscripted in a war they never believed in, under duress of imprisonment or death. To accentuate his point, Iraqi Mojo describes how one cousin deserted his post on the front lines and his cousin's entire immediate family was consequently imprisoned, bar none, including young children and elderly members.
Iraqi Mojo possesses a blend of sentiment for his Arabian heritage and a strong belief in many of the American principles he grew up with: amnesty rights to all humans regardless of race or creed, freedom to practice religion without theocratic suppression of non-believers, and equal rights for women.
His relationship with both the United States and Iraq can get a little complicated under certain circumstances, since it was the United States who had secured Saddam's power through financial and military support throughout the Iraq-Iran war, and America had also failed to endorse Iraq's 1991 uprising. Yet, Iraqi Mojo had always supported the Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq, leaving the WMD reasoning aside, because he felt that Saddam's brutal regime must be disposed of, and by any means necessary.
“The U.S. must stick with Iraq and ensure that a positive outcome is achieved,” Iraqi Mojo said. “[They must establish] something as close to democracy and justice as possible, given the circumstances. It is not an easy thing to do, but I'm glad the U.S. is finally helping the Iraqi Shia and Kurds instead of abandoning them to thugs and tyrants, like we've done before.”
Since Iraqi Mojo holds no preference to any one kind of Iraqi National, regardless of racial or religious distinction, his view of American intervention in Iraq is generally supportive so long as American policy aims to promote equality and justice to all its citizens, and his constructive criticisms towards American foreign policy is no different from any other American concerned with government incompetence.
“I hope the US and the Iraqis have learned from the lessons [of this war], including de-baathification--we have to be careful not to exclude Iraqis who may have been members of the Ba'ath party, but did not have blood on their hands.” Iraqi Mojo said.
Included among his disappointments with American foreign policy decisions, like the Paul Bremer period, would be America's willingness to overlook Israeli oppression of Palestinian citizens. Iraqi Mojo is far from being an anti-Semite, and he understands the distinctions between Israeli governmental policy and Jews; his concern for Palestinians is much less influenced by Arab-centrist philosophies and more to do with intolerance for anything resembling Jim Crow.
“The Arabs can learn a lot, to be honest,” Iraqi Mojo said. “They can learn to be more truthful with respect to Iraq, and not be such hypocrites. The Americans, on the other hand, must stop being hypocrites as well, with regard to Palestine/Israel. We should strive for justice in Iraq AND Palestine.”
Iraqi Mojo's reference of Arab hypocrites can be exemplified through certain viewer comments posted in response to many of his articles, like his May 4, 2009 posting entitled, “Iraqis are refusing to succumb to terror.” The article recounts an incident in a Shia house of worship called the Zahra Husseiniya, where a 16-year-old potential suicide bomber failed to detonate his bomb vest due to the successful tackling of security guards. Though the article did not officially state the boy's militant affiliation, one commenter named Jaguar B. P. described the overpowering scenario as, “a raafidhi magusi animal trampling some child,” indicating a bias against the “rejecter” Shia. In the same comment he mentions the brutality behind the “shock and awe” which killed Iraqi civilians, which was precisely who the “child” was intending to kill along with himself.
Iraqi Mojo bears the typical circumstances of a man with strong principles caught between two ideological worlds: his criticism of actions and biases committed by all parties concerned leaves him vulnerable to attacks from both sides, and tragically accused of betraying an affiliation simply because he refuses to tout the platforms of the demagogues.
There are dozens of comments left by viewers like “True Iraqi” who equates Iraqi Mojo's Arab heritage with American citizenship as an admixture for “traitor” or “uncle tom.”
“I was attacked as 'traitor' many times there and worse,” Iraqi Mojo said. “The most hideous attacks have come from Arab Americans. Many Arabs, Arab Americans, Arab Canadians, and Arab Europeans have come to my blog to insult me and accuse me of lying. Many of them came from [blog sites] like Angry Arab and Healing Iraq.”
The complexity of Iraqi Mojo's feelings towards the Iraq War, such that could be misconstrued as “contradictory” by the less perceptive, is certainly reflected in the various photos he has posted. The eclecticism of his photos could be defined under journalistic terms as both “iconic” and “realistic,” ranging from depictions of Iraqi civilians embracing American troops in celebration of Saddam's overthrow to grieving Iraq families and dead children. One may not be able to determine Iraqi Mojo's “agenda” through posted photos alone, but doesn't the reality of war encompass a wide range of opinions and circumstances, along with the emotions they carry?
Posted along the side-scrolls of his blog are two polls concerning Iraq stability and American presence to maintain it. Iraqi Mojo's readership is welcome to answer in whatever degree, “should Iraq split up,” or “when should the U.S. withdraw from Iraq?”
The results are interesting: the readership is almost evenly split between immediate American withdrawal and staying the course for as long as necessary, whereas two-thirds of those who polled preferred a unified Iraq in spite of the sectarian differences.
Admittedly, these polls cannot be trusted to provide accurate information since none is barred from repeating participation, and Iraqi Mojo's viewer demographic may not accurately reflect the opinion ratio of Iraqi citizens who bear the greatest stake in these questions. But judging from the hundreds of comments left by his viewership, the ideological diversity certainly ranges from “Go USA!!” to “Go to hell, USA!!”
The poll question concerning Iraqi solidarity did pique my interest, for I have always wondered if the American campaign “to liberate Iraq” was a legitimate cause with native support, an Orwellian disguise for post-Cold War imperialism, or simply just a naive Western fantasy.
My knowledge of Iraq's history was limited, thus procuring the assumption that since their national borders were created by British and French forces under the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916, there was no organic sense of Iraqi identity shared among its citizens outside of religious and racial distinctions.
To my surprise, after reading through various articles and respective comments from Iraqi nationals, Iraq has a long history of regional identity that surpassed religious and racial differences. In fact, natives had referred to themselves as “Iraqis” long before the League of Nations mandate in 1920.
“I think the degree of importance is this: geographical, religious, and then racial ties,” Iraqi Mojo said. “Most Iraqis don't want to split up Iraq, with the Kurds as an exception. most Iraqi Kurds want their own country, as they are ethnically different from Arabs, which make up about 20% of Iraq.”
The Kurdish dilemma is not solely an Iraqi issue, for millions of Kurds are also residing in other nations, especially in western regions of Turkey. The irony behind the Kurdish plight is that American justification for Iraq invasion had included Saddam's genocide programs, such as the Halabjah massacre, at the very same time America endorsed Turkey for induction into the European Union despite their atrocious record against Kurdish separatists.
During the course of the Iraq War, there were limitations placed upon embedded reporters, in regards to acquiring stories and counterpointing interviews from Iraqi citizens, and comments from Lt. Col. Rick Long during his speech at a Berkeley conference titled, War, Patriotism, and the Independence of the Press had certainly confirmed suspicions that the Pentagon is actively seeking methods to ensure favorable journalism.
However, coverage for the Iraq War has an advantage over previous American campaigns, which is the advent of the internet and its blogging tool wielded by citizens, military personnel, journalists, and anyone else greatly affected by the war.
It would seem that a tremendous flow of diverse information and perspectives might finally cut through the fog of war, perhaps even seal the ideological rifts, which typically catalyze bloodshed. But how many others would agree?
“Yes, it is possible for the warring sides to understand each other better via the web, but I don't think the web will help much in the grand scheme of things,” Iraqi Mojo said. “The web has been used as a recruiting tool by Al Qaeda and other extremists, and they've published some bigoted literature that only inflamed the sectarian tensions between Shia & Sunna. In many cases we ended up hating each other.”
Alas, the bittersweet result of a world connected by a modem and empowered with a keyboard: A billion doorways to knowledge, a billion reasons for bias, and a billion chances to misconstrue.
