Sheldon Rampton from the Center for Media and Democracy.
The Wires that Control the Public Mind.
Watch. Learn. Understand.
Showing posts with label spin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spin. Show all posts
20 May 2008
02 January 2008
Fathering a New Country
While the rest of the world has been bogged down by Bush-league wars, Russia has quietly [and not so quietly] been re-inventing itself better than Madonna.
Natural resources, strategic location and Duma-loads of money - the pride is back, baby! And to solidify his place in history, Putin will give birth to a New Russia - now with more superpower.
Russia: Putin's Plan To Become 'Father Of A New Country'
By RFE/RL analyst Victor Yasmann
Many observers of Russia are puzzled as to why President Vladimir Putin went to such bizarre lengths to turn the country's recent legislative elections into a "national referendum" on his own rule.
After all, Putin completely dominates the political stage, and he could have easily initiated and passed any changes to the constitution needed for him to run for another term as president. His oft-repeated assertions that he respects the letter and the spirit of the current constitution ring hollow, given Kremlin policies like the restriction of opposition political parties, strictures on civil society, suppression of nonstate media, subordination of the judicial system, and abolition of the direct election of regional administration heads.
Even most foreign observers -- while noting the unfair nature of the Duma elections and the myriad ways the Kremlin misused its power against weak political opponents -- have never really doubted the outright victory of the pro-Putin forces.
That victory was never in doubt because Putin is genuinely popular, for a mixture of objective and subjective reasons. Because of the vast revenues Russia accrues due to high global energy prices, the standard of living for many Russians is improving markedly -- and most of them attribute that prosperity to Putin personally. Putin has also hijacked populist policies from both the right and left ends of the spectrum. Borrowing from the left, he has increased pensions and state aid programs. From the right, Putin adopted the policy of a sharp reduction of business taxes and a low, flat-rate income tax for individuals. Finally, Putin's efforts to restore Russia's standing as a power in the international arena is enormously popular among Russians, many of whom remain bitter about the economic hardships and foreign-policy weakness of the 1990s. The yearning for a restoration of Russia's prestige is expressed throughout society, in areas as diverse as sports and the arts. This feeling has saturated the atmosphere because of the Kremlin's skillful manipulation.
A career intelligence officer, Putin has taken considerable pains to conceal his plans. It has become commonplace to say that Russian policy under Putin has become a series of "special operations." This secrecy is simply a part of the mindset of Putin and the siloviki -- people associated with the security organs and the military -- who surround him.
Questions Raised
Until mid-December, there was evidence that Putin was having trouble choosing a successor for when his current term expires in March 2008. His anointing of First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev does not necessarily make things simpler. Many believed the successor should come from among the siloviki who form Putin's inner circle, or at least be acceptable to them. It is unclear how Medvedev, who does not come from the ranks of the siloviki, will hold up. Moreover, because these siloviki are divided among themselves, it's unclear there is even such a thing as a candidate acceptable to all factions -- one who will be recognized as the supreme commander by the entire military and security community. Putin must also keep in mind that Russia is the world's second most powerful nuclear power and Medvedev, if he remains the successor of choice, must be an acceptable and predictable partner for the international community, particularly the United States.
Some clues about Putin's intentions can be found in an 800-page manifesto issued last summer by a group of about 70 pro-Putin, national-patriotic academics under the title "Russian Doctrine." The book is presented as a set of "guidelines" for the next administration and a kind of national, supra-party platform. It contains detailed foreign- and domestic-policy proposals, including autocratic reforms to the military, national-security system, the economy, the mass media, education, and culture.
Moreover, it was approved at the September World Congress of Russian People, an annual event sponsored by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Kirill, who handles foreign relations for the Moscow Patriarchate and is one of the leading ideologues of the Putin regime, took pains to praise it.
The "Russian Doctrine" presumes that the Russian Federation is doomed to extinction because it will be unable to cope with the looming challenges of international competition. Within the next decade, the authors claim, Russia will increasingly begin to lag behind China, India, the United States, and some Southeast Asian countries. In response, the authors propose a new state structure based on the traditions of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Interestingly, they propose doing so without dissolving the Russian Federation: that is, they urge the creation of a "parallel state" initially operating unseen behind the facade of the current one. It would consist of a system of political and economic institutions accessible only to Putin and the siloviki that the authors call "the invisible, networked Russia."
However, on closer inspection, the model described in "Russian Doctrine" resembles neither tsarist Russia nor the Soviet Union so much as it does the sociopolitical structures of Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal in the 1930s.
Parallel Institutions
It isn't hard to find examples of the sort of parallel institutions the authors describe in the policies enacted during Putin's two terms as president. In 2005, he created the Public Chamber, a pseudo-public, estate-based organ similar to ones that existed in parallel to the legislatures of the countries mentioned above. More importantly, the Kremlin has been actively creating state megacorporations in key sectors of the economy, including energy, nuclear power, aviation, shipbuilding, and nanotechnology. The number of these new entities has mushroomed in the last few years, most of them being headed by siloviki from Putin's inner circle.
In December, the finishing touches were put on Rostekhnologia, a conglomerate based on the arms-export monopoly Rosoboroneksport and including virtually all weapons producers and traders, as well as machine-building firms and the giant carmaker AvtoVAZ. Rostekhnologia is headed by Sergei Chemezov, a KGB colleague from Putin's days in Dresden, East Germany. The doctrine of a corporate state also has its roots in the political climate of 1930s Europe.
In addition, during the Duma campaign, Kremlin-inspired activists energetically promoted the idea of Putin as "national leader" after he leaves the presidency. Analysts have speculated that Putin could play a role in Russia similar to that played by former South African President Nelson Mandela or former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping after their retirement. But in combination with the emerging corporate state, a national leader would seem more like Italy's Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, or Spain's Caudillo, Francisco Franco. Russian ideologists have been compelled to adopt the English-based word "lider" since the Russian "vozhd" is strongly associated with Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin.
Using its hegemony over Russian culture and information, the Kremlin has been able to infuse the national consciousness with the idea of a renewed imperial state. Maksim Kalashnikov, one of the authors of the "Russian Doctrine" project and a leading proponent of new-empire thinking, has written that nothing better reflects the aspirations of a national elite than a country's science fiction books. "Today most of our science fiction is revanchist, imperial literature in which Russians are redeeming their shame [from the 1990s] and building up a new superpower," he wrote.
Two Russias
The phenomenon has not escaped the attention of Russia's neighbors. The Ukrainian website glavred.ua wrote recently that there are two Russias -- a proto-imperial Russia inside the country and a regular country from the outside. Igor Panarin, a Russian expert on information wars and a proponent of the new imperialism, told the website: "Inside the country, in the virtual world, such an empire is, indeed, being created. This is very good and it is to the credit of the current president. The next goal is to expand this public relations campaign beyond Russia's borders."
In 2006, neo-imperialist author Mikhail Yuriev published a science fiction utopia called "The Third Empire," in which the action is set in 2053. In Yuriev's vision, the world then will be covered by five super states -- India, China, the American Federation (comprising North and South America), an Islamic caliphate, and the Russian Empire. The latter includes all of Russia and the former Soviet republics and also sweeps all the way across Western Europe and even encompasses Greenland. In the text, Yuriev describes how Russia conquered Europe and Turkey in a series of "expansionist wars."
Although Yuriev's vision is fantastic, it is not completely divorced from reality. In early 2007, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry published a report on Russia's economic development through 2020. The report contained an optimistic, a neutral, and a pessimistic forecast. Under the optimistic forecast, Russia would emerge as one of the world's 10 most-developed countries by the end of the period. However, according to press reports, Putin ordered the neutral and pessimistic scenarios removed and made the optimistic scenario even rosier. Under Putin's vision, by 2020 Russia will be among the world's top five most-developed countries, on a par with the United States, China, India, and Japan. In short, Russia would be the most advanced country in Europe, state television commented recently.
If Putin is indeed following a plan along the lines of the "Russian Doctrine," then perhaps some of his next moves can be anticipated as he leaves office and focuses on the creation of a new political infrastructure and networks. The new president, a handpicked loyalist, might undertake a large-scale purge of the 1990s elite from the state apparatus, the mass media, and other positions of power. The "Russian Doctrine" identifies this as a top priority.
Speaking to RFE/RL on December 1, liberal economist Andrei Illarionov mentioned his concern that the new president might launch mass repressions, including some that touch the security apparatus. The new president might also be called upon to implement other reforms that are expected to meet with resistance at home and abroad, including the possible reform of the territorial-administrative divisions of the Russian Federation. Regional Development Minister Dmitry Kozak has already drawn up a plan to divide the country up into several "macroeconomic regions." Kozak told reporters last week that the plan covers the period through 2020 and "will be a leap forward in the development of various territories."
Then, after this dirty work has been done, a new draft constitution, based on "conservative values," can be introduced. Under it a new schedule of elections will be laid out and Putin can return to the Kremlin in glory, the father of a new country.
But to implement this plan, Putin needs to be sure that he has more legitimacy than his successor. That's why he turned the Duma elections into a personal referendum. Taken together, Unified Russia and A Just Russia pulled in more than 70 percent of the vote. Since the president elected in March will be unlikely to get much more than 50 percent of the vote, Putin will have an important "legitimacy edge." With Medvedev's call for Putin to step in as a future prime minister, the plan would appear to be well under way.
Natural resources, strategic location and Duma-loads of money - the pride is back, baby! And to solidify his place in history, Putin will give birth to a New Russia - now with more superpower.
Russia: Putin's Plan To Become 'Father Of A New Country'
By RFE/RL analyst Victor Yasmann
Many observers of Russia are puzzled as to why President Vladimir Putin went to such bizarre lengths to turn the country's recent legislative elections into a "national referendum" on his own rule.
After all, Putin completely dominates the political stage, and he could have easily initiated and passed any changes to the constitution needed for him to run for another term as president. His oft-repeated assertions that he respects the letter and the spirit of the current constitution ring hollow, given Kremlin policies like the restriction of opposition political parties, strictures on civil society, suppression of nonstate media, subordination of the judicial system, and abolition of the direct election of regional administration heads.
Even most foreign observers -- while noting the unfair nature of the Duma elections and the myriad ways the Kremlin misused its power against weak political opponents -- have never really doubted the outright victory of the pro-Putin forces.
That victory was never in doubt because Putin is genuinely popular, for a mixture of objective and subjective reasons. Because of the vast revenues Russia accrues due to high global energy prices, the standard of living for many Russians is improving markedly -- and most of them attribute that prosperity to Putin personally. Putin has also hijacked populist policies from both the right and left ends of the spectrum. Borrowing from the left, he has increased pensions and state aid programs. From the right, Putin adopted the policy of a sharp reduction of business taxes and a low, flat-rate income tax for individuals. Finally, Putin's efforts to restore Russia's standing as a power in the international arena is enormously popular among Russians, many of whom remain bitter about the economic hardships and foreign-policy weakness of the 1990s. The yearning for a restoration of Russia's prestige is expressed throughout society, in areas as diverse as sports and the arts. This feeling has saturated the atmosphere because of the Kremlin's skillful manipulation.
A career intelligence officer, Putin has taken considerable pains to conceal his plans. It has become commonplace to say that Russian policy under Putin has become a series of "special operations." This secrecy is simply a part of the mindset of Putin and the siloviki -- people associated with the security organs and the military -- who surround him.
Questions Raised
Until mid-December, there was evidence that Putin was having trouble choosing a successor for when his current term expires in March 2008. His anointing of First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev does not necessarily make things simpler. Many believed the successor should come from among the siloviki who form Putin's inner circle, or at least be acceptable to them. It is unclear how Medvedev, who does not come from the ranks of the siloviki, will hold up. Moreover, because these siloviki are divided among themselves, it's unclear there is even such a thing as a candidate acceptable to all factions -- one who will be recognized as the supreme commander by the entire military and security community. Putin must also keep in mind that Russia is the world's second most powerful nuclear power and Medvedev, if he remains the successor of choice, must be an acceptable and predictable partner for the international community, particularly the United States.
Some clues about Putin's intentions can be found in an 800-page manifesto issued last summer by a group of about 70 pro-Putin, national-patriotic academics under the title "Russian Doctrine." The book is presented as a set of "guidelines" for the next administration and a kind of national, supra-party platform. It contains detailed foreign- and domestic-policy proposals, including autocratic reforms to the military, national-security system, the economy, the mass media, education, and culture.
Moreover, it was approved at the September World Congress of Russian People, an annual event sponsored by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Kirill, who handles foreign relations for the Moscow Patriarchate and is one of the leading ideologues of the Putin regime, took pains to praise it.
The "Russian Doctrine" presumes that the Russian Federation is doomed to extinction because it will be unable to cope with the looming challenges of international competition. Within the next decade, the authors claim, Russia will increasingly begin to lag behind China, India, the United States, and some Southeast Asian countries. In response, the authors propose a new state structure based on the traditions of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Interestingly, they propose doing so without dissolving the Russian Federation: that is, they urge the creation of a "parallel state" initially operating unseen behind the facade of the current one. It would consist of a system of political and economic institutions accessible only to Putin and the siloviki that the authors call "the invisible, networked Russia."
However, on closer inspection, the model described in "Russian Doctrine" resembles neither tsarist Russia nor the Soviet Union so much as it does the sociopolitical structures of Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal in the 1930s.
Parallel Institutions
It isn't hard to find examples of the sort of parallel institutions the authors describe in the policies enacted during Putin's two terms as president. In 2005, he created the Public Chamber, a pseudo-public, estate-based organ similar to ones that existed in parallel to the legislatures of the countries mentioned above. More importantly, the Kremlin has been actively creating state megacorporations in key sectors of the economy, including energy, nuclear power, aviation, shipbuilding, and nanotechnology. The number of these new entities has mushroomed in the last few years, most of them being headed by siloviki from Putin's inner circle.
In December, the finishing touches were put on Rostekhnologia, a conglomerate based on the arms-export monopoly Rosoboroneksport and including virtually all weapons producers and traders, as well as machine-building firms and the giant carmaker AvtoVAZ. Rostekhnologia is headed by Sergei Chemezov, a KGB colleague from Putin's days in Dresden, East Germany. The doctrine of a corporate state also has its roots in the political climate of 1930s Europe.
In addition, during the Duma campaign, Kremlin-inspired activists energetically promoted the idea of Putin as "national leader" after he leaves the presidency. Analysts have speculated that Putin could play a role in Russia similar to that played by former South African President Nelson Mandela or former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping after their retirement. But in combination with the emerging corporate state, a national leader would seem more like Italy's Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, or Spain's Caudillo, Francisco Franco. Russian ideologists have been compelled to adopt the English-based word "lider" since the Russian "vozhd" is strongly associated with Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin.
Using its hegemony over Russian culture and information, the Kremlin has been able to infuse the national consciousness with the idea of a renewed imperial state. Maksim Kalashnikov, one of the authors of the "Russian Doctrine" project and a leading proponent of new-empire thinking, has written that nothing better reflects the aspirations of a national elite than a country's science fiction books. "Today most of our science fiction is revanchist, imperial literature in which Russians are redeeming their shame [from the 1990s] and building up a new superpower," he wrote.
Two Russias
The phenomenon has not escaped the attention of Russia's neighbors. The Ukrainian website glavred.ua wrote recently that there are two Russias -- a proto-imperial Russia inside the country and a regular country from the outside. Igor Panarin, a Russian expert on information wars and a proponent of the new imperialism, told the website: "Inside the country, in the virtual world, such an empire is, indeed, being created. This is very good and it is to the credit of the current president. The next goal is to expand this public relations campaign beyond Russia's borders."
In 2006, neo-imperialist author Mikhail Yuriev published a science fiction utopia called "The Third Empire," in which the action is set in 2053. In Yuriev's vision, the world then will be covered by five super states -- India, China, the American Federation (comprising North and South America), an Islamic caliphate, and the Russian Empire. The latter includes all of Russia and the former Soviet republics and also sweeps all the way across Western Europe and even encompasses Greenland. In the text, Yuriev describes how Russia conquered Europe and Turkey in a series of "expansionist wars."
