“THINGS THAT CAN’T GO ON FOREVER, DON’T”

MURDOCH KNIGHTS SON

PAYING TO BE HEARD

On a recent trip to Indonesia I was introduced to the ancient art of the shadow play — a genre of ancient Javanese storytelling inspired by great Hindu epics of war and betrayal. The action takes place on a big screen where hand-held puppets dramatize these historic tales. The audience watches from the front, but the real action takes place behind the screen, in the shadows. Some say Indonesian politics take place behind just such a screen. And now the same is being said of American poli-tricks by no less an authority than that born-again moral leader, Robert Byrd, the Senate sage from West Virginia.

WISDOM IN UNEXPECTED PLACES

Yesterday, Byrd was thundering against the capitulation to White House pressure. The Senate gave up $87 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq “reconstruction” despite the absence of a clear plan or exit strategy, despite the fact that some of these billions are going, not to Iraq, but across the Potomac into a Pentagon slush-fund for operations who-knows-where. The learned Byrd man compared it to a Shadow Play:

Before us today is a massive $87 billion supplemental appropriations package that commits this nation to a long and costly occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, and yet the collective wisdom of the House and Senate appropriations conference that produced it was little more than a SHADOW PLAY [emphasis mine, DS], choreographed to stifle dissent and rubber stamp the President’s request.

Perhaps this take-no-prisoners approach is how the President and his advisers define victory, but I fear they are fixated on the muscle of the politics instead of the wisdom of the policy. The fact of the matter is, when it comes to policy, the Iraq supplemental is a monument to failure.

Funny how much of this perspective, with its insightful distinction between “the muscle of politics instead of the wisdom of policy” is missing in most media accounts. Instead we have rhetoric from on high, rhetoric such as “the United States would ‘never run’ from its ‘vital’ mission in Iraq” as we learn of another dead soldier in Baghdad this AM. (Incidentally, today is the anniversary of the hostage-taking at the US Embassy in Teheran in l979. Iran was another country we would never “run from.”)

KRUGMAN’S LESSON OF THE DAY

Only Paul Krugman of the NY Times comments on “the wisdom of policy” in his twice weekly Econ 101 lesson on the op-ed page. His key concept, which we should underline for the final exam, is, “Things that can’t go on forever, don’t.” He writes:

Some Americans may share the views of the Republican congressman who said that progress in Iraq was “a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day.” (Support the troops!)

But whether or not you think troop losses are important, there’s growing evidence that our Iraq strategy is unsustainable. The immediate issue is manpower. Some politicians are calling for a bigger force in Iraq — but even our current force levels can’t be maintained.

In September the Congressional Budget Office analyzed how many U.S. soldiers could be kept in Iraq without extending tours beyond one year. The conclusion was that force levels would have to start dropping rapidly about five months from now, and that the forces in Iraq and Kuwait would eventually have to shrink by almost two-thirds. As the report explains, the Pentagon can use various expedients to maintain a larger force in Iraq, but all of these expedients would threaten to undermine our military readiness.

(www.nytimes.com/2003/11/04/opinion/04KRUG.html)

SCOTLAND THE BRAVE

As we contemplate the difficulties facing our military, we hear rumblings from the hills of Scotland that worry peace activists who suspect we may soon see the mighty bombardiers of our Air Force back in action. Consider yourself a newly appointed member of the just created Media Channel Intelligence Agency (MCIA) and help me evaluate some “raw intelligence” coming in from across the Big Pond. It comes from a group called the Peacewatchers at the US Airforce Fairford and Welford bases in Scotland:

Since Saturday, people in the Highlands of Scotland have been witnessing large movements of US warplanes overhead. Experienced observers say the large numbers are reminiscent of those that preceded the bombing of Iraq in 1998 and military strikes on Libya in the1980’s as well as the first Gulf War.

At the weekend warplanes were flying over at a rate of roughly one every 15 minutes. As well as watching them from the ground the plane spotters have also been able to overhear pilots talking by listening to their radio frequencies.

At this rate some 288 warplanes would have passed over Scotland in three days. It is thought that the planes have flown on a route from the US over the north pole to bases in Europe and the Mediterranean. The size and scale of the movement suggests that the US may be preparing to strike at a country in the Middle East in the next week to ten days.

SCRATCH “BODY BAGS”; USE “TRANSFER TUBES”

Information such as this has yet to find its way into the US press. But what is? Tim Harper of the Toronto Star explains that body bags have now been officially renamed “transfer tubes”:

In order to continue to sell an increasingly unpopular Iraqi invasion to the American people, President George W. Bush’s administration sweeps the messy parts of war — the grieving families, the flag-draped coffins, the soldiers who have lost limbs — into a far corner of the nation’s attic.

