Media Criticism

I hate the crass rhetoric of hawks in America who say that anyone who opposes the president’s war does not support the troops. It is patently absurd to say that I cannot hope that soldiers stay safe and sound overseas while the American government is pulling a Three Stooges act on foreign policy. I despise the war in Iraq but I want every soldier to avoid harm. With this statement in mind, it may be surprising to die-hard hawks that I support Freedom’s Watch in its fight with NBC.

NBC recently refused to run an ad by Freedom’s Watch during the holiday season asking people to continue supporting troops overseas. The reasoning behind NBC’s decision was part of a policy to avoid advertisements authorized by the network that deal with policy issues. There was also a problem of the URL of the Freedom’s Watch website being displayed on the ad (which makes no sense whatsoever as a reason for prohibition). I can understand the butt-covering that NBC executives are using in refusing the Freedom’s Watch ad. The problem is that the idea of money as free speech should actually be allowed to take its course in this case.

My support for the Freedom’s Watch ad is contingent on another ad being run at the same time. This ad would be funded by a group that opposes the war with the exact same amount of time and exposure as the Freedom’s Watch ad. NBC’s refusal to run the ad is certainly going to increase hits on the Freedom’s Watch site which may be more important to the organization’s leaders than running the actual advertisement. I think there is a real opportunity to initiate a standard of networks encouraging both sides to address major policy issues in America.

NBC needs to reconsider its decision as a way to surpass other networks in terms of encouraging discourse. This is an incredibly naïve attempt on my part to apply an unrealistic standard on cold, heartless networks who are more interested in getting shows like Kid Nation on the air than helping out the public. A debate over the politics of the war instead of the black/white debate between hawks who apparently LOVE the war and doves who HATE the troops can increase the viewership of NBC. I just hope that the writer’s strike continues so that NBC will start to consider new ways to draw in new viewers.

The title seems draconian but the promise by President Pervez Musharraf that he will relinquish his military uniform (again) and open the presidency to the democratic process must be fulfilled. Coverage of the Pakistani situation has been rampant in the mainstream media as well as alternative media sources as this ambivalent ally in the war on terror turns to hell in a hand basket. We must look past the promise of democracy in the midst of chaos to begin earnest steps toward realizing democracy in Pakistan.

I don’t think regular readers will be surprised by my views on the war on terror. A war against an idea, a tool of oppression and anarchy is foolhardy. The only thing more foolish than fighting terror is using feckless thugs, authoritarians and incompetent bureaucrats as our allies. In the same way that America got into bed with all manner of politician to fight Communism in the Cold War, America is allying itself with anyone as long as they say the right things about terrorism.

The Bush Administration may be content by pushing Musharraf in November 2007 that may never happen in January 2008 but Americans concerned with foreign policy want more than that. I think that the media coverage of riots, the house arrest of political reformers like Benazir Bhutto and the pressure applied by the West on Pakistan has been outstanding. Media pressure will only do so much against a flailing dictator like Musharraf and Americans need to push their representatives for action.

We need to mobilize an international coalition with the assistance of India and the European Union to enforce Musharraf’s promised steps. The occasion of stabilizing Pakistan may offer America an opportunity to offer an olive branch to Russia. It is important to utilize the United Nations General Assembly to promote the idea of peace keepers and international election observers in Pakistan to make sure that every vote is counted and every ballot has more than the name Musharraf available.

Above all else, voters throughout the United States need to press the candidates in both parties to come out tough for anything but a legitimately elected government in Pakistan. If America is going to be an interventionist power, we must work within the bounds of international politics and ally ourselves with nations that support democratically elected governments. We cannot afford Pakistan to fall into chaos as the Asian continent becomes critical to 21st century political, economic and social development.

Anyone that watched the lies and fabrications of Colin Powell as he presented the case for intervention in Iraq in 2003 is concerned with Western rhetoric about Iran. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard and other elements of conservatism in Iran have been accused of developing nuclear capabilities, consorting with Syria to intervene in Iraq and plotting the destruction of Israel. All three of these have truth to them, in particular the anti-Semitism of the Iranian elites but every decision regarding Iran will be colored with the brush of Iraq’s failures.

As a student editorial writer in college, I devoted several articles to my opposition to the war in Iraq in the winter of 2003. I think that a war with Iran would be better justified than the war in Iraq but we are already over-committed in Iraq and under-committed in Afghanistan. We have cast our lot in the Middle East by attempting to nation build in Iraq where the military threat was minimal. It is impossible now to fight in Iran without making a choice: push the nation into mandatory service to mobilize soldiers for Iran or pull everything out of Iraq to deal with Iran. Neither option is palatable but don’t worry, the Bush administration will find a way to make a choice that will please no one

While the geopolitical issues inherent in an Iranian war are obvious, there is something more basic that lies at the bottom of the conversation about war. Rep. Dennis Kucinich has been sounding the call for the House and the Senate to cut funds to the war in a demonstration of Congressional power. His rhetoric is more about promoting peace through one of the most powerful countries (for now) in the world. The Bush Administration is countering with a tired continuation of an amorphous war on terror that claims to have protected America from a 9/11-style attack in the last seven years. There is no reason for terrorists to attack us again because they have already gotten what they wanted. American involvement in the Middle East creates chaos, allows petty dictators to rise in the region and ensures a future filled with conflict over one of the world’s scarcest resources.

