My Hometown Paper

This was no less evident at the Times in its week's end coverage of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's revelations in The Price of Loyalty, a new book by Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind. O'Neill claimed that the president in meetings was "like a blind man in a group of deaf people," Reaganesquely without interest in what went on in his own administration.

 

The Times "covered" this Jan. 10 on page 21, the last page before the editorials, placing a small (or cut-down) AP piece next to its "National Briefing" of news shorts and, as of Sunday, there was no follow-up, even though the most startling revelation (missing from the Saturday report) should have been front-paged. According to CBS News:

 

"And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations. 'From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,' says O'Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic 'A' 10 days after the inauguration -- eight months before Sept. 11.

 

"'From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,' says Suskind. 'Day one, these things were laid and sealed.'"

 

Mike Allen of the Washington Post at least reported O'Neill's war revelation today ("O'Neill: Plan to Hit Iraq Began Pre-9/11," 1/11/04), though the piece was placed on p. 13; and the Los Angeles Times did similarly (1/11), though the Boston Globe seems to have front-paged it (1/11). Time magazine offered perhaps the most thorough piece on O'Neill's revelations, including the following gem ("Confessions of a White House Insider," 1/10/04):

 

"'In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction,' he told TIME. 'There were allegations and assertions by people. But I've been around a hell of a long time, and I know the difference between evidence and assertions and illusions or allusions and conclusions that one could draw from a set of assumptions… And I never saw anything in the intelligence that I would characterize as real evidence.'"

 

And the following:

 

"A White House that seems to pick an outcome it wants and then marshal the facts to meet it seems very much like one that might decide to remove Saddam Hussein and then tickle the facts to meet its objective. That's the inescapable conclusion one draws from O'Neill's description of how Saddam was viewed from Day One…. 'From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country… It was about finding a way to do it…The President saying, "Fine. Go find me a way to do this."'"

 

But for the New York Times and many other papers, the possibility that planning for war with Iraq had actually begun in the White House by late January 2001 was no news, or next to no news at all.

 

(And while we're at it, doesn't somebody find it strange that those rumors/reports circulating abroad in perfectly reputable news outlets about the possible Kurdish capture of Saddam Hussein -- which, if true, would make another of our stories a set of lies and propaganda -- isn't being dealt with, as far as I can tell, in the American media at all, not even to be denied, disproved, or dismissed? These reports may not be true, but shouldn't they at least be acknowledged?)

 

There was, of course, some good writing on the subject of this week's WMD news from people like David Corn of the Nation magazine and Derrick Z. Jackson, columnist for the Boston Globe, both of whom have been highlighting Bush administration lies for months and months. And columnist Bill Berkowitz at the Tom Paine website, having reviewed the case of the missing WMD, comments (Media AWOL): "If there's any scandal brewing at this point, it's that the mainstream media has not held the Bush administration accountable for its misinformation and disinformation campaign about Iraq's WMD stockpiles."

 

While day after day the media dissects Howard Dean's last meal, news about the lies that lay at the heart of a war that continues to result in needless American deaths (not to speak of Iraqi ones) gets at best timid and haphazard coverage in our media; sometimes none at all. None of this, of course, stops the Bush people from continuing to talk in the most solemn way about pursuing WMD in Iraq or repeating most of their lies for the umpteenth time, and my suspicion is that in some way they are now lead-proofed against the x-ray of evidence on the subject.

 

The closest analogy I can come up with is Ronald Reagan's SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) in the 1980s -- initially a wild dream of the President's to put an "invulnerable shield" against nuclear weapons over our heads. When critics called his plan "Star Wars" to ridicule it, he embraced the term. Each time scientific types shot one version or aspect of SDI out of the skies, using evidence and reason, the program simply morphed into another dreamy form and -- like the Blob of 1950s scifi fame -- continued to absorb its surroundings; in this case, R&D funds from the Pentagon. The critics were right again and again, but it didn't matter. SDI and its "high frontier" enthusiasts have never left us and now the Bush administration is about to put the first "fruits" of SDI, an anti-missile system that has absorbed and will continue to absorb multibillions and won't work as advertised, into place. SDI proved impermeable to criticism, to evidence, to reason. The Iraqi WMD question seems to be following a similar path. It has been discredited over and over again, but never in a fashion that trumped the coverage of administration claims, no matter how wild, and who cares?