Iraqi Mojo, whose blog can be found at http://www.iraqimojo.blogspot.com, began writing at this URL address in October, 2006, during the height of Iraqi insurgency and dangerously close to civil war. It was also during this time when American presence was seen in a negative light throughout the world, for the hardships that came with post-war aftermath had been realized and threatening to overshadow the memories of conditions under Saddam.
“I started my blog after I realized that many Arabs, maybe even a majority, do not know what Saddam's regime did to Iraqis,” Iraqi Mojo said. “They are either just ignorant or they have a skewed view of happenings in Iraq before 2003. I wanted to document my own stories, such as things that happened to our friends and relatives.”
Iraqi Mojo was born in Baghdad but spent much of his early life in the United States where is father was earning a degree. It was 1980 when his family made preparations to return to Iraq, visiting relatives in London while en route; it was also when Iraqi Mojo had first learned of Saddam's true tyrannical nature: two of his older cousins were killed during a time when Hussein's regime began to exterminate Da'wa party members and anyone else engaging in residual Islamic revolutionary activities reminiscent of Ayatolla Khomeini's Shia uprising in Iran.
Iraqi Mojo's mother tried to convince his father to stay in the UK but he insisted on returning because of previous contract obligations. The decision was finalized, and his family made home in Iraq, and shortly after began the Eight-Years War.
Iraqi Mojo explains how many of his extended family members were conscripted in a war they never believed in, under duress of imprisonment or death. To accentuate his point, Iraqi Mojo describes how one cousin deserted his post on the front lines and his cousin's entire immediate family was consequently imprisoned, bar none, including young children and elderly members.
Iraqi Mojo possesses a blend of sentiment for his Arabian heritage and a strong belief in many of the American principles he grew up with: amnesty rights to all humans regardless of race or creed, freedom to practice religion without theocratic suppression of non-believers, and equal rights for women.
His relationship with both the United States and Iraq can get a little complicated under certain circumstances, since it was the United States who had secured Saddam's power through financial and military support throughout the Iraq-Iran war, and America had also failed to endorse Iraq's 1991 uprising. Yet, Iraqi Mojo had always supported the Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq, leaving the WMD reasoning aside, because he felt that Saddam's brutal regime must be disposed of, and by any means necessary.
“The U.S. must stick with Iraq and ensure that a positive outcome is achieved,” Iraqi Mojo said. “[They must establish] something as close to democracy and justice as possible, given the circumstances. It is not an easy thing to do, but I'm glad the U.S. is finally helping the Iraqi Shia and Kurds instead of abandoning them to thugs and tyrants, like we've done before.”
Since Iraqi Mojo holds no preference to any one kind of Iraqi National, regardless of racial or religious distinction, his view of American intervention in Iraq is generally supportive so long as American policy aims to promote equality and justice to all its citizens, and his constructive criticisms towards American foreign policy is no different from any other American concerned with government incompetence.
“I hope the US and the Iraqis have learned from the lessons [of this war], including de-baathification--we have to be careful not to exclude Iraqis who may have been members of the Ba'ath party, but did not have blood on their hands.” Iraqi Mojo said.
Included among his disappointments with American foreign policy decisions, like the Paul Bremer period, would be America's willingness to overlook Israeli oppression of Palestinian citizens. Iraqi Mojo is far from being an anti-Semite, and he understands the distinctions between Israeli governmental policy and Jews; his concern for Palestinians is much less influenced by Arab-centrist philosophies and more to do with intolerance for anything resembling Jim Crow.
“The Arabs can learn a lot, to be honest,” Iraqi Mojo said. “They can learn to be more truthful with respect to Iraq, and not be such hypocrites. The Americans, on the other hand, must stop being hypocrites as well, with regard to Palestine/Israel. We should strive for justice in Iraq AND Palestine.”
Iraqi Mojo's reference of Arab hypocrites can be exemplified through certain viewer comments posted in response to many of his articles, like his May 4, 2009 posting entitled, “Iraqis are refusing to succumb to terror.” The article recounts an incident in a Shia house of worship called the Zahra Husseiniya, where a 16-year-old potential suicide bomber failed to detonate his bomb vest due to the successful tackling of security guards. Though the article did not officially state the boy's militant affiliation, one commenter named Jaguar B. P. described the overpowering scenario as, “a raafidhi magusi animal trampling some child,” indicating a bias against the “rejecter” Shia. In the same comment he mentions the brutality behind the “shock and awe” which killed Iraqi civilians, which was precisely who the “child” was intending to kill along with himself.
Iraqi Mojo bears the typical circumstances of a man with strong principles caught between two ideological worlds: his criticism of actions and biases committed by all parties concerned leaves him vulnerable to attacks from both sides, and tragically accused of betraying an affiliation simply because he refuses to tout the platforms of the demagogues.
There are dozens of comments left by viewers like “True Iraqi” who equates Iraqi Mojo's Arab heritage with American citizenship as an admixture for “traitor” or “uncle tom.”
“I was attacked as 'traitor' many times there and worse,” Iraqi Mojo said. “The most hideous attacks have come from Arab Americans. Many Arabs, Arab Americans, Arab Canadians, and Arab Europeans have come to my blog to insult me and accuse me of lying. Many of them came from [blog sites] like Angry Arab and Healing Iraq.”
The complexity of Iraqi Mojo's feelings towards the Iraq War, such that could be misconstrued as “contradictory” by the less perceptive, is certainly reflected in the various photos he has posted. The eclecticism of his photos could be defined under journalistic terms as both “iconic” and “realistic,” ranging from depictions of Iraqi civilians embracing American troops in celebration of Saddam's overthrow to grieving Iraq families and dead children. One may not be able to determine Iraqi Mojo's “agenda” through posted photos alone, but doesn't the reality of war encompass a wide range of opinions and circumstances, along with the emotions they carry?
Posted along the side-scrolls of his blog are two polls concerning Iraq stability and American presence to maintain it. Iraqi Mojo's readership is welcome to answer in whatever degree, “should Iraq split up,” or “when should the U.S. withdraw from Iraq?”
The results are interesting: the readership is almost evenly split between immediate American withdrawal and staying the course for as long as necessary, whereas two-thirds of those who polled preferred a unified Iraq in spite of the sectarian differences.
Admittedly, these polls cannot be trusted to provide accurate information since none is barred from repeating participation, and Iraqi Mojo's viewer demographic may not accurately reflect the opinion ratio of Iraqi citizens who bear the greatest stake in these questions. But judging from the hundreds of comments left by his viewership, the ideological diversity certainly ranges from “Go USA!!” to “Go to hell, USA!!”
The poll question concerning Iraqi solidarity did pique my interest, for I have always wondered if the American campaign “to liberate Iraq” was a legitimate cause with native support, an Orwellian disguise for post-Cold War imperialism, or simply just a naive Western fantasy.
My knowledge of Iraq's history was limited, thus procuring the assumption that since their national borders were created by British and French forces under the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916, there was no organic sense of Iraqi identity shared among its citizens outside of religious and racial distinctions.
To my surprise, after reading through various articles and respective comments from Iraqi nationals, Iraq has a long history of regional identity that surpassed religious and racial differences. In fact, natives had referred to themselves as “Iraqis” long before the League of Nations mandate in 1920.
“I think the degree of importance is this: geographical, religious, and then racial ties,” Iraqi Mojo said. “Most Iraqis don't want to split up Iraq, with the Kurds as an exception. most Iraqi Kurds want their own country, as they are ethnically different from Arabs, which make up about 20% of Iraq.”
The Kurdish dilemma is not solely an Iraqi issue, for millions of Kurds are also residing in other nations, especially in western regions of Turkey. The irony behind the Kurdish plight is that American justification for Iraq invasion had included Saddam's genocide programs, such as the Halabjah massacre, at the very same time America endorsed Turkey for induction into the European Union despite their atrocious record against Kurdish separatists.