Although Yuriev's vision is fantastic, it is not completely divorced from reality. In early 2007, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry published a report on Russia's economic development through 2020. The report contained an optimistic, a neutral, and a pessimistic forecast. Under the optimistic forecast, Russia would emerge as one of the world's 10 most-developed countries by the end of the period. However, according to press reports, Putin ordered the neutral and pessimistic scenarios removed and made the optimistic scenario even rosier. Under Putin's vision, by 2020 Russia will be among the world's top five most-developed countries, on a par with the United States, China, India, and Japan. In short, Russia would be the most advanced country in Europe, state television commented recently.
If Putin is indeed following a plan along the lines of the "Russian Doctrine," then perhaps some of his next moves can be anticipated as he leaves office and focuses on the creation of a new political infrastructure and networks. The new president, a handpicked loyalist, might undertake a large-scale purge of the 1990s elite from the state apparatus, the mass media, and other positions of power. The "Russian Doctrine" identifies this as a top priority.
Speaking to RFE/RL on December 1, liberal economist Andrei Illarionov mentioned his concern that the new president might launch mass repressions, including some that touch the security apparatus. The new president might also be called upon to implement other reforms that are expected to meet with resistance at home and abroad, including the possible reform of the territorial-administrative divisions of the Russian Federation. Regional Development Minister Dmitry Kozak has already drawn up a plan to divide the country up into several "macroeconomic regions." Kozak told reporters last week that the plan covers the period through 2020 and "will be a leap forward in the development of various territories."
Then, after this dirty work has been done, a new draft constitution, based on "conservative values," can be introduced. Under it a new schedule of elections will be laid out and Putin can return to the Kremlin in glory, the father of a new country.
But to implement this plan, Putin needs to be sure that he has more legitimacy than his successor. That's why he turned the Duma elections into a personal referendum. Taken together, Unified Russia and A Just Russia pulled in more than 70 percent of the vote. Since the president elected in March will be unlikely to get much more than 50 percent of the vote, Putin will have an important "legitimacy edge." With Medvedev's call for Putin to step in as a future prime minister, the plan would appear to be well under way.
01 January 2008
"When we act, we create our own Reality."
If you're big enough, things happen when you move.
So in spite of the Butterfly Effect [or maybe because of it], countries act and the rest of us react. The USA acts. Russia acts. Venezuela acts. China acts. India acts. Pakistan acts. Israel acts.
A new reality sets in [or perceived reality]. And the rest of the world turns.
Scheherazade in the White House
‘We’re an empire and when we act, we create our own reality’
How George Bush’s wartime administration used a magician, Hollywood designers and Karl Rove telling 1,001 stories to sell the invasion of Iraq.
By Christian Salmon
A few days before the 2004 presidential election, Ron Suskind, a columnist who had been investigating the White House and its communications for years, wrote in The New York Times about a conversation he had with a presidential adviser in 2002. “The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community’, which he defined as people ‘who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality’. I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off.
‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors.. and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’ ”.
Suskind’s article was a sensation, which the paper called an intellectual scoop. Columnists and bloggers seized on the phrase “reality-based community” which spread across the internet. Google had nearly a million hits for it in July 2007. Wikipedia created a page dedicated to it. According to Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at New York University: “Many on the left adopted the term. ‘Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community’, their blogs said. The right then jeered at the left’s self-description. (‘They’re reality-based? Yeah, right…’)”.
The remarks, which were probably made by Karl Rove a few months before the Iraq war, are not just cynical and Machiavellian. They sound like they come from the theatre rather than from an office in the White House. Not content with renewing the ancient problems discussed in cabinet offices, pitting idealists against pragmatists, moralists against realists, pacifists against warmongers or, in 2002, defenders of international law against supporters of the use of force, they display a new concept of the relationship between politics and reality. The leaders of the world’s superpower were not just moving away from realpolitik but also from realism to become creators of their own reality, the masters of appearance, demanding a realpolitik of fiction.
Disney to the Rescue
The US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 provided a spectacular illustration of the White House’s desire to create its own reality. Pentagon departments, keen not to repeat the mistakes of the first Gulf war in 1991, paid particular attention to their communications strategy. As well as 500 embedded journalists integrated into sections of the armed services, great attention was paid to the design of the press room at US forces headquarters in Qatar: for a million dollars, a storage hangar was transformed into an ultramodern television studio with stage, plasma screens and all the electronic equipment needed to produce videos, geographic maps and diagrams for real time combat.
A scene in which the US army spokesman, General Tommy Franks, addressed journalists cost $200,000 and was produced by a designer who had worked for Disney, Metro Goldwyn Mayer and the television programme Good Morning America. In 2001 the White House had put him in charge of creating background designs for presidential speeches – unsurprising to those aware of the ties between the Pentagon and Hollywood.
More surprising was the Pentagon decision to recruit David Blaine for interior design; he is a magician famous in the US for his TV show and for conjuring tricks such as levitating or being shut in a cage without food. Blaine claimed in a book in 2002 that he was the successor to Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, a 19th century magician who agreed to go to Algeria at the French government’s request to help it quell an uprising by showing that his magic was better than that of the rebels. It is not known whether that is what the Pentagon expected from Blaine but it seems that use was made of his illusionist talents for special effects.
Scott Sforza, a former ABC TV producer who worked within the Republican propaganda machine, created many backgrounds against which Bush made important statements during his terms of office. On 1 May 2003 he stage-managed the presidential speech on the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier before a sign reading “Mission accomplished: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
The show didn’t end there. Bush landed aboard the carrier in a fighter plane renamed Navy One; on it was written “George Bush, Commander-in-Chief”. He was seen leaving the cockpit dressed in a flight suit, his helmet under his arm as if he were returning from war in a remake of Top Gun (the film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who is a familiar face in Hollywood-Pentagon operations; he made a reality TV show, Profiles from the Front Line, on the war in Afghanistan).
The former New York Times theatre critic, Frank Rich, described the television coverage of this event and said it was fantastic – like theatre. David Broder of The Washington Post was captivated by what he called Bush’s physical posture. Sforza had to stage the scene carefully so that the city of San Diego, about 60km away, was not seen on the horizon when the carrier was supposed to be out in open sea in the combat zone.
But the staging was never as explicit as on 15 August 2002 when Bush solemnly spoke of national security in front of Mount Rushmore with its sculptures of the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. During his speech the cameras were placed at an angle that allowed Bush to be filmed in profile, his face superimposed on to those of his predecessors.
The Image Becomes the Story
For Bush’s speech on the first anniversary of 9/11, in which he prepared US public opinion for the Iraq invasion by glorifying the “great struggle that tests our strength and even more our resolve”, Sforza rented three barges to take the team to the foot of the Statue of Liberty, which he had lit from below. He chose the camera angles so that the statue appeared in the background during the speech. Frank Rich, commenting on this, quoted Michael Deaver, who stage-managed Ronald Reagan’s declaration of candidacy speech in 1980 with the Statue of Liberty in the background. According to Deaver, people understood that what was around the speaker’s head was as important as the head itself.
What is around the head turns an image into a legend: “Mission accomplished”, the Founding Fathers, the Statue of Liberty – over time the image becomes the story. But the event must resonate with the viewer, must make two moments interact: what is represented in the image and the actual moment it is seen. This resonance produces the desired emotion. For Americans in 2002 nothing could have had a greater emotional impact than a speech on war on the first anniversary of 9/11. The country had just come back from summer holidays and was ready to concentrate on important matters.
According to Ira Chernus, professor at the University of Colorado, Karl Rove applied the “Scheherazade strategy”: “When policy dooms you, start telling stories – stories so fabulous, so gripping, so spellbinding that the king (or, in this case, the American citizen who theoretically rules our country) forgets all about a lethal policy. It plays on the insecurity of Americans who feel that their lives are out of control”. Rove did this with much success in 2004 when Bush was re-elected, diverting voters’ attention away from the state of the war by evoking the great collective myths of the US imagination.
As Chernus explains, Rove was “betting that the voters will be mesmerised by John Wayne-style tales of real men fighting evil on the frontier – at least enough Americans to avoid the death sentence that the voters might otherwise pronounce on the party that brought us the disaster in Iraq.” Chernus believed that Rove invented simplistic good-against-evil stories for his candidates to tell and tried to turn every election into a moral drama, a contest of Republican moral clarity versus Democratic moral confusion. “The Scheherazade strategy is a great scam, built on the illusion that moralistic tales can make us feel secure, no matter what’s actually going on out there in the world.
Rove wants every vote for a Republican to be a symbolic statement”. This August Rove was forced to resign by Democrat members of Congress. He announced his decision with an admission which could have applied to all his work: “I feel like I’m Moby Dick… they’re after me.”
So in spite of the Butterfly Effect [or maybe because of it], countries act and the rest of us react. The USA acts. Russia acts. Venezuela acts. China acts. India acts. Pakistan acts. Israel acts.
A new reality sets in [or perceived reality]. And the rest of the world turns.
Scheherazade in the White House
‘We’re an empire and when we act, we create our own reality’
How George Bush’s wartime administration used a magician, Hollywood designers and Karl Rove telling 1,001 stories to sell the invasion of Iraq.
By Christian Salmon
A few days before the 2004 presidential election, Ron Suskind, a columnist who had been investigating the White House and its communications for years, wrote in The New York Times about a conversation he had with a presidential adviser in 2002. “The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community’, which he defined as people ‘who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality’. I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off.
‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors.. and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’ ”.
Suskind’s article was a sensation, which the paper called an intellectual scoop. Columnists and bloggers seized on the phrase “reality-based community” which spread across the internet. Google had nearly a million hits for it in July 2007. Wikipedia created a page dedicated to it. According to Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at New York University: “Many on the left adopted the term. ‘Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community’, their blogs said. The right then jeered at the left’s self-description. (‘They’re reality-based? Yeah, right…’)”.
The remarks, which were probably made by Karl Rove a few months before the Iraq war, are not just cynical and Machiavellian. They sound like they come from the theatre rather than from an office in the White House. Not content with renewing the ancient problems discussed in cabinet offices, pitting idealists against pragmatists, moralists against realists, pacifists against warmongers or, in 2002, defenders of international law against supporters of the use of force, they display a new concept of the relationship between politics and reality. The leaders of the world’s superpower were not just moving away from realpolitik but also from realism to become creators of their own reality, the masters of appearance, demanding a realpolitik of fiction.
Disney to the Rescue
The US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 provided a spectacular illustration of the White House’s desire to create its own reality. Pentagon departments, keen not to repeat the mistakes of the first Gulf war in 1991, paid particular attention to their communications strategy. As well as 500 embedded journalists integrated into sections of the armed services, great attention was paid to the design of the press room at US forces headquarters in Qatar: for a million dollars, a storage hangar was transformed into an ultramodern television studio with stage, plasma screens and all the electronic equipment needed to produce videos, geographic maps and diagrams for real time combat.
A scene in which the US army spokesman, General Tommy Franks, addressed journalists cost $200,000 and was produced by a designer who had worked for Disney, Metro Goldwyn Mayer and the television programme Good Morning America. In 2001 the White House had put him in charge of creating background designs for presidential speeches – unsurprising to those aware of the ties between the Pentagon and Hollywood.
More surprising was the Pentagon decision to recruit David Blaine for interior design; he is a magician famous in the US for his TV show and for conjuring tricks such as levitating or being shut in a cage without food. Blaine claimed in a book in 2002 that he was the successor to Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, a 19th century magician who agreed to go to Algeria at the French government’s request to help it quell an uprising by showing that his magic was better than that of the rebels. It is not known whether that is what the Pentagon expected from Blaine but it seems that use was made of his illusionist talents for special effects.
Scott Sforza, a former ABC TV producer who worked within the Republican propaganda machine, created many backgrounds against which Bush made important statements during his terms of office. On 1 May 2003 he stage-managed the presidential speech on the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier before a sign reading “Mission accomplished: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
The show didn’t end there. Bush landed aboard the carrier in a fighter plane renamed Navy One; on it was written “George Bush, Commander-in-Chief”. He was seen leaving the cockpit dressed in a flight suit, his helmet under his arm as if he were returning from war in a remake of Top Gun (the film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who is a familiar face in Hollywood-Pentagon operations; he made a reality TV show, Profiles from the Front Line, on the war in Afghanistan).
The former New York Times theatre critic, Frank Rich, described the television coverage of this event and said it was fantastic – like theatre. David Broder of The Washington Post was captivated by what he called Bush’s physical posture. Sforza had to stage the scene carefully so that the city of San Diego, about 60km away, was not seen on the horizon when the carrier was supposed to be out in open sea in the combat zone.
But the staging was never as explicit as on 15 August 2002 when Bush solemnly spoke of national security in front of Mount Rushmore with its sculptures of the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. During his speech the cameras were placed at an angle that allowed Bush to be filmed in profile, his face superimposed on to those of his predecessors.
The Image Becomes the Story
For Bush’s speech on the first anniversary of 9/11, in which he prepared US public opinion for the Iraq invasion by glorifying the “great struggle that tests our strength and even more our resolve”, Sforza rented three barges to take the team to the foot of the Statue of Liberty, which he had lit from below. He chose the camera angles so that the statue appeared in the background during the speech. Frank Rich, commenting on this, quoted Michael Deaver, who stage-managed Ronald Reagan’s declaration of candidacy speech in 1980 with the Statue of Liberty in the background. According to Deaver, people understood that what was around the speaker’s head was as important as the head itself.
What is around the head turns an image into a legend: “Mission accomplished”, the Founding Fathers, the Statue of Liberty – over time the image becomes the story. But the event must resonate with the viewer, must make two moments interact: what is represented in the image and the actual moment it is seen. This resonance produces the desired emotion. For Americans in 2002 nothing could have had a greater emotional impact than a speech on war on the first anniversary of 9/11. The country had just come back from summer holidays and was ready to concentrate on important matters.
According to Ira Chernus, professor at the University of Colorado, Karl Rove applied the “Scheherazade strategy”: “When policy dooms you, start telling stories – stories so fabulous, so gripping, so spellbinding that the king (or, in this case, the American citizen who theoretically rules our country) forgets all about a lethal policy. It plays on the insecurity of Americans who feel that their lives are out of control”. Rove did this with much success in 2004 when Bush was re-elected, diverting voters’ attention away from the state of the war by evoking the great collective myths of the US imagination.
As Chernus explains, Rove was “betting that the voters will be mesmerised by John Wayne-style tales of real men fighting evil on the frontier – at least enough Americans to avoid the death sentence that the voters might otherwise pronounce on the party that brought us the disaster in Iraq.” Chernus believed that Rove invented simplistic good-against-evil stories for his candidates to tell and tried to turn every election into a moral drama, a contest of Republican moral clarity versus Democratic moral confusion. “The Scheherazade strategy is a great scam, built on the illusion that moralistic tales can make us feel secure, no matter what’s actually going on out there in the world.
Rove wants every vote for a Republican to be a symbolic statement”. This August Rove was forced to resign by Democrat members of Congress. He announced his decision with an admission which could have applied to all his work: “I feel like I’m Moby Dick… they’re after me.”
Applied Entertainment
The best form of entertainment is in using it to actually do something worthwhile: stories that show our tremendous potential, games that teach us empathy and compassion, movies that relate our common humanity of struggle.
So now the United Nations announces that they have signed a deal with Marvel to apply comicbook status onto global governance.
Brilliant. I can't wait to see world leaders pounding on the address podium with Hulk hands.
Kapow! A Hero for our Troubled Times
Simon Usborne
The Independent
Spider-Man's challenges have so far been pretty small beer. Since he first spun his web in the 1960s, he has squared up to a gallery of rogues, from the multi-limbed Doctor Octopus to the shape-shifting Sandman. Yet so far he has only been tasked with rescuing the citizens of New York.
Now he is set for the truly big time. In a story out later this year, the Marvel hero will be called upon to rescue the battered image of a very real-world institution – the United Nations.
