dyslexia wrote:if you go by what Lola wrote you will get a one-sided view, hers
if you go by what Tres wrote you will get a one-sided view, his
I'm sorry, Dys, whose point of view am I supposed to offer, yours?
Of course, the important issue your little aside ignores is that lola and I can't both be right. One of our "one-sided" views is not accurate, and one is. Now, it seems to me that if lola is right, then this doesn't exist:
Supply shortage in Iraq hospitals
Be sure to check out the Audio Slide Show: Wounded civilians in Nasiriya. This is the kind of coverage that lola suggests isn't being shown by American media. My point was that I have seen this kind of coverage, and I would hazard a guess that any honest players out their who have watched the coverage of this war have seen the good, the bad and the ugly, as have I.
By the way, Dys, care to share your perception of the coverage?
Quote:"By the way, Dys, care to share your perception of the coverage?"
aside from being upclose and personal all news all the time live in your face, its about the same its always been. no better-no worse. but of course thats my one-sided view.
Quote:"I'm sorry, Dys, whose point of view am I supposed to offer, yours?"
once again i offfered an observation that what anyone views is coloured by their own bias, including yours and mine. once again i offered a neutral observation crticizing no one. once again your personal sarcasm degrades the topic.
Now, now, kids ... mind the sticks.
The suspicious vehicle externally resembles the sort of truck common to the command and support elements of mobile missile batteries, and as such would be unremarkable . It also would be unlikey to have come under UN scrutiny, as it would have been not only "Milirtarily Sensitive" but deployed with an in-field active duty unit well away from the site of any potential inspection. There are indications this vehicle is not the only one of its variant.
The US forces try hard to find at least a tiny smoking gun, and timber is here reporting every rumour about it.
(I'm still waiting for some results of all the up to now done examinations.)
I honestly think that it may not make that much difference in the way the world perceives the justification for the war, if there really is one "gun" or not.
I strongly believe, however, that even if large amounts of these weapons were found, the public in Europe would question whether the finds were true or simply planted evidence.
dyslexia wrote:Quote:"By the way, Dys, care to share your perception of the coverage?"
aside from being upclose and personal all news all the time live in your face, its about the same its always been. no better-no worse. but of course thats my one-sided view.
I should have been more specific. Do you agree with lola's impression that the American media are focusing on the positive aspects of the war and not showing negative scenes. (Specifically, she wrote "My other impression from the coverage I've been able to watch is that we see no images or interviews with angry or unhappy Iraqis.") Does her impression--which nimh seemed to be taking literally and as a matter of fact--match up with what you have seen? Perhaps it does--I do not know what you have seen.
I assume that people who are paying attention to the reporting on this have probably seen some of the same things I have seen, and I assume that since I have seen both flavors of reporting that others would likely have seen the same. These assumptions could be wrong. lola may actually not have seen anything but happy, pro-American reporting. How would I know? What I do know, and conveyed to nimh, is that her "impression" does not jibe with the reality I have witnessed.
Since you are another witness, I'm interested to know what you have seen. Okay?
actually tres i have watched nearly none of the video-media coverage. i don't regard any of it to be informationally valid, its only purpose is to feed the viewers images that keep/increase their advertising base. i did see the "toppling of the Saddam statue" covered gloriously by all the media and listened to the BBC report that the "throngs of people" amounted to a few hundred, not seen by the Iraqi masses as the t.v. broadcasting system was non operational at the time, rendering it "media event" for the USA home audience. as in all things "a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest". This toppling of Saddam video may indeed reflect the mood of Iraq or it may, like a film clip of a KKK meeting would misrepresent America seriously distorting the reality.
"a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest". - I side with Lola
Walter: After reading the article you posted I felf compelled to post another article which exhibits a higher standard of jounalistic integrity. I am neutral in my evaluation of Dr Chalabi at this point and I see no reason to hang him before he has his day in court.
June 20, 2002, 9:00 a.m.
After Saddam
The controversy over Ahmad Chalabi.
By Max Singer
While much attention is paid to the consensus in Washington that Saddam Hussein must be replaced, the debate over his successor has largely been hidden.
Yet the question of who would replace Saddam is a critical component of U.S. strategy, both with respect to how Saddam should be ousted and the American vision for the Middle East.
The debate over who should succeed Saddam begins with Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi opposition movement, the Iraqi National Congress (INC). People who know him well think he has the potential to be one of the great Arab leaders of this century. But there are widely divergent judgments about Chalabi among senior American policymakers and among those counted as experts on the Middle East.
The State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and the experts associated with them believe that Chalabi is a small-time opportunist and playboy trying to use his position in the INC to make something for himself.
They recognize that he is intelligent and charming, but believe that he is of dubious integrity and without the qualities required for leadership and respect in the Arab world, or the strength to lead either a revolution or a new government. A prominent exception to this pattern is James Woolsey, who was the director of the CIA part of the time it was helping the INC, and does not share these negative views.