During the course of the Iraq War, there were limitations placed upon embedded reporters, in regards to acquiring stories and counterpointing interviews from Iraqi citizens, and comments from Lt. Col. Rick Long during his speech at a Berkeley conference titled, War, Patriotism, and the Independence of the Press had certainly confirmed suspicions that the Pentagon is actively seeking methods to ensure favorable journalism.
However, coverage for the Iraq War has an advantage over previous American campaigns, which is the advent of the internet and its blogging tool wielded by citizens, military personnel, journalists, and anyone else greatly affected by the war.
It would seem that a tremendous flow of diverse information and perspectives might finally cut through the fog of war, perhaps even seal the ideological rifts, which typically catalyze bloodshed. But how many others would agree?
“Yes, it is possible for the warring sides to understand each other better via the web, but I don't think the web will help much in the grand scheme of things,” Iraqi Mojo said. “The web has been used as a recruiting tool by Al Qaeda and other extremists, and they've published some bigoted literature that only inflamed the sectarian tensions between Shia & Sunna. In many cases we ended up hating each other.”
Alas, the bittersweet result of a world connected by a modem and empowered with a keyboard: A billion doorways to knowledge, a billion reasons for bias, and a billion chances to misconstrue.
Jessica Lynch: Hero or Pawn?
I remember my grandfather had once told me that the word “hero” should never be taken lightly or given frequently. He told me that his service in WWII was simply what he was expected to do, an order, and heroics should be defined as answering the normal call of duty with actions that go well above and beyond what a regular soldier can perform.
I understand the modern attempt to declare all military personnel as heroes, since all of them had volunteered during a time when the rest of the nation is spared from the kinds of sacrifices my grandfather's generation had to endure during the Second World War, but if he was alive today I'm sure my grandfather would scoff at the liberal amount of awards and medals thrown about like confetti, deeming then practically meaningless.
Jessica Lynch did nothing to earn the heroine status she was granted, even trumped up in a public spectacle by the efforts of both the Pentagon and the Media. Quite the contrary, the miscalculated detours and faulty equipment her unit had undergone should have been more appropriately labeled a “FUBAR.” But in all fairness, she was not to blame for any of the hype; more respect should have been given to her for her efforts in tearing down the myths of her bravery and the obscurity that the rest of her unit had faced in spite of their sufferings or efforts.
I believe there are two major reasons why Jessica Lynch was used as a public relations pawn. First, it seems apparent that the Pentagon still suffers from what I call the “Vietnam Syndrome.” Any effort to sustain troop morale and public support for a large-scale war, even going so far as to fabricate a story of heroism, would seem infinitely favorable to the “babykiller” stigma they were branded by the time the seventies had rolled in.
Second, it should be obvious that the media has taken quite an obsession with promoting “girl power.” Personally, I am not surprised at how little media coverage the rest of Jessica Lynch's unit had received in comparison when you take into account how overrated attractive women have become; you'd think that only pretty white girls we ever at risk of kidnapping or disappearance, and if I have to watch another action film, where a model actress only 90 pounds soaking wet kicks the living daylights out of some mesomorphic giant while wearing stiletto heels, I think I'll vomit.
Out of principle, I am very much against the idea of artificial heroism. Not only would a fabricated story counteract my pursuit of objective truth as a reporter, but to overpromote the mediocre efforts of one person must consequently undermine the genuine efforts of another. Most importantly, whatever could be learned from a mistake once covered up and censored will be compromised and the opportunity for wisdom will then be forever lost.
I understand the modern attempt to declare all military personnel as heroes, since all of them had volunteered during a time when the rest of the nation is spared from the kinds of sacrifices my grandfather's generation had to endure during the Second World War, but if he was alive today I'm sure my grandfather would scoff at the liberal amount of awards and medals thrown about like confetti, deeming then practically meaningless.
Jessica Lynch did nothing to earn the heroine status she was granted, even trumped up in a public spectacle by the efforts of both the Pentagon and the Media. Quite the contrary, the miscalculated detours and faulty equipment her unit had undergone should have been more appropriately labeled a “FUBAR.” But in all fairness, she was not to blame for any of the hype; more respect should have been given to her for her efforts in tearing down the myths of her bravery and the obscurity that the rest of her unit had faced in spite of their sufferings or efforts.
I believe there are two major reasons why Jessica Lynch was used as a public relations pawn. First, it seems apparent that the Pentagon still suffers from what I call the “Vietnam Syndrome.” Any effort to sustain troop morale and public support for a large-scale war, even going so far as to fabricate a story of heroism, would seem infinitely favorable to the “babykiller” stigma they were branded by the time the seventies had rolled in.
Second, it should be obvious that the media has taken quite an obsession with promoting “girl power.” Personally, I am not surprised at how little media coverage the rest of Jessica Lynch's unit had received in comparison when you take into account how overrated attractive women have become; you'd think that only pretty white girls we ever at risk of kidnapping or disappearance, and if I have to watch another action film, where a model actress only 90 pounds soaking wet kicks the living daylights out of some mesomorphic giant while wearing stiletto heels, I think I'll vomit.
Out of principle, I am very much against the idea of artificial heroism. Not only would a fabricated story counteract my pursuit of objective truth as a reporter, but to overpromote the mediocre efforts of one person must consequently undermine the genuine efforts of another. Most importantly, whatever could be learned from a mistake once covered up and censored will be compromised and the opportunity for wisdom will then be forever lost.
The Aftermath of Charlie Wilson's War
“These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world... and then we fucked up the endgame.” Congressman Charles Nesbitt Wilson (D, TX)
Charles Wilson was a Texas Representative who had successfully won twelve consecutive terms as a Democrat in a heavily Republican region of Texas. His explanation for this was the same as for why he was the best man to lead congressional support for Operation Cyclone, a CIA covert operation to supply the Mujahideen with the appropriate firepower to take out Soviet transport and assault vehicles like helicopters and jets during the Afghan-Soviet War: he represented a district where the people only wanted their guns and low taxes, so he was one of the lucky few who could say “yes” to controversial programs.
Charles Wilson, working along with CIA officer Gust Avrakotos, had managed to increase the appropriate funding for the Mujahideen after having been named the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which helped in drawing the Soviet Union into what Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski called “Russia's Vietnam.” The mission was so successful, the CIA presented Wilson with an Honored Colleague Award, the first civilian to have received this.
Although the mission was smashing success, Wilson lamented the aftermath, even going so far as to proclaim that 9/11 was part of its blow-back. Why is this?
After the Soviets had pulled out of Afghanistan and left the remaining fight to the PDPA in 1989, the next few years were marked with a civil war that eventually secured the Taliban's power and prominence. Osama Bin Laden, after receiving funding and training by the CIA had transformed his Mujahideen faction into what is now Al Qaeda.
Afghanistan had suffered greatly during the war with fatalities exceeding one million, five million fleeing to Pakistan, two million displaced and homeless within the country, and over four million wounded or maimed. When you compare these losses to Afghanistan's original pre-war population estimate at 15 million, one can understand Wilson's plees for post-war aid, which unfortunately fell on deaf ears.
Promises were made to the Afghans during the war that aid would come to help rebuild their country after the war was over and won, but the Soviet Union had shortly collapsed after their pull-out and the interest in Cold War financing was waning drastically.
Charles Wilson had warned that leaving the Afghans with such a weak infrastructure would only lead to their bitterness against the Western World, seeing no difference between the Soviet infidels and the American betrayers, thus an equally brutal or worse regime to that of the PDPA would most likely fill the power vacuum. Those who opposed Wilson's strategy had been affixed to only perceiving an underdeveloped nation like Afghanistan as a threat to American security when given Communist support, and not a threat unto itself.
This very opposition, who could scrounge up a billion dollars for guns but declined a million for schoolbooks, also felt that the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative, a procurement to prevent the proliferation of mass-death weaponry like nuclear missiles from ex-Soviet republics, was a waste of money. The irony is that underfunding of both initiatives spurred the greatest potential threat to America's national security during today's War on Terror: Islamic Militants with WMDs.
