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Today's
Stories
April
16 / 18, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Bush, Kerry and Empire
April
15, 2004
Greg
Moses
Follow the Families, Not the Script
Virginia
Tilley
The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt:
Just Change the Channel
Ron
Jacobs
They Coulda Been Champions of the World:
Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes Reporting
in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion Story: We Rule; You
Die
April
13, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Ill, Old and Young of Fallujah Ask:
"Do We Look Like Fighters?"
Stan
Goff
The Bridge: a Rant
Dave
Lindorff
The Real Lessons of Vietnam
April 10
/ 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick
Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other Delicacies
Robert
Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview with Lee
Evans
Brandy
Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon
Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website
of the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9,
2004
Robert
Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L.
Hess
The
Non--Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8, 2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick
Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid
Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas
Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7,
2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick
Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali
Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert
Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6, 2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William
Blum
The
Anti--Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan
Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al--Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert
Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
|
Weekend
Edition
April 16 / 18, 2004
Bush, Ashcroft and Rice
Gott
Mit Uns
By BRUCE JACKSON
President
George W. Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and National Security
Adviser Condoleeza Rice all appeared on national television in the past
week defending their wars abroad and at home, and working very hard
to get another four years to continue doing more of the same. Not one
of them admitted any error, misstep, miscalculation or regret. All three
blamed others for the ills of the world, the mess in Iraq, the expanding
terrorist threat. The only solution the three of them had to terrorism
was war and repression; there was not a word about causes of terrorism
or things that United States might do that did not involve force of
arms or expanding powers of law enforcement. Bush several times, while
evading questions, talked about how much sympathy he had for the families
of the September 11 victims. He wore their victimhood like a badge of
honor. Those families should be howling in outrage at the way he expropriated
and exploited their pain.
Bush
has given only 12 press conferences in his 39-month presidency, and
only three of those took place in prime time. He began his April 13
press conference with a carefully-prepared 17-minute campaign speech
in which he defended his invasion and occupation of Iraq. That was the
tradeoff for his handlers: they were willing to risk him taking 45 minutes
of unscripted questions in return for that prime-time speechifying in
a context that didn't look like a commercial for his re-election, which
is what it was.
He
took questions from about 14 or 15 reporters and answered almost none
of them. Whatever the question, he came back to the same narrow themes:
Saddam is bad. We're good. Gott mit uns. Iraqis are better off now than
they were. Iraqis have freedom and will be a center of freedom for the
entire Middle East. The occupation will end June 30 when government
is handed over to persons or parties unknown on June 30. Saddam is bad.
We're good. Gott mit uns. We'll never quit. Quitting is bad. Saddam
is bad. We're good.
A
reporter asked if this wasn't getting more and more like Vietnam. Bush
responded, "I think the analogy is false. I also happen to think
that analogy is — sends the wrong message to our troops and sends
the wrong message to the enemy." That is, he first dismissed the
question, then said that even asking it was unpatriotic. He next went
into a long non sequitur he would repeat in various ways throughout
the next 45 minutes: "Look, this is hard work. It's hard to advance
freedom in a country that has been strangled by tyranny. And yet, we
must stay the course because the end result is in our nation's interest."
Didn't LBJ say exactly the same thing as he was pulling us deeper and
deeper into the Big Muddy?
Another
reporter asked, "One of the biggest criticisms of you is that whether
it's W.M.D. in Iraq, postwar planning in Iraq or even the question of
whether this administration did enough to ward off 9/11, you never admit
a mistake. Is that a fair criticism? And do you believe that there were
any errors in judgment that you made related to any of those topics
I brought up?" Bush replied with another rambling non sequitur:
"Well,
I think, as I mentioned, you know, it's the country wasn't on war
footing. And yet we're at war. And that's just a reality. I mean that
was the situation that existed prior to 9/11. Because the truth of
the matter is, most of the country never felt that we'd be vulnerable
to an attack such as the one that Osama bin Laden unleashed on us.
We knew he had designs on us. We knew he hated us. But there was nobody
in our government at least — and I don't think the prior government
— could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive
scale. The people know where I stand. I mean in terms of Iraq, I was
very clear about what I believed. And, of course, I want to know why
we haven't found a weapon yet. But I still know Saddam Hussein was
a threat. And the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. I don't
think anybody can, maybe people can argue that. I know the Iraqi people
don't believe that they're better off with Saddam Hussein, would be
better off with Saddam Hussein in power. I also know that there's
an historic opportunity here to change the world. And it's very important
for the loved ones of our troops to understand that the mission is:
an important vital mission for the security of America and for the
ability to change the world for the better."