In a move that will add grist to the mills of critics of the UN, who say the New York-based international organisation is ineffective and is suffering a communications crisis, particularly in the US, the body is joining forces with Marvel Comics, the creative force behind a stable of superheroes that includes Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and theX-Men. The unlikely partnership will create a new comic book that will include UN characters working alongside "Spidey" and other superheroes to settle bloody conflicts and rid the world of disease.
Details of the plot have not yet been released but, according to the UN Office for Partnerships, the script is being written and the final storyline is set to be approved next month. Cartoonists and writers are working for free. The comic is expected to be set in a war-torn fictional country and feature heroes including Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, as well as workers from UN agencies such as children's charity UNICEF and blue helmets of the peacekeeping forces.
Eventually, the work will be translated into several other languages and widely distributed, but it is American schoolchildren who the UN plans to target first in a bid to rescue its image; the comic will be distributed free to one million US school children later next year. The UN says on its website, "By making the complex UN system accessible to youth, the partners hope to teach children the value of international co-operation, and sensitise them to the problems faced in other parts of the world."
There is, of course, no mention on its website of the UN's troubled image but the initiative can only serve to bolster the organisation's reputation, which has become embroiled in accusations of corruption and ineptitude. Relations between the UN and the US have become particularly tense during the presidency of George Bush. More than 10 years ago, former US ambassador the UN, John Bolton went so far as to say there was "no such thing" as the UN and called the US the world's "only real power". He also declared that if the 38-storey UN building "lost 10 storeys today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference".
Marvel Entertainment, the parent company based in New York that owns Marvel Comics, is known in the publishing industry for zealously guarding its brand, regularly declining tie-in and licensing opportunities.
Many will raise an eyebrow at the firm's apparent UN love-in, but a look at the comic company's history reveals a long tradition of promoting political causes, and acting as a touchstone for American ideals and patriotism. In Spider-Man, the international body may have found a public relations supremo worth a thousand besuited Manhattan marketing executives.
Marvel burst on to comic store stands in 1939, on the eve as the Second World War, as Timely Publications. Founded by a magazine publisher called Martin Goodman, its first hit superhero was Captain America, who wore his politics on his star-spangled sleeve more overtly than any of his Marvel successors. Created by Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby, the first edition was published in March 1941 – nine months before Pearl Harbour. It featured "Cap", as fans came to know him, the alter ego of sickly Steve Rogers, punching Adolf Hitler on the jaw.
Such gung-ho scripting sent circulation of wartime editions spiralling to more than a million a month, outstripping that of news publications such as Time.
To date, more than 200 million copies of Captain America comic books have been sold in more than 75 countries. A post-war lull in sales followed Captain America's heyday but, in the 1960s, other characters who walked out of the Marvel stable continued to reflect the politics of the day. The early 1960s, at the height of the cold war, saw the emergence of a new generation of superheroes, including a quartet called the Fantastic Four.
Channelling Cold War and nuclear paranoia, the work, created by Jack Kirby and comic book legend, Stan Lee, featured four Americans who gain super powers after being exposed to solar rays on a scientific mission to outer space. In one story, the foursome must do battle with the Silver Surfer, whose presence on Earth threatens the future of the planet.
Spider-Man, easily the most successful of Marvel's gallery of superheroes, was not immune to political influences. Another Cold War-era hero – Peter Parker's alter-ego first appeared in the comic book Amazing Fantasy in 1962 – Spider-Man also reflected American city-dweller's increasingly angst-ridden relationships with their metropolises. Here was a hero who could single-handedly rid the streets of crime.
In one controversial story, published in 1971, Stan Lee defied the Comics Code Authority with a story about the perils of drug taking. Responding to a request from the US Government to highlight the destructive force of narcotics, Lee penned a tale that saw Spider-Man facing up to the Green Goblin's son, Harry Osborn, who is hospitalised after taking LSD. This went against convention because the story depicted drug use, but Lee published anyway, and the CCA subsequently loosened its code to permit the negative depiction of drugs.
The early 1960s also saw the launch of one of Marvel's most politically astute superheroes. First seen in 1963, Iron Man was at first an anti-communist. In his first incarnation, the patriotic engineer Anthony Stark travels to wartime Vietnam, where he is captured by an evil warlord called Wong Chu, but later creates an iron suit of armour that gives him super powers and allows him to defeat the communists.
Iron Man's anti-red stance softens as opposition to the war grows and subsequent storylines see him turn his attention to Iraq in the first Gulf War.
This year sees the release of a mega-budget film version of Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. Produced by Marvel itself, the film sees Iron Man travelling to Afghanistan to introduce a new missile design to US Air Force chiefs. This time, he is captured by Afghan rebels and is ordered to make a missile for them. Instead, he conceives his indestructible iron suit and saves the day.
The film can expect to be greeted by huge audiences at US military bases on its release next May. Back at the UN, chiefs have been quick to point out it was not they who came up with the idea for the new comics. That distinction lies with French filmmaker, Romuald Sciora. But a close look at his CV shows him to be something of a UN loyalist – his portfolio includes "À la maison de verre" (In the glass house), a series of short documentaries looking at the leadership and accomplishments of the last four UN Secretaries-General.
UN bosses will be eagerly anticipating the latest attempt to restore the organisation's reputation. They will also hope that the characters based on UN staff fare better than the character who started it all – Captain America. In an apparent shift from the tradition for getting behind American causes, Marvel killed off the Captain last April. He is felled by an assassin's bullet 66 years after he began battling villains.
Commenting on the hero's demise, Marvel writer Jeph Loeb said: "Part of it grew out of the fact that we are a country that's at war, we are being perceived differently in the world. [Captain America] wears the flag and he is assassinated – it's impossible not to have it at least be a metaphor for the complications of the present day."
Co-writer Ed Brubaker also alluded to the superhero's role in a more complicated political climate, where the increasingly blurred line between good and evil has become more of a struggle for comic book cartoonists to draw. "What I found is that all the really hard-core left-wing fans want Cap to be standing out on and giving speeches on the street corner against the Bush administration," he said, "and all the really right-wing fans all want him to be over in the streets of Baghdad, punching out Saddam Hussein."
So now the United Nations announces that they have signed a deal with Marvel to apply comicbook status onto global governance.
Brilliant. I can't wait to see world leaders pounding on the address podium with Hulk hands.
Kapow! A Hero for our Troubled Times
Simon Usborne
The Independent
Spider-Man's challenges have so far been pretty small beer. Since he first spun his web in the 1960s, he has squared up to a gallery of rogues, from the multi-limbed Doctor Octopus to the shape-shifting Sandman. Yet so far he has only been tasked with rescuing the citizens of New York.
Now he is set for the truly big time. In a story out later this year, the Marvel hero will be called upon to rescue the battered image of a very real-world institution – the United Nations.
In a move that will add grist to the mills of critics of the UN, who say the New York-based international organisation is ineffective and is suffering a communications crisis, particularly in the US, the body is joining forces with Marvel Comics, the creative force behind a stable of superheroes that includes Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and theX-Men. The unlikely partnership will create a new comic book that will include UN characters working alongside "Spidey" and other superheroes to settle bloody conflicts and rid the world of disease.
Details of the plot have not yet been released but, according to the UN Office for Partnerships, the script is being written and the final storyline is set to be approved next month. Cartoonists and writers are working for free. The comic is expected to be set in a war-torn fictional country and feature heroes including Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, as well as workers from UN agencies such as children's charity UNICEF and blue helmets of the peacekeeping forces.
Eventually, the work will be translated into several other languages and widely distributed, but it is American schoolchildren who the UN plans to target first in a bid to rescue its image; the comic will be distributed free to one million US school children later next year. The UN says on its website, "By making the complex UN system accessible to youth, the partners hope to teach children the value of international co-operation, and sensitise them to the problems faced in other parts of the world."
There is, of course, no mention on its website of the UN's troubled image but the initiative can only serve to bolster the organisation's reputation, which has become embroiled in accusations of corruption and ineptitude. Relations between the UN and the US have become particularly tense during the presidency of George Bush. More than 10 years ago, former US ambassador the UN, John Bolton went so far as to say there was "no such thing" as the UN and called the US the world's "only real power". He also declared that if the 38-storey UN building "lost 10 storeys today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference".
Marvel Entertainment, the parent company based in New York that owns Marvel Comics, is known in the publishing industry for zealously guarding its brand, regularly declining tie-in and licensing opportunities.
Many will raise an eyebrow at the firm's apparent UN love-in, but a look at the comic company's history reveals a long tradition of promoting political causes, and acting as a touchstone for American ideals and patriotism. In Spider-Man, the international body may have found a public relations supremo worth a thousand besuited Manhattan marketing executives.
Marvel burst on to comic store stands in 1939, on the eve as the Second World War, as Timely Publications. Founded by a magazine publisher called Martin Goodman, its first hit superhero was Captain America, who wore his politics on his star-spangled sleeve more overtly than any of his Marvel successors. Created by Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby, the first edition was published in March 1941 – nine months before Pearl Harbour. It featured "Cap", as fans came to know him, the alter ego of sickly Steve Rogers, punching Adolf Hitler on the jaw.
Such gung-ho scripting sent circulation of wartime editions spiralling to more than a million a month, outstripping that of news publications such as Time.
To date, more than 200 million copies of Captain America comic books have been sold in more than 75 countries. A post-war lull in sales followed Captain America's heyday but, in the 1960s, other characters who walked out of the Marvel stable continued to reflect the politics of the day. The early 1960s, at the height of the cold war, saw the emergence of a new generation of superheroes, including a quartet called the Fantastic Four.
Channelling Cold War and nuclear paranoia, the work, created by Jack Kirby and comic book legend, Stan Lee, featured four Americans who gain super powers after being exposed to solar rays on a scientific mission to outer space. In one story, the foursome must do battle with the Silver Surfer, whose presence on Earth threatens the future of the planet.
Spider-Man, easily the most successful of Marvel's gallery of superheroes, was not immune to political influences. Another Cold War-era hero – Peter Parker's alter-ego first appeared in the comic book Amazing Fantasy in 1962 – Spider-Man also reflected American city-dweller's increasingly angst-ridden relationships with their metropolises. Here was a hero who could single-handedly rid the streets of crime.
In one controversial story, published in 1971, Stan Lee defied the Comics Code Authority with a story about the perils of drug taking. Responding to a request from the US Government to highlight the destructive force of narcotics, Lee penned a tale that saw Spider-Man facing up to the Green Goblin's son, Harry Osborn, who is hospitalised after taking LSD. This went against convention because the story depicted drug use, but Lee published anyway, and the CCA subsequently loosened its code to permit the negative depiction of drugs.
The early 1960s also saw the launch of one of Marvel's most politically astute superheroes. First seen in 1963, Iron Man was at first an anti-communist. In his first incarnation, the patriotic engineer Anthony Stark travels to wartime Vietnam, where he is captured by an evil warlord called Wong Chu, but later creates an iron suit of armour that gives him super powers and allows him to defeat the communists.
Iron Man's anti-red stance softens as opposition to the war grows and subsequent storylines see him turn his attention to Iraq in the first Gulf War.
This year sees the release of a mega-budget film version of Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. Produced by Marvel itself, the film sees Iron Man travelling to Afghanistan to introduce a new missile design to US Air Force chiefs. This time, he is captured by Afghan rebels and is ordered to make a missile for them. Instead, he conceives his indestructible iron suit and saves the day.
The film can expect to be greeted by huge audiences at US military bases on its release next May. Back at the UN, chiefs have been quick to point out it was not they who came up with the idea for the new comics. That distinction lies with French filmmaker, Romuald Sciora. But a close look at his CV shows him to be something of a UN loyalist – his portfolio includes "À la maison de verre" (In the glass house), a series of short documentaries looking at the leadership and accomplishments of the last four UN Secretaries-General.
UN bosses will be eagerly anticipating the latest attempt to restore the organisation's reputation. They will also hope that the characters based on UN staff fare better than the character who started it all – Captain America. In an apparent shift from the tradition for getting behind American causes, Marvel killed off the Captain last April. He is felled by an assassin's bullet 66 years after he began battling villains.
Commenting on the hero's demise, Marvel writer Jeph Loeb said: "Part of it grew out of the fact that we are a country that's at war, we are being perceived differently in the world. [Captain America] wears the flag and he is assassinated – it's impossible not to have it at least be a metaphor for the complications of the present day."
Co-writer Ed Brubaker also alluded to the superhero's role in a more complicated political climate, where the increasingly blurred line between good and evil has become more of a struggle for comic book cartoonists to draw. "What I found is that all the really hard-core left-wing fans want Cap to be standing out on and giving speeches on the street corner against the Bush administration," he said, "and all the really right-wing fans all want him to be over in the streets of Baghdad, punching out Saddam Hussein."
10 December 2007
Lies - The Pattern Recognition
Never 'misunderestimate' the agendas pushed consistently by Bush and Cheney - a constant state of war and fear. And here's more proof: the nicely catalogued homework done by Dan Froomkin for the Washington Post.
A Pattern of Deception
By Dan Froomkin
President Bush changed the way he talked about Iran in August: He stopped making explicit assertions about the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
On Monday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a new national intelligence estimate in which the nation's 16 intelligence agencies concluded that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program four years ago -- a dramatic rejection of an earlier set of findings.
Bush yesterday said he was only briefed about the new estimate last week.
But a close examination of his word choice over the past year suggests that he learned something around August that got him to stop making claims that were apparently no longer supported by American intelligence.
Instead of directly condemning Iranian leaders for pursuing nuclear weapons, he started more vaguely accusing them of seeking the knowledge necessary to make such a weapon.
As he did that, he and the vice president accelerated their rhetorical efforts to persuade the public that the nuclear threat posed by Iran was grave and urgent. Bush even went so far in late August and October as to warn of the potential for a nuclear holocaust.
Indeed, a careful parsing of Bush's words indicates that, while not saying anything that could later prove to be demonstrably false, Bush left his listeners with what he likely knew was a fundamentally false impression. And he did so in the pursuit of a more muscular and possibly even military approach to a Middle Eastern country.
It's an oddly familiar pattern of deception.
Bush's Changing Words
A survey of Bush's remarks about Iran's nuclear ambitions in 2007 suggests that a shift took place somewhere between August 6 and August 9. There wasn't a change in his overall message, just his carefully chosen words.
Here's Bush on Jan. 26: "As you know, the Iranians, for example, think they want to have a nuclear weapon. And we've convinced other nations to join us to send a clear message, through the United Nations, that that's unacceptable behavior."
On March 31: "Our position is that we would hope that nations would be very careful in dealing with Iran, particularly since Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, and a major threat to world peace is if the Iranians had a nuclear weapon. . . .
"We respect the history of Iran, we respect the rich traditions of Iran. We, however, are deeply concerned about an Iranian government that is in violation of international accords in their attempt to develop a nuclear weapon."
On June 5: "The Iranians are a great people who deserve to chart their own future, but they are denied their liberty by a handful of extremists whose pursuit of nuclear weapons prevents their country from taking its rightful place amongst the thriving."
On June 19, Bush spoke of "consequences to the Iranian government if they continue to pursue a nuclear weapon, such as financial sanctions, or economic sanctions. . . .
"Now, whether or not they abandon their nuclear weapons program, we'll see."
On July 12: "[T]he same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons and threatening to wipe Israel off the map is also providing sophisticated IEDs to extremists in Iraq who are using them to kill American soldiers."
On Aug. 6 he said "it's up to Iran to prove to the world that they're a stabilizing force as opposed to a destabilizing force. After all, this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon."
From that point on, he started choosing his words more carefully.
Here he is on Aug. 9: "They have expressed their desire to be able to enrich uranium, which we believe is a step toward having a nuclear weapons program. That, in itself, coupled with their stated foreign policy, is very dangerous for world stability. . . . It's a very troubling nation right now."
But it certainly didn't tame the overall message.
Here he is on Aug. 28: "Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.