No television cameras are allowed at Dover. [DS: The Air Base in Delaware where the bodies are received]

Bush does not attend the funerals of soldiers who gave their lives in his war on terrorism.

PROGRESS: OUR MOST IMPORTANT PRODUCT

The Center for American progress summarizes our progress:

The WP reports that, for his part, President Bush “largely ignored the death toll in Iraq” this weekend “referring specifically to Iraq only once in four speeches totaling 72 minutes.” He did say, “When I came into office, morale in the U.S. military was beginning to suffer, so we increased the defense budget” - but that ignored the fact that recent polls show Bush’s unilateralist foreign policy has driven down troop morale to alarmingly low levels. Reuters reports “the triumphal post-war glow in which President Bush once taunted Iraqi militants by saying ‘bring them on’ has faded” as Iraqi civil Administrator Paul Bremer told CNN this weekend that the situation “is getting worse.” He said, “We’ve seen a much more sophisticated use of improvised explosive devices against coalition forces.” Last week USA Today reported that Bush said “attacks in Iraq are a reaction to progress.”

TARIQ ALI ON THE “BATTLE OF ALGIERS”

The British based, Pakistani born anti-war activist Tariq Ali has a cultural note for us this morning. It appeared first in the Guardian:

Some weeks ago, Pentagon inmates were invited to a special in-house showing of an old movie. It was the Battle of Algiers, Gillo Pontecorvo’s anti-colonial classic, initially banned in France. One assumes the purpose of the screening was purely educative. The French won that battle, but lost the war.

At least the Pentagon understands that the resistance in Iraq is following a familiar anti-colonial pattern. In the movie, they would have seen acts carried out by the Algerian maquis almost half a century ago, which could have been filmed in Fallujah or Baghdad last week. Then, as now, the occupying power described all such activities as “terrorist”. Then, as now, prisoners were taken and tortured, houses that harbored them or their relatives were destroyed, and repression was multiplied. In the end, the French had to withdraw.

(www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4788231-103677,00.html)

For more from Tariq, check out his new book: Bush in Babylon: The Re-Colonization of Iraq.

In some other news: Peace talks may be beginning on a low level between Israelis and Palestinians after last weekend’s 100,000 strong peace rally…. South Africa’s Mail and Guardian reports, “The South African Aids Vaccine Initiative (Saavi) announced on Monday that the first vaccinations will take place this week for the first human clinical trial of an HIV vaccine. Saavi director Dr Tim Tucker said two separate clinical trials would start in Johannesburg and Durban this week and next.”

MEDIA NEWS; KNOW-WHO BEATS KNOW-HOW

In our media news yesterday I mentioned that, after four months, two Iranian TV journalists were freed from a US prison camp in Iraq. They were supposedly suspected of spying. Now Yahoo reports, “Two Iranian journalists working for state-run television, who were freed by US forces in Iraq after four months’ detention, have claimed they were subjected to ’severe torture’ while in American custody.”

In Britain, Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB company had a vacancy at the top. Rupert looked far and wide and came up with a short list of one: his son James. And so the father anointed him chief executive. According to the Guardian, there is revulsion and a revolt at the choice.

The septuagenarian media mogul’s own position as chairman of BSkyB was last night coming under fire from angry investors who are concerned the younger Murdoch was only appointed to lead the ?12bn company because of his father’s influence.

At a time of increasing shareholder activism in Britain, investors are expected to begin meeting today to devise a battle plan which could lead to demands for the departure of as many as six executives from the BSkyB board?.

The 30-year-old son of the media mogul - a college drop-out whose first ambition was to run a hip-hop music label - is now the youngest chief executive of an FTSE 100 company and one of the most controversial appointments to a British boardroom in recent history.

VIEWS FOR SALE

A friend of mine popped up in the New York Times, as Jacques Steinberg reported:

The caller to Joanne Doroshow’s office last month described himself as working for Sky Radio Network, a company that produces programming for Forbes Radio, one of the audio channels available to passengers on American Airlines.

As the executive director of the Center for Justice and Democracy, a nonprofit organization that casts itself as a champion of consumer rights, Ms. Doroshow was asked if she would be interviewed for a talk show examining the issue of tort reform. When Ms. Doroshow agreed, she said, the caller informed her that it would cost her organization $5,900 to have its point of view heard. When Ms. Doroshow balked, she said, the caller offered to see if it could be reduced to $3,500.

“I was furious,'’ Ms. Doroshow said. “I thought this was another way corporations are dominating what people hear, and are getting only their side presented because they’re willing to pay for it.'’

