by Danny Schechter
Thomas Friedman, the pro-war New York Times wiseman who critics say is angling for a job as "the Mayor of the Middle East," senses that the Iraq war is now in an "endgame." The translation of "endgame" for the uninitiated is this: a deal to make a terrible defeat for American intervention appear as a great victory.
Friedman's perennial optimism spiced with flashes of contempt for blunders in the war's execution (and at his 'lessers' in Washington who do not always follow his lead) has been joined by others. The ever -contrarian Christopher Hitchens argues, "In Afghanistan and Iraq, agonizingly difficult efforts are in train to build roads, repair hospitals, hand out ballot papers, frame constitutions, encourage newspapers and satellite dishes, and generally evolve some healthy water in which civil-society fish may swim."
Swimming or Sinking?
Are we swimming or sinking?
The war on terror -- of which Iraq is said to be part -- has gone on longer than the U.S. war on Hitler and Hirohito combined. A forthcoming book, Fog Facts, by Larry Beinhart author of Wag the Dog, notes that those wars lasted three years and seven months. This one has lasted for four years, with no real end in sight.
The adoption of a hideously deformed "constitution" masquerading as a victory for federalism, if not democracy, is about to be used as the ultimate justification for the war.
All the rest is detail -- to be followed by Saddam's quick departure from the stage in true Alice in Wonderland fashion: "First the verdict, then the trial."
Brace for the 'Final Offensive'
There will be a "final offensive" against those faceless insurgents, with more blood-letting as a luxury hotel goes up in the Green Zone. There will not be a inquiry into how billions of dollars were siphoned off or stolen, or whether British or U.S. troops are inflaming tensions. The incident of British troops caught red-handed in Basra will be forgotten in the fog of war.
Some American troops will soon start coming home, while the rest will be moved into the permanent bases built to house them. As a civil war erupts, we will officially step to the side, behind the stance that what matters is not who is right, just who is left. It's their country -- pundits like Friedman tell us repeatedly -- but only when we agree with what do.
Those who produced this war have started signaling that the final act is coming and the curtain is going down.
The American people are being kept in the dark about what is really happening, as less and less reporting is allowed to trickle out. We will continue to hear from hotel-based journalists offering stand-ups from the rooftops about the daily incidents and suicide bombs. But analyses of what those actions really mean -- or who is behind them -- are shifted to the back of the newspaper and lower down in the newscast.
In other words, getting the news out does not guarantee how it will be placed or treated.
What was a media war in Iraq is becoming a war on the media. And the goal of this war is to drive the Iraq war and its memory from our minds.
Journalists At Threat
Some media organizations, such as Reuters, are speaking out, even as most of the big media outlets do not join them. Instead, news programs that do real reporting -- like Nightline -- are canceled.
This just in:
"LONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - The conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq, including increasing detention and accidental shootings of journalists, is preventing full coverage of the war reaching the American public, Reuters said on Wednesday. "In a letter to Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Reuters said U.S. forces were limiting the ability of independent journalists to operate. "The letter from Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger called on Warner to raise widespread media concerns about the conduct of U.S. Troops with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee on Thursday. "Schlesinger referred to 'a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by U.S. Forces in Iraq.' He urged Warner to demand that Rumsfeld resolve these issues 'in a way that best balances the legitimate security interests of the U.S. Forces in Iraq and the equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law.' "At least 66 journalists and media workers, most of them Iraqis, have been killed in the Iraq conflict since March 2003."
Why is most of the media silent about this? Is it in its own "endgame?"
Counting the Marchers
You saw how the numbers of anti-war protesters in Washington and other cities were downplayed by the media. Nothing unusual about that, but given the public-opinion shift against the war, you would think that they would get more attention.
MediaChannel reader Douglas Marshall, a business executive and former naval officer at his first Washington protest, did what any news organization could have done with its minions of interns. He reports:
"Instead of marching I decided to try to get an accurate count of the parade participants last Saturday. I stationed myself at the corner of H and 15th Streets, facing north. Standing with the police line blocking off the right turn off H Street so that marchers would continue on to the east on H Street, the designated parade route. My vigil started at 1:00 PM, before any marchers had arrived. The first marchers passed my line of vision at 1:15 PM and continued passing my line of vision until 4:45 PM, when the last ones passed by.
"It was my first try at crowd estimation but with extensive early experience in construction estimating, I had adequate, common-sense approximating skills to bring to bare. Using several different approximation techniques Saturday evening, I came up early on with several different figures as follows: 255,000, 216,000, 205,000, 193,000. Back home after a day to let it settle, I went back over the numbers and the whole procedure, and established for myself the most likely set of approximations to make allowances for the fact that some times there were only 5-6 marchers per second crossing my view. At other times, including marchers on the sidewalks there were 24-26 marchers per second.
"Allowing for only 5-6 marchers per second passing my line of vision for 1/10th of the time, 22 marchers per second passing my line of vision for 4/10ths of the times, and 14 marchers per second passing my line of vision for the remaining 5/10ths of the time, I arrived at what for me feels most comfortable: 210,000 marchers. [Interestingly enough, as I read this over now, I've just averaged the four first preliminary approximations; the average of the four is 217,000+."
If a businessman can report the news, why can't the news business? If there ever was a time for a "Show Us the War" campaign, that time is now.