"We seek an Iran whose government is accountable to its people -- instead of to leaders who promote terror and pursue the technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons."
Oct. 4: "I have made the commitment that I would continue to work with the world to speak with one voice to the Iranians, to the Iranian government, that we will work in ways that we can to make it clear to you that you should not have the know-how on how to make a weapon, because one of the great threats to peace and the world would be if Iranians showed up with a nuclear weapon."
And, of course, here Bush is at his Oct. 17 press conference:
Q: "But you definitively believe Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon?"
Bush: "I think so long -- until they suspend and/or make it clear that they -- that their statements aren't real, yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon. And I know it's in the world's interest to prevent them from doing so. I believe that the Iranian -- if Iran had a nuclear weapon, it would be a dangerous threat to world peace.
"But this -- we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
Sharp-Eyed Bloggers
Blogger Josh Marshall examines Bush's wording at that press conference and notes: "It's no longer the need to prevent the Iranians from getting the bomb. Now it's the necessity of 'preventing them from hav[ing] the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.'
That's the tell.
"That change is no accident. He wants claims that will survive the eventual revelation of this new intelligence -- while also continuing to hype the imminence of the Iranian nuclear threat that his spy chiefs are telling him likely does not exist."
And here is Cheney a few days later, on Oct. 21, in what is widely considered the height of his saber-rattling, speaking of "the inescapable reality of Iran's nuclear program; a program they claim is strictly for energy purposes, but which they have worked hard to conceal; a program carried out in complete defiance of the international community and resolutions of the U.N. Security Council. Iran is pursuing technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons. The world knows this. . . .
"The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences. The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
As Matthew Yglesias blogs for The Atlantic, "the striking thing about this is the extent to which looking back at Cheney's statement he's tried very carefully to avoid directly contradicting the NIE while crafting phrases that are clearly designed to cause the listener to draw the precise wrong conclusion.
"It's not as if Cheney read the NIE and decided he had some reason to believe it was incorrect. Rather, he read it, decided he'd better not contradict it, but also decided that bottom line conclusions about how Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program were inconvenient, and thus decided to talk around that minor point and try to get the American people confused about what's happening. Stunningly cynical and yes I'm resolving once again to never be stunned."
What Happened in August?
At Bush's press conference yesterday, he said: "I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was [national intelligence director] Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn't tell me what the information was; he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze."
Not only is it hard to believe that Bush received no indication of what the information said, but his shift in language suggests that he recognized around August that his prior statements about Iran were no longer defensible.
Not Believable?
Bush's assertion that he didn't know about the intelligence reversal until last week struck some observers as flatly absurd.
Steven Lee Myers and Helene Cooper write in the New York Times: "Mr. Bush opened himself to new criticism over his credibility when he said that the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, alerted him about new intelligence about Iran's weapons program in August but did not explain what it was in detail.
"As recently as October, Mr. Bush continued to warn darkly of Iran's nuclear weapons threat, invoking World War III, despite the new information. He responded to a question about that on Tuesday by saying he had received the final assessment, with its drastically altered findings, only last week."
CNN reports: "Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden on Tuesday said he can't believe President Bush hasn't known for months about a recent intelligence estimate that downplays the nuclear threat from Iran. . . .
"'Are you telling me a president that's briefed every single morning, who's fixated on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the U.S. government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in '03?' Biden asked in a conference call with reporters.
""I refuse to believe that,' he added. 'If that's true, he has the most incompetent staff in modern American history, and he's one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history.'"
Roxana Tiron write in The Hill that several Democrats "said that Congress should investigate the discrepancy between the Bush administration's recent doomsday rhetoric on Iran and the NIE's judgments."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "charged that the president knew Iran halted its nuclear weapons program months ago even while he warned that the international community must prevent Iran from having the know-how to make a nuclear weapon and avoid 'World War III.'"
And David Morgan writes for Reuters: "On Tuesday, some former intelligence officers said Bush and other top White House officials were probably briefed about the intelligence findings long before the NIE was published.
"'I can't imagine that McConnell . . . would tell the president about this and not tell him what the information actually said,' remarked Flynt Leverett, a former member of Bush's National Security Council."
Alternate Timeline
There are also questions about the administration's narrative that the intelligence reversal came recently.
Greg Miller writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Last spring, as U.S. intelligence agencies worked to complete an assessment of Iran's nuclear weapons program, they were firmly on track to reach the same conclusion as previous reports: Tehran was bent on building the bomb.
"But within weeks, there was an abrupt change of course. The earlier drafts were scrapped. Analysts began to assemble a new report built around the single, startling conclusion that Iran's nuclear weapons program had actually been shut down for four years.
What happened?
"As U.S. intelligence officials sought Tuesday to explain the remarkable reversal, they pointed to two factors: the emergence of crucial information over the summer, and a determination to avoid repeating the mistakes that preceded the Iraq war."
But there's an alternate timeline that seems at least as plausible -- and that would make Bush's deniability even more difficult to support.
Consider what Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker over a year ago: "The Administration's planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House's assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency."
Here's Hersh with Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday:
Hersh: "At the time, I wrote that there was a tremendous fight about it, because Cheney in the White House -- the vice president did not want to hear this. So that there was a fight about that intelligence. And, actually, for the last year, I think the vice president's office pretty much has kept -- you know, the vice president has kept his foot on the neck of that report. That report was bottled up for a year.
"The intelligence we learned about yesterday has been circulating inside this government at the highest levels for the last year -- and probably longer."
And Hersh scoffed at Bush's suggestion that he didn't know about the changing intelligence until last week: "Either he didn't know what was going on at the highest levels -- the fight I'm talking about began last year. . . . Now, maybe he didn't know what was going on at the vice presidential level about something that serious. If so, I mean we pay him to know these things and not to make statements based on information that turned out not to be accurate. Or else he's misrepresenting what he knows.
"I don't think there's any question, this is going to pose a serious credibility problem. I assume people are going to be asking more and more questions about what did he know when. And his statement that McConnell comes to him -- the head of the intelligence services of the United States -- and says I have something serious to say to you and he says great, let me know when I want to hear it, is, you know -- it's his words and we can only say that if that's true, you know, that's -- that's not what we pay the guy to do."
Similarly, Scott Horton blogs for Harpers that a "highly reliable intelligence community source" told him: "The NIE has been in substantially the form in which it was finally submitted for more than six months. The White House, and particularly Vice President Cheney, used every trick in the book to stop it from being finalized and issued. There was no last minute breakthrough that caused the issuance of the assessment."
Iraq Redux
In the run-up to war in Iraq, administration policy was to create the perception that Saddam Hussein was an imminent and potentially nuclear-armed threat and was even involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- without exactly saying so. None of that was true, of course. But the message delivery was hugely successful, and the war was launched.
How intentionally misleading Bush and his advisers were before the invasion of Iraq has never been definitively established. Asked last year in a Newsweek poll, 45 percent of Americans said they believed the president was truthful and honest in laying out the case for war, while 48 percent said they believed he was deliberately misleading. Congress and the press seem to have lost interest in the issue.
But here's a fresh case study. And the evidence seems to indicate that even after Bush likely became aware that the intelligence did not support his claim that Iran was an imminent threat -- or even that it was evn pursuing nuclear weapons at all -- he embarked on a strategy of carefully calibrated misinformation.
The public deserves to know precisely what Bush was told when. And that's really only the tip of the iceberg. What was happening behind the scenes? What changed, such that the intelligence agencies finally went public with their findings? And why would Bush and Cheney warn so direly about something that they knew wasn't happening? What was their motivation?
Yesterday's Spin
I wrote in yesterday's column about what I called Bush's neck-snapping spin.
Peter Baker and Robin Wright write in The Washington Post: "President Bush scrambled yesterday to hold together a fragile international coalition against Iran, declaring that the Islamic republic remains 'dangerous' and that 'nothing has changed' despite a new intelligence report that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago.
"While his top diplomats reached out to key counterparts, Bush began calling world leaders and held a White House news conference to argue that the new National Intelligence Estimate only reinforces the need for diplomatic pressure against Iran. Although the report determined that Iran stopped seeking a nuclear bomb in 2003, Bush said Tehran's secrecy shows it cannot be trusted."
Ken Fireman and Jeff Bliss write for Bloomberg: "President George W. Bush, his credibility under fire because of intelligence that Iran halted its nuclear weapons drive in 2003, adopted a new argument yesterday to justify tougher sanctions: Just knowing how to produce a bomb is dangerous. . . .
"By shifting from seeking to block an actual weapons program to the 'more amorphous' knowledge standard, Bush is changing a decade-old U.S. policy and making a diplomatic resolution less likely, said [Hillary Mann] Leverett, former director of Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs at the White House National Security Council."
Mark Silva writes in the Chicago Tribune: "The president's stance on Iran -- including his continuing assertion that 'all options are on the table,' meaning potential U.S. military action to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb -- raised new questions about his credibility on such security issues, questions that both Democratic leaders and independent analysts were highlighting Tuesday. . . .
"It is a pattern of targeting the 'devil du jour,' suggested John Mueller, a professor of national security at Ohio State University. The last devil was Hussein, he said, and the new one Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"'Just the historical exaggeration of this threat fits into a long syndrome,' said Mueller."
Opinion Watch
Trita Parsi writes on behalf of the National Iranian American Council: "Rather than adjusting policy on Iran in accordance to the reality-check provided by the NIE, the President moved the goal post on Iran. As the NIE declared that Iran likely doesn't have a weapons program, the President shifted the red line from weaponization to the mere knowledge of enriching uranium -- an activity that in and of itself is not of a military nature and is permitted by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"By setting a new and arbitrary standard with no root or support in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, President Bush is insisting on adjusting reality to policy rather than policy to reality. There are numerous problems with this stance.
"First, it further undermines US credibility and leaves allies and foes alike with the impression that Washington seeks a military conflict with Iran regardless of the realities of Iran's nuclear program.
"Second, Iran already possesses the knowledge to enrich uranium. Given the President's logic, this reality would permit the US to continue to pursue a military option against Iran -- in spite of the absence of an Iranian weapons program."
Neocon icon Robert Kagan writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "Regardless of what one thinks about the National Intelligence Estimate's conclusion that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 -- and there is much to question in the report -- its practical effects are indisputable. The Bush administration cannot take military action against Iran during its remaining time in office, or credibly threaten to do so, unless it is in response to an extremely provocative Iranian action. . . .
"Neither, however, will the administration make further progress in winning international support for tighter sanctions on Iran. Fear of American military action was always the primary reason Europeans pressured Tehran. . . .
"With its policy tools broken, the Bush administration can sit around isolated for the next year. Or it can seize the initiative, and do the next administration a favor, by opening direct talks with Tehran."
The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes: "Bush is correct to say that the revised intelligence estimate does not warrant a fundamental change in policy. A nuclear-armed Iran should be deterred. The tragedy for U.S. security and global peace is that Bush has twice squandered his chances to lead that vital effort."
The Washington Post editorial board encourages Bush to stick to his plan, and not agree to talks with Iran unless the regime first suspends uranium enrichment.
Maureen Dowd writes in her New York Times opinion column: "If W. can shape the intelligence to match his faith-based beliefs, as with Iraq, then he will believe the intelligence -- no matter how incredible it is.
"If he can't shape it to match his beliefs, as with Iran, then he will disregard the intelligence -- no matter how credible it is."
A Pattern of Deception
By Dan Froomkin
President Bush changed the way he talked about Iran in August: He stopped making explicit assertions about the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
On Monday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a new national intelligence estimate in which the nation's 16 intelligence agencies concluded that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program four years ago -- a dramatic rejection of an earlier set of findings.
Bush yesterday said he was only briefed about the new estimate last week.
But a close examination of his word choice over the past year suggests that he learned something around August that got him to stop making claims that were apparently no longer supported by American intelligence.
Instead of directly condemning Iranian leaders for pursuing nuclear weapons, he started more vaguely accusing them of seeking the knowledge necessary to make such a weapon.
As he did that, he and the vice president accelerated their rhetorical efforts to persuade the public that the nuclear threat posed by Iran was grave and urgent. Bush even went so far in late August and October as to warn of the potential for a nuclear holocaust.
Indeed, a careful parsing of Bush's words indicates that, while not saying anything that could later prove to be demonstrably false, Bush left his listeners with what he likely knew was a fundamentally false impression. And he did so in the pursuit of a more muscular and possibly even military approach to a Middle Eastern country.
It's an oddly familiar pattern of deception.
Bush's Changing Words
A survey of Bush's remarks about Iran's nuclear ambitions in 2007 suggests that a shift took place somewhere between August 6 and August 9. There wasn't a change in his overall message, just his carefully chosen words.
Here's Bush on Jan. 26: "As you know, the Iranians, for example, think they want to have a nuclear weapon. And we've convinced other nations to join us to send a clear message, through the United Nations, that that's unacceptable behavior."
On March 31: "Our position is that we would hope that nations would be very careful in dealing with Iran, particularly since Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, and a major threat to world peace is if the Iranians had a nuclear weapon. . . .
"We respect the history of Iran, we respect the rich traditions of Iran. We, however, are deeply concerned about an Iranian government that is in violation of international accords in their attempt to develop a nuclear weapon."
On June 5: "The Iranians are a great people who deserve to chart their own future, but they are denied their liberty by a handful of extremists whose pursuit of nuclear weapons prevents their country from taking its rightful place amongst the thriving."
On June 19, Bush spoke of "consequences to the Iranian government if they continue to pursue a nuclear weapon, such as financial sanctions, or economic sanctions. . . .
"Now, whether or not they abandon their nuclear weapons program, we'll see."
On July 12: "[T]he same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons and threatening to wipe Israel off the map is also providing sophisticated IEDs to extremists in Iraq who are using them to kill American soldiers."
On Aug. 6 he said "it's up to Iran to prove to the world that they're a stabilizing force as opposed to a destabilizing force. After all, this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon."
From that point on, he started choosing his words more carefully.
Here he is on Aug. 9: "They have expressed their desire to be able to enrich uranium, which we believe is a step toward having a nuclear weapons program. That, in itself, coupled with their stated foreign policy, is very dangerous for world stability. . . . It's a very troubling nation right now."
But it certainly didn't tame the overall message.
Here he is on Aug. 28: "Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.
"We seek an Iran whose government is accountable to its people -- instead of to leaders who promote terror and pursue the technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons."
Oct. 4: "I have made the commitment that I would continue to work with the world to speak with one voice to the Iranians, to the Iranian government, that we will work in ways that we can to make it clear to you that you should not have the know-how on how to make a weapon, because one of the great threats to peace and the world would be if Iranians showed up with a nuclear weapon."
And, of course, here Bush is at his Oct. 17 press conference:
Q: "But you definitively believe Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon?"
Bush: "I think so long -- until they suspend and/or make it clear that they -- that their statements aren't real, yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon. And I know it's in the world's interest to prevent them from doing so. I believe that the Iranian -- if Iran had a nuclear weapon, it would be a dangerous threat to world peace.
"But this -- we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
Sharp-Eyed Bloggers
Blogger Josh Marshall examines Bush's wording at that press conference and notes: "It's no longer the need to prevent the Iranians from getting the bomb. Now it's the necessity of 'preventing them from hav[ing] the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.'
That's the tell.
"That change is no accident. He wants claims that will survive the eventual revelation of this new intelligence -- while also continuing to hype the imminence of the Iranian nuclear threat that his spy chiefs are telling him likely does not exist."
And here is Cheney a few days later, on Oct. 21, in what is widely considered the height of his saber-rattling, speaking of "the inescapable reality of Iran's nuclear program; a program they claim is strictly for energy purposes, but which they have worked hard to conceal; a program carried out in complete defiance of the international community and resolutions of the U.N. Security Council. Iran is pursuing technology that could be used to develop nuclear weapons. The world knows this. . . .
"The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences. The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
As Matthew Yglesias blogs for The Atlantic, "the striking thing about this is the extent to which looking back at Cheney's statement he's tried very carefully to avoid directly contradicting the NIE while crafting phrases that are clearly designed to cause the listener to draw the precise wrong conclusion.