 

Naomi Klein, writing for the Nation, recently came to a similar conclusion on the more general topic of administration fraudulence and untruth (The Year of the Fake):

 

"When Bush came to office, many believed his ignorance would be his downfall. Eventually Americans would realize that a President who referred to Africa as "a nation" was unfit to lead. Now we tell ourselves that if only Americans knew that they were being lied to, they would surely revolt. But with the greatest of respect for the liar books (Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Big Lies, The Lies of George W. Bush, The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq et al.), I'm no longer convinced that America can be set free by the truth alone. In many cases, fake versions of events have prevailed even when the truth was readily available… Rather than being toppled for his adversarial relationship to both the most important truths and the most basic facts, Bush is actively remaking America in the image of his own ignorance and duplicity."

 

In some way perhaps, for many Americans, administration lies seem to make more sense -- or at least more comfortable sense -- of events than any set of truths, and that may be enough.

 

Oh, and while we're on the topic of weapons of mass destruction -- and things you're not likely to see in your hometown paper, here's a missing WMD story, printed up in England. Australia, Canada, and elsewhere, but as far as I can tell, MIA in the American mainstream media world. Tony Blair's chief scientific advisor, Sir David King, just wrote a piece for the prestigious American (not British) scientific magazine Science, decrying the American role in global warming. Here's how Steve Connor of the British Independent began his piece on this -- front page, naturally ("US climate policy bigger threat to world than terrorism," 1/9/04):

 

"Tony Blair's chief scientist has launched a withering attack on President George Bush for failing to tackle climate change, which he says is more serious than terrorism. Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser, says in an article today in the journal Science that America, the world's greatest polluter, must take the threat of global warming more seriously.

 

"'In my view, climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism,' Sir David says…

 

"'If we could stabilise the atmosphere's carbon dioxide concentration at some realistically achievable and relatively low level, there is still a good chance of mitigating the worst effects of climate change.' But countries such as Britain could not solve the problem of global warming in isolation, particularly when the US was by far the biggest producer of greenhouse gases on the planet. 'The United Kingdom is responsible for only 2 per cent of the world's emissions, the United States for more than 20 per cent (although it contains only 4 per cent of the world's population).'"

 

But, of course, Sir Davey must have the wrong country in mind.

 

Analogies

 

Let me now return to General Swannack's "corner" because, believe me, for those of us of a certain age, turning that corner brings back memories, none of them good. When not spotting the famed "light at the end of the tunnel," we were always officially "turning corners" in the Vietnam years. It's no mistake that that image popped into the poor general's mind. It's lodged there -- as is our Vietnam experience -- like something caught between the teeth with no dental floss in sight.

 

I've said many times that Iraq is obviously not Vietnam, but in a world with only one superpower, with an arms race of one and an imperial drive of one, a world that is in many ways unprecedented and deeply unnerving, the urge for explanatory analogies has been powerful. Since September 11th, any number of thoughtful people have groped for analogies that would make some sense of our world. This may be the other side of the willingness of so many to settle for the administration's simple, if bogus, explanations.

 

For Americans, Vietnam is invariably the analogy du jour and so General Swannack is in good company. In recent weeks, two pieces exploring that analogy have been of particular interest. William Pfaff, columnist for the International Herald Tribune, suggested that in this "year of all the answers" ("Bush is ignoring the political lesson of Vietnam," 1/3/04):

 

"It is true that some critics have warned of a 'new Vietnam,' but they nearly always do so in terms that suggest only that the eventual victory will be more costly than the Bush government expected. The Vietnam analogy is wrong in military terms… The relevant analogy of Vietnam with Iraq is political. The Bush administration's ambition in Iraq is identical to that of the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations in Vietnam. It is to find or shape a plausible national movement that will turn the country into a strategic American ally….

 

"If a secure and at least nominally sovereign Iraqi government exists a year from today, alongside American bases in that country, the United States will have won the Iraq war. The odds are low that there will be such a government. The possibility that the United States might lose the Iraq war has yet to be seriously discussed at the level of national politics and policy."

