The War's Lost Weekend

From the New York Times:

Just when you've persuaded yourself yet again that this isn't Vietnam, you are
hit by another acid flashback. Last weekend that flashback was to 1969. It was
in June 1969 that Life magazine ran its cover story "The Faces of the American
Dead in Vietnam: One Week's Toll," the acknowledged prototype for Ted Koppel's
photographic roll-call of the American dead in Iraq on "Nightline." It was in
November 1969 that a little-known reporter, Seymour Hersh, broke the story of
the 1968 massacre at My Lai, the horrific scoop that has now found its match 35
years later in Mr. Hersh's New Yorker revelation of a 53-page Army report
detailing "numerous instances of `sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses'
at Abu Ghraib." No doubt some future edition of the Pentagon Papers will
explain just why we restored Saddam Hussein's hellhole to its original use,
torture rooms included, even as we allowed Baghdad's National Library, a
repository of Mesopotamia's glorious pre-Baath history, to be looted and
burned.




The Vietnam parallels are, as always, not quite exact. We didn't "withdraw" for
another four years after 1969 and didn't flee Saigon for another two years
after that. We're on a faster track this time. News travels at a higher
velocity now than it did then and saturates the culture more completely; the
stray, silent images from the TV set at the gym or the p.c. on someone else's
desk lodge in our brains even when we are trying to tune them out. Last
weekend, the first anniversary of the end of the war's "major combat
operations," was a Perfect Storm of such inescapable images. The dense 48-hour
cloud of bad news marked the beginning of the real, involuntary end of
America's major combat operations in Iraq, come hell or June 30.

The first sign was the uproar over "Nightline" from the war's cheerleaders. You
have to wonder: if this country is so firm in its support of this war, by what
logic would photographs of its selfless soldiers, either their faces or their
flag-draped coffins, undermine public opinion? The practical effect of all the
clamor was only to increase hunger for "Nightline" — its ratings went up as
much as 30 percent — and ensure that the fallen's faces would be seen on many
more channels as well. Those faces then bled into the pictures from Abu Ghraib,
which, after their original display on "60 Minutes II," metastasized by the
hour on other networks and Web sites: graphic intimations of rape, with
Americans cast as the rapists and Iraqis as the victims, that needed no
commentary to be understood in any culture. (The word "reprimand" — the
punishment we first doled out for these crimes — may lose something in
translation to the Arabic, however.)

Then there were the pictures of marines retreating from Fallujah and of that
city's citizens dancing in the streets to celebrate their victory over the
American liberators they were supposed to be welcoming with flowers. And
perhaps most bizarre of all, there was the image that negated the war's one
unambiguous accomplishment, the toppling of Saddam. Now, less than 13 months
after that victory, we could see a man in Republican Guard gear take command in
Fallujah. He could have been one of those Saddam doubles we kept hearing about
before "Shock and Awe." But instead of toppling this Saddam stand-in we were
resurrecting him and returning him to power.

Through a cruel accident of timing, each of these images was in turn cross-cut
with a retread of a golden oldie: President Bush standing under the "Mission
Accomplished" banner of a year ago. "I wish the banner was not up there," Karl
Rove had told a newspaper editorial board in the swing state of Ohio in
mid-April. Not "I wish that we had planned for the dangers of post-Saddam Iraq
before recklessly throwing underprepared and underprotected Americans into
harm's way." No, Mr. Rove has his eye on what's most important: better
political image management through better set design. In prewar America,
presidential backdrops reading "Strengthening Medicare" and "Strengthening Our
Economy" had worked just fine. If only that one on the U.S.S. Lincoln had said
"Strengthening Iraq," everything would be hunky-dory now.



Not having any positive pictures of its own to counter last weekend's ugly
ones, the administration tried gamely to alter the images' meaning through
words instead. Little could be done to neutralize the mortal calculus of
"Nightline" — though Paul Wolfowitz trivialized the whole idea of a casualty
count by publicly underestimating the actual death toll by some 200. But back
in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt went for broke. "This is not a withdrawal,
it's not a retreat," he said, even as news video showed an American tank
literally going in reverse while pulling away from Fallujah. To counter the
image of the Saddam clone, the Pentagon initially told reporters that he was
not a member of the Republican Guard, even as we saw him strutting about in the
familiar olive-green uniform and beret. (Later the truth emerged, and the
Saddam clone in question, Jasim Muhammad Saleh, was yanked off-camera.)