"It's not as if Cheney read the NIE and decided he had some reason to believe it was incorrect. Rather, he read it, decided he'd better not contradict it, but also decided that bottom line conclusions about how Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program were inconvenient, and thus decided to talk around that minor point and try to get the American people confused about what's happening. Stunningly cynical and yes I'm resolving once again to never be stunned."
What Happened in August?
At Bush's press conference yesterday, he said: "I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was [national intelligence director] Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn't tell me what the information was; he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze."
Not only is it hard to believe that Bush received no indication of what the information said, but his shift in language suggests that he recognized around August that his prior statements about Iran were no longer defensible.
Not Believable?
Bush's assertion that he didn't know about the intelligence reversal until last week struck some observers as flatly absurd.
Steven Lee Myers and Helene Cooper write in the New York Times: "Mr. Bush opened himself to new criticism over his credibility when he said that the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, alerted him about new intelligence about Iran's weapons program in August but did not explain what it was in detail.
"As recently as October, Mr. Bush continued to warn darkly of Iran's nuclear weapons threat, invoking World War III, despite the new information. He responded to a question about that on Tuesday by saying he had received the final assessment, with its drastically altered findings, only last week."
CNN reports: "Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden on Tuesday said he can't believe President Bush hasn't known for months about a recent intelligence estimate that downplays the nuclear threat from Iran. . . .
"'Are you telling me a president that's briefed every single morning, who's fixated on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the U.S. government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in '03?' Biden asked in a conference call with reporters.
""I refuse to believe that,' he added. 'If that's true, he has the most incompetent staff in modern American history, and he's one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history.'"
Roxana Tiron write in The Hill that several Democrats "said that Congress should investigate the discrepancy between the Bush administration's recent doomsday rhetoric on Iran and the NIE's judgments."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "charged that the president knew Iran halted its nuclear weapons program months ago even while he warned that the international community must prevent Iran from having the know-how to make a nuclear weapon and avoid 'World War III.'"
And David Morgan writes for Reuters: "On Tuesday, some former intelligence officers said Bush and other top White House officials were probably briefed about the intelligence findings long before the NIE was published.
"'I can't imagine that McConnell . . . would tell the president about this and not tell him what the information actually said,' remarked Flynt Leverett, a former member of Bush's National Security Council."
Alternate Timeline
There are also questions about the administration's narrative that the intelligence reversal came recently.
Greg Miller writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Last spring, as U.S. intelligence agencies worked to complete an assessment of Iran's nuclear weapons program, they were firmly on track to reach the same conclusion as previous reports: Tehran was bent on building the bomb.
"But within weeks, there was an abrupt change of course. The earlier drafts were scrapped. Analysts began to assemble a new report built around the single, startling conclusion that Iran's nuclear weapons program had actually been shut down for four years.
What happened?
"As U.S. intelligence officials sought Tuesday to explain the remarkable reversal, they pointed to two factors: the emergence of crucial information over the summer, and a determination to avoid repeating the mistakes that preceded the Iraq war."
But there's an alternate timeline that seems at least as plausible -- and that would make Bush's deniability even more difficult to support.
Consider what Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker over a year ago: "The Administration's planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House's assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency."
Here's Hersh with Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday:
Hersh: "At the time, I wrote that there was a tremendous fight about it, because Cheney in the White House -- the vice president did not want to hear this. So that there was a fight about that intelligence. And, actually, for the last year, I think the vice president's office pretty much has kept -- you know, the vice president has kept his foot on the neck of that report. That report was bottled up for a year.
"The intelligence we learned about yesterday has been circulating inside this government at the highest levels for the last year -- and probably longer."
And Hersh scoffed at Bush's suggestion that he didn't know about the changing intelligence until last week: "Either he didn't know what was going on at the highest levels -- the fight I'm talking about began last year. . . . Now, maybe he didn't know what was going on at the vice presidential level about something that serious. If so, I mean we pay him to know these things and not to make statements based on information that turned out not to be accurate. Or else he's misrepresenting what he knows.
"I don't think there's any question, this is going to pose a serious credibility problem. I assume people are going to be asking more and more questions about what did he know when. And his statement that McConnell comes to him -- the head of the intelligence services of the United States -- and says I have something serious to say to you and he says great, let me know when I want to hear it, is, you know -- it's his words and we can only say that if that's true, you know, that's -- that's not what we pay the guy to do."
Similarly, Scott Horton blogs for Harpers that a "highly reliable intelligence community source" told him: "The NIE has been in substantially the form in which it was finally submitted for more than six months. The White House, and particularly Vice President Cheney, used every trick in the book to stop it from being finalized and issued. There was no last minute breakthrough that caused the issuance of the assessment."
Iraq Redux
In the run-up to war in Iraq, administration policy was to create the perception that Saddam Hussein was an imminent and potentially nuclear-armed threat and was even involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- without exactly saying so. None of that was true, of course. But the message delivery was hugely successful, and the war was launched.
How intentionally misleading Bush and his advisers were before the invasion of Iraq has never been definitively established. Asked last year in a Newsweek poll, 45 percent of Americans said they believed the president was truthful and honest in laying out the case for war, while 48 percent said they believed he was deliberately misleading. Congress and the press seem to have lost interest in the issue.
But here's a fresh case study. And the evidence seems to indicate that even after Bush likely became aware that the intelligence did not support his claim that Iran was an imminent threat -- or even that it was evn pursuing nuclear weapons at all -- he embarked on a strategy of carefully calibrated misinformation.
The public deserves to know precisely what Bush was told when. And that's really only the tip of the iceberg. What was happening behind the scenes? What changed, such that the intelligence agencies finally went public with their findings? And why would Bush and Cheney warn so direly about something that they knew wasn't happening? What was their motivation?
Yesterday's Spin
I wrote in yesterday's column about what I called Bush's neck-snapping spin.
Peter Baker and Robin Wright write in The Washington Post: "President Bush scrambled yesterday to hold together a fragile international coalition against Iran, declaring that the Islamic republic remains 'dangerous' and that 'nothing has changed' despite a new intelligence report that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago.
"While his top diplomats reached out to key counterparts, Bush began calling world leaders and held a White House news conference to argue that the new National Intelligence Estimate only reinforces the need for diplomatic pressure against Iran. Although the report determined that Iran stopped seeking a nuclear bomb in 2003, Bush said Tehran's secrecy shows it cannot be trusted."
Ken Fireman and Jeff Bliss write for Bloomberg: "President George W. Bush, his credibility under fire because of intelligence that Iran halted its nuclear weapons drive in 2003, adopted a new argument yesterday to justify tougher sanctions: Just knowing how to produce a bomb is dangerous. . . .
"By shifting from seeking to block an actual weapons program to the 'more amorphous' knowledge standard, Bush is changing a decade-old U.S. policy and making a diplomatic resolution less likely, said [Hillary Mann] Leverett, former director of Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs at the White House National Security Council."
Mark Silva writes in the Chicago Tribune: "The president's stance on Iran -- including his continuing assertion that 'all options are on the table,' meaning potential U.S. military action to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb -- raised new questions about his credibility on such security issues, questions that both Democratic leaders and independent analysts were highlighting Tuesday. . . .
"It is a pattern of targeting the 'devil du jour,' suggested John Mueller, a professor of national security at Ohio State University. The last devil was Hussein, he said, and the new one Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"'Just the historical exaggeration of this threat fits into a long syndrome,' said Mueller."
Opinion Watch
Trita Parsi writes on behalf of the National Iranian American Council: "Rather than adjusting policy on Iran in accordance to the reality-check provided by the NIE, the President moved the goal post on Iran. As the NIE declared that Iran likely doesn't have a weapons program, the President shifted the red line from weaponization to the mere knowledge of enriching uranium -- an activity that in and of itself is not of a military nature and is permitted by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"By setting a new and arbitrary standard with no root or support in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, President Bush is insisting on adjusting reality to policy rather than policy to reality. There are numerous problems with this stance.
"First, it further undermines US credibility and leaves allies and foes alike with the impression that Washington seeks a military conflict with Iran regardless of the realities of Iran's nuclear program.
"Second, Iran already possesses the knowledge to enrich uranium. Given the President's logic, this reality would permit the US to continue to pursue a military option against Iran -- in spite of the absence of an Iranian weapons program."
Neocon icon Robert Kagan writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "Regardless of what one thinks about the National Intelligence Estimate's conclusion that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003 -- and there is much to question in the report -- its practical effects are indisputable. The Bush administration cannot take military action against Iran during its remaining time in office, or credibly threaten to do so, unless it is in response to an extremely provocative Iranian action. . . .
"Neither, however, will the administration make further progress in winning international support for tighter sanctions on Iran. Fear of American military action was always the primary reason Europeans pressured Tehran. . . .
"With its policy tools broken, the Bush administration can sit around isolated for the next year. Or it can seize the initiative, and do the next administration a favor, by opening direct talks with Tehran."
The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes: "Bush is correct to say that the revised intelligence estimate does not warrant a fundamental change in policy. A nuclear-armed Iran should be deterred. The tragedy for U.S. security and global peace is that Bush has twice squandered his chances to lead that vital effort."
The Washington Post editorial board encourages Bush to stick to his plan, and not agree to talks with Iran unless the regime first suspends uranium enrichment.
Maureen Dowd writes in her New York Times opinion column: "If W. can shape the intelligence to match his faith-based beliefs, as with Iraq, then he will believe the intelligence -- no matter how incredible it is.
"If he can't shape it to match his beliefs, as with Iran, then he will disregard the intelligence -- no matter how credible it is."
09 December 2007
How TV Works
Simple: Programs are created to make you watch TV. Advertisements pay for the programming. The cynicism creeps in when the programming IS the advertisement - and you still watch it.
Suggestion: Get a hobby. Play a sport. Fall in love. Bake a cake. Read a book. Enjoy your life.
So That’s Why They Drink Coke on TV
By LOUISE STORY
ADVERTISING is often like a game of cat and mouse. Consumers try as hard as they can to run away from sales pitches and commercial jingles, so marketers continually seek new ways to hunt them down.
One of the more popular tricks — oops, I meant to say tactics — advertisers are using today is branded entertainment, which ranges from plopping a Pepsi can into a scene to writing entire television scripts based around Oreo cookies. They like this approach so much that they’re increasing the money they spend on so-called product integrations at double-digit rates, making it one of the faster growth areas for an otherwise stalled television industry.
But does product integration dupe consumers? The Federal Communications Commission is considering investigating this question, and the commissioners may add it to their public agenda as early as Tuesday.
“Networks may be turning to more subtle and sophisticated means of incorporating commercial messages into traditional programming,” said Kevin J. Martin, the commission’s chairman, at a September public hearing. “I believe it is important for consumers to know when someone is trying to sell them something.”
But don’t they know already? I, for one, always assume when I see a brand in a television show or a movie that someone paid to have it there. And if product placement allows me to see fewer commercials, isn’t that a fair trade-off? One program on CW this year, called “CW Now,” runs its full 26 minutes without commercials. The show is about hot products and lifestyle news, so it is easy for the program to interweave ad messages.
But that’s an exception. Nearly all programs rife with product placement still blast us with commercials.
Even so, television executives are not eager to address Mr. Martin’s concerns. After all, some advertisers think the value of product integration is the ability to sneak up on viewers. They want viewers to think that the lead characters of “Gilmore Girls” really liked eating Pop-Tarts for breakfast and that the women in “Desperate Housewives” really do think Nissans are cool.
Some of the proposed solutions to the problem sound more annoying than the product placements themselves. For example, every time Paula Abdul takes a sip from a giant red cup splashed with the Coca-Cola logo on “American Idol,” a disclaimer box could be superimposed over the cup. When young guys flirt with beautiful babes on “The Game Killers” on MTV, a banner on the bottom of the screen could say, “This program was co-created by Unilever’s Axe deodorant.”
Other proposals include a partial ban on branded entertainment during the day and early evening to keep children from viewing it, or even a total ban.
But it’s hard to imagine advertisers agreeing to any of that, and, remember, they hold the purse strings.
Advertisers elbowed their way into the top 20 shows on cable and broadcast networks a whopping 110,296 times in the first half of this year, according to Nielsen Media Research. Coca-Cola alone appeared 3,054 times on broadcast network programs over that period. That’s big money. In 2005, advertisers spent just under $1 billion on television product integrations in the United States, and that amount should more than quadruple by 2010, according to forecasts by PQ Media, a media research firm in Stamford, Conn. Product integrations are usually mentioned only at the end in the credits — if at all.
It could become even worse online, where consumers have even less patience for commercials.
Surprisingly, some advertising executives say they would support disclosure requirements from the government.
"I agree with the F.C.C. Transparency, the truth are the most powerful tools,” said David Lubars, the chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO North America, which helped Gillette to create a seven-episode program that was shown on ABC last spring. It was called “Gillette Young Guns,” making it clear in the title that Gillette was behind the program.
Television writers, for the most part, hate that they are effectively becoming ad writers. Those who protest requests to write in a product are usually overruled, said Jody Frisch, director of public policy and government affairs of the Writers Guild of America, West, which is on strike.
Consumer advocacy groups have been complaining about advertisers trampling into content for years. But does the average Joe at home really care? Or does the tactic work so well that he doesn’t notice the pitch?
Suggestion: Get a hobby. Play a sport. Fall in love. Bake a cake. Read a book. Enjoy your life.
So That’s Why They Drink Coke on TV
By LOUISE STORY
ADVERTISING is often like a game of cat and mouse. Consumers try as hard as they can to run away from sales pitches and commercial jingles, so marketers continually seek new ways to hunt them down.
One of the more popular tricks — oops, I meant to say tactics — advertisers are using today is branded entertainment, which ranges from plopping a Pepsi can into a scene to writing entire television scripts based around Oreo cookies. They like this approach so much that they’re increasing the money they spend on so-called product integrations at double-digit rates, making it one of the faster growth areas for an otherwise stalled television industry.
But does product integration dupe consumers? The Federal Communications Commission is considering investigating this question, and the commissioners may add it to their public agenda as early as Tuesday.
“Networks may be turning to more subtle and sophisticated means of incorporating commercial messages into traditional programming,” said Kevin J. Martin, the commission’s chairman, at a September public hearing. “I believe it is important for consumers to know when someone is trying to sell them something.”
But don’t they know already? I, for one, always assume when I see a brand in a television show or a movie that someone paid to have it there. And if product placement allows me to see fewer commercials, isn’t that a fair trade-off? One program on CW this year, called “CW Now,” runs its full 26 minutes without commercials. The show is about hot products and lifestyle news, so it is easy for the program to interweave ad messages.
But that’s an exception. Nearly all programs rife with product placement still blast us with commercials.
Even so, television executives are not eager to address Mr. Martin’s concerns. After all, some advertisers think the value of product integration is the ability to sneak up on viewers. They want viewers to think that the lead characters of “Gilmore Girls” really liked eating Pop-Tarts for breakfast and that the women in “Desperate Housewives” really do think Nissans are cool.
Some of the proposed solutions to the problem sound more annoying than the product placements themselves. For example, every time Paula Abdul takes a sip from a giant red cup splashed with the Coca-Cola logo on “American Idol,” a disclaimer box could be superimposed over the cup. When young guys flirt with beautiful babes on “The Game Killers” on MTV, a banner on the bottom of the screen could say, “This program was co-created by Unilever’s Axe deodorant.”
Other proposals include a partial ban on branded entertainment during the day and early evening to keep children from viewing it, or even a total ban.
But it’s hard to imagine advertisers agreeing to any of that, and, remember, they hold the purse strings.
Advertisers elbowed their way into the top 20 shows on cable and broadcast networks a whopping 110,296 times in the first half of this year, according to Nielsen Media Research. Coca-Cola alone appeared 3,054 times on broadcast network programs over that period. That’s big money. In 2005, advertisers spent just under $1 billion on television product integrations in the United States, and that amount should more than quadruple by 2010, according to forecasts by PQ Media, a media research firm in Stamford, Conn. Product integrations are usually mentioned only at the end in the credits — if at all.