Thomas Friedman, the pro-war New York Times wiseman who critics say is angling for a job as "the Mayor of the Middle East," senses that the Iraq war is now in an "endgame." The translation of "endgame" for the uninitiated is this: a deal to make a terrible defeat for American intervention appear as a great victory.
Friedman's perennial optimism spiced with flashes of contempt for blunders in the war's execution (and at his 'lessers' in Washington who do not always follow his lead) has been joined by others. The ever -contrarian Christopher Hitchens argues, "In Afghanistan and Iraq, agonizingly difficult efforts are in train to build roads, repair hospitals, hand out ballot papers, frame constitutions, encourage newspapers and satellite dishes, and generally evolve some healthy water in which civil-society fish may swim."
Swimming or Sinking?
Are we swimming or sinking?
The war on terror -- of which Iraq is said to be part -- has gone on longer than the U.S. war on Hitler and Hirohito combined. A forthcoming book, Fog Facts, by Larry Beinhart author of Wag the Dog, notes that those wars lasted three years and seven months. This one has lasted for four years, with no real end in sight.
The adoption of a hideously deformed "constitution" masquerading as a victory for federalism, if not democracy, is about to be used as the ultimate justification for the war.
All the rest is detail -- to be followed by Saddam's quick departure from the stage in true Alice in Wonderland fashion: "First the verdict, then the trial."
Brace for the 'Final Offensive'
There will be a "final offensive" against those faceless insurgents, with more blood-letting as a luxury hotel goes up in the Green Zone. There will not be a inquiry into how billions of dollars were siphoned off or stolen, or whether British or U.S. troops are inflaming tensions. The incident of British troops caught red-handed in Basra will be forgotten in the fog of war.
Some American troops will soon start coming home, while the rest will be moved into the permanent bases built to house them. As a civil war erupts, we will officially step to the side, behind the stance that what matters is not who is right, just who is left. It's their country -- pundits like Friedman tell us repeatedly -- but only when we agree with what do.
Those who produced this war have started signaling that the final act is coming and the curtain is going down.
The American people are being kept in the dark about what is really happening, as less and less reporting is allowed to trickle out. We will continue to hear from hotel-based journalists offering stand-ups from the rooftops about the daily incidents and suicide bombs. But analyses of what those actions really mean -- or who is behind them -- are shifted to the back of the newspaper and lower down in the newscast.
In other words, getting the news out does not guarantee how it will be placed or treated.
What was a media war in Iraq is becoming a war on the media. And the goal of this war is to drive the Iraq war and its memory from our minds.
Journalists At Threat
Some media organizations, such as Reuters, are speaking out, even as most of the big media outlets do not join them. Instead, news programs that do real reporting -- like Nightline -- are canceled.
This just in:
"LONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - The conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq, including increasing detention and accidental shootings of journalists, is preventing full coverage of the war reaching the American public, Reuters said on Wednesday. "In a letter to Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Reuters said U.S. forces were limiting the ability of independent journalists to operate. "The letter from Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger called on Warner to raise widespread media concerns about the conduct of U.S. Troops with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee on Thursday. "Schlesinger referred to 'a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by U.S. Forces in Iraq.' He urged Warner to demand that Rumsfeld resolve these issues 'in a way that best balances the legitimate security interests of the U.S. Forces in Iraq and the equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law.' "At least 66 journalists and media workers, most of them Iraqis, have been killed in the Iraq conflict since March 2003."
Why is most of the media silent about this? Is it in its own "endgame?"
Counting the Marchers
You saw how the numbers of anti-war protesters in Washington and other cities were downplayed by the media. Nothing unusual about that, but given the public-opinion shift against the war, you would think that they would get more attention.
MediaChannel reader Douglas Marshall, a business executive and former naval officer at his first Washington protest, did what any news organization could have done with its minions of interns. He reports:
"Instead of marching I decided to try to get an accurate count of the parade participants last Saturday. I stationed myself at the corner of H and 15th Streets, facing north. Standing with the police line blocking off the right turn off H Street so that marchers would continue on to the east on H Street, the designated parade route. My vigil started at 1:00 PM, before any marchers had arrived. The first marchers passed my line of vision at 1:15 PM and continued passing my line of vision until 4:45 PM, when the last ones passed by.
"It was my first try at crowd estimation but with extensive early experience in construction estimating, I had adequate, common-sense approximating skills to bring to bare. Using several different approximation techniques Saturday evening, I came up early on with several different figures as follows: 255,000, 216,000, 205,000, 193,000. Back home after a day to let it settle, I went back over the numbers and the whole procedure, and established for myself the most likely set of approximations to make allowances for the fact that some times there were only 5-6 marchers per second crossing my view. At other times, including marchers on the sidewalks there were 24-26 marchers per second.
"Allowing for only 5-6 marchers per second passing my line of vision for 1/10th of the time, 22 marchers per second passing my line of vision for 4/10ths of the times, and 14 marchers per second passing my line of vision for the remaining 5/10ths of the time, I arrived at what for me feels most comfortable: 210,000 marchers. [Interestingly enough, as I read this over now, I've just averaged the four first preliminary approximations; the average of the four is 217,000+."
If a businessman can report the news, why can't the news business? If there ever was a time for a "Show Us the War" campaign, that time is now.