Charles Wilson was a Texas Representative who had successfully won twelve consecutive terms as a Democrat in a heavily Republican region of Texas. His explanation for this was the same as for why he was the best man to lead congressional support for Operation Cyclone, a CIA covert operation to supply the Mujahideen with the appropriate firepower to take out Soviet transport and assault vehicles like helicopters and jets during the Afghan-Soviet War: he represented a district where the people only wanted their guns and low taxes, so he was one of the lucky few who could say “yes” to controversial programs.
Charles Wilson, working along with CIA officer Gust Avrakotos, had managed to increase the appropriate funding for the Mujahideen after having been named the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which helped in drawing the Soviet Union into what Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski called “Russia's Vietnam.” The mission was so successful, the CIA presented Wilson with an Honored Colleague Award, the first civilian to have received this.
Although the mission was smashing success, Wilson lamented the aftermath, even going so far as to proclaim that 9/11 was part of its blow-back. Why is this?
After the Soviets had pulled out of Afghanistan and left the remaining fight to the PDPA in 1989, the next few years were marked with a civil war that eventually secured the Taliban's power and prominence. Osama Bin Laden, after receiving funding and training by the CIA had transformed his Mujahideen faction into what is now Al Qaeda.
Afghanistan had suffered greatly during the war with fatalities exceeding one million, five million fleeing to Pakistan, two million displaced and homeless within the country, and over four million wounded or maimed. When you compare these losses to Afghanistan's original pre-war population estimate at 15 million, one can understand Wilson's plees for post-war aid, which unfortunately fell on deaf ears.
Promises were made to the Afghans during the war that aid would come to help rebuild their country after the war was over and won, but the Soviet Union had shortly collapsed after their pull-out and the interest in Cold War financing was waning drastically.
Charles Wilson had warned that leaving the Afghans with such a weak infrastructure would only lead to their bitterness against the Western World, seeing no difference between the Soviet infidels and the American betrayers, thus an equally brutal or worse regime to that of the PDPA would most likely fill the power vacuum. Those who opposed Wilson's strategy had been affixed to only perceiving an underdeveloped nation like Afghanistan as a threat to American security when given Communist support, and not a threat unto itself.
This very opposition, who could scrounge up a billion dollars for guns but declined a million for schoolbooks, also felt that the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative, a procurement to prevent the proliferation of mass-death weaponry like nuclear missiles from ex-Soviet republics, was a waste of money. The irony is that underfunding of both initiatives spurred the greatest potential threat to America's national security during today's War on Terror: Islamic Militants with WMDs.
Wag The Dog Analysis and the Iraq War
Are there striking similarities between the this movie and the “evidence” which became the precursor to the Iraq invasion? My opinion is “yes.” I have found several examples of comparisons to prove my point, but I decided to elaborate on one in particular.
There is a scene where an agent Charles Young, affiliated with an intelligence organization not mentioned by name but assumed as the CIA, had confronted both Conrad Brean and Winifred Ames about their publicized leaks of supposed Albanian terrorist groups planning to detonate modified nuclear suitcase devises en route through Canada . Agent Young grills them to know why this story is being fabricated when his own intelligence reports refute these claims.
Without a moment's pause, Conrad returned fire that the intelligence agency's lack of evidence on said terrorist threat claims should not be concluded as some concoction of the administration, but rather as inefficiency from Young's own organization... and if Agent Young wishes to remain employed, he'd better find faith in the claims of the Albanian threat set forth.
This scene was stunningly similar to the months leading up to, and resulting in, America's pre-emptive strike of Iraq. When a barrage of claims, entailing renewed Iraqi WMD programs and Saddam's Al Qaeda connections, from defectors harbored by Chabili's INC (an organization long hailed by neo-conservative idealogues as the foundation stone for a new Iraq and reviled as unreliable charlatans by the CIA) began to surface, the Bush administration quickly utilized such hearsay as talking points for invasion and regime change in Iraq... regardless of the scrambling efforts made by intelligence agencies such as Valerie Plame's Iraq Task Force to find substantial evidence to back such claims, but always coming up short.
Administration officials such a Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and I Lewis Libby had openly shown contempt for and harangued both CIA and pentagon officials whenever they failed to provide support, advise, and information sympathetic to the “Iraqi Liberation” cause... as if any counterpoint made was more proof of incompetence against those in disagreement with neo-conservative assessments than evidence that said assessments might not be as infallible as it was currently sold.
As for the media, in both cases fictional and historical, anonymous leaks and ambiguous sound-bites from official sources became the bait for the bulk of journalists racing for the most sensational story of the day, in order to placate a general public, affected by a recent crisis, more emotional than rational. In both cases, the media ran stories filled with eroneous information with very little fact-checking.
In the case of Judy Miller's aluminum tubes article published in the September 8 issue of the New York Times, it can be claimed that Al-Haideri's account was taken as gospel truth by Ms. Miller since all she had to do was confirm the claim with the CIA, which would have informed her that her source failed a lie detector test. And the situation worsened when subsequent charges by weapon inspector David Albright and Department of Energy consultant Houston Wood countered Al-Hairdi's accounts as erroneous, but follow-up articles were pretty much buried and primarily overlooked.
What made this particular event a great example of the tail wagging its dog is that Dick Cheney, one politically affiliated with the INC which produced the source for Ms. Miller's article, had actually quoted the aluminum tubes finding from that very article, published that morning, as grounds to believe that Saddam Hussein was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons on Tim Russert's Meet the Press.
To conclude with a question: does this movie exaggeration the truth? Of course. All stories do when its purpose is to both inform AND entertain the viewer. But allow me to Socratically ascertain by asking, “Does art imitate life, or vice versa?”
There is a scene where an agent Charles Young, affiliated with an intelligence organization not mentioned by name but assumed as the CIA, had confronted both Conrad Brean and Winifred Ames about their publicized leaks of supposed Albanian terrorist groups planning to detonate modified nuclear suitcase devises en route through Canada . Agent Young grills them to know why this story is being fabricated when his own intelligence reports refute these claims.
Without a moment's pause, Conrad returned fire that the intelligence agency's lack of evidence on said terrorist threat claims should not be concluded as some concoction of the administration, but rather as inefficiency from Young's own organization... and if Agent Young wishes to remain employed, he'd better find faith in the claims of the Albanian threat set forth.
This scene was stunningly similar to the months leading up to, and resulting in, America's pre-emptive strike of Iraq. When a barrage of claims, entailing renewed Iraqi WMD programs and Saddam's Al Qaeda connections, from defectors harbored by Chabili's INC (an organization long hailed by neo-conservative idealogues as the foundation stone for a new Iraq and reviled as unreliable charlatans by the CIA) began to surface, the Bush administration quickly utilized such hearsay as talking points for invasion and regime change in Iraq... regardless of the scrambling efforts made by intelligence agencies such as Valerie Plame's Iraq Task Force to find substantial evidence to back such claims, but always coming up short.
Administration officials such a Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and I Lewis Libby had openly shown contempt for and harangued both CIA and pentagon officials whenever they failed to provide support, advise, and information sympathetic to the “Iraqi Liberation” cause... as if any counterpoint made was more proof of incompetence against those in disagreement with neo-conservative assessments than evidence that said assessments might not be as infallible as it was currently sold.
As for the media, in both cases fictional and historical, anonymous leaks and ambiguous sound-bites from official sources became the bait for the bulk of journalists racing for the most sensational story of the day, in order to placate a general public, affected by a recent crisis, more emotional than rational. In both cases, the media ran stories filled with eroneous information with very little fact-checking.
