WAR IS OVER?

EMBEDDED WINS ONE

DID MICHAEL ABUSE OR IS HE BEING ABUSED?

How nice to find a full page ad from Yoko Ono in the Sunday Times (and Village Voice) telling us again war is over if you want it. Bur is it ever over? After going to see the movie Cold Mountain over the weekend, I am still trying to push those opening images of carnage during the US civil war out of my mind. (I am told that even the new “Peter Pan” is riddled with violence.)

I took respite in my TV but that didn’t help what with more soldiers being shot down in Iraq, a dangerous mud slide. a gas leak claiming nearly two hundred lives in China, a mad cow terrorizing America with more incidents reported (even as many shift the blame to Canada as we did, if you recall, falsely, for the blackout last summer.)

“THE DAY THE WORLD EXPLODED”

So, hoping for relief, I turned off my set and picked up a book I have been reading ever since I came back from Indonesia. It is called KRAKATOA by Simon Winchester about a catastrophic volcano that was considered the worst natural disaster in history. It ends on an optimistic note in which he calls this catastrophe that terrorized the world of l883 ” A freeze frame picture of life itself — a demonstration of the utterly confident way that the world, however badly it has been wounded picks itself up, continues to unfold its magic and its marvels and sets itself back on the on its endless trail of evolutionary progress yet again. The crucible of life turns out to be most difficult of vessels to break…” How reassuring

36000 people died in an disaster that many felt at the time signaled the end of the world. Ah, but that was in the past….

And then I heard about Iran where the earth went nuts and some fear that the death toll from one earthquake may reach 40,000.

Didn’t anybody tell the evil forces that I was on vacation.

“EMBEDDED” WINS “WORD OF THE YEAR”

The New York Post headline looked encouraging: “‘Embedded’ Winner in War of Words.” Alas it was not about my book with that name but instead reported that EMBEDDED had been pronounced as the “top word, phrase and name of the year” by a website called yourdictionary.com. I clicked on over to find out why. There was no mention of my book which has yet to be reviewed in any major outlet in this land of the embeds. I learned:

“This year the Iraqi War has dominated the English language as it has dominated the news,” said Robert Beard, CEO of yourDictionary.com. According to Paul JJ Payack, Chairman of the company, “Embedded was the best word to distill the events of an extraordinary year into 8 simple letters.

“The words were chosen by visitors to the company’s discussion board, the Agora plus the staff and employees of the company — with the unofficial assistance of the world press corps throughout the year.”

( www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/14512.htm )

INFORMATION DOMINANCE

So there you go, Pentagonspeak has climbed to the top of the pops in the language category. It reminded me of that little doggie which for years was the official mascot of RCA before a General named Electric acquired the company. He was known as “His master’s voice.”

Lets go back to CEO Beard’s choice of words. This wordsmith chose the idea of domination as in “the Iraq War dominated the English Language” That may or may be true because the Iraq War in other parts of the world is known as the “American War.” But, hey, victors write history, don’t they? And domination happens to be a concept very much in favor among the crowd that brought us “Embedded.” The concept as David Mitchell whose book “Tell Me Lies” (Pluto) collects articles on the selling of the Iraq War explains in a new article is at the center of the thinking of today’s U.S. propagandists.

“The concept of ‘information dominance’ is the key to understanding US and UK propaganda strategy and a central component of the US aim of ‘total spectrum dominance’. It redefines our notions of spin and propaganda and the role of the media in capitalist society…Information dominance is a concept of elegant simplicity and at the same time complex interconnectedness. It plays a key role in US military strategy and foreign policy

The US Army regards it as important enough to issue a 314 page manual on it in November 2003. Titled Information Operations: Doctrine, Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, the first sentence states unambiguously: ‘information is an element of combat power’. The Army defines Information Operations as: ‘the employment of the core capabilities of electronic warfare, computer network operations, psychological operations, military deception, and operations security, in concert with specified supporting and related capabilities, to affect or defend information and information systems, and to influence decision making’… It is not critical information and commentary that is feared by the US and UK, rather it is information that might hamper their ability to ‘do anything we want to do’. If anything the evidence is that the targeting of independent media and critics of the US is widening.”

( http://staff.stir.ac.uk/david.miller/publications/Tellmelies.html )

OPERATION MASS APPEAL

As if on cue, a new article came out yesterday in the Times of India on one cog of these information operations in Mr. Miller’s England. That newspaper reports:

“LONDON: The British government has confirmed that MI6 had organized Operation Mass Appeal, a campaign to plant stories in the media about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

“The revelation will create embarrassing questions for Tony Blair in the run-up to the publication of the report by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the government weapons expert.

“A senior official admitted that MI6 had been at the heart of a campaign launched in the late 1990s to spread information about Saddam’s development of nerve agents and other weapons, but denied that it had planted misinformation.”

