In case you hadn't heard yet...
... much of the civilized world that isn't us, (but i repeat myself), is flipping out because a leaked memo says Blair had to talk Bush down from bombing Al-Jazeera headquarters in Qatar. (And Blair's government seems more leaktastic than the Ken Starr investigation... not that I'm complaining.) And apparently the face-saving spin is: "OMG, he was j/k!"
Juan Cole discusses the likelihood of this memo being accurate. Among other things he notes that a) Rumsfeld has said, on Al-Jazeera of all places, that it's legitimate to bomb media outlets, b) the Bush administration has made plain that it hates Al-Jazeera for things like showing pictures of the war dead, or reporting civilian casualties in Fallujah, and blames them for inciting terrorism, and c) we've bombed Al-Jazeera stations twice before, althought we never 'fessed up to doing it on purpose.
Personally, I find it terrifyingly credible that Bush would want to do this, and representative of everything that's wrong with his worldview. Somehow, his Quest to Rid the World of Evildoers would justify such an action. What scares me even more is how easily I think he could have convinced many Americans he was justified in doing so. After all, they managed to convince a majority that the war in Iraq was justified. Bush - and therefore many if not most prominent Republicans, FOX, etc. - wouldn't care that they'd be murdering civilians, or that they'd be punishing exactly the sort of freedom (of the press, in this case) we're pretending to spread. Or that Qatar is a goddamn ally, which means maybe bombing them is, I dunno, wrong? Not to mention really rude.
Maybe Al-Jazeera doesn't do much for the U.S. image in the Arab world. Maybe it is biased - maybe it's the Middle East's FOX News. Maybe people do see their reports and resent us because of them. But as usual the Bush administration doesn't seem to understand that the actual actions of this country and its military might be the problem, not the reporting on them. Reality on the ground matters. You can't just wave a sparkly PR wand and turn shit into gold. And even if there was no reporting of the war other U.S. propaganda, even if you could convince non-Iraqis that the situation in Iraq was peachy and the war had no innocent victims, that shit wouldn't fly in Iraq. I think they'd still have kinda noticed the aerial bombings, the siege of Fallujah, the car-bombings. I think they'd still remember the families buried in their gardens and the children with limbs blown off. Just like Americans remember our own dead, even if their caskets can't be photographed coming home. Rumsfeld has said the German media is "worse than al-Qaida." (And since Juan Cole also writes that Rumsfeld is implicated in some of Saddam's crimes, I bet he's not real keen on him, either.) For this administration, telling uncomfortable truths is the equivalent of terrorism. So why wouldn't they bomb journalists?
And while Cole points out that Rumsfeld's own (false) words have led to many deaths, I ask, what about our own news channels that cheerled us into war? It would be difficult for Al Jazeera to be less factually accurate than FOX News. And I may loathe FOX and cheer when it gets blasted, mocked, or sued, I hardly think it deserves to be bombed. What if Qatar went, "You know what, these CNN fuckers are dangerous, they're inciting violence, let's bomb them." Can you imagine?
If the British documents surface and the story's seriousness is borne out, whatever shreds of credibility Bush still has in the Middle East will be completely gone. After all, the current phase of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, and the two wars Americans have fought in the region, came in response to the terrorist bombing of innocent civilians in downtown office buildings.
Ouch.
Juan Cole discusses the likelihood of this memo being accurate. Among other things he notes that a) Rumsfeld has said, on Al-Jazeera of all places, that it's legitimate to bomb media outlets, b) the Bush administration has made plain that it hates Al-Jazeera for things like showing pictures of the war dead, or reporting civilian casualties in Fallujah, and blames them for inciting terrorism, and c) we've bombed Al-Jazeera stations twice before, althought we never 'fessed up to doing it on purpose.
Personally, I find it terrifyingly credible that Bush would want to do this, and representative of everything that's wrong with his worldview. Somehow, his Quest to Rid the World of Evildoers would justify such an action. What scares me even more is how easily I think he could have convinced many Americans he was justified in doing so. After all, they managed to convince a majority that the war in Iraq was justified. Bush - and therefore many if not most prominent Republicans, FOX, etc. - wouldn't care that they'd be murdering civilians, or that they'd be punishing exactly the sort of freedom (of the press, in this case) we're pretending to spread. Or that Qatar is a goddamn ally, which means maybe bombing them is, I dunno, wrong? Not to mention really rude.
Maybe Al-Jazeera doesn't do much for the U.S. image in the Arab world. Maybe it is biased - maybe it's the Middle East's FOX News. Maybe people do see their reports and resent us because of them. But as usual the Bush administration doesn't seem to understand that the actual actions of this country and its military might be the problem, not the reporting on them. Reality on the ground matters. You can't just wave a sparkly PR wand and turn shit into gold. And even if there was no reporting of the war other U.S. propaganda, even if you could convince non-Iraqis that the situation in Iraq was peachy and the war had no innocent victims, that shit wouldn't fly in Iraq. I think they'd still have kinda noticed the aerial bombings, the siege of Fallujah, the car-bombings. I think they'd still remember the families buried in their gardens and the children with limbs blown off. Just like Americans remember our own dead, even if their caskets can't be photographed coming home. Rumsfeld has said the German media is "worse than al-Qaida." (And since Juan Cole also writes that Rumsfeld is implicated in some of Saddam's crimes, I bet he's not real keen on him, either.) For this administration, telling uncomfortable truths is the equivalent of terrorism. So why wouldn't they bomb journalists?
And while Cole points out that Rumsfeld's own (false) words have led to many deaths, I ask, what about our own news channels that cheerled us into war? It would be difficult for Al Jazeera to be less factually accurate than FOX News. And I may loathe FOX and cheer when it gets blasted, mocked, or sued, I hardly think it deserves to be bombed. What if Qatar went, "You know what, these CNN fuckers are dangerous, they're inciting violence, let's bomb them." Can you imagine?
If the British documents surface and the story's seriousness is borne out, whatever shreds of credibility Bush still has in the Middle East will be completely gone. After all, the current phase of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, and the two wars Americans have fought in the region, came in response to the terrorist bombing of innocent civilians in downtown office buildings.
Ouch.