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April 19,
2003
Batting for
the Winning Team
America's In-Bedded
Journalism
by
WILLIAM MacDOUGALL
As expected, the sacking of Baghdad by victorious
coalition forces--that is America, Great Britain and a handful
of Australian and Danish troops--has moved pro-war commentators
to lyrical flights of fancy not witnessed since, say, the liberation
of Afghanistan. No more so in the US, where internet websites
like Media Research Center
and Town Hall provide
a welcoming home to some of America's more radical conservative
commentators and writers. Like Ann Coulter, for example. Coulter
is the poster girl of choice for America's more discerning conservatives.
Sometime lawyer and author of not one but two New York Times
bestsellers ("High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against
Bill Clinton" and "Slander: Liberal Lies About the
American Right"), Ms. Coulter wages a semi-permanent war
against the mores of American Liberalism and acts as a tireless
champion of the war on terrorism from the rarified confines of
anncoulter.org.
When not lamenting the shortage of available
dates within her coterie of Washington policy wonks, Ms. Coulter
can be found directing her own particular brand of splattergun
conservatism to the great issues of the day. "We should
invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to
Christianity" she wrote of alleged terrorist threat Muslim
nations way back in 2001. She was subsequently sacked by the
National Review when editors spiked a follow-up piece which proposed
tighter passport security checks for "suspicious swarthy
looking males."
Writing in Town Hall, Coulter's regular
syndicated column proudly boasts "Shock and Awe Campaign
Routs Liberals" (10/04/03):
"Liberals are no longer a threat
to the nation. The new media have defeated them with free speech--the
very freedom these fifth columnists hide behind whenever their
speech gets them in hot water with the American people. Today,
the truth is instantly available on the Internet, talk radio
and Fox News Channel. No wonder liberals accuse Matt Drudge of
absurd sodomic acts, call Rush Limbaugh a "big fat idiot,"
and say "really stupid people" watch Fox News Channel--as
anti-war actress Janeane Garofalo said between assuring us that
Saddam Hussein has no weapons of mass destruction. "
Yes, you heard it here: the truth is
instantly available on the internet, talk radio and--yes, that's
right--Fox News Channel. And what exactly is the truth according
to Coulter's political and spiritual comrades in arms? runk on
a cheap but potent mix of "told you so" sanctimony
and post-war chest-beating bravura, the darlings of America's
right wing media have been moved to pen triumphalist eulogies
by the score. WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah reclaims and gives
new meaning to the "Shock and Awe" phrase in a gratuitous
display of "aw, shucks!" hokum not normally seen outwith
the gushy prose of Hallmark greetings cards. "Victory is
so sweet" he crows in his "Liberation!" headlined
column of 10 April, before taking a swift and unexpected detour
into rhetorical profundity (or should that be profanity?):
"Isn't it ironic that in courageously
defending our own country from terrorist attack we serve to liberate
others. That's the way it always works."
A veritable cottage industry of right-wing
punditry has sprung up in America post 9/11, of which the likes
of Coulter and Farah are but the tip of a very substantial iceberg.
Moreover, anybody can join this club. The Media Research Centre
("America's Media Watchdog" and "The Leader in
Documenting, Exposing and Neutralizing Liberal Media Bias")
boasts a "Special Gloat and Quote Edition" (10/04/03)
which highlights the erroneous war predictions made by the liberal--that
is, by American standards--media. Likewise, the National Review
saw fit to engage in a little gloating with its own "Hall
of Shame--Media Recriminations after VB Day" (10/04/03)
opinion piece which pours scorn on the naysaying efforts of Peter
"The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance"
Arnett, Maureen "Ideology should not shape facts when lives
are at stake" of the New York Times and retired US Army
General Barry McCaffrey who rather unsportingly told the BBC's
Newsnight programme (24/03/03) that Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld had misjudged the nature of the conflict.