In the case of Judy Miller's aluminum tubes article published in the September 8 issue of the New York Times, it can be claimed that Al-Haideri's account was taken as gospel truth by Ms. Miller since all she had to do was confirm the claim with the CIA, which would have informed her that her source failed a lie detector test. And the situation worsened when subsequent charges by weapon inspector David Albright and Department of Energy consultant Houston Wood countered Al-Hairdi's accounts as erroneous, but follow-up articles were pretty much buried and primarily overlooked.
What made this particular event a great example of the tail wagging its dog is that Dick Cheney, one politically affiliated with the INC which produced the source for Ms. Miller's article, had actually quoted the aluminum tubes finding from that very article, published that morning, as grounds to believe that Saddam Hussein was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons on Tim Russert's Meet the Press.
To conclude with a question: does this movie exaggeration the truth? Of course. All stories do when its purpose is to both inform AND entertain the viewer. But allow me to Socratically ascertain by asking, “Does art imitate life, or vice versa?”
Hubris in the Media
In page 218 of the book entitled, Hubris, the authors Michael Isikoff and David Corn written the following statement: “In a way, the Times editors were behaving like White House officials: both institutions were standing by their prewar assertions.” To understand its meaning requires one to understand its context.
Preceding the authors' assessment, but still referring to texts found in Chapter 12, The Missing Weapons, the Iraq invasion had commenced and Hussein's republican guard had given little resistance during the few short weeks when American forces advanced towards Baghdad. The statue of Saddam was torn down on April 9, marking the end of initial operations, but where had the Ba'athists presumably hid their biological or nuclear weaponry which provoked America into its “do-or-die” push for war?
Judith Miller had been granted the assignment in covering military efforts to locate WMDs for the New York Times, at no surprise to anyone familiar with her previous work in Middle East affairs, (she had co-authored a book with Laurie Mylroie titled, Saddam Hussein & the Crisis in the Gulf, which helped launch neoconservative suspicions of Hussein becoming the next great American nemesis since 1990,) and especially her top-notched standing with both Executive Editor Howell Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd.
Miller was embedded with the Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha unit, and all searching efforts were concentrated in WMD allegations made by an unidentified Iraqi in a baseball cap, supposedly a scientist working in Saddam's chemical weapons program for ten years. According to Isikoff and Corn in Hubris, Miller wasn't allowed to speak with this mysterious source, whose directions hadn't yet led the MET Alpha unit to anything determinant, and the censorship was heavy under the agreements with the 75th Exploitation Task Force, yet the story had been written with a demeanor that it was only a matter of “when” and not “if,” according to concerns from Steven Erlanger, Foreign Correspondent for the New York Times.
But when Erlanger brought Miller's story to both Raines' and Boyd's attention for it's lack of skepticism, it was Erlanger himself who received a reprimand in Miller's defense. It was as if Miller received a free pass for her erratic assertions that WMD's exist in Iraq and an even more erratic aggressiveness to prove it. Even the MET Alpha team was becoming increasingly frustrated with Miller's seeming intentions to occasionally direct the expeditions herself at behest of Chabali's INC allegations, despite his increasing notoriety with CIA and Pentagon officials. Worse still, nothing substantial was found, making Miller only more fervent than second guessing.
Miller's obsession with finding Hussein's supposedly hidden WMDs as an embedded reporter was not an isolated incident in her attempts to conclude a story with erroneous sourcing. According to Franklin Foer's New York Times article titled, The Source of the Trouble, published May 31, 2004, Miller had written a long-string of articles which were eventually revealed to contain many factual errors, which could have been avoided if Miller had actually double-checked her leads for authenticity and with skepticism, starting from when Raines pulled her aside and told her to “Go win a Pulitzer,” shortly after 9/11.
“For the next two years, she supplied the paper with a string of grim exclusives. There was the defector who described Saddam Hussein’s recent renovation of storage facilities for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. There was her report that a Russian virologist might have handed the regime a particularly virulent strain of smallpox. To protect themselves against VX and sarin, she further reported, the Iraqis had greatly increased the importation of an antidote to these agents. And, most memorably, she co-wrote a piece in which administration officials suggested that Iraq had attempted to import aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons. Vice-President Dick Cheney trumpeted the story on Meet the Press, closing the circle. Of course, each of the stories contained important caveats. But together they painted a horrifying picture. There was just one problem with them: The vast majority of these blockbusters turned out to be wrong,” Foer wrote.
It must be pointed out that when the New York Times had acquired the stigma for questionable reporting ethics, such as a Miller's failure to check sources for factuality, credibility, or hidden agendas, there had been other media organizations theoretically under social pressure to refrain from its standard objectivity for fears of appearing unpatriotic.
Eric Boehlert, author of Lapdogs, was interviewed in Bill Moyer's documentary, Buying the War, when he stressed that there existed a major imbalance between reporting arguments both for and against the once possible, now definitive, invasion of Iraq.
“I calculated in 2002, the Washington Post probably published 1,000 articles and columns about Iraq, in excess of 1,000,000 words, and one of the most famous Democrats in the country (Ted Kennedy) raised questions about the war, and the Washington Post set aside 36 words,” Mr. Boehlert said.
Richard Clarke, former chief counter-terrorism advisor on the U.S. National Security Council under the Clinton Administration and Senior Executive Service member specializing in counter-terrorism under George W. Bush, testified at the 9/11 Commission hearings that both he and the current administration had failed the American people in preventing the attacks in September 11. Immediately after his testimony came an intense smear campaign from the White House to downplay Clarke's credibility and draw suspicions of ulterior motives. In an May 30, 2004 interview on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Clarke commented on how many journalists during the post-9/11 period took on a public relations position for the United States government.
“Karl Rove and company are quite good at character assassination. There are all these people, dozens of people in the White House, paid for by you and I, paid for by our taxes, writing talking points, calling up conservative columnists, calling up talk radio hosts, telling them what to say. It's interesting, they all say the same thing, use the same exact words,” Clarke said.
Fox News had been accused by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting of conservative- bias even years before the Bush Administration took office, and having Roger Ailes, former media strategist for Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Sr. as their acting chairman and CEO didn't help to refute these claims. To those believing the charge of right-winged slantedness would then hardly be surprised when Fox News touted neoconservative prewar party lines.
Bob McChesney, founder and president of Free Press, a national, non-partisan organization dedicated to media reform and democratization, was interviewed in Robert Greenwald's documentary, Outfoxed. He referred to the PIPA/Knowledge Networks Polls entitled, Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War, which showed that over two-thirds of Fox News viewers polled believed that the U.S. had found links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, when making this comment:
“All the research shows a very high correlation, in the case of Fox News, with people watching it, having a very confused notion of the world, on the one hand, especially at foreign policy in the Middle East, and also being strongly supportive of the government in power. This is an extraordinarily disturbing trend for the media, for any self-respecting journalist. If your told the more people consume your media, the less they'll know about a subject and the more they'll support government policy. That's exactly the worst thing a journalist should ever want to hear,” Mr. McChesney said.
The United States experienced a rude awakening in the aftermath of September 11, and in all times of crisis comes a need to relinquish divisiveness amongst citizens and unite to overcome the dangers, arbitrarily or not. It may be reasonable to conclude that many key figures within the mainstream media had felt the need to subside their usual course in political skepticism, so highly prominent during the Clinton Administration, then placed faith in the government to perform within the nation's best interest, as if the contention between Bin Laden and Bush allowed for only two options of discourse: Submit to one's doctrine or the other's.
But political platforms are based in ideology, not objectivity, and facts may not necessarily be important to a political party, so long as the power remains with them to further their agendas. All too typically, the consequences of decisions made by those at top first effect those at the very bottom, and when leadership finally catches a whiff of stink from their own policy making, it's the common man who's already drowning in it. With the Iron Law of Oligarchy so unrefutable during times of crisis, can the general public afford to allow the status quo an unchallenged precedent when the trademark of a human being is his own ability to fool himself?