Several
reporters asked if he had made any errors or had any regrets. None that
he could think of. Once he paused for a long time, but just couldn't
come up with anything. Occasionally the camera cut to National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who looked desperate. I imagined her thinking,
"This is the guy I praised and defended in my public testimony
to the 9-11 Commission last week. Now everybody knows that I am truly
full of shit."
Perhaps
his silliest evasion was in response to a question about his testimony
before the 9-11 Commission:
Q.
Mr. President, Why are you and the vice president insisting on appearing
together before the 9/11 commission? And Mr. President, who will you
be handing the Iraqi government over to on June 30?
A.
We'll find that out soon. That's what Mr. Brahimi is doing. He's figuring
out the nature of the entity we'll be handing sovereignty over. And
secondly, because the the 9/11 commission wants to ask us questions.
That's why we're meeting, and I look forward to meeting with them
and answering their questions.
Q.
Mr. President, I was asking why you're appearing together rather than
separately, which was their request.
A.
Because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that
the 9/11 commission is looking forward to asking us, and I'm looking
forward to answering them.
Let's
see. Hold on for a minute. Oh — I've got some must calls, I'm
sorry.
This
was a question his handlers surely knew would be asked. He had no answer
for it. He just blew smoke, grinned, and asked for another question.
The reporters, who were packed closely into the small room, surely had
sore ribs at the end of the evening from all the times they poked each
other with their elbows while maintaining a professionally neutral face
during the 45 minutes this slip, slide, and simplification continued.
The
New York Times and Washington Post treated his remarks at the press
conference seriously, which is what they have to do, I suppose, but
it was mostly absurd stuff, something that could have been a bit in
one of Mel Brooks lesser films. And I suppose we have to take it seriously
too—not because he said anything of substance, but because the
man who could utter all that foolishness is ordering other people to
kill people. He starts wars and seems ready to start more. He admits
no error so he does not learn from experience. He credits God with sanctioning
his mission so there is really no need to question or ponder the possibility
of error. He's like Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomania, in Chaplin's
The Great Dictator—absurd and laughable, until you remember that
the sonofabitch is deadly.
It
was hard not to see Bush's press conference as the third act of a play,
the first two acts of which were Condoleezza Rice's and John Ashcroft's
public testimony before the 9-11 commission. Rice was argumentative
and persistent, continually interrupting the questioners, answering
her own questions rather than the questions put to her, chewing up the
clock like an NFL quarterback in the final minutes of a tight game.
She smiled now and then, girlishly, and sat with her fingers interlaced
the entire time. Afterwards, commentators spoke of her style and how
she conveyed an impression of competence and authority. I don't remember
anyone complimenting her substance, of which there was precious little.
Ashcroft began his testimony with a spirited talk about the walls erected
by prior administrations that prevented federal agencies from sharing
information, walls that the USA-Patriot Act had torn down. Under questioning
he admitted that the walls didn't really exist; what existed was nervousness
and pusillanimousness among administrators in the Justice Department,
and the USA-Patriot Act had functioned to shore up their lack of confidence
in their own decisions. Because those guys lacked cojones we got the
Patriot Act? Condi's lack of substance. Ashcroft's red herrings. Bush's
evasions, wafflings, trivializations. None of them responsible for anything
bad. Gott mit uns.
I
come again, as I do so often after hearing Bush speak, to Franz Hippler,
Hitler's chief of propaganda film, who told Bill Moyers in an interview
years ago, "Simplify and repetition. That is the secret of modern
propaganda." Stay on message, whatever the data. Deaths are up
in Iraq? We're bringing them freedom and Saddam was bad. No WMD in Iraq?
It's a better place now and Saddam was bad. No evidence of any connection
between Saddam and terrorists? Saddam was very bad. We're very good.
We'll stay the course. Those deaths will have been in vain if we don't
stay the course. Simplify and repeat. Simplify and repeat. Saddam was
bad. We're good. Gott mit uns. Gott mit uns. Gott mit uns.
Next
question.
Bruce
Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. Capen Professor
of American Culture at University at Buffalo, edits the web journal
BuffaloReport.com. His most
recent book is Emile de Antonio in Buffalo (Center Working Papers).
Jackson is also a contributor to The Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can
be reached at: bjackson@buffalo.edu
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