Issuing the equivalent of a republican
fatwa on the not-so-great and good of media lah-lah land in the
Washington
Dispatch, Patrick Rooney (Director of Special Projects at
the crazily titled "Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny"
tree-hugging group dedicated to "rebuilding the family by
rebuilding the man") writes:
"Some of these media people still
don't get it. The anti-Bush Katie Couric still thinks we're buying
her phony "sweet as pie" persona. She's going to be
in for a rude awakening. Even the idiotic Michael Moore, he of
Oscar's peech infamy, will see his comeuppance. So will Madonna,
who recently had to pull back her video showing the aging entertainer
tossing a grenade into the lap of a President Bush look-alike.
The negative blowback from this outrageous and desperate act
will likely catch her unawares and unprepared."
Showing all of the absolutist fundamentalist
symptoms so readily despised in peoples of an Arab or swarthy
tint, Rooney witheringly re-invents veteran Pulitzer Prize winning
journalist Peter Arnett as the "Goebbels of Baghdad";
but not before employing a few choice Bush cheerleading military
similes in support of the just cause. "George Bush"
he writes, "has done something remarkable--his relentless
prosecution of the war on terrorism has had the effect of a hand
grenade, tossed into the collective minds of the world's doubters.
A spiritual equation has been proven--good is stronger than evil,
and will always win when it is fully employed."
Once a Doubting Thomas ,who felt that
"victory on a worldwide scale for the forces of good seemed
impossible", the proud and patriotic "crisis of masculinity"
pundit's faith in the overwhelming power of good over evil has
been re-affirmed by Saddam's capitulation to American military
might. Moved almost to song, Rooney's column reads as a love
letter to God's own country: "For the greatest force for
good in the world is embodied in the United States of America.
We have the wisest leader; and the strongest, best equipped military
in the world. Most important of all, we have the American people,
much more resilient and powerful than their enemies--or even
they themselves--may have previously realized."
David Horowitz, editor-in-chief of <FrontPageMagazine.com>
and lapsed libertarian (the progeny of two lifelong communists
and one-time radical left trailblazer best known for "his
lifelong intellectual and political journey"), also steps
up to bat for the winning team. A 1990 recipient of the Teach
Freedom Award from Ronald Reagan, Horowitz eschews originality
in deference to the triumphalist spirit of the times. Using the
"Liberation!" headline to similarly dazzling if hyperbolic
effect as Farah, Horowitz comes, not to bury Caesar, but to praise
him:
"Baghdad is liberated. In the days
to come let us not forget that if it was not for one man, and
one man alone--George Bush--the people of Iraq would not be celebrating
in the streets and pulling down Saddam's statues today. Instead
the jails would still be full and the torture chambers still
operating and the weapons mills still turning out the instruments
of future destruction."
Messrs Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz
might just want to take issue with Horowitz on that particular
assertion. Like Coulter and Farah before him, Horowitz pooh-poohs
the idea of a recalcitrant left waking up to the error of its
ant-war protesting ways. "Should we now get ready for apologies?"
he asks. "Don't hold your breath. In The Nation today, Medea
Benjamin, head of Global Exchange, pro-Castro communist and leader
of the anti-American anti-war left [that's a truckload of antis],
calls for a worldwide effort to send human shields to North Korea,
Syria and Iran, the pillars of terrorist power, to give aid and
comfort to the enemy" he concludes. Employing sections of
the George W Bush Speechwriters Handbook to dizzying effect,
Horowitz gleefully looks forward to the battle ahead:
"We have come to a post-Cold War
historic turning point. We have entered the era of a new civil
war between the forces of freedom and the powers of Islamo-fascist
and communist darkness, and once again the left is clearly etemined
to take its stand on the other side. The good news is that America
is back. Our military has performed superlatively. Our leadership
has stood tall. We ourselves can celebrate over this and look
confidently towards what lies ahead."
What lies ahead indeed. The Thursday
10 April Fox News (you know, where the truth is instantly available)
broadcast Hannity and Colmes show--co-hosted by "Let Freedom
Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism" author
Sean Hannity and liberal counterpoint Alan Colmes--provides what
might well be a glimpse of things to come. "Should Germany
and France be punished for their actions in the months leading
up to the war in Iraq?" (answers on a postcard please to
"The Commander in Chief, The White House..."). Writing
two days prior to what will be remembered in the history books
as VB Day, Dennis Prager asks, "Dear Germany: Have You Learned
Anything?". Germany's refusal to become involved in military
operations in Iraq is tastelessly posited as a timely reminder
of the national stain that won't go away:
"How could you have produced a Hitler
and not recognize another one just one generation later? How
could you know firsthand about torture chambers and children's
screams and not ache to end them in another country? How could
you side with amoral France against your friend America? There
is, it would seem, only one answer. Nazism taught you nothing.