Preceding the authors' assessment, but still referring to texts found in Chapter 12, The Missing Weapons, the Iraq invasion had commenced and Hussein's republican guard had given little resistance during the few short weeks when American forces advanced towards Baghdad. The statue of Saddam was torn down on April 9, marking the end of initial operations, but where had the Ba'athists presumably hid their biological or nuclear weaponry which provoked America into its “do-or-die” push for war?
Judith Miller had been granted the assignment in covering military efforts to locate WMDs for the New York Times, at no surprise to anyone familiar with her previous work in Middle East affairs, (she had co-authored a book with Laurie Mylroie titled, Saddam Hussein & the Crisis in the Gulf, which helped launch neoconservative suspicions of Hussein becoming the next great American nemesis since 1990,) and especially her top-notched standing with both Executive Editor Howell Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd.
Miller was embedded with the Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha unit, and all searching efforts were concentrated in WMD allegations made by an unidentified Iraqi in a baseball cap, supposedly a scientist working in Saddam's chemical weapons program for ten years. According to Isikoff and Corn in Hubris, Miller wasn't allowed to speak with this mysterious source, whose directions hadn't yet led the MET Alpha unit to anything determinant, and the censorship was heavy under the agreements with the 75th Exploitation Task Force, yet the story had been written with a demeanor that it was only a matter of “when” and not “if,” according to concerns from Steven Erlanger, Foreign Correspondent for the New York Times.
But when Erlanger brought Miller's story to both Raines' and Boyd's attention for it's lack of skepticism, it was Erlanger himself who received a reprimand in Miller's defense. It was as if Miller received a free pass for her erratic assertions that WMD's exist in Iraq and an even more erratic aggressiveness to prove it. Even the MET Alpha team was becoming increasingly frustrated with Miller's seeming intentions to occasionally direct the expeditions herself at behest of Chabali's INC allegations, despite his increasing notoriety with CIA and Pentagon officials. Worse still, nothing substantial was found, making Miller only more fervent than second guessing.
Miller's obsession with finding Hussein's supposedly hidden WMDs as an embedded reporter was not an isolated incident in her attempts to conclude a story with erroneous sourcing. According to Franklin Foer's New York Times article titled, The Source of the Trouble, published May 31, 2004, Miller had written a long-string of articles which were eventually revealed to contain many factual errors, which could have been avoided if Miller had actually double-checked her leads for authenticity and with skepticism, starting from when Raines pulled her aside and told her to “Go win a Pulitzer,” shortly after 9/11.
“For the next two years, she supplied the paper with a string of grim exclusives. There was the defector who described Saddam Hussein’s recent renovation of storage facilities for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. There was her report that a Russian virologist might have handed the regime a particularly virulent strain of smallpox. To protect themselves against VX and sarin, she further reported, the Iraqis had greatly increased the importation of an antidote to these agents. And, most memorably, she co-wrote a piece in which administration officials suggested that Iraq had attempted to import aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons. Vice-President Dick Cheney trumpeted the story on Meet the Press, closing the circle. Of course, each of the stories contained important caveats. But together they painted a horrifying picture. There was just one problem with them: The vast majority of these blockbusters turned out to be wrong,” Foer wrote.
It must be pointed out that when the New York Times had acquired the stigma for questionable reporting ethics, such as a Miller's failure to check sources for factuality, credibility, or hidden agendas, there had been other media organizations theoretically under social pressure to refrain from its standard objectivity for fears of appearing unpatriotic.
Eric Boehlert, author of Lapdogs, was interviewed in Bill Moyer's documentary, Buying the War, when he stressed that there existed a major imbalance between reporting arguments both for and against the once possible, now definitive, invasion of Iraq.
“I calculated in 2002, the Washington Post probably published 1,000 articles and columns about Iraq, in excess of 1,000,000 words, and one of the most famous Democrats in the country (Ted Kennedy) raised questions about the war, and the Washington Post set aside 36 words,” Mr. Boehlert said.
Richard Clarke, former chief counter-terrorism advisor on the U.S. National Security Council under the Clinton Administration and Senior Executive Service member specializing in counter-terrorism under George W. Bush, testified at the 9/11 Commission hearings that both he and the current administration had failed the American people in preventing the attacks in September 11. Immediately after his testimony came an intense smear campaign from the White House to downplay Clarke's credibility and draw suspicions of ulterior motives. In an May 30, 2004 interview on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Clarke commented on how many journalists during the post-9/11 period took on a public relations position for the United States government.
“Karl Rove and company are quite good at character assassination. There are all these people, dozens of people in the White House, paid for by you and I, paid for by our taxes, writing talking points, calling up conservative columnists, calling up talk radio hosts, telling them what to say. It's interesting, they all say the same thing, use the same exact words,” Clarke said.
Fox News had been accused by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting of conservative- bias even years before the Bush Administration took office, and having Roger Ailes, former media strategist for Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Sr. as their acting chairman and CEO didn't help to refute these claims. To those believing the charge of right-winged slantedness would then hardly be surprised when Fox News touted neoconservative prewar party lines.
Bob McChesney, founder and president of Free Press, a national, non-partisan organization dedicated to media reform and democratization, was interviewed in Robert Greenwald's documentary, Outfoxed. He referred to the PIPA/Knowledge Networks Polls entitled, Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War, which showed that over two-thirds of Fox News viewers polled believed that the U.S. had found links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, when making this comment:
“All the research shows a very high correlation, in the case of Fox News, with people watching it, having a very confused notion of the world, on the one hand, especially at foreign policy in the Middle East, and also being strongly supportive of the government in power. This is an extraordinarily disturbing trend for the media, for any self-respecting journalist. If your told the more people consume your media, the less they'll know about a subject and the more they'll support government policy. That's exactly the worst thing a journalist should ever want to hear,” Mr. McChesney said.
The United States experienced a rude awakening in the aftermath of September 11, and in all times of crisis comes a need to relinquish divisiveness amongst citizens and unite to overcome the dangers, arbitrarily or not. It may be reasonable to conclude that many key figures within the mainstream media had felt the need to subside their usual course in political skepticism, so highly prominent during the Clinton Administration, then placed faith in the government to perform within the nation's best interest, as if the contention between Bin Laden and Bush allowed for only two options of discourse: Submit to one's doctrine or the other's.
But political platforms are based in ideology, not objectivity, and facts may not necessarily be important to a political party, so long as the power remains with them to further their agendas. All too typically, the consequences of decisions made by those at top first effect those at the very bottom, and when leadership finally catches a whiff of stink from their own policy making, it's the common man who's already drowning in it. With the Iron Law of Oligarchy so unrefutable during times of crisis, can the general public afford to allow the status quo an unchallenged precedent when the trademark of a human being is his own ability to fool himself?
Defining Hubris Within the Case for War Against Iraq
The collaborated book entitled, Hubris, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, is a perfect modern example of fatal pride; the Neoconservative faction had conjected a case for war and regime change in Iraq almost a decade before consolidating an administration which would carry their manifesto through a proclaimed new age of terrorism.
If the intelligence gathered on an new adversary, which had successfully drawn blood on American soil for the first time since the Civil War, did not support an outdated ideology which anticipated nation-state warfare within the Middle East, particularly Iraq, then many prominent Neoconservative figures within the Bush Administration would engage in selective cognition in order to lead the United States to war against a secular, Pan-Arabic despot to avenge an attack carried out by Pan-Islamic extremists on September 11, 2001.
The tragic irony behind the foreign policy of the Bush administration began with a political analyst named Laurie Mylroie. Described in pages 68-69, Ms. Mylroie once advocated for American support of Saddam Hussein in the belief that he was the bastion of hope for the eventual Pro-American Democratization within the Middle East, even after the Reagan Administration condemned his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in his Anfal campaign in 1987. But Saddam's preemptive invasion of Kuwait in 1990 had drastically changed Ms. Mylroie's assessment of Mr. Hussein, from allied hero to the most sinister and dangerous, anti-American mastermind the world has ever seen.