It could become even worse online, where consumers have even less patience for commercials.
Surprisingly, some advertising executives say they would support disclosure requirements from the government.
"I agree with the F.C.C. Transparency, the truth are the most powerful tools,” said David Lubars, the chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO North America, which helped Gillette to create a seven-episode program that was shown on ABC last spring. It was called “Gillette Young Guns,” making it clear in the title that Gillette was behind the program.
Television writers, for the most part, hate that they are effectively becoming ad writers. Those who protest requests to write in a product are usually overruled, said Jody Frisch, director of public policy and government affairs of the Writers Guild of America, West, which is on strike.
Consumer advocacy groups have been complaining about advertisers trampling into content for years. But does the average Joe at home really care? Or does the tactic work so well that he doesn’t notice the pitch?
02 December 2007
Iraq Doesn't Exist Anymore
A RARE and INFORMED perspective on the Iraq War/Crime.
A must read.
An Interview with Nir Rosen
By MIKE WHITNEY
Nir Rosen, author of In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, has spent more than two years in Iraq reporting on the American occupation, the relationship between Americans and Iraqis, the development of postwar Iraqi religious and political movements, interethnic and sectarian relations, and the Iraqi civil war. His reporting and research also focused on the origins and development of Islamist resistance, insurgency, and terrorist organizations. He has also reported from Somalia, where he investigated Islamist movements; Jordan, where he investigated the origins and future of the Zarqawi movement; and Pakistan, where he investigated the madrassas and pro-Taliban movements.
Is the "surge" working as Bush claims or is the sudden lull in the violence due to other factors like demographic changes in Baghdad?
Nir Rosen: I think that even calling it a surge is misleading. A surge is fast; this took months. It was more like an ooze. The US barely increased the troop numbers. It mostly just forced beleaguered American soldiers to stay longer. At the same time, the US doubled their enemies because, now, they're not just fighting the Sunni militias but the Shiite Mahdi army also. No, I don't think the surge worked.
Objectively speaking, the violence is down in Baghdad, but that's mainly due to the failure of the US to establish security. That's not success. Sure, less people are being killed but that's because there are less people to kill.
The violence in Iraq was not senseless or crazy, it was logical and teleological. Shiite militias were trying to remove Sunnis from Baghdad and other parts of the country, while Sunni militias were trying to remove Shiites, Kurds and Christians from their areas. This has been a great success. So you have millions of refugees and millions more internally displaced, not to mention hundreds of thousands dead. There are just less people to kill.
Moreover, the militias have consolidated their control over some areas. The US never thought that Muqtada al Sadr would order his Mahdi Army to halt operations (against Sunnis, rival Shiites and Americans) so that he could put his house in order and remove unruly militiamen.
And, the US never expected that Sunnis would see that they were losing the civil war so they might as well work with the Americans to prepare for the next battle. More importantly, violence fluctuates during a civil war, so people try to maintain as much normalcy in their lives as possible. It's the same in Sarajevo, Beirut or Baghdad-people marry, party, go to school when they Can-and hide at home or fight when they must.
The euphoria we see in the American media reminds me of the other so-called milestones that came and went while the overall trend in Iraq stayed the same. Now Iraq doesn't exist anymore. That's the most important thing to remember. There is no Iraq. There is no Iraqi government and none of the underlying causes for the violence have been addressed, such as the mutually exclusive aspirations of the rival factions and communities in Iraq.
Are we likely to see a "Phase 2" in the Iraq war? In other words, will we see the Shia eventually turn their guns on US occupation forces once they're confident that the Ba'athist-led resistance has been defeated and has no chance of regaining power?
Shiite militias have been fighting the Americans on and off since 2004 but there's been a steady increase in the past couple of years.
That's not just because the Americans saw the Mahdi army as one of the main obstacles to fulfilling their objectives in Iraq, but also because Iraq's Shiites-especially the Mahdi army-are very skeptical of US motives. They view the Americans as the main obstacle to achieving their goals in Iraq. Ever since Zalmay Khalilzad took over as ambassador; Iraq's Shiites have worried that the Americans would turn on them and throw their support behind the Sunnis. That's easy to understand given that Khalilzad's mandate was to get the Sunnis on board for the constitutional referendum. Khalilzad is also a Sunni himself.
But, yes, to answer your question; we could see a "Phase 2" if the Americans try to stay in Iraq longer or, of course, if the US attacks Iran. Then you'll see more Shiite attacks on the Americans.
Hundreds of Iraqi scientists, professors, intellectuals and other professionals have been killed during the war. Also, there seems to have been a plan to target Iraq's cultural icons---museums, monuments, mosques, palaces etc. Do you think that there was a deliberate effort to destroy the symbols of Iraqi identity-to wipe the slate clean-so that the society could be rebuilt according to a neoliberal, "free market" model?
The main reason that things have gone so horribly wrong in Iraq is there was no plan for anything; good or bad. The looting was not "deliberate" American policy. It was simply incompetence. The destruction of Iraq's cultural icons was incompetence, also - as well as stupidity, ignorance and criminal neglect. I don't believe that there was really any deliberate malice in the American policy; regardless of the malice with which it may have been implemented by the troops on the ground. The destruction of much of Iraq was the result of Islamic and sectarian militias-both Sunni and Shiite-seeking to wipe out hated symbols. The Americans didn't know enough about Iraq to intentionally execute such a plan even if it did exist. And, I don't think it did.
The media rarely mention the 4 million refugees created by the Iraq war. What do you think the long-term effects of this humanitarian crisis will be?
The smartest Iraqis-the best educated, the professionals, the middle and upper classes-have all left or been killed. So the society is destroyed. So there is no hope for a non-sectarian Iraq now. The refugees are getting poorer and more embittered. Their children cannot get an education and their resources are limited. Look at the Palestinian refugee crisis. In 1948 you had about 800,000 Palestinians expelled from their homes and driven into Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East. Over time, they were politicized, mobilized and militarized. The militias they formed to liberate their homeland were manipulated by the governments in the region and they became embroiled in regional conflicts, internal conflicts and, tragically, conflicts with each other. They were massacred in Lebanon and Jordan. And, contributed to instability in those countries.
Now you have camps in Lebanon producing jihadists who go to fight in Iraq or who fight the Lebanese Army. And this is all from a population of just 800,000 mostly rural, religiously-homogeneous (Sunni) refugees. Now, you have 2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, a million in Jordan and many more in other parts of the Middle East. The Sunnis and Shiites already have ties to the militias. They are often better educated, urban, and have accumulated some material wealth. These refugees are increasingly sectarian and are presently living in countries with a delicate sectarian balance and very fragile regimes. Many of the refugees will probably link up with Islamic groups and threaten the regimes of Syria and Jordan. They're also likely to exacerbate sectarian tensions in Lebanon. They're also bound to face greater persecution as they "wear out their welcome" and put a strain on the country's resources. They'll probably form into militias and either try go home or attempt to overthrow the regimes in the region. Borders will change and governments will fall. A new generation of fighters will emerge and there'll be more attacks on Americans.
You have compared Iraq to Mogadishu. Could you elaborate?
Somalia hasn't had a government since 1991. I've been to Mogadishu twice. It's ruled by warlords who control their own fiefdoms. Those who have money can live reasonably well. That's what it's like in Iraq now, a bunch of independent city-states ruled by various militias including the American militia and British militias. Of course, Somalia is not very important beyond the Horn of Africa. It's bordered by the sea, Kenya and Ethiopia. There's no chance of the fighting in Somalia spreading into a regional war. Iraq is much more dangerous in that respect.
Is the immediate withdrawal of all US troops really the best option for Iraq?
It really doesn't matter whether the Americans stay or leave. There are no good options for Iraq; no solutions. The best we can hope for is that the conflict won't spread. The best thing we can say about the American occupation is that it may soften the transition for the ultimate break up of Iraq into smaller fragments. A couple of years ago, I said that the Americans should leave to prevent a civil war and to allow the (Sunni) rejectionists to join the government once the occupation ended. Turns out, I was right; but, obviously, it's too late now. The civil war has already been fought and won in many places, mainly by the Shiite militias. The Americans are still the occupying force, which means that they must continue to repress people that didn't want them there in the first place. But, then, if you were to ask a Sunni in Baghdad today what would happen if the Americans picked up and left, he'd probably tell you that the remaining Sunnis would be massacred. So, there's no "right answer" to your question about immediate withdrawal.
November is the 3rd anniversary of the US siege of Falluja. Could you explain what happened in Falluja and what it means to Iraqis and the people in the Middle East?
Falluja was a poor industrial town known only for its kabob which Iraqis stopped to get on the way to picnic at lake Habbaniya. There were no attacks on the Americans from Falluja during the combat-phase of the US invasion. When Saddam's regime fell, the Fallujans began administering their own affairs until the Americans arrived. The US military leaders saw the Sunnis as the "bad guys", so they treated them harshly. At first, the Fallujans ignored the rough treatment because the tribal leaders leaders wanted to give the Americans a chance.
Then there was a incident, in April 2003, where US troops fired on a peaceful demonstration and killed over a dozen unarmed civilians.
This, more than anything else, radicalized the people and turned them against the Americans.
In the spring of 2004, four (Blackwater) American security contractors were killed in Falluja. Their bodies were burned and dismembered by an angry crowd. It was an insult to America's pride. In retaliation, the military launched a massive attack which destroyed much of the city and killed hundreds of civilians. The US justified the siege by saying that it was an attack on foreign fighters that (they claimed) were hiding out in terrorist strongholds. In truth, the townspeople were just fighting to defend their homes, their city, their country and their religion against a foreign occupier. Some Shiite militiamen actually fought with the Sunnis as a sign of solidarity.
In late 2004, the Americans completely destroyed Falluja forcing tens of thousands of Sunnis to seek refuge in western Baghdad. This is when the sectarian clashes between the Sunnis and Shiites actually began. The hostilities between the two groups escalated into civil war. Falluja has now become a symbol throughout the Muslim world of the growing resistance to American oppression.
The political turmoil in Lebanon continues even though the war with Israel has been over for more than a year. Tensions are escalating because of the upcoming presidential elections which are being closely monitored by France, Israel and the United States. Do you see Hizballah's role in the political process as basically constructive or destructive? Is Hizballah really a "terrorist organization" as the Bush administration claims or a legitimate resistance militia that is necessary for deterring future Israeli attacks?
Hizballah is not a terrorist organization. It is a widely popular and legitimate political and resistance movement. It has protected Lebanon's sovereignty and resisted American and Israeli plans for a New Middle East. It's also among the most democratic of Lebanon's political movements and one of the few groups with a message of social justice and anti imperialism. The Bush Administration is telling its proxies in the Lebanese government not to compromise on the selection of the next president. This is pushing Lebanon towards another civil war, which appears to be the plan. The US also started civil wars in Iraq, Gaza and Somalia.
The humanitarian situation in Somalia is steadily worsening. The UN reports that nearly 500,000 Somalis have fled Mogadishu and are living in makeshift tent cities with little food or water. The resistance-backed by the former government-the Islamic Courts Union-is gaining strength and fighting has broken out in 70 per cent of the neighborhoods in Mogadishu. Why is the US backing the invading Ethiopian army? Is Somalia now facing another bloody decades-long war or is there hope that the warring parties can resolve their differences?
After a decade and a half without a government and the endless fighting of clan-based militias; clan leaders decided to establish the Islamic Courts (Somalis are moderate Shaafi Muslims) to police their own people and to prevent their men provoking new conflicts. Islam was the only force powerful enough to unite the Somalis; and it worked. There have only been a half-dozen or so Al Qaida suspects who have-at one time or another---entered or exited through Somalia. But the Islamic Courts is not an al Qaida organization. Still, US policy in the Muslim world is predicated on the "War on Terror", so there's an effort to undermine any successful Islamic model, whether it's Hamas in Gaza, or Hizballah in Lebanon.
The US backed the brutal Somali warlords and created a counter-terrorism coalition which the Somalis saw as anti-Islamic. The Islamic Court militias organized a popular uprising that overthrew the warlords and restored peace and stability to much of Somalia for the first time in more than a decade. The streets were safe again, and exiled Somali businessmen returned home to help rebuild. I was there during this time.
The Americans and Ethiopians would not tolerate the new arrangement. The Bush administration sees al Qaeda everywhere. So, they joined forces with the Ethiopians because Ethiopia's proxies were overthrown in Mogadishu and because they feel threatened by Somali nationalism.
With the help of the US, the Ethiopian army deposed the Islamic Courts and radicalized the population in the process. Now Somalia is more violent than ever and jihadi-type groups are beginning to emerge where none had previously existed.
The US-led war in Afghanistan is not going well. The countryside is controlled by the warlords, the drug trade is flourishing, and America's man in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, has little power beyond the capital. The Taliban has regrouped and is methodically capturing city after city in the south. Their base of support, among disenchanted Pashtuns, continues to grow. How important is it for the US to succeed in Afghanistan? Would failure threaten the future of NATO or the Transatlantic Alliance?
Although the US has lost in Afghanistan; what really matters is Pakistan. That's where the Taliban and al Qaeda are actually located. No, I'm NOT saying that the US should take the war into Pakistan. The US has already done enough damage. But as long as America oppresses and alienates Muslims, they will continue to fight back.
The Gaza Strip has been under Israeli sanctions for more than a year. Despite the harsh treatment---the lack of food, water and medical supplies (as well as the soaring unemployment and the random attacks in civilian areas)---there have been no retaliatory suicide attacks on Israeli civilians or IDF soldiers. Isn't this proof that Hamas is serious about abandoning the armed struggle and joining the political process? Should Israel negotiate directly with the "democratically elected" Hamas or continue its present strategy of shoring up Mahmoud Abbas and the PA?
Hamas won democratic elections that were widely recognized as free and fair; that is, as free and as fair as you can expect when Israel and America are backing one side while trying to shackle the other. Israel and the US never accepted the election results. That's because Hamas refuses to capitulate. Also, Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood which is active in Egypt and Jordan and both those countries fear an example of a Muslim brothers in government, and they fear an example of a movement successfully defying the Americans and Israelis, so they backed Fatah. Everyone fears that these Islamic groups will become a successful model of resistance to American imperialism and hegemony. The regional dictators are especially afraid of these groups, so they work with the Americans to keep the pressure on their political rivals. Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah collaborates with the US and Israel to undermine Hamas and force the government to collapse.
Although they have failed so far; the US and Israel continue to support the same Fatah gangs that attempted the coup to oust Hamas. The plan backfired, and Hamas gunmen managed to drive Fatah out of Gaza after a number of violent skirmishes.
Israel should stop secretly supporting Fatah and adopt the "One State" solution. It should grant Palestinians and other non-Jews equal rights, abandon Zionism, allow Palestinian refugees to return, compensate them, and dismantle the settlements. If Israel doesn't voluntarily adopt the One State solution and work for a peaceful transition, (like South Africa) then eventually it will be face expulsion by the non Jewish majority in Greater Palestine, just like the French colonists in Algeria.This is not a question of being "pro" or "anti" Israel; that's irrelevant when predicting the future, and for any rational observer of the region it's clear that Israel is not a viable state in the Middle East as long as it is Zionist.
The US military is seriously over-stretched. Still, many political analysts believe that Bush will order an aerial assault on Iran. Do you think the US will carry out a "Lebanon-type" attack on Iran; bombing roads, bridges, factories, government buildings, oil depots, Army bases, munitions dumps, airports and nuclear sites? Will Iran retaliate or simply lend their support to resistance fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq?
I think it's quite likely that Bush will attack Iran; not because he has a good reason to, but because Jesus or God told him to and because Iran is part of the front-line resistance (along with Hizballah, Syria and Hamas) to American hegemony in the region. Bush believes nobody will have the guts to go after the Iranians after him. He believes that history will vindicate him and he'll be looked up to as a hero, like Reagan. There is also a racist element in this. Bush thinks that Iran is a culture based on honor and shame. He believes that if you humiliate the Iranian regime, then the people will rise up and overthrow it. Of course, in reality, when you bomb a country the people end up hating you and rally around the regime. Just look at the reaction of the Serbs after the bombing by NATO, or the Americans after September 11.
