This article by John F. Burns is good. One line in it really stuck out to me, though. People have often wondered why the news stories from Iraq still read like they were vetted by the Iraqi Information Ministry. I know I’ve observed that they still seem that way. Well, if they do - it’s because they are:
At the Palestine Hotel, where I was taunted in the last weeks of Mr. Hussein’s terror by officials of his information ministry as “the most dangerous man in Iraq” because of my articles about the regime’s brutality, some of the same Iraqis, who now work as interpreters for Western news bureaus, caution me against staying in the 16th-floor room I used to inhabit.
So our “free press” are so annoyed by and opposed to censorship that they’re employing their own minders now that Saddam is no longer able to pay them. And we wonder why the quotes they get from Iraqis - who aren’t stupid and do know who worked for the Ba’athist regime - tell the interpreters the things they do, and the interpreters then tell the reporters, who then report back to America in a certain tone. If we’ve been wondering why there is such a disconnect between what the news reports are saying about conditions and attitudes in Iraq, and what independent people who go there without hiring on ex-Iraqi Information Ministry minders to screen information for them say about Iraq, well now we know. The BBC, for example, I’ve long suspected that their “man on the street” quotes are really “Ba’athist on the street” interviews.
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Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the United Nations is preparing to play an active role in the transfer of power to a provisional government in Iraq. But, Mr. Annan admits security concerns may limit the world body’s ability to act.
Yeah, they’ll be active until someone takes a shot at them. Then the thugs will take over and the UN will once again be able to relate to the Iraqi rulers. Annan knows his planning!
On May 24, 1945, just 16 days after V-E Day, Britain’s socialists were sanguine. A Labor Party firebrand, Aneurin Bevan, anticipating the Labor victory that occurred five weeks later, said that privation would be a thing of the past, because essentials would soon be abundant: “This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time.”
But socialism rose to the challenge. Two years later, the coal industry having been nationalized and food still rationed, coal and fish were scarce. There are indeed some things that only government can do.
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Re Stephen Hayes’ Weekly Standard piece on the ties between Saddam and al Qaeda, I too have wondered why there wasn’t more media attention paid to what I considered quite a blockbuster. Of course, it’s true that it doesn’t reflect at all badly on the Bush administration, so that’s one reason. But there’s another. Remember a few weeks ago a “study” was released purporting to prove that those poor benighted individuals who watched Fox News “misunderstood” some things that NPR listeners and PBS watchers understood perfectly? One of those things was that we who watched Fox seemed to believe that there was some sort of connection between Saddam and UBL… while the enlightened knew perfectly well that there was no evidence of that.
Of course, even Janet Reno knew about these connections…
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The European Union berated Israel on Monday for snubbing its special envoy over his contacts with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat […] ”We would like to have much more cooperation and much more trust,” EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Of course, Solana has no plans to actually do anything that would deserve more trust, he would just like to have it without paying for it. We see the Palestinians have learned this lesson —
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The Egyptian intelligence chief arrived Monday to try to broker a Mideast truce, and Palestinian officials said success depends largely on Israel’s willingness to halt military operations.
Palestinian militants have told Egyptian mediators they are ready for a truce, provided Israel stops targeted killings of fugitives, incursions and arrest sweeps, according to an Egyptian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In the past, Israel has said it will only halt military strikes if Palestinian security forces begin dismantling militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Of course, the chief of intelligence for a repressive regime is exactly who I would trust to negotiate a truce. Note that, according to the Palestinian side, Palestinian terror attacks on Israel have no bearing on a truce, only Israeli responses. One wonders what’s in a truce for the Israelis, since none of the previous ones have actually involved a cessation of attacks on Israel.
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A week ago there was a anti-Israel protest in Los Angeles. In addition to the demonstrators there were counter demonstrators. And beyond all of those people there was this guy. He wore a blak turtle neck with black ski mask and cargo pants, carrying a sign that said “HAMAS SAYS NO WALL”. In addition he had strings of fake dynamite tied all over his torso. The LA IndyMedia folk put up his picture as a positive comment. But there were some who saw him and thought “if HAMAS is for it, I’m against it”.
It turns out that the guy was, in fact, an anti-terrorist protestor attempting to parody the anti-Israel (and de facto pro-terrorist) demonstrators. But despite his attempt to be over the top by protesting that the wall would stop suicide bombers, IndyMedia thought that was a fine message to send and endorsed it. I strongly recommend checking out the picture and asking, what kind of people see this as a positive statement for their cause?