In the end, I see America going to war with Iran. Hillary Clinton is a poor person’s Republican trying to win the Democratic nomination to get the right label. Conservatives will disagree with me on Clinton’s conservatism but she certainly speaks like a hawk that is concerned with the same issues at Giuliani and Romney. I will never vote for Hillary Clinton for this reason but millions will. I just hope Americans know what they are getting into with either of the front runners in this race. I will cast my lot with someone concerned with the Constitution and the even division of powers in our government whoever that may be.

The confrontation between Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and George W. Bush on Tuesday was something that battle rappers and high school debate teams should watch in equal measure. Both presidents gave speeches several hours apart and Bush attended meetings in order to get out of seeing Ahmadinejad’s speech. Bush spoke about the authoritarian and dictatorial governments throughout the world including Cuba, Zimbabwe and a nation that starts with I and ends with ran.

Ahmadinejad was slightly more subtle than George W. Bush which proves that he is a bit of a buffoon in his own right. Anyone should be more subtle than Bush and Ahmadinejad’s speech was something to behold. He describes an occupying force that does not admit defeat, allows thousands of deaths and devalues the independence of other nations. I wonder which occupying force in the Middle East he could be referring to?

The United Nations offers a distinct opportunity for tyrants and democrats alike to speak to a global audience. America has always been hostile to the United Nations because a) it has no muscle and b) arguments going back to Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations indicate a hint of racism underneath political arguments. Americans do not have a right to tell the world who they can hear speak in the United Nations because it is not OUR organization. People can protest all they want but Ahmadinejad spoke, the Cubans left after Bush’s rhetorical attack and representatives from brutal dictatorships took these attacks in stride. While the arguments between Bush and Ahmadinejad were superficial and full of bile, they do show the value of open debate. You can take what you will from that statement but if we want to spread democracy to the world (like Wilson), we need to be prepared for the bruises, cuts and psychological damage associated.

In case you were able to get past the coverage of Britney’s performance at the Video Music Awards, you realize that today is the sixth anniversary of the September 11th attacks in New York City. I have found each anniversary unbearable because I have to endure a week’s worth of programs about this terrible tragedy. I saw it on television and I was like millions of others glued to their TV in the following days to see how America responded. Six years later, I cannot honestly say that we have responded well.

The political rhetoric and media coverage on each 9/11 anniversary has been focused on our military response. MyGoodDeed.org is an organization that has received over 250,000 pledges by people who want to change our nation’s focus when this anniversary comes around each year. These Americans pledge to do good deeds and celebrate the heroism of firefighters, police officers and others involved in saving lives on 9/11. My cynical heart is warmed a bit by the thought that the public is able to put aside the bile associated with this event on one day each year to help others. If we could only get past the idea that a war on terror is winnable we may be able to begin to heal the wounds that we have allowed to fester in the last six years.

The New York Times and other publications have been quick to jump on the unexpected resignation slant of the Alberto Gonzales story. As you may already know, Attorney General Gonzales called President Bush on Friday to offer his resignation. Bush obviously accepted because it will help buoy what little hope he has of getting stuff done before January 2009 comes around. I don’t think anyone who observes the political scene is surprised by Gonzales’ resignation or its timing.

Gonzales has let tempers cool a bit in Congress before making the inevitable move out of the door. His obfuscation in answering questions from U.S. senators over the past few months has led to a number of legal procedures designed to get past the murk. The argument over subpoenas for Justice Department officials between the White House and Congress have raged but the singular hatred of Gonzales has died down a bit. Gonzales moved into a group of people like Bush, Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who are scorned from a wide range of people but seem to deflect this criticism with supreme ignorance.

The Lede, a blog on the New York Times, highlighted the prevailing wisdom in the press this morning that Alberto Gonzales’ resignation was unexpected. It is unsurprising that Gonzales let the tide sweep over his entire department instead of taking the blame early in the process. The next attorney general will likely fall into the Ashcroft-Gonzales camp of legal experts without the fundamental civil libertarian views necessary to run the nation’s legal department. This person will only get about a year to do their damage so America needs to press for continued coverage of Justice Department issues in the meantime. While I disagree with the immediate post-mortem on Gonzales’ decision, I do feel that the press has done a fine job of covering the surveillance and wire tapping program.