But first, the undisputed facts. Chalabi is from one of the old powerful and wealthy Baghdadi families which were forced into exile when the Baath Party seized power in 1958. He studied at MIT and then earned a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1969. Rejecting opportunities at American universities, he returned to the Arab world to teach mathematics at the American University in Beirut, where he met his wife, the daughter of one of the signers of the Lebanese declaration of independence.
Chalabi is a modern man of the West, who founded a successful software company in London and who understands democracy deep in his bones. What makes him truly exceptional is that he also continues to be deeply a man of the East, with the sensibilities and loyalties of his ancient Baghdad Arab and Muslim roots. Because of the family connections that still count for so much in the Middle East, he is comfortable negotiating with Sunni tribal sheikhs and Shia ayatollahs, familiar with the patterns of relationships that go back generations and form the structure of Iraqi and Arab politics.
In 1978 he opened the Petra bank in Amman, Jordan, in which he invested much of his capital and which was very successful until it was seized by the Jordanian government in 1989. The State Department and the CIA often say Chalabi's bank was seized because he had improperly diverted assets, and note the Jordanian government claim that Chalabi was wanted for questioning and that the bank failed some time after it was seized.
On closer examination, however, the story of Chalabi's supposed Jordanian scandal does not hold water. Those familiar with the facts say the bank was seized because Chalabi had been using its international connections to obstruct Iraq's efforts to finance its war with Iran. As a result, Saddam put pressure on Jordan's King Hussein to close the bank. This view is consistent with the official report of the Jordanian officer assigned to seize the bank, the fact that much of the money lost was Chalabi's own, that it was Crown Prince Hassan who protected Chalabi by personally driving him to the border when the bank was seized, that King Hussein held four friendly public meetings with Chalabi (the last in 1998), and that the king subsequently worked to restore Chalabi's position in Jordan.
It is likely that the best-informed people at the State Department and CIA know better, and yet find it useful not to debunk the anti-Chalabi story. We must look elsewhere, then, to discern the real reason for the bureaucratic antipathy to Chalabi.
After the Gulf War the CIA was trying to arrange a coup against Saddam by Iraqi generals in Saddam's inner circle. They believed that such a coup would become more likely if there were a small domestic political opposition movement which might be a reason or an excuse for the generals to remove Saddam. The CIA had already created an opposition organization called the Wifaq that they controlled and which was composed of former Iraqi military officers and former Baathist Party leaders. They recognized, however, that the Wifaq lacked political credibility and so they offered to help Chalabi create a new organization called the "Iraqi National Congress." The agency thought Chalabi would create a small and tame propaganda organization that would not cause too much trouble, but Chalabi created a genuinely representative Iraqi political organization that was independent and that decided it wanted to fight to overthrow both Saddam and his whole regime.
With support from the CIA and more than $10 million of his own and his family's money, Chalabi's INC created an open political opposition movement in northern Iraq from 1993-1996, operating newspapers, radio stations, and a lively political process involving Iraqis from all parts of the country. It also created a small military force that succeeded ?- with help from one of the Kurdish militias ?- in attacking and destroying two divisions of the Iraqi army.
Despite later loose charges to the contrary, the money received by the INC from the U.S. was well-accounted for and spent with extraordinary efficiency, greatly impressing many Congressional visitors who came to see for themselves, and making some of the Americans brought by the CIA to work with the INC among the most loyal of Chalabi's supporters to this day.
It is a mark of Chalabi's character that he has gained such a large band of volunteer advisers and supporters not only among Iraqis but also in England and the US. And despite being as fractious a group as any set of exile political figures, and quite diverse, the Iraqis who have joined the INC have continued to keep Chalabi as their clear leader despite the year-long effort of the State Department to find an alternative under the cover of "broadening and unifying the opposition."
Chalabi's admirers today also include leading academic experts on the Middle East who have known him well for many years, such as Fouad Ajami, a Lebanese Arab who is the author of the much-admired book The Dream Palace of the Arabs, and Bernard Lewis, probably the premier scholar of Islam in the world. A number of U.S. senators have also come to know him, including Joseph Lieberman and Trent Lott.
Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz all know from their personal contact with Chalabi ?- and their own checks of his background ?- that the State/CIA view of him as a small-time exile opportunist of shady character is wrong. They believe, on the contrary, that Chalabi is a man who has the character, vision, and strength needed to become an outstanding leader who can help move the Arab world away from the path of anti-American and backward-looking tyranny and toward a path of struggle toward modernity and democracy. If their assessment of him is sound, Chalabi could be the key figure in the success of President George W. Bush's new policy against terrorism, tyranny and threats of biological and nuclear war.
Differences of emphasis and nuance in the judgment about key facts and personalities are natural, but the gap in understanding between State and CIA on one side and Chalabi's admirers on the other is impossibly wide.
One side or the other must have the facts wrong. And the question of which group is correct about Chalabi is crucial for U.S. policy. Bush should do whatever he needs to do to decide who is right and to make a policy decision about whether the U.S. is going to support Chalabi. We cannot afford to take the chance of sacrificing such a decisively valuable potential partner out of reluctance to come to grips with an uncertainty, especially one that seems to be the product of bureaucratic enmities and Saudi fears of what would happen if a great Arab democrat came to power nearby.