Instead of learning that evil must be fought, you learned that
fighting is evil."
To think, this is how a nation thanks
a man who tirelessly argued that Jews should not boycott German
products because Volkswagen and Mercedes did business with Israel.
Prager glibly signs off his J'Accuse by facetiously thanking
Germany for at least giving the world the music of Bach. Prominent
radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is similarly intrigued by
the fall-out and wider ramifications of Operation Iraqi Freedom
(why, it even sounds like a sequel). "Folks", he begins
his "The Battle to Interpret the War Begins" Truth
Detector opinion piece of 9 April, "the battle to interpret
the war is going to be a big deal. Things are already being said
by people out there who want to cast aspersions on the achievement
that has taken place. And while it's going to be frustrating,
and you might even get a little bit mad at it, I would urge you
to put it in the same context as all of the other whining that
the left has been engaging in for the last year and five months."
Exercising a fondness for militaristic
metaphor and simile that has become something of a defining characteristic
of his conservative cohorts, Limbaugh asserts that "The
next battle is to interpret this war, to define it. The nti-American
crowd, the blame-America-first crowd is not going to go away.
They're going to be louder than ever before. They're going to
be busy as little bees trying to turn this victory into defeat.
They're going to turn this liberation into conquest. They are
going to turn what is obviously vindication into failure. They're
going to try to do all this particularly as it relates to the
president." Administering the last rites to the anti-war
lobby, he concurs that the left are "so enraged and embittered
because our vision of the world is being vindicated, and their
vision, fortunately, is nowhere to be seen. So the intellectual
battle will go on, and just as we won the battle to liberate
Iraq, so will we win the battle to liberate America from the
hearts and the minds of the blame-America-first crowd."
There are so many lessons to be learned
from the Iraqi experience according to Farah, uppermost among
these being the loosening of bothersome UN shackles and the tedious
search for international political consensus . "We don't
need the United Nations to act decisively in our national interest
and in the others of others desperate for liberation" he
boasts, before questionably asserting that "We [America]
don't need to beg and bribe other nations to join our coaltions."
So, let's hear it for the trriumph of good over evil. Farah proposes
a toast to the greatest force in the world for freedom today:
"Congratulations, America. You have done it again. Your
hard work your sacrifice, your determination has won the day...Celebrate!
Praise God! This is a great day in our history and a great day
in the history of the Middle East and the people of the world.
It's a day reminsicent of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's a
day reminiscent of the liberation of Paris. It's a day reminiscent
of the toppling of the Taliban."
Substitute Allah for God and you've got
yourself a Jihad. Whipping himself up into an almighty fervour,
Farah continues to plough his barren furrow:
"God bless those brave fighting
men who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom in Iraq. God
bless them for having courage and faith. God bless them for carrying
out this righteous mission. Today, there is fear and trepidation
in Damascus and Tehran. Today, the enemies of freedom from Pyongyang
to Beirut have something to think about."
Perhaps he means brave fighting men like
the American soldier who, asked to explain why marines shot up
a bus killing a whole family at a US checkpoint just outside
Baghdad, replied: "'We didn't know what was in that bus.
It may sound bad, but I'd rather see more of them dead than any
of my friends. Everyone understands the word 'stop', right?"
Or perhaps he's thinking about the US marine sergeant who boasted
"We had a great day--We killed a lot of people. We dropped
a few civillians, but what do you do?" That, as veteran
Australian journalist John Pilger ruefully points out (Crimes
Against Humanity, 10/04/03) is the cost of liberation accepted
by the mainstream media in both London and Washington: "The
Moment Young Omar Discovered the Price of War" ran The Observer
page three of Sunday 6th April, accompanying a picture of an
orphaned 15 year old Iraqi boy being comforted by an American
marine whose presence in Iraq cost Omar the greatest price payable.