 

However, anything resembling defeat in Iraq might, he concludes, mean defeat for George Bush and of course for the very idea that "Pax Americana is America's new destiny."

 

In the Washington Post's Sunday Outlook section at year's end, Robert Kaiser, who covered the Vietnam War in 1969-70, wrote a fascinating piece ("Iraq Isn't Vietnam But They Rhyme," 12/28/03) about similarities between Iraq and Vietnam, once the obvious military dissimilarities were removed from the picture. Among those similarities, he included: Official optimism, American isolation on the ground, American isolation in the world, and the primacy of political considerations. About this he says:

 

"Two beleaguered presidents, each hyping his unpopular war, suggest how these two episodes can turn out to be similar in their effects. The war in Southeast Asia was Topic A for three successive presidential elections, from 1964 though 1972. Iraq seems destined for a similar role in 2004. In a domestic context, there are many similarities between the two: Disputed and inaccurate intelligence, molded for political purposes, created pretexts for both wars; each caused deep divisions in the country; and pro-war presidents draped themselves in the flag and preached the stark necessity of their war, while promising its speedy, successful conclusion…

 

"Vietnam undermined the U.S. economy, nearly destroyed the U.S. Army and contributed to a generation or more of public cynicism and distrust of government. There are no grounds today for predicting consequences as grave from the war in Iraq. Indeed, a successful outcome, including a new democratic Iraq, remains possible. But the rhymes should give us pause."

 

Of course, what analogies you choose are going to depend on where you happen to stand. If you are a former Indian ambassador to Turkey, as is K. Gajendra Singh, then quite different analogies may come to mind ("Occupation case studies: Algeria and Turkey," Asia Times online, 1/7/04):

 

"After Vietnam and Afghanistan, the Middle East is the new American West. The US administration, scared of Islamic fundamentalism and religious fanatics, has yet to evolve a coherent policy to counter it. But it is turning occupied Iraq into an oligarchy of crony capitalism, after an ill-advised and illegal war on Iraq, set off and egged on by Christian fundamentalists at the core of the administration…

 

"In an era of nation states based on patriotism and shared history, people just hate occupying powers. While Vietnam's example and its people's fight for freedom and making it a quagmire for US forces has been talked about, Iraq's comparison with post World War 2 Germany and Japan shows little historic understanding. The ground situation and the evolution of the war for independence in Muslim, Arab, and till now secular Iraq, is closer to the wars of independence in Algeria and Turkey."

 

Of all the recent analogy pieces, the most interesting, I believe, is one by former AP reporter Robert Parry, who quite reasonably points out that the operative analogy in the minds of many of the neocons in this administration isn't Vietnam but the "successful" wars they fought by proxy in Central America earlier in their careers in the Reagan years, when a number of insurgencies were suppressed. In "Iraq: Quicksand and Blood," a long and brilliant piece in In These Times, 12/26/03, he writes both of the analogy and why its application in Iraq may prove catastrophic:

 

"The key counterinsurgency lesson from Central America was that the U.S. government can defeat guerrilla movements if it is willing to back a local power structure, no matter how repulsive, and if Washington is ready to tolerate gross human rights abuses…

 

"[E]ven if the Bush administration can hastily set up an Iraqi security apparatus, it may not be as committed to a joint cause with the Americans as the Central American paramilitary forces were with the Reagan administration. Without a reliable proxy force, the responsibility for conducting a scorched-earth campaign in Iraq likely would fall to American soldiers who themselves might question the wisdom and the morality of such an undertaking.

 

"Perhaps one of the lessons of the current dilemma is that George W. Bush may have dug such a deep hole for U.S. policy in Iraq that even Guatemalan-style brutality applied to the Sunni Triangle would only deepen the well of anti-Americanism that already exists in many parts of Iraq and across much of the Islamic world."

 

[This article first appeared on Tomdispatch.com, a weblog of the Nation Institute, which offers a steady flow of alternate sources, news, and opinion from Tom Engelhardt, long time editor in publishing and author of The End of Victory Culture and The Last Days of Publishing.]