Osama Bin Laden had directed his guerilla-style, Qutbist jihad against the United States, for reasons of establishing a military presence of non-believers in the holy lands of Saudia Arabia, by involving himself with the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Evidence, described in page 70, had surfaced that Iraqi security forces had placed Abdul Rahman Yasin, a minor player in the bombing plot, under house arrest shortly after, and Ms. Mylroie proclaimed this as proof that Saddam Hussein was hell-bent on revenge.
Throughout Chapter 4, One Strange Theory, evidence gathered by non-partisan intelligence agencies suggested that every subsequent terrorist plot against the United States, successful or not, from 1993 to September 11, had been planned and financially backed by ragtag Islamic factions, like Al Qaeda, numbering in only a few thousand members, with no state-sponsorship.
However, Ms. Malroie, now hearkened to by Paul Wolfowitz, could not accept that such stratagems could be employed without strong governmental benefactors. Their conclusion: Saddam. Already, the assumption that intelligence reports garnered under the Clinton Administration were inaccurate had long been established before Bush administrative officials like Donald Rumsfeld held CIA operatives in contempt for drawing similar conclusions.
Within hours after the 9/11 attacks, both the FBI and the CIA gathered evidence to determine Al Qaeda's involvement under Osama Bin Laden's leadership, but Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cheney were not satisfied with their assessments. Since new evidence did not support older assumptions of terrorist politics theorized by Malroie, their apparent conclusion was that the current group of intelligence operatives were too incompetent to dig deep enough to unravel an Islamic coalition where Hussein served as an intermediary.
Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy for George W. Bush (2001 - 2005), was hired to head a new intelligence unit to prove a connection between Saddam and Osama. Details within Chapter 6, The Secret Diggers, describes Mr. Feith's methodology that completely opposed orthodox researching: any bit of information, no matter how erroneous, that supports the original assumption will be deemed credible; likewise, all contrary data will be excluded and discarded.
Feith's justification for his outwardly biased pursuit, described in pages 106-107, was that since Osama and Saddam were in cahoots to wage war against the United States, both would have purposely covered their tracks to prevent such partnership from surfacing, thus no evidence. Their slogan: “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Even before UN investigations into possible WMD storage and manufacturing in Iraq were to take place under Hans Blix's authority, President Bush had already intended for war; The dream of an American influence for democracy within the Middle East was too magnanimous of a goal to allow international "red tape" to stop it, and it was already two years ago when CIA Agent John Maguire had assessed that Iraq's infrastructure was barely holding. But what were the official plans for Iraq invasion and aftermath security?
Events described in Chapter 11, Best-Laid Plans, portrayed a conflict of opinion between the combat-experienced Army officials and civilian defense administrators in regards to the greatest military challenges facing American invasion forces in Iraq.
General Eric Shinseki, Army chief of staff, had suggested a military campaign of “several hundred thousand” soldiers were necessary for postwar occupation. Lieutenant General Richard Cody, the Army deputy chief of staff for operations and plans, proposed a study under the efforts of the Strategic Studies Institute. Their conclusion was that Saddam's republican guard were the least of their worries in a nation toiled with infighting amongst religious and racial factions. Instability was so feared that postwar occupation was theorized to require vast quantities of resources and several years, if not more, to implement them. Even worse, the longer such an occupation force stays in the region, although quite necessary to rebuild, would harness further resentment from civilians towards its foreign occupiers.
Both Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld had undermined both Shinseki's speculation and Cody's report by suggesting that a majority of Iraq civilians, weary of Saddam's rule, would embrace any means to overthrow him. Thinking in terms of national boundaries which artificially united the Iraqi people rather than subcultural irreconciliations that strained them, Rumsfeld estimated a force of 75,000 troops would suffice and Wolfowitz theorized a timeline of six months at most. As for the war costs, revenues from Iraqi oil will pay for this, according to Wolfowitz. It never quite donned on him that an inadequate infrastructure would prevent a properly functioning pipeline.
To understand the underlining hubris behind the Bush Administration's case for war against Saddam in reprisal to attacks by Bin Laden, one must understand that the majority of officials within the Bush Administration were also chartered members of the Project for a New American Century. Within their Statement of Principles, members urged for a return to “Reaganite policy of military strength” for reasons of “preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.”
An American Empire built on military dominance was the goal of Reaganite policy against an equally empirical adversary, the Soviet Union. However, with the Soviet collapse came a power vacuum and a majority of American citizens less interested in global presence during the Clinton years. The world was changing from a conflict between two Cold War superpowers to a cluster of small cultural insurgent organizations, with no national ties, targeting those in favor of secular, economic globalization policies. There is no effective arms race to be found here.
What made America a superpower was the conquering of two fascist nation states, Germany and Japan, during WWII, as well as a half century of stalemating with the Soviet Union. I theorize that the neoconservative's myopic obsession with Hussein was some unconscious desperation to acquire their next great boogyman in order to continue their legendary, and vastly profitable, military build-up.
If the intelligence gathered on an new adversary, which had successfully drawn blood on American soil for the first time since the Civil War, did not support an outdated ideology which anticipated nation-state warfare within the Middle East, particularly Iraq, then many prominent Neoconservative figures within the Bush Administration would engage in selective cognition in order to lead the United States to war against a secular, Pan-Arabic despot to avenge an attack carried out by Pan-Islamic extremists on September 11, 2001.
The tragic irony behind the foreign policy of the Bush administration began with a political analyst named Laurie Mylroie. Described in pages 68-69, Ms. Mylroie once advocated for American support of Saddam Hussein in the belief that he was the bastion of hope for the eventual Pro-American Democratization within the Middle East, even after the Reagan Administration condemned his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in his Anfal campaign in 1987. But Saddam's preemptive invasion of Kuwait in 1990 had drastically changed Ms. Mylroie's assessment of Mr. Hussein, from allied hero to the most sinister and dangerous, anti-American mastermind the world has ever seen.
Osama Bin Laden had directed his guerilla-style, Qutbist jihad against the United States, for reasons of establishing a military presence of non-believers in the holy lands of Saudia Arabia, by involving himself with the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Evidence, described in page 70, had surfaced that Iraqi security forces had placed Abdul Rahman Yasin, a minor player in the bombing plot, under house arrest shortly after, and Ms. Mylroie proclaimed this as proof that Saddam Hussein was hell-bent on revenge.
Throughout Chapter 4, One Strange Theory, evidence gathered by non-partisan intelligence agencies suggested that every subsequent terrorist plot against the United States, successful or not, from 1993 to September 11, had been planned and financially backed by ragtag Islamic factions, like Al Qaeda, numbering in only a few thousand members, with no state-sponsorship.
However, Ms. Malroie, now hearkened to by Paul Wolfowitz, could not accept that such stratagems could be employed without strong governmental benefactors. Their conclusion: Saddam. Already, the assumption that intelligence reports garnered under the Clinton Administration were inaccurate had long been established before Bush administrative officials like Donald Rumsfeld held CIA operatives in contempt for drawing similar conclusions.
Within hours after the 9/11 attacks, both the FBI and the CIA gathered evidence to determine Al Qaeda's involvement under Osama Bin Laden's leadership, but Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cheney were not satisfied with their assessments. Since new evidence did not support older assumptions of terrorist politics theorized by Malroie, their apparent conclusion was that the current group of intelligence operatives were too incompetent to dig deep enough to unravel an Islamic coalition where Hussein served as an intermediary.
Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy for George W. Bush (2001 - 2005), was hired to head a new intelligence unit to prove a connection between Saddam and Osama. Details within Chapter 6, The Secret Diggers, describes Mr. Feith's methodology that completely opposed orthodox researching: any bit of information, no matter how erroneous, that supports the original assumption will be deemed credible; likewise, all contrary data will be excluded and discarded.