Writing in The Independent (12/04/03),
Robert Fisk notes that "Wars have a habit of turning normally
sane people into cheerleaders, of transforming rational journalists
into nastly little puffed-up fantasy colonels." Certainly,
the rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights look of wonderment of so
many embedded journalists would suggest Fisk is onto something.
That's as may be, but how to explain the righteous evangelical
rantings of right wing talking heads whose version of events
in Iraq has more to do with staged photo opportunities afforded
by toppled Saddam statues than it does with the plights of children
like 12 year old Ali Ismaeel Abbas--the subject of a Daily Mirror
campaign to raise funds to treat his potentially life threatening
burns--who lost both his family and his arms when his home was
bombed. But no, the most evocative image of the liberation of
Baghdad, according to the Washington Times' Diana West ("Free
at Last", 11/04/03), is of "the young man, dressed
in a denim jacket, holding a homemade poster celebrating the
'Hero of the Peace'--George W. Bush--and kissing the president's
faintly smiling photo."
Displaying what would be considered a
faintly disturbing penchant for fairytale endings in even the
most weak-kneed of romantics, West muses, "Maybe it's the
kiss itself, reminiscent of all the fairytale kisses that break
evil spells, or maybe it's the expressive face of Iraqi gratitude
towards an American president who has awakened a nation from
a nightmare of brutality and repression." Convicted Iran-Contral
scandal liar Oliver North, now earning a crust as an internet
radio host ("Bringing common sense to the...internet")
and Fox News embedded reporter, chimes in with a vivid description
of the US Marines march into Baghdad which bodes well for his
fledgeling thriller writing career:
"I was with the 5th and 7th Marines
as they entered Baghdad and were greeted by little kids walking
up to them and handing them flowers. It is one of the most moving
things I've seen so far in this war--children greeting their
liberators with flowers and homemade American flags. We've seen
it several times, and it's the kind of thing that gets you choked
up because the people are so thrilled to get rid of this brutal
regime."
Tomorrow's generation of American political
columnists and journalists primed on a diet of Fox News reports
and "embedded" reporting may do well to dispense with
the journalistic principles and tenets which created giants of
the calibre of Ed Murrow and James Cameron. Much easier instead
to adhere to a stale diet of old lies, half truths and appeals
to popular prejudice like San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra
J. Saunders, who trots out the old line that the "UN Security
Council allowed Hussein essentially to chase weapons inspectors
out of Iraq in 1998. The United Nations oversaw the Oil for Food
program that allowed Hussein to siphon off funds meant to feed
his people. Despite more than 250 U.N. workers overseeing the
program at various times, Hussein still managed to funnel Food
for Oil money into his propaganda and palaces. In Israel, posters
of suicide bombers have popped up in U.N. Relief and Works Agency
schools for Palestinian refugees. "
Dissenting American voices have been
silenced to such an extent that the conflict in Iraq has been
reduced to the dumbed down revisionism of pro-American films
like Black Hawk Down; with the usual supporting cast of freedom
threatening bad guys. Who needs embedded journalism when you
can have in-bedded journalism? Substitute Rudolf Rocker's "citizens"
with "journalists" and the picture becomes clearer
still:
"It is certainly dangerous for a
state when its citizens have a conscience; what it needs is men
without conscience, or, better still, men whose conscience is
quite in conformity with reasons of state, men in whom the feeling
of personal responsibility has been replaced by the automatic
impulse to act in the interests of the state."
Read it and weep.
William MacDougall can be reached at: wmacdougall@msn.com.
Today's
Features
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Robert
Jensen
Self-Determination in Iraq? Then the
US Must Leave
Dr.
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The Rape of Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Aiming at Syria: Stop Them Before They Kill Again
Robert
Fisk
The Final Sacking of Baghdad
Col. Dan
Smith
Post-War Iraq: Asking the Right Questions
Ali
Abunimah and Hussein Ibish
A Cycle of Chaos and Confrontation: Misadventures of the NeoCons
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/15
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