Iran is more stable than Iraq and has a stronger military. Also, the US is very vulnerable in the region, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
America's allies are even more vulnerable. An attack on Iran could ignite a regional war that would spiral out of control. Nothing good would come of it. The Bush administration needs to negotiate with Iran and pressure Israel to abandon its nuclear weapons.
Bush's war on terror now extends from the southern border of Somalia to the northern tip of Afghanistan---from Africa, through the Middle East into Central Asia. The US has not yet proven---in any of these conflicts - that it can enforce its will through military means alone.
In fact, in every case, the military appears to be losing ground.
And it's not just the military that's bogged down either. Back in the United States, the economy is rapidly deteriorating. The dollar is falling, the housing market is collapsing, consumer spending is shrinking, and the country's largest investment banks are bogged down with over $200 billion in mortgage-backed debt.
Given the current state of the military and the economy, do you see any way that the Bush administration can prevail in the war on terror or is US power in a state of irreversible decline?
Terror is a tactic; so you can't go to war with it in the first place. You can only go to war with people or nations. To many people it seems like the US is at war with Muslims. This is just radicalizing more people and eroding America's power and influence in the world.
But, then, maybe that's not such a bad thing.
Nir Rosen's book on postwar Iraq, In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, was published by Free Press in 2006.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com
A must read.
An Interview with Nir Rosen
By MIKE WHITNEY
Nir Rosen, author of In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, has spent more than two years in Iraq reporting on the American occupation, the relationship between Americans and Iraqis, the development of postwar Iraqi religious and political movements, interethnic and sectarian relations, and the Iraqi civil war. His reporting and research also focused on the origins and development of Islamist resistance, insurgency, and terrorist organizations. He has also reported from Somalia, where he investigated Islamist movements; Jordan, where he investigated the origins and future of the Zarqawi movement; and Pakistan, where he investigated the madrassas and pro-Taliban movements.
Is the "surge" working as Bush claims or is the sudden lull in the violence due to other factors like demographic changes in Baghdad?
Nir Rosen: I think that even calling it a surge is misleading. A surge is fast; this took months. It was more like an ooze. The US barely increased the troop numbers. It mostly just forced beleaguered American soldiers to stay longer. At the same time, the US doubled their enemies because, now, they're not just fighting the Sunni militias but the Shiite Mahdi army also. No, I don't think the surge worked.
Objectively speaking, the violence is down in Baghdad, but that's mainly due to the failure of the US to establish security. That's not success. Sure, less people are being killed but that's because there are less people to kill.
The violence in Iraq was not senseless or crazy, it was logical and teleological. Shiite militias were trying to remove Sunnis from Baghdad and other parts of the country, while Sunni militias were trying to remove Shiites, Kurds and Christians from their areas. This has been a great success. So you have millions of refugees and millions more internally displaced, not to mention hundreds of thousands dead. There are just less people to kill.
Moreover, the militias have consolidated their control over some areas. The US never thought that Muqtada al Sadr would order his Mahdi Army to halt operations (against Sunnis, rival Shiites and Americans) so that he could put his house in order and remove unruly militiamen.
And, the US never expected that Sunnis would see that they were losing the civil war so they might as well work with the Americans to prepare for the next battle. More importantly, violence fluctuates during a civil war, so people try to maintain as much normalcy in their lives as possible. It's the same in Sarajevo, Beirut or Baghdad-people marry, party, go to school when they Can-and hide at home or fight when they must.
The euphoria we see in the American media reminds me of the other so-called milestones that came and went while the overall trend in Iraq stayed the same. Now Iraq doesn't exist anymore. That's the most important thing to remember. There is no Iraq. There is no Iraqi government and none of the underlying causes for the violence have been addressed, such as the mutually exclusive aspirations of the rival factions and communities in Iraq.
Are we likely to see a "Phase 2" in the Iraq war? In other words, will we see the Shia eventually turn their guns on US occupation forces once they're confident that the Ba'athist-led resistance has been defeated and has no chance of regaining power?
Shiite militias have been fighting the Americans on and off since 2004 but there's been a steady increase in the past couple of years.
That's not just because the Americans saw the Mahdi army as one of the main obstacles to fulfilling their objectives in Iraq, but also because Iraq's Shiites-especially the Mahdi army-are very skeptical of US motives. They view the Americans as the main obstacle to achieving their goals in Iraq. Ever since Zalmay Khalilzad took over as ambassador; Iraq's Shiites have worried that the Americans would turn on them and throw their support behind the Sunnis. That's easy to understand given that Khalilzad's mandate was to get the Sunnis on board for the constitutional referendum. Khalilzad is also a Sunni himself.
But, yes, to answer your question; we could see a "Phase 2" if the Americans try to stay in Iraq longer or, of course, if the US attacks Iran. Then you'll see more Shiite attacks on the Americans.
Hundreds of Iraqi scientists, professors, intellectuals and other professionals have been killed during the war. Also, there seems to have been a plan to target Iraq's cultural icons---museums, monuments, mosques, palaces etc. Do you think that there was a deliberate effort to destroy the symbols of Iraqi identity-to wipe the slate clean-so that the society could be rebuilt according to a neoliberal, "free market" model?
The main reason that things have gone so horribly wrong in Iraq is there was no plan for anything; good or bad. The looting was not "deliberate" American policy. It was simply incompetence. The destruction of Iraq's cultural icons was incompetence, also - as well as stupidity, ignorance and criminal neglect. I don't believe that there was really any deliberate malice in the American policy; regardless of the malice with which it may have been implemented by the troops on the ground. The destruction of much of Iraq was the result of Islamic and sectarian militias-both Sunni and Shiite-seeking to wipe out hated symbols. The Americans didn't know enough about Iraq to intentionally execute such a plan even if it did exist. And, I don't think it did.
The media rarely mention the 4 million refugees created by the Iraq war. What do you think the long-term effects of this humanitarian crisis will be?
The smartest Iraqis-the best educated, the professionals, the middle and upper classes-have all left or been killed. So the society is destroyed. So there is no hope for a non-sectarian Iraq now. The refugees are getting poorer and more embittered. Their children cannot get an education and their resources are limited. Look at the Palestinian refugee crisis. In 1948 you had about 800,000 Palestinians expelled from their homes and driven into Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East. Over time, they were politicized, mobilized and militarized. The militias they formed to liberate their homeland were manipulated by the governments in the region and they became embroiled in regional conflicts, internal conflicts and, tragically, conflicts with each other. They were massacred in Lebanon and Jordan. And, contributed to instability in those countries.
Now you have camps in Lebanon producing jihadists who go to fight in Iraq or who fight the Lebanese Army. And this is all from a population of just 800,000 mostly rural, religiously-homogeneous (Sunni) refugees. Now, you have 2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, a million in Jordan and many more in other parts of the Middle East. The Sunnis and Shiites already have ties to the militias. They are often better educated, urban, and have accumulated some material wealth. These refugees are increasingly sectarian and are presently living in countries with a delicate sectarian balance and very fragile regimes. Many of the refugees will probably link up with Islamic groups and threaten the regimes of Syria and Jordan. They're also likely to exacerbate sectarian tensions in Lebanon. They're also bound to face greater persecution as they "wear out their welcome" and put a strain on the country's resources. They'll probably form into militias and either try go home or attempt to overthrow the regimes in the region. Borders will change and governments will fall. A new generation of fighters will emerge and there'll be more attacks on Americans.
You have compared Iraq to Mogadishu. Could you elaborate?
Somalia hasn't had a government since 1991. I've been to Mogadishu twice. It's ruled by warlords who control their own fiefdoms. Those who have money can live reasonably well. That's what it's like in Iraq now, a bunch of independent city-states ruled by various militias including the American militia and British militias. Of course, Somalia is not very important beyond the Horn of Africa. It's bordered by the sea, Kenya and Ethiopia. There's no chance of the fighting in Somalia spreading into a regional war. Iraq is much more dangerous in that respect.
Is the immediate withdrawal of all US troops really the best option for Iraq?
It really doesn't matter whether the Americans stay or leave. There are no good options for Iraq; no solutions. The best we can hope for is that the conflict won't spread. The best thing we can say about the American occupation is that it may soften the transition for the ultimate break up of Iraq into smaller fragments. A couple of years ago, I said that the Americans should leave to prevent a civil war and to allow the (Sunni) rejectionists to join the government once the occupation ended. Turns out, I was right; but, obviously, it's too late now. The civil war has already been fought and won in many places, mainly by the Shiite militias. The Americans are still the occupying force, which means that they must continue to repress people that didn't want them there in the first place. But, then, if you were to ask a Sunni in Baghdad today what would happen if the Americans picked up and left, he'd probably tell you that the remaining Sunnis would be massacred. So, there's no "right answer" to your question about immediate withdrawal.
November is the 3rd anniversary of the US siege of Falluja. Could you explain what happened in Falluja and what it means to Iraqis and the people in the Middle East?
Falluja was a poor industrial town known only for its kabob which Iraqis stopped to get on the way to picnic at lake Habbaniya. There were no attacks on the Americans from Falluja during the combat-phase of the US invasion. When Saddam's regime fell, the Fallujans began administering their own affairs until the Americans arrived. The US military leaders saw the Sunnis as the "bad guys", so they treated them harshly. At first, the Fallujans ignored the rough treatment because the tribal leaders leaders wanted to give the Americans a chance.
Then there was a incident, in April 2003, where US troops fired on a peaceful demonstration and killed over a dozen unarmed civilians.
This, more than anything else, radicalized the people and turned them against the Americans.
In the spring of 2004, four (Blackwater) American security contractors were killed in Falluja. Their bodies were burned and dismembered by an angry crowd. It was an insult to America's pride. In retaliation, the military launched a massive attack which destroyed much of the city and killed hundreds of civilians. The US justified the siege by saying that it was an attack on foreign fighters that (they claimed) were hiding out in terrorist strongholds. In truth, the townspeople were just fighting to defend their homes, their city, their country and their religion against a foreign occupier. Some Shiite militiamen actually fought with the Sunnis as a sign of solidarity.
In late 2004, the Americans completely destroyed Falluja forcing tens of thousands of Sunnis to seek refuge in western Baghdad. This is when the sectarian clashes between the Sunnis and Shiites actually began. The hostilities between the two groups escalated into civil war. Falluja has now become a symbol throughout the Muslim world of the growing resistance to American oppression.
The political turmoil in Lebanon continues even though the war with Israel has been over for more than a year. Tensions are escalating because of the upcoming presidential elections which are being closely monitored by France, Israel and the United States. Do you see Hizballah's role in the political process as basically constructive or destructive? Is Hizballah really a "terrorist organization" as the Bush administration claims or a legitimate resistance militia that is necessary for deterring future Israeli attacks?
Hizballah is not a terrorist organization. It is a widely popular and legitimate political and resistance movement. It has protected Lebanon's sovereignty and resisted American and Israeli plans for a New Middle East. It's also among the most democratic of Lebanon's political movements and one of the few groups with a message of social justice and anti imperialism. The Bush Administration is telling its proxies in the Lebanese government not to compromise on the selection of the next president. This is pushing Lebanon towards another civil war, which appears to be the plan. The US also started civil wars in Iraq, Gaza and Somalia.
The humanitarian situation in Somalia is steadily worsening. The UN reports that nearly 500,000 Somalis have fled Mogadishu and are living in makeshift tent cities with little food or water. The resistance-backed by the former government-the Islamic Courts Union-is gaining strength and fighting has broken out in 70 per cent of the neighborhoods in Mogadishu. Why is the US backing the invading Ethiopian army? Is Somalia now facing another bloody decades-long war or is there hope that the warring parties can resolve their differences?
After a decade and a half without a government and the endless fighting of clan-based militias; clan leaders decided to establish the Islamic Courts (Somalis are moderate Shaafi Muslims) to police their own people and to prevent their men provoking new conflicts. Islam was the only force powerful enough to unite the Somalis; and it worked. There have only been a half-dozen or so Al Qaida suspects who have-at one time or another---entered or exited through Somalia. But the Islamic Courts is not an al Qaida organization. Still, US policy in the Muslim world is predicated on the "War on Terror", so there's an effort to undermine any successful Islamic model, whether it's Hamas in Gaza, or Hizballah in Lebanon.
The US backed the brutal Somali warlords and created a counter-terrorism coalition which the Somalis saw as anti-Islamic. The Islamic Court militias organized a popular uprising that overthrew the warlords and restored peace and stability to much of Somalia for the first time in more than a decade. The streets were safe again, and exiled Somali businessmen returned home to help rebuild. I was there during this time.
The Americans and Ethiopians would not tolerate the new arrangement. The Bush administration sees al Qaeda everywhere. So, they joined forces with the Ethiopians because Ethiopia's proxies were overthrown in Mogadishu and because they feel threatened by Somali nationalism.
With the help of the US, the Ethiopian army deposed the Islamic Courts and radicalized the population in the process. Now Somalia is more violent than ever and jihadi-type groups are beginning to emerge where none had previously existed.
The US-led war in Afghanistan is not going well. The countryside is controlled by the warlords, the drug trade is flourishing, and America's man in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, has little power beyond the capital. The Taliban has regrouped and is methodically capturing city after city in the south. Their base of support, among disenchanted Pashtuns, continues to grow. How important is it for the US to succeed in Afghanistan? Would failure threaten the future of NATO or the Transatlantic Alliance?
Although the US has lost in Afghanistan; what really matters is Pakistan. That's where the Taliban and al Qaeda are actually located. No, I'm NOT saying that the US should take the war into Pakistan. The US has already done enough damage. But as long as America oppresses and alienates Muslims, they will continue to fight back.
The Gaza Strip has been under Israeli sanctions for more than a year. Despite the harsh treatment---the lack of food, water and medical supplies (as well as the soaring unemployment and the random attacks in civilian areas)---there have been no retaliatory suicide attacks on Israeli civilians or IDF soldiers. Isn't this proof that Hamas is serious about abandoning the armed struggle and joining the political process? Should Israel negotiate directly with the "democratically elected" Hamas or continue its present strategy of shoring up Mahmoud Abbas and the PA?
Hamas won democratic elections that were widely recognized as free and fair; that is, as free and as fair as you can expect when Israel and America are backing one side while trying to shackle the other. Israel and the US never accepted the election results. That's because Hamas refuses to capitulate. Also, Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood which is active in Egypt and Jordan and both those countries fear an example of a Muslim brothers in government, and they fear an example of a movement successfully defying the Americans and Israelis, so they backed Fatah. Everyone fears that these Islamic groups will become a successful model of resistance to American imperialism and hegemony. The regional dictators are especially afraid of these groups, so they work with the Americans to keep the pressure on their political rivals. Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah collaborates with the US and Israel to undermine Hamas and force the government to collapse.
Although they have failed so far; the US and Israel continue to support the same Fatah gangs that attempted the coup to oust Hamas. The plan backfired, and Hamas gunmen managed to drive Fatah out of Gaza after a number of violent skirmishes.
Israel should stop secretly supporting Fatah and adopt the "One State" solution. It should grant Palestinians and other non-Jews equal rights, abandon Zionism, allow Palestinian refugees to return, compensate them, and dismantle the settlements. If Israel doesn't voluntarily adopt the One State solution and work for a peaceful transition, (like South Africa) then eventually it will be face expulsion by the non Jewish majority in Greater Palestine, just like the French colonists in Algeria.This is not a question of being "pro" or "anti" Israel; that's irrelevant when predicting the future, and for any rational observer of the region it's clear that Israel is not a viable state in the Middle East as long as it is Zionist.