( http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/387882.cms )

DISASTER: HOPE FADING

Information dominance is one thing. It can be resisted. Nature’s dominance is another — as the people of Bam in Iran discovered when a devastating earthquake turned the town into dust. BBC reported yesterday: “Rescue workers digging through the rubble in the Iranian city struck by a massive earthquake say hope is fading of finding many more survivors Meanwhile Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari said the total number of dead was likely to exceed 20,000. Up to 15,000 bodies had already been ‘recovered.’ “

MICHAEL J

In light of all this Michael Jackson’s over-hyped 60 Minutes interview seems to pale in significance. He was far more articulate than he has been pictured. Its been suggested to me that the charges against him would be far more credible if more young people came forward. They haven’t. What did seem believable were his charges of police abuse, and the unwillingness of the Santa Barbara police to talk about it. That was outrageous. Michael’s complaints about the media coverage were also right on. He did not talk of any conversion to Islam by the way, or make racial remarks.

Christianne Amanpour’s 60 Minutes’ report on the training policies of the US military in Iraq was more worrisome. Even though the raid in the piece seemed staged for the cameras, she at least brings some critical distance and raised questions about the way the US military is training police there. Those cops, largely unarmed, have become cannon fodder. One Miami policemen with the Florida National Guard explained why the Iraqi police were not being armed: “We didn’t trust them.”

As the attacks on these policemen continue, it is not surprising to read that the US response is becoming even more brutal which will undoubtedly lead to more attacks. Note the term that US soldiers use to refer to “the bad guys”–”ali babas.”

SADDAM ON TRIAL

It hasn’t started yet but if you want a preview of what might happen, check out Tony Judt’s brilliant report in the New York Review of Books on the Milosovic trial in the Hague. It is called “The Fog of Justice.” (Serbia’s hard right led by Vojislav Seselj now on trial in the Hague were front runners yesterday in Parliamentary elections.) Arab News reports. Meanwhile, that the former Iraqi leader is threatening to tell all about his dealings with the US:

“According to the European source close to US investigators, Saddam also said that he would ask the International Court of Justice in The Hague to try the United States for its crimes against the Iraqi people for allegedly using internationally prohibited weapons against the Iraqis during the last two wars against his country.

“If the Americans want to try me in a court of law, they should also try high-ranking international officials,” the source quoted the former Iraqi dictator as saying. Saddam has insisted that his statements are recorded verbatim, the paper said. The source said Saddam neither prayed not read the Qur’an, it added.”…

WASHINGTON BACKING DOWN

The Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran reports that the increase in attacks on the Coalition has lead the United States to back away “from several of its more ambitious initiatives to transform Iraq’s economy, political system and security forces as attacks on U.S. troops have escalated and the timetable for ending the civil occupation has accelerated.” The goal: get out of Iraq as quickly as possible.

“Plans to privatize state-owned businesses — a key part of a larger Bush administration goal to replace the socialist economy of deposed president Saddam Hussein with a free-market system — have been dropped over the past few months. So too has a demand that Iraqis write a constitution before a transfer of sovereignty.

“With the administration’s plans tempered by time and threat, the U.S. administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and his deputies are now focused on forging compromises with Iraqi leaders and combating a persistent insurgency in order to meet a July 1 deadline to transfer sovereignty to a provisional government.”

MTV. NOT!

Jim Lobe reports for IPS that the resistance in Iraq now has its own “sound track” — songs that back a fight against the American occupation: He references a ” a video CD version of “The Anger,” sung by Sabah Hashim

“He sings against a backdrop of provocative images: an F-16 firing at atarget followed by huge, orange explosions; Iraq women mourning their dead sons; American soldiers arresting Iraqis. In one scene, a group of Iraqis celebrates around a destroyed U.S. tank.

“Many resistance songs use heavily amped drums and guitars to generate a pulsating rhythm that sounds like modern Arab pop. Some is more religious. The music is rarely heard on local radio stations or in restaurants, but often played at weddings and other celebrations in the Sunni Triangle.”

CNN GOES NON-UNION

Broadcast And Engineering reports that CNN is backing out a labor agreement. The workers call it “union-busting.” Here’s the report:

“CNN, a business unit of Time Warner, has terminated its agreement with a unionized contractor that provides more than 220 technicians and camera crews for its Washington and New York bureaus. CNN said it wants to bring the jobs in-house with nonunion workers.

“The technicians, who are represented by the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET), have been invited to apply for nonunion jobs at CNN. Some already have been hired. “It’s union-busting,” Mark Peach, president of NABET Local 31, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Local 31 represents the Washington work force. Without the union, Peach said workers will lose the right to be paid extra for such things as night shifts and short turnarounds, which for some workers can be as much as $12,000 a year….”"We did this because we are seeking to make better use of current technology and to redefine existing roles among staff,” said Christa Robinson, a spokeswoman for CNN. She denied that the company is trying to break the union….”

