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CounterPunch
October
17, 2002
You Don't Have
to Drop No More Hints:
I Can Tell You Want Us to Bomb You
by TREY SAGER
Finally, a man who can tell the Iraqi people what
they really want, and help the U.S. give it to them. John F.
Burns, in his October 15th article in the New York Times, describes,
with some contempt, the scene in Baghdad--on the evening before
the referendum, a soccer match attended by 30,000 is treated
to "parachutists descending through the dusk" clutching
portraits of their leader, and throngs of spectators unfurling
banners with "the same relentlessly adoring theme."
Can you believe it? They CAMPAIGN.
Perhaps Burns' scorn emanates from knowing
what a stadium propaganda event should look like--last year's
Super Bowl seems THE event to beat--or maybe he's jealous that
Iraqis have whittled their election down to just one candidate,
when the U.S. is merely down to two. Either way, finger-thrusted,
Burns' piece critiques what has many parallels in the U.S.
Iraq, according to Burns, teems with
enthusiasm for Saddam Hussein, but underneath it all, the people
are aching for a regime change. Despite their ostensible endorsements,
Burns detects the Iraqi people as giving him signals to the
contrary. So, based on these signals, his article attempts
to undermine the Iraqi sentiment and cast its most recent referendum
as fraudulent. To his credit, we can certainly empathize with
how destructive a fraudulent election can be. However, Burns'
article is not about a fair election: it is about personally
interpreting the signs of Iraqi dissidence. And, according to
his interpretation, the Iraqi people are asking for it.
"Minders," Burns' scary sci-fi
term for the more normative "military escorts," seem
to stifle Iraqis from speaking freely to him wherever he goes.
Thus, he draws his evidence for Iraqi unhappiness from the sturdy
Baghdad handshakes and the occasional utterance "America
good." Speculation follows from these suggestive encounters,
that in fact, despite the frenzied enthusiasm he witnesses,
there is political unrest in Iraq. So, things are not exactly
as they appear on TV? Or in the New York Times? Burns' logic
mirrors that of a dumbfounded sex offender-- "Look, she
said no, but I could tell she really wanted it by the way she
looked at me."
Iraqis, when asked about Bush or Blair,
"respond in terms strikingly similar to the diatribes that
run daily in the state-run television and radio, or the government-controlled
newspapers." These remarks on the media are curious, and
the utter beauty of them is their location: the New York Times.
The insinuation is, of course, the people of Iraq are brainwashed,
while the American freedom of press steers clear of governmental
influence. What, then, is the function of Burns' empty contemptuousness,
other than to reinforce punctured arguments for war in this
thinly veiled propaganda? That non-Iraqis are free-thinking
creatures able to dislodge themselves from the automation CNN
inspires...perhaps Burns needs a flight back to New York to
take a listen.
Trey Sager
is a poet and writer in NYC. He can be reached at: prunikos@hotmail.com
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