Feith's justification for his outwardly biased pursuit, described in pages 106-107, was that since Osama and Saddam were in cahoots to wage war against the United States, both would have purposely covered their tracks to prevent such partnership from surfacing, thus no evidence. Their slogan: “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Even before UN investigations into possible WMD storage and manufacturing in Iraq were to take place under Hans Blix's authority, President Bush had already intended for war; The dream of an American influence for democracy within the Middle East was too magnanimous of a goal to allow international "red tape" to stop it, and it was already two years ago when CIA Agent John Maguire had assessed that Iraq's infrastructure was barely holding. But what were the official plans for Iraq invasion and aftermath security?
Events described in Chapter 11, Best-Laid Plans, portrayed a conflict of opinion between the combat-experienced Army officials and civilian defense administrators in regards to the greatest military challenges facing American invasion forces in Iraq.
General Eric Shinseki, Army chief of staff, had suggested a military campaign of “several hundred thousand” soldiers were necessary for postwar occupation. Lieutenant General Richard Cody, the Army deputy chief of staff for operations and plans, proposed a study under the efforts of the Strategic Studies Institute. Their conclusion was that Saddam's republican guard were the least of their worries in a nation toiled with infighting amongst religious and racial factions. Instability was so feared that postwar occupation was theorized to require vast quantities of resources and several years, if not more, to implement them. Even worse, the longer such an occupation force stays in the region, although quite necessary to rebuild, would harness further resentment from civilians towards its foreign occupiers.
Both Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld had undermined both Shinseki's speculation and Cody's report by suggesting that a majority of Iraq civilians, weary of Saddam's rule, would embrace any means to overthrow him. Thinking in terms of national boundaries which artificially united the Iraqi people rather than subcultural irreconciliations that strained them, Rumsfeld estimated a force of 75,000 troops would suffice and Wolfowitz theorized a timeline of six months at most. As for the war costs, revenues from Iraqi oil will pay for this, according to Wolfowitz. It never quite donned on him that an inadequate infrastructure would prevent a properly functioning pipeline.
To understand the underlining hubris behind the Bush Administration's case for war against Saddam in reprisal to attacks by Bin Laden, one must understand that the majority of officials within the Bush Administration were also chartered members of the Project for a New American Century. Within their Statement of Principles, members urged for a return to “Reaganite policy of military strength” for reasons of “preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.”
An American Empire built on military dominance was the goal of Reaganite policy against an equally empirical adversary, the Soviet Union. However, with the Soviet collapse came a power vacuum and a majority of American citizens less interested in global presence during the Clinton years. The world was changing from a conflict between two Cold War superpowers to a cluster of small cultural insurgent organizations, with no national ties, targeting those in favor of secular, economic globalization policies. There is no effective arms race to be found here.
What made America a superpower was the conquering of two fascist nation states, Germany and Japan, during WWII, as well as a half century of stalemating with the Soviet Union. I theorize that the neoconservative's myopic obsession with Hussein was some unconscious desperation to acquire their next great boogyman in order to continue their legendary, and vastly profitable, military build-up.
Does Patriotism Have a Role in Journalism?
Patriotism can be a dangerous assumption by definition; any political party, theory, or agenda can cheaply claim the monopoly of love and loyalty to one's nation, which will consequently condemn all those in disagreement with a popular theory as traitors through faulty logic.
When patriotism is publicly defined as such, especially in times of crisis, the journalist has an obligation to abstain. However, when the journalist foresees that his duties as a loyal citizen can be best fulfilled through the course of revealing the unbiased truth to the general public, regardless of its consequences, he may very well be the greater patriot as defined by the American founding fathers.
Thomas Paine, although overtly partisan to the idea of sovereignty for the American colonies within his pamphlet entitled, Common Sense, had nonetheless declared, within the last paragraph of its introduction, that neither his opinion, his associations, nor his charisma to carry both were relevant to the rationale proposed within:
“Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle,” wrote Paine.
It was this very proclamation which became a cornerstone in modern democracy. If the government of any nation is comprised of elected officials, established and regulated through the consensus of the general public, it would therefore be vital for all private citizens to be well-informed of actions and policies laid down by their elected officials to prevent tyranny and misrepresentation.
Such a responsibility must be conducted by a body of citizens assigned to effectively extract main points and facts from the demogogy of powerful and influential figures, and especially to reveal those motions affecting the general public but conducted in secret. This “Fourth Estate,” so cynically coined by Edmund Burke in the wake of the French Revolution, provides checks and balances between government and the governed. This has been the primary role of American Journalism, and the philosophies supporting this role has slowly evolved into the concept of “journalistic integrity.”
To reiterate, journalism is most effective in democracies, and expressing loyalty in both institutions, uncorrupted, will neither contradict nor compromise one another. However, one should never confuse the love of democratic principles with nationalism. Not only are they two completely separate concepts, but extreme and irrational forms of nationalism can potentially, and quite frequently do, interfere with free speech. Without the ability to express every relevant perspective in a social issue, journalism will quickly degrade into public relations for the status quo.
Some may argue that unbiased journalism, though honorable in theory, is unrealistic because everyone has an opinion with limited facts to support it. It may be true that every person has their own opinion, and even a right to one, but one who postulates before every angle has been assessed is a fool, for this kind of willful ignorance is unhealthy for both journalists and citizens alike. How one formulates an opinion can be a private affair, and just like any other job, you leave your personal life at home before going to work.
The responsibility of a journalist is to either break down rhetoric into figurative facts or to attribute evaluation to someone else; a journalist's ego should never be involved the written article, no matter how sensitive the topic may be. If a journalist has a problem with this, perhaps he should reconsider employment in social or political activism.
When patriotism is publicly defined as such, especially in times of crisis, the journalist has an obligation to abstain. However, when the journalist foresees that his duties as a loyal citizen can be best fulfilled through the course of revealing the unbiased truth to the general public, regardless of its consequences, he may very well be the greater patriot as defined by the American founding fathers.
Thomas Paine, although overtly partisan to the idea of sovereignty for the American colonies within his pamphlet entitled, Common Sense, had nonetheless declared, within the last paragraph of its introduction, that neither his opinion, his associations, nor his charisma to carry both were relevant to the rationale proposed within:
“Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle,” wrote Paine.
It was this very proclamation which became a cornerstone in modern democracy. If the government of any nation is comprised of elected officials, established and regulated through the consensus of the general public, it would therefore be vital for all private citizens to be well-informed of actions and policies laid down by their elected officials to prevent tyranny and misrepresentation.
Such a responsibility must be conducted by a body of citizens assigned to effectively extract main points and facts from the demogogy of powerful and influential figures, and especially to reveal those motions affecting the general public but conducted in secret. This “Fourth Estate,” so cynically coined by Edmund Burke in the wake of the French Revolution, provides checks and balances between government and the governed. This has been the primary role of American Journalism, and the philosophies supporting this role has slowly evolved into the concept of “journalistic integrity.”
To reiterate, journalism is most effective in democracies, and expressing loyalty in both institutions, uncorrupted, will neither contradict nor compromise one another. However, one should never confuse the love of democratic principles with nationalism. Not only are they two completely separate concepts, but extreme and irrational forms of nationalism can potentially, and quite frequently do, interfere with free speech. Without the ability to express every relevant perspective in a social issue, journalism will quickly degrade into public relations for the status quo.
Some may argue that unbiased journalism, though honorable in theory, is unrealistic because everyone has an opinion with limited facts to support it. It may be true that every person has their own opinion, and even a right to one, but one who postulates before every angle has been assessed is a fool, for this kind of willful ignorance is unhealthy for both journalists and citizens alike. How one formulates an opinion can be a private affair, and just like any other job, you leave your personal life at home before going to work.
The responsibility of a journalist is to either break down rhetoric into figurative facts or to attribute evaluation to someone else; a journalist's ego should never be involved the written article, no matter how sensitive the topic may be. If a journalist has a problem with this, perhaps he should reconsider employment in social or political activism.
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