There are few things I dislike more than when President Bush tries to make an historical analogy and fails miserably. Bush gave a speech yesterday at the VFW annual convention in Kansas City where he compared the push for withdrawal in Iraq to a similar push at the end of America’s involvement in Vietnam. He made a similarly strained comparison between the Iraq War and the American Revolution after Fourth of July 2007. I cannot wait for the president to compare Iraq and the Mexican-American War or the French-Indian War.

While the analogy sounds great and draws applause from some conservatives, most reasonable people know that it rings hollow. I heard numerous programs on Wisconsin Public Radio (I live in Milwaukee) where the experts were trying to hide their bile for such a poorly constructed argument. Cheney, Bush and their group of spokespeople have denounced this comparison for years now because it denotes failure. I am convinced that the orchestration of this turn by the Bush Administration was the swan song of former puppeteer Karl Rove. The dynamics of surrounding nations was different in Vietnam as it is in Iraq even though war supporters have tried to cast the former as a defeat to communism and the latter as a failure against terrorism. Bush’s speech exposed his fatal flaw which is his inability to see the gray between black and white.

Alright, this is a bit conspiracy-theorist and I don’t completely believe that. I am having an issue, however, with the way Bush’s speech at the VFW was framed all week. Every time you saw an article on Hillary Clinton speaking at the event, it would indicate that President Bush would sweep in at the end of the week as a conservative salve for veterans. While the speech was recognized as a mixed blessing by most accounts, media outlets all over the country have subconsciously helped set up Bush’s effort to recast the war as a mission of American promise. As a nation, we need to look back the faux intellectualism that is inherent in making a comparison between past and present events to keep Republicans and war Democrats honest.

Television news is rarely blasted for being too complicated; they manage to fit an entire day’s worth of information into a perfect 30-minute square (including commercials), and often they still have time to talk about Paris Hilton or Harry Potter.

The huge advantage of getting information with this way is that it requires no effort whatsoever. As long as I know how to use a remote control (sometimes more difficult than you would think–my TV has 3), I can keep up with the important goings-on in the world.

However, fitting everything “important” into 30 minutes leaves much to be desired. Television news often sticks to the bare minimum of facts and analysis necessary for understanding.

For instance, yesterday I received Stratfor’s Geopolitical Intelligence Report. Stratfor is an intelligence service based on in-depth analysis (forgive my plug here, but the free reports are excellent resources). Last week, Stratfor’s report declared that the al Qaeda that had attacked us on 9/11 was no longer in existence; the same day, the Bush administration issued a warning that al Qaeda was at full working capacity and warned Americans of a possible summer attack.

These two statements seem irreconcilable on face, but this week’s report clears up that discrepancy. Essentially, Stratfor argues that the small, well-organized terrorist group that carried out the 9/11 attacks is gone and has been replaced by a militant-style organization trained hold up in a firefight. As evidence, Stratfor looks at the recent terrorist attacks in Britain (carried out by “al Qaeda”) and claims that the failure of these attacks means that the old al Qaeda is dead. Whether this is because of the War on Terror, newly developed anti-terrorism techniques, or simply an internal collapse of the organization is unclear. Regardless, the al Qaeda that went undetected in the United States before September of 2001 no longer has that advanced capacity.

This week’s article also addresses yesterday’s National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that al Qaeda has regrouped in Pakistan and is gaining strength. When ABC News reported this, they simply reported that al Qaeda is back in full force and spoke briefly about the implications of a regenerated terrorist group.

Stratfor, however, looks at the issue completely differently. Stratfor argues that, on face, an admission that al Qaeda is stronger than ever is an admission of the failure of the War on Terror. If al Qaeda still exists today as it did in September of 2001, then our past five years in Afghanistan have essentially been wasted. An embattled administration barely able to hold onto one war is hardly going to admit the failure of another. Stratfor offers the key that unlocks this mystery: the al Qaeda spoken of in the NIE is a different type of organization than the al Qaeda that carried out the attacks on 9/11.

The difference between the two analyses–Stratfor and ABC News–is startling. It is not surprising that the ABC News report was alarming. People will keep watching the news if they’re scared, ratings go up, and ABC can sell more advertisements and make more money. Stratfor, however, is exactly the opposite; instead of running around in circles like a frightened puppy, Stratfor quietly argues that the NIE report is not as alarming as it may seem.

Interestingly enough, too, the Stratfor report makes the only coherent argument for staying in Iraq: if Iraq falls to Iranian control due to poor diplomacy, US political strife, and a hasty pullout, the region becomes threatening to western interests. Iraq may not have been a threat when we invaded, but Iran is still a monster we have yet to control. Unlike most right now, Stratfor lambastes the president for failing to make this key argument, not for refusing to withdraw troops.

Politicians and the media gain when issues like Iraq become black-and-white. There are two distinct sides with two distinct plans of action, and one will eventually win. This gives the media an easy story and the politicians an easy platform. If only the issues really were that simple.

Iraq, War on Terror, Afghanistan, Bush, Stratfor, ABC News, Media