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CounterPunch
February
21, 2003
Peretz to Bush: Bomb Iraq
You Call This
Daring?
by JASON LEOPOLD
The New Republic, the 89 year-old "liberal"
journal of politics and the arts, has shifted its editorial stance
recently by publishing stories that supports a war with Iraq
and criticizes the Democratic party for its weakness, according
to a story in Wednesday's New York Observer.
Moreover, the weekly magazine will unveil
a new redesign with the publication of Friday's issue. But putting
the magazine through a makeover is a cheap way to conceal from
its subscribers Editor-in-Chief and co-owner Martin Peretz's
personal stance on Iraq. In a recent press release, The New Republic
says its coverage as of late represents "several daring
political stances" on issues such as the U.S. going to war
with Iraq without the support of the United Nations.
This is misleading. The only thing that's
daring about the "new" New Republic is how Peretz is
fooling readers of the magazine into believing that The New Republic's
editorial stance does not represent the personal politics of
its editors. Many of The New Republic's readers are unaware that
Peretz, along with several other journalists and right-wing lawmakers,
lobbied President Bush nine days after the September 11 terrorist
attacks to start a war with Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from
power, claiming that Iraq may be linked to the attacks, an allegation
that the Bush Administration has made many times without a shred
of evidence to back it up.
"We agree with Secretary of State
Powell's recent statement that Saddam Hussein "is one of
the leading terrorists on the face of the Earth," the letter
says. "It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance
in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even
if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy
aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must
include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power
in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute
an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international
terrorism. The United States must therefore provide full military
and financial support to the Iraqi opposition. American military
force should be used to provide a "safe zone" in Iraq
from which the opposition can operate. And American forces must
be prepared to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition
by all necessary means," says the letter.
What's most troubling about the letter
to Bush is that it was written by The Project for the New American
Century, a right-wing think tank that has been instrumental in
advising Bush what America's foreign policy should look like.
It's founder and chairman is William Kristol, editor of the conservative
magazine The Weekly Standard, and its former members have included
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz. Kristol also signed the letter to Bush. It can be
viewed at
http://www.newamericancentury.org/Bushletter.htm
Peretz has been the top editor at The
New Republic since 1974 and was co-founder with CNBC pundit and
former hedge fund guru James Kramer of The Street.com. Peretz
was former Vice President Al Gore's professor at Harvard and
helped Gore on his initial run for Congress and the Senate and
was also instrumental in Gore's run for the presidency.
Peretz said in an interview that "there
are other editors around here" and that his personal views
on Iraq are not represented in the pages of The New Republic.
He said the magazine's views on foreign policy have been consistent
for 25 years.
"We were for the last Gulf War and
for aid to the Contras," Peretz said. Comparing The New
Republic to its close competitor The Nation, Peretz said, "Whatever
The Nation was for we were against. Whatever The Nation was against
we were for. The only thing we share was we were rather soft
on Stalin in the late 1930s."
Still, when journalists become personally
involved in the issues they cover there is no way readers can
be sure they are getting their news delivered accurately. Being
an opinion-oriented publication doesn't excuse that. Look at
how New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman and Wall Street
Journal opinion columnist Peggy Noonan were attacked by the media
when they wrote critically about the financial machinations of
Enron Corporation and how it was later revealed that both were
paid speechwriters and consultants for the company. Krugman wasn't
even writing for The New York Times or any other publication
when Enron hired him and he was still taken to task. Business
journalists, as a general rule, aren't allowed to own stock in
company's they write about because their coverage could be deemed
bias. The <Street.com>'s reporters are the exception, but
the online publication still requires its reporters to disclose
to readers whether they own stock in the companies they write
about. Peretz should be held to the same principles. If he were
to simply disclose to The New Republic's subscribers that he
offered the President some advice about his views on how the
Administration should deal with Iraq at least his subscribers
could decide whether The New Republic is still worth reading.
Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, senior scholar
of the University of Southern California's school of Policy,
Planning and Development and an expert on the media, said she
doesn't believe journalists should get involved in activism,
but if they do it should be disclosed to the reader.
" I know journalists who walked
in abortion rights marches, but that's not something I would
do," Jeffe said. "It's an individual decision. A reporter
or editor may believe they can still be objective despite it.
I would expect a journalist who does that should write a letter
to his or her readers and let readers judge. It's a more honest
way to handle it".
I subscribe to The New Republic. While
researching a story I wrote this week about how Rumsfeld and
Wolfowitz wrote a letter to President Clinton in 1998 urging
Clinton to start a war with Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from
power, I came across another the letter that Peretz and others
wrote to Bush after 9-11. I felt cheated and betrayed. I was
lead to believe that the magazine I read every week was providing
me with its point of view, not Peretz's. I haven't decided yet
whether to cancel my subscription.
Jason Leopold
can be reached at: jasonleopold@hotmail.com
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February 15
/ 16, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Colin
Powell and the Great "Intelligence Fraud"
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
The Whole World is Watching
Edward Said
A Monumental Hypocrisy
Wouter Hijink
Report from Amsterdam
"War: Do Not Feed!"
Linda Heard
At Last! Proud to be British
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Taking a Stand on Iraq
Robert Fisk
The Case Against War
Lev Grinberg
Lessons from Israel
A War Without Legitimacy
Chris Floyd
Cold Fronts:
Bush War Profits
Ahmad Faruqui
Stepping Back from the Brink of War
Norman Madarasz
French Kisses from the Citizens of France
Adam Lebowitz
Scott Ritter in Tokyo
Kurt Nimmo
Bring Us the Head of Osama bin Laden
Forrest Hylton
The Revolt in Bolivia
Col. Dan Smith
Irrelevance and Credibility:
Bush, NATO and the UN
Wayne Madsen
The Lies of Tom Lantos
Ranjit Hoskote
The Invisible Modernities of the Islamic World
Emily Zitter-Smith
Who's Safe Now?
An American in Cairo
Rich Procter
Anybody Remember the Powell Doctrine?
Poets Basement:
Eliot
Katz, Scott Handleman, and Bruce Tomczak
Website of the Weekend
Anti-War
Posters
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
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and Jeffrey St. Clair
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