The US military is seriously over-stretched. Still, many political analysts believe that Bush will order an aerial assault on Iran. Do you think the US will carry out a "Lebanon-type" attack on Iran; bombing roads, bridges, factories, government buildings, oil depots, Army bases, munitions dumps, airports and nuclear sites? Will Iran retaliate or simply lend their support to resistance fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq?
I think it's quite likely that Bush will attack Iran; not because he has a good reason to, but because Jesus or God told him to and because Iran is part of the front-line resistance (along with Hizballah, Syria and Hamas) to American hegemony in the region. Bush believes nobody will have the guts to go after the Iranians after him. He believes that history will vindicate him and he'll be looked up to as a hero, like Reagan. There is also a racist element in this. Bush thinks that Iran is a culture based on honor and shame. He believes that if you humiliate the Iranian regime, then the people will rise up and overthrow it. Of course, in reality, when you bomb a country the people end up hating you and rally around the regime. Just look at the reaction of the Serbs after the bombing by NATO, or the Americans after September 11.
Iran is more stable than Iraq and has a stronger military. Also, the US is very vulnerable in the region, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
America's allies are even more vulnerable. An attack on Iran could ignite a regional war that would spiral out of control. Nothing good would come of it. The Bush administration needs to negotiate with Iran and pressure Israel to abandon its nuclear weapons.
Bush's war on terror now extends from the southern border of Somalia to the northern tip of Afghanistan---from Africa, through the Middle East into Central Asia. The US has not yet proven---in any of these conflicts - that it can enforce its will through military means alone.
In fact, in every case, the military appears to be losing ground.
And it's not just the military that's bogged down either. Back in the United States, the economy is rapidly deteriorating. The dollar is falling, the housing market is collapsing, consumer spending is shrinking, and the country's largest investment banks are bogged down with over $200 billion in mortgage-backed debt.
Given the current state of the military and the economy, do you see any way that the Bush administration can prevail in the war on terror or is US power in a state of irreversible decline?
Terror is a tactic; so you can't go to war with it in the first place. You can only go to war with people or nations. To many people it seems like the US is at war with Muslims. This is just radicalizing more people and eroding America's power and influence in the world.
But, then, maybe that's not such a bad thing.
Nir Rosen's book on postwar Iraq, In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, was published by Free Press in 2006.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com
22 November 2007
Friends = Enemies
Who better to fight in a war than your friends?!
You can both decide on how nasty you want it to be for each other, and split the spin-off business in the fear years to come. Sweet!
Iraq's Foreign Militants 'Come from US Allies'
Peter Walker
Guardian Unlimited
Around 60% of all foreign militants who entered Iraq to fight over the past year came from Saudi Arabia and Libya, according to files seized by American forces at a desert camp.
The files listed the nationalities and biographical details of more than 700 fighters who crossed into Iraq from August last year, around half of whom came to the country to be suicide bombers, the New York Times reported today.
In all, 305, or 41%, of the fighters listed were from Saudi Arabia. Another 137, or 18%, came from Libya. Both countries are officially US allies in anti-terrorism efforts.
In contrast, 56 Syrians were listed and no Lebanese. Previously, US officials estimated that around a fifth of all foreign fighters in Iraq came from these two countries.
US officials have also long complained about Iranian interference in the affairs of its neighbour, accusing Tehran of shipping weapons for militants over the border. However, any assistance does not appear to extend to people, the paper said, reporting that, of around 25,000 suspected militants in US custody in Iraq, 11 were Iranian. No Iranians were listed among the fighters whose details were found.
The information came from files and computers seized in September when US forces raided a camp in the desert near Sinjar, a small town in north-west Iraq, close to the Syrian border. It was believed the camp was the base for an insurgent cell responsible for smuggling the vast majority of foreign fighters into Iraq.
The files also gave details of 68 Yemeni nationals, the third-biggest source. There were 64 fighters from Algeria, 50 from Morocco, 38 from Tunisia, 14 from Jordan, six from Turkey and two each from Egypt and France.
According to the newspaper, US officials believe the raid stemmed the flow of foreign militants into Iraq, which dropped to around 40 in October, down from a peak of more than 100 a month in the first half of this year.
Last month there were 16 suicide bombings in Iraq, sharply down from a peak of 59 in March. According to the report, the US military believes 90% of such attacks are carried out by foreigners.
However, US officers fear this effect may be temporary. "We cut the head off, but the tail is still left," a senior military official told the newspaper. "Regeneration is completely within the realm of possibility."
The US has previously estimated the nationalities of fighters crossing over the Syrian border into Iraq, but the seized files give a more complete picture.
While Saudi Arabia is a long-term US ally, its nationals form the nucleus of al-Qaida; 15 of the 19 September 11 attackers were from the country.
And while Libya was listed by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism, it was removed last year after the countries restored full diplomatic relations.
You can both decide on how nasty you want it to be for each other, and split the spin-off business in the fear years to come. Sweet!
Iraq's Foreign Militants 'Come from US Allies'
Peter Walker
Guardian Unlimited
Around 60% of all foreign militants who entered Iraq to fight over the past year came from Saudi Arabia and Libya, according to files seized by American forces at a desert camp.
The files listed the nationalities and biographical details of more than 700 fighters who crossed into Iraq from August last year, around half of whom came to the country to be suicide bombers, the New York Times reported today.
In all, 305, or 41%, of the fighters listed were from Saudi Arabia. Another 137, or 18%, came from Libya. Both countries are officially US allies in anti-terrorism efforts.
In contrast, 56 Syrians were listed and no Lebanese. Previously, US officials estimated that around a fifth of all foreign fighters in Iraq came from these two countries.
US officials have also long complained about Iranian interference in the affairs of its neighbour, accusing Tehran of shipping weapons for militants over the border. However, any assistance does not appear to extend to people, the paper said, reporting that, of around 25,000 suspected militants in US custody in Iraq, 11 were Iranian. No Iranians were listed among the fighters whose details were found.
The information came from files and computers seized in September when US forces raided a camp in the desert near Sinjar, a small town in north-west Iraq, close to the Syrian border. It was believed the camp was the base for an insurgent cell responsible for smuggling the vast majority of foreign fighters into Iraq.
The files also gave details of 68 Yemeni nationals, the third-biggest source. There were 64 fighters from Algeria, 50 from Morocco, 38 from Tunisia, 14 from Jordan, six from Turkey and two each from Egypt and France.
According to the newspaper, US officials believe the raid stemmed the flow of foreign militants into Iraq, which dropped to around 40 in October, down from a peak of more than 100 a month in the first half of this year.
Last month there were 16 suicide bombings in Iraq, sharply down from a peak of 59 in March. According to the report, the US military believes 90% of such attacks are carried out by foreigners.
However, US officers fear this effect may be temporary. "We cut the head off, but the tail is still left," a senior military official told the newspaper. "Regeneration is completely within the realm of possibility."
The US has previously estimated the nationalities of fighters crossing over the Syrian border into Iraq, but the seized files give a more complete picture.
While Saudi Arabia is a long-term US ally, its nationals form the nucleus of al-Qaida; 15 of the 19 September 11 attackers were from the country.
And while Libya was listed by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism, it was removed last year after the countries restored full diplomatic relations.
17 September 2007
License to Kill Revoked?
The Iraqi Government finally decides to look out for its people - and today revoked the license of Blackwater because the private mercenaries blew away a bunch of civilians while 'protecting' an American convoy.
Funny - even Al Jazeera calls Blackwater a "security firm" instead of a mercenary army. That's the power of the press release.
Here's who else has or doesn't have a license to kill in Iraq.
Iraq Ends US Security Firm License
Al Jazeera
The Iraqi interior ministry has cancelled the operating licence of a US security firm after it was involved in a shootout that killed eight people, a senior official said.
Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a ministry spokesman, said 13 people were wounded when Blackwater USA staff opened fire in a Baghdad incident involving an attack on a US motorcade.
"The interior minister has issued an order to cancel Blackwater's licence and the company is prohibited from operating anywhere in Iraq," Khalaf said on Monday.
"We have opened a criminal investigation against the group who committed the crime."
The spokesman said witness reports pointed to Blackwater involvement but said the incident, in a predominantly Sunni area of western Baghdad on Sunday, was still under investigation.
US troops are immune from prosecution in Iraq under the UN resolution that authorises their presence, but Khalaf said the exemption did not apply to private security companies.
Crime Committed
Blackwater, based in North Carolina, provides security for many US civilian operations in the country.
The company was not immediately available for comment.
The US embassy in Baghdad said a state department motorcade came under small-arms fire that disabled one of the vehicles, which had to be towed from the scene near Nisoor Square in the Mansour district.
A state department official said the shooting was being investigated by the department's diplomatic security service and officials working with the Iraqi government and the US military.
Late on Sunday, Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, condemned the shooting by a "foreign security company" and called it a "crime".
Secretive Force
Tens of thousands of private security contractors operate in Iraq - some using automatic weapons and body armour, helicopters and bulletproof vehicles.
They also protect journalists, visiting foreign officials and thousands of construction projects.
Blackwater has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq, and at least $800m in government contracts.
It is one of the most high-profile security firms in Iraq.
The secretive company is based at a massive complex in North Carolina.
Until the September 11 attacks, it had few security contracts, but since then, Blackwater profits have soared.
It has become the focus of numerous contractor controversies in Iraq, including the May 30 shooting of an Iraqi believed to be driving too close to a Blackwater security detail.
Witness Testimony
Iraqi police said the contractors were in a convoy of six four-wheel-drive vehicles and left the scene after the shooting.
Hassan Jabar Salman was hit by five bullets while trying to flee the scene of the incident in his car, he told the AFP news agency while recovering in Baghdad's Al-Yarmouk hospital.
Salman said he heard an explosion near Al-Nisoor Square and saw the convoy two cars ahead of him.
"The foreigners in the convoy started shouting and signaling us to go back.
"I turned around and must have driven 100 feet [30 metres] when they started shooting.
"There were eight of them in four utility vehicles and all shooting with heavy machine guns," he said as he lay wrapped in bloodied bandages on the hospital bed.
"My car was hit with 12 bullets, of which four hit me in the back and one in the arm."
Funny - even Al Jazeera calls Blackwater a "security firm" instead of a mercenary army. That's the power of the press release.
Here's who else has or doesn't have a license to kill in Iraq.
Iraq Ends US Security Firm License
Al Jazeera
The Iraqi interior ministry has cancelled the operating licence of a US security firm after it was involved in a shootout that killed eight people, a senior official said.
Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a ministry spokesman, said 13 people were wounded when Blackwater USA staff opened fire in a Baghdad incident involving an attack on a US motorcade.
"The interior minister has issued an order to cancel Blackwater's licence and the company is prohibited from operating anywhere in Iraq," Khalaf said on Monday.
"We have opened a criminal investigation against the group who committed the crime."
The spokesman said witness reports pointed to Blackwater involvement but said the incident, in a predominantly Sunni area of western Baghdad on Sunday, was still under investigation.
US troops are immune from prosecution in Iraq under the UN resolution that authorises their presence, but Khalaf said the exemption did not apply to private security companies.
Crime Committed
Blackwater, based in North Carolina, provides security for many US civilian operations in the country.
The company was not immediately available for comment.
The US embassy in Baghdad said a state department motorcade came under small-arms fire that disabled one of the vehicles, which had to be towed from the scene near Nisoor Square in the Mansour district.
A state department official said the shooting was being investigated by the department's diplomatic security service and officials working with the Iraqi government and the US military.
Late on Sunday, Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, condemned the shooting by a "foreign security company" and called it a "crime".
Secretive Force
Tens of thousands of private security contractors operate in Iraq - some using automatic weapons and body armour, helicopters and bulletproof vehicles.
They also protect journalists, visiting foreign officials and thousands of construction projects.
Blackwater has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq, and at least $800m in government contracts.
It is one of the most high-profile security firms in Iraq.
The secretive company is based at a massive complex in North Carolina.
Until the September 11 attacks, it had few security contracts, but since then, Blackwater profits have soared.
It has become the focus of numerous contractor controversies in Iraq, including the May 30 shooting of an Iraqi believed to be driving too close to a Blackwater security detail.
Witness Testimony
Iraqi police said the contractors were in a convoy of six four-wheel-drive vehicles and left the scene after the shooting.
Hassan Jabar Salman was hit by five bullets while trying to flee the scene of the incident in his car, he told the AFP news agency while recovering in Baghdad's Al-Yarmouk hospital.
Salman said he heard an explosion near Al-Nisoor Square and saw the convoy two cars ahead of him.
"The foreigners in the convoy started shouting and signaling us to go back.
"I turned around and must have driven 100 feet [30 metres] when they started shooting.
"There were eight of them in four utility vehicles and all shooting with heavy machine guns," he said as he lay wrapped in bloodied bandages on the hospital bed.
"My car was hit with 12 bullets, of which four hit me in the back and one in the arm."
Propaganda on Propaganda
A brilliant bit of post-WWII duty drill, apparently directed by Frank Capra and written by Dr. Suess himself, Theodor Geisel - back when they used to call the war department, "The War Department".
Best Paranoid Warning: Watch out for the... clockmakers?
Best Paranoid Warning: Watch out for the... clockmakers?
10 September 2007
How Do Images Influence What You Buy?
"When you buy Cialis, this is what you get - Guaranteed!"
Blatant associations work - in sex, politics, business... everywhere. It's why people buy cars they want but don't need. It's why families go to Disneyland. It's how politicians get elected.
This goes down as another study in Obvious Science.
FDA to Study Images' Impact in Drug Ads
By MATTHEW PERRONE
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -
Federal regulators plan to study whether relaxing, upbeat images featured in TV drug ads distract consumers from warnings about the drugs' risks.
The announcement, posted Tuesday to the Food and Drug Administration's Web site, comes a week after a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested the agency's drug-ad enforcement has steadily declined.
The FDA says it plans to study how 2,000 people react to television drug ads to determine whether they have an overwhelmingly positive impression of products despite audio warnings about potential side effects.
In a statement released Tuesday, the Washington-based Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said TV ads are an important way for patients to learn about diseases and treatments.
Drug companies are legally required to present a balanced picture of a drug's benefits and risks in promotions. But critics charge that the images of smiling and relaxed couples and families featured in ads overshadow audio warnings about possible complications.
One ad for Eli Lilly & Co.'s impotence drug Cialis features a middle-aged couple walking hand-in-hand past a restaurant while smooth jazz plays in the background. Toward the ad's end, a male voice lists common side effects, including headache, back pain and muscle aches.
"If advertisers were really interested in getting information about drug risks out, they'd show pictures of those problems, but you almost never see that," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the advocacy group Public Citizen, which frequently criticizes drug industry marketing.
According to the authors of the NEJM article, the FDA sent 21 citations to drug companies last year for problems with consumer-directed ads, compared with 142 in 1997.
During the same period, drug industry spending on such advertising soared 330 percent, to $29.9 billion in 2005 from $11.4 billion in 1996.
The U.S. is one of two industrialized countries that permit TV drug ads - the other is New Zealand.
The FDA's Tuesday announcement says a study is needed on whether some ads "simply distract consumers from carefully considering and encoding risk information."
Besides looking at how images used in ads affect consumers, the FDA will also study how text on the screen can focus or divert attention from audio warnings. FDA says text directing viewers to company Web sites or magazine advertisements can distract viewers from more important audio about side effects. On the other hand, FDA said the repetition of language about risks in text format could help reinforce warnings.
In response to increased scrutiny, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America recently issued voluntary guidelines for members on promoting drugs to patients. Members include Pfizer Inc., Merck & Co. Inc., Wyeth and most other major pharmaceutical companies.
The guidelines recommend companies submit TV ads to the FDA for review before broadcast. Drug companies agreed to start paying the agency $80,000 per ad to offset the cost of hiring more drug ad reviewers.
Last month, however, House lawmakers rejected the proposal, recommending that federal money finance the regulatory reviews. The legislators said having drug companies pay salaries of FDA ad reviewers could create potential conflicts of interest.
House lawmakers are slated to meet with their Senate counterparts in September to work out differences between companion bills aimed at increasing the FDA's enforcement powers.
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