?- Max Singer is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.
dyslexia wrote:actually tres i have watched nearly none of the video-media coverage. i don't regard any of it to be informationally valid, its only purpose is to feed the viewers images that keep/increase their advertising base. i did see the "toppling of the Saddam statue" covered gloriously by all the media and listened to the BBC report that the "throngs of people" amounted to a few hundred, not seen by the Iraqi masses as the t.v. broadcasting system was non operational at the time, rendering it "media event" for the USA home audience. as in all things "a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest". This toppling of Saddam video may indeed reflect the mood of Iraq or it may, like a film clip of a KKK meeting would misrepresent America seriously distorting the reality.
I did not notice anyone in this discussion claiming that this one video clip reflected the mood of Iraq. I do recall lola claiming that none of the coverage showed the negative side of the war, and I do recall proving that her impression did not match up with the facts.
I also must admit to being a bit puzzled at your stepping into an exchange regarding the makeup of media coverage of which you now admit having little or no personal knowledge. Seems to me that if you haven't been watching it you wouldn't have anything on which to base an opinion.
ok i guess i thought you asked my opinion, perhaps i misread your question.
dyslexia wrote:ok i guess i thought you asked my opinion, perhaps i misread your question.
Yes, Dys, I asked you to clarify your opinion AFTER you decided to offer it. Obviously my mistake.
About media coverage perceptions outside America, I'm happy to comply with the data of my country, Tres. Not personal opinion.
National poll in Mexico about war and journalism, march 29:
Do you think war information transmited by Mexican television is impartial or favors one of the parties in conflict? Who does it favor?
Impartial 69%
Favors US-GB 19%
Favors Iraq 2%
dk/nr 8%
Do you think war information transmited by American television is impartial or favors one of the parties in conflict? Who does it favor?*
Impartial 38%
Favors US-GB 57%
Favors Iraq 0%
dk/nr 5%
*question asked to the 44% of the population with access, via border, cable or satellite, to American TV stations
Do you think TV should transmit all kinds of war images, or should it not transmit images that are too strong?
Transmit everything 40%
Not strong images 55%
dk/nr 5%
Do you think television should transmit images of prisoners of war or should it censor them, according to international treatises on human rights?
Transmit them 46%
Censor them 49%
dk/nr 5%
Do you think freedom of expression should be respected or should be limited in cases of war?
Should be respected 80%
Should be limited 15%
dk/nr 5%
---------
Quote:U.S. tries to seal Iraqi border with Syria
Long frontier in barren desert is mostly unfenced
CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar (AP) - U.S. air strikes pounded Iraqi positions near Syria today, as special forces troops monitored the porous frontier to prevent Iraqi troops from escaping and more fighters from entering Iraq, U.S. officials said ..
... In addition, Syrian fighters have turned up on the Iraqi battlefield and other Arab fighters have crossed into Iraq via Syria to attack U.S. and British forces.
On Thursday, it appeared some were returning the way they came: a correspondent for the al-Jazeera satellite television station at the Syrian-Iraq border said he had met Palestinian and Syrian volunteer fighters at the border who had abandoned their positions in Mosul and were returning home.
Link to Article
There are rumors of "Significant surrender developments underway" involving large numbers of Iraqi Regular Army units in the Mosul-Kirkuk region. Many Iraqis taken into custody in the area over the past 24 hours were unaware of "The Fall of Baghdad". Focus continues to sharpen on Tikrit. There is much expectation of a vicious, "Last Stand" battle, which if it occurs, likely will be conducted with a bit less restraint than Coalition Forces have so far demonstrated. No one can deny that neither resistance nor surrender rumors have been uniformly borne out by ensuing events.
Now, tres, I've been away, but I did not say that. (that there was no media coverage of negative events) So you disproven something (if you did) that had not been claimed.
ok, so I looked back and I did say that, but I didn't mean it. We can change my "no" to "very little" compared to the amount of propaganda being broadcast hourly.
Asherman
Nor do I think the US is the moral equivalent of Hitlerian Germany or Stalanist Russia, nor close.
But we don't have to go nearly so extreme as those examples to warrant both concern and persistent criticism. We don't have to find a duplicate of Hitler in Rumsfeld or of Goebbels in Carl Rove to start yelling 'you buggers are going wrong!'. Prevention of such extremes is the point.
In my set of chaotic notions about matters political, I hold that the first mistake we might make, as citizens, is to assume that what happened in those places is impossible in our own community, that we are in some manner so special or gifted or blessed of god that we don't have to worry about it. That's hubris, and it is a deep danger. The Brits had it, the Romans had it, and the US has too much of it also.
It's been argued more than a few times here that if any country is going to be number one in the world, the US is a better choice than others. But it is Americans who make that argument. We all love the cultures and places where we grew up, it is natural to do so. But when we take the next step, and say we ARE BETTER than the others, then warrant for empire and subjugation is granted.