BEATLES FOR PRESIDENT

Tonight’s the big “Rock the Vote” Democratic debate. Candidates will show up in Boston for the occasion. I pass along this item from Progressive Review’s always excellent Undernews titled “The Case for Al Sharpton”:

Not only is the Rev. Al the most entertaining presence in the interminable Democratic Presidential Debates (the least watchable TV series since Manimal), he was the sole candidate to name Ringo as his favorite Beatle when asked by Blender magazine.

Here’s the breakdown. . .
John: Kerry, Kucinich, Moseley Braun
Paul: Edwards, Graham
George: Dean, Gephardt
Ringo: Sharpton ”

(http://prorev.com/indexa.htm)

CREEM COMING BACK

Since I am referencing music, publisher Robert Matheu plans to relaunch rock magazine Creem. Billboard says, “Creem began in Detroit in March 1969 and ran monthly until folding in November 1988. ?Currently a Web-only publication, Creem is expected be on store shelves in a print edition next spring, Mr Matheu said.”

(www.billboard.com/bb/daily/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2016168)

WILL WE EVER SEE THIS FILM IN THE USSA?

Al-Jazeera reports that there is a new documentary from inside Guantanamo:

An international filmmaker has exposed America’s Guantanamo Bay detention camp as a “human rights scandal.” Ashvin has made a groundbreaking documentary for German television which will be screened on Germany’s ARD channel on 12 November?

Out of 660 people in Guantanamo Bay there are probably only five to 10 big names. The rest are just foot soldiers and ordinary people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” says Raman.

YOUR LETTERS: THAT RONNY RAYGUN TV SERIES

Lena Ades writes from Florida on the fury over CBS’s miniseries on the Reagans:

CBS is no “liberal” network, nor are their journalists and reporters “liberal” in any sense of the term. CBS wanted to cause this fury against liberalism, as they have now since WWII, in the guise of being a “liberal” network, of course…

When James Brolin (of military inspired TV show “JAG”) married Barbra Streisand a couple of years ago, I had this very eerie feeling that it was an arranged marriage to silence her and to pull Barbra off the stage of making public statements on politics, which she is good at and has a grand understanding of issues. She has, as do most celebrities of any sort, complacent as they are, her values backwards in a sad way, whereas she/they hire spokespeople to make statements for them on what they “believe” in, instead of LIVING what they say they believe in… They all say they are for public schools, while the public school system and general hospitals are folding for lack-of-resources…

Bill Rigby writes from Fountain Hills, Arizona:

For anyone who has studied the various resistance movements in Europe during WW2, the current situation in Iraq offers amazing similarities.

The resistance fighters are labeled variously “terrorists” and “criminals” - “bandit” will probably appear sooner or later. The civilian population suffers for the resistance insofar as many innocent victims are killed and injured in the repression and seeking out of the “terrorists.”

As in France and other occupied countries in WW2, there are Iraqi “collaborators” who received the ire of the resistance. A further parallel comes from the Bush “New World Order” as first enunciated by Bush I that sounds ominously similar to the Hitlerian “New World Order.”

Perhaps the next measure will be the taking of hostages and shooting them “pour encourager les autres.”

What is the solution? Bush must admit the problem is beyond US capabilities to solve short of wiping Iraq and Iraqis off the face of the earth (a solution apparently favored to some extent by Tom DeLay whose historical senses seems to extend to the week before last). At this point, he should ask the Security Council to propose a solution. It is the only way out of the morass he got the nation into. Unfortunately, Bush is a small mind in an arrogant personality and the likelihood is virtually zero. (Incidentally, I too missed the daily reports…)

Eric T. Olson writes “Very glad to get your email back, I was missing it.”

I read with interest your item, Are Foreign Fighters Behind It ? But I noticed you did not comment on the October 31 New York Times story, “U.S. Officials See Hussein’s Hand in Attacks on Americans in Iraq” by Douglas Jehl. I think this “intelligence” whispering represents an early volley in how the Bush re-election campaign will wedge the electorate — keep President Bush and how he is running the occupation or risk the return of Saddam?

EMAIL IS OUT

We seem to be getting emails out now to subscribers of the blog. Tell us if yours is not coming and urge your friends to sign up. Thanks for those who wrote with suggestions on how to solve the problem.

IN CLOSING . . .

I will be off to Madison Wisconsin for the Media Reform conference this weekend and then on to Minneapolis to speak on Monday and Tuesday. Your help is welcome in setting up events for me as I try to promote my new book on the media coverage of the Iraq War, just out from Prometheus press. Ask your bookstores to stock it. Any suggestions welcome on how best to get it out there.

Write: dissector@mediachannel.org.