(http://tinyurl.com/34p3t)

YOUR LETTERS

Kay writes from Adelaide Australia:

“I have a very low opinion of Bush’s intellect and have seriously considered the likelihood that he had someone else write his papers while at university. I cannot believe that this man would be capable of doing any in-depth paper on any topic. Leading on from this, I have been trying to see if he has a microphone discreetly placed in one of his ears. You may have a better chance to observe this than myself. I have questioned constantly that, if the man can barely read, as Mike Moore has suggested, and if his literacy skills are weak, then he would be unable to read his speaking notes. I am sure that he is being coached every which way, including being told to bend this way and that, use this tone etc, so that he might sound even 1% sincere. I have one friend in agreement who thinks that the microphone would come in very handy so that he could be told to duck when a rotten tomato came flying towards him. I’d like to know your opinion about the microphone theory.”

My comment: Don’t “misunderstimate” this guy. He is smarter and more devious than you thing. I was struck by a letter from Marty Tarshes to the San Francisco Chronicle. He notes that the president has become “increasingly skilled at giving answers to questions that haven’t been asked as a means of avoiding responses to the questions of reporters.”

Just a few days to go before we bid this awful year adieu. I was inspired last Friday by Bill Moyers profile of the interracial congregation of the Riverside Church…It was a great report featuring an interview with the always eloquent pastor James Forbes. It reminded me how the only religious people we tend to see on TV are fundamentalist fanatics. This guy deserves his own show. ..Speaking of “shows”did you know that Muhammad Sai’Id AL-Sahhad, the man western TV networks called “Comical Ali,” Iraq’s erstwhile Minister of Information (sic) now has a show of his own on Abu Dhabi TV.

MARRIAGE POLL

Our old friend Larry Houghteling passes this along:

“The other day a friend sent me a link to a ‘marriage poll’ that a famous right-wing organization (you remember the Rev. Donald Wildmon?) is circulating on the Internet - trying to prove, I assume, that Americans loathe the very idea of homosexual marriages.

So I voted (an I ain’t-a sayin how, podnuh).

Today, to my amazement, I get an e-mail from said org, the American Family Association, saying that over 600,000 have voted so far, and that the vote so far is 200 thousand to ban gay marriages, about 380 thousand favoring gay marriages, and a little over 50,000 favoring “civil unions”. The Rev. Don doesn’t say he’s surprised, but I’ll bet he is.

Do you want to vote? Swell the rout? Turn the tide? Here is the URL:

http://www.afa.net/petitions/MarriagePoll.asp

A final word from Bagdhad from Riverbend who writes the Baghdad Burning Blog. When I get morose, I think of what she dealing with:

MERRY CHRISTMAS, IRAQ STYLE

“At one point during the evening, the house was dark and there was no electricity. We sat, gathered around on the ground, eating date-balls and watching (her Christian friend) Abu Josef’s dog chew on the lowest branch of the tree. The living room was lit by the warm light radiating from the kerosene heater and a few Christmas candles set on the coffee table. Abu Josef’s phone suddenly rang shrilly and Abu Josef ran to pick it up. It was his brother in Toronto and it was the perfect Christmas gift because it was the first time Abu Josef got an overseas call since the war- we were all amazed. An Iraqi phone conversation goes like this these days:
III= Iraqi Inside Iraq
IOI= Iraqi Outside Iraq

Ring, ring
III: Alloo?
IOI: ALLOO?!
III: ALLOOOO? MINNOOO? (Hello? Who is it?)
IOI: ABU (fill in the blank)??! Shlonkum? (How are you?)
III: Aaaagh! Is it really you?!
(Chorus of family in the background, “Who is it?! Who is it?!”)
IOI: How are… (the voice cracks here with emotion) you?
III: We’re… (the line crackles) … and is doing well.
IOI: I CAN’T HEAR YOU! Doing well? Thank God…
II: Alloo? Alloo…? (speaker turns to speak to someone in the background, “Sshhh… I can’t hear anything!” The family go silent and hold their breaths. )
III: Alloo? Alloo?!
IOI: Alloo? Yes, yes, your voice is back- are you ok?
III: Fine, fine.
IOI: Is my mother ok? My brothers and sisters?
III: All fine… we’re fine, thank God.
IOI: Thank God (the voice cracks again)
III: How are you? (a vague echo with ‘you…you… you…’)
IOI: We’re fine but terribly worried about all of YOU…
III: Don’t worry- we’re doing alright… no electricity or fuel, but we’ll be alright…
IOI: (crackling line… fading voices) … tried and tried to call but… (more crackling line) … and we heard horrible…. (static)
III: Alloo? Alloooooooo? Are you there? (silence on the other end)
III: Alloo? If you can hear me, I can’t hear you… (the hovering relatives all hold their breath)
III: … I still can’t hear you… if you can hear me just know that we’re fine. We’re ok. We’re alive and wondering about your health. Don’t worry… yallah, ma’a al salama… don’t worry. Alloo… Alloo…?
And everyone exhales feeling a bit more relieved and a little bit empty as the phone is returned to the cradle and the momentous event passes.
Although it’s late- Merry Christmas.

(http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com)

Thanks for sharing. For your letters. Your donations. Your support. I am in and out this week. You can still reach me at dissector@mediachannel.org