As for Abu Ghraib, a State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said "I'm not
too concerned" about the fallout of these snapshots on American credibility in
the Arab world. Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, took to
three Sunday morning talk shows to say that only "a handful" of Americans had
engaged in such heinous activities — even though that low estimate was
contradicted by the two-month-old internal Army report uncovered by Mr. Hersh
and available to everyone in the world, it seemed, except the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs and his civilian counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld.

The general blamed the public's grim interpretation of the news from Iraq on
"inaccurate reporting" that he found nearly everywhere, from CNN to "the
morning papers." He and the administration no doubt prefer the hard-hitting
journalism over at Fox. "I end up spending a lot of time watching Fox News,"
Dick Cheney explained last month, "because they're more accurate in my
experience, in those events that I'm personally involved in, than many of the
other outlets."

It was instructive, then, to see how Fox covered the images of last weekend —
in part by disparaging the idea of showing them at all. Fox's (if not
America's) most self-infatuated newsman, the host of "The O'Reilly Factor,"
worried on air that "Nightline" might undermine morale if it tried to "exploit
casualties in a time of war." He somehow forgot that just five nights earlier
he had used his own show to exploit a casualty, the N.F.L. player Pat Tillman
— a segment, Mr. O'Reilly confided with delight, "very highly rated by
billoreilly.com premium members." (Lesson to families who lose sons and
daughters in Iraq: if you want them to be exploited on "The Factor," let alone
applauded by Web site "premium members" who pay its host $49.95 a year, be sure
they become celebrities before they enlist.)

Soon Mr. O'Reilly was announcing that he was "not going to use the pictures" of
Abu Ghraib either and suggested that "60 Minutes II" should have followed his
example. Lest anyone be tempted to take a peek by switching channels, a former
Army interrogation instructor, Tony Robinson, showed up on another Fox show,
"Hannity & Colmes," to assert that the prison photos did not show torture.
"Frat hazing is worse than this," the self-styled expert said.

Perhaps no one exemplified the principles of Cheney-favored journalism more
eloquently than the Sinclair Broadcast Group, the large station owner (and
Republican contributor) that refused to broadcast "Nightline" on its ABC
outlets. A spokesman, Mark Hyman, explained: "Someone who died 13 months ago
— why is that news?" Been there, done that, I guess.

The administration has been coddled by this kind of coverage since 9/11, until
fairly recently, and it didn't all come from Fox and Sinclair. Last Sunday,
Michael Getler, the ombudsman at The Washington Post, wrote that "almost
everything we were told before the war, other than that Saddam Hussein is bad,
has turned out, so far, not to be the case: the weapons of mass destruction,
the imagery of nuclear mushroom clouds, the links between al Qaeda and Hussein,
the welcome, the resistance, the costs, the numbers of troops needed." He was
arguing that, as good as much of the war reportage has been, "it is prewar
coverage that counts the most."

If that coverage had been sharper, and more skeptical of administration
propaganda, more of the fictions that sent us to war would have been punctured
before we signed on. Perhaps a majority of the country would not have been
conned into accepting as fact (as it still does, according to an April poll)
that Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam was in league
with al Qaeda. As fate would have it, last weekend was also when C-Span
broadcast live coverage of the annual White House Correspondents' Association
dinner, many of whose attendees were responsible for the journalistic shortfall
described by Mr. Getler. The revelers joined the president in pausing to mourn
Michael Kelly and David Bloom, two of the 25 journalists killed so far in the
line of duty in Iraq. Then it was back to Washington at its merriest, as the
assembled journalists could return to drooling over such fading or faded stars
as Ben Affleck, Morgan Fairchild and Wayne Newton.

That was an image, too — as ludicrous in its way as those second-rung Playboy
bunnies turning up in "Apocalypse Now" — but not as powerful as those from
the front lines. Mr. Koppel's salute to the fallen was heartbreaking, no matter
what you think about the war; one young soldier could be seen cradling his
infant child, others were still wearing the cap and gown of high school and
college graduations. The Abu Ghraib images shocked us into remembering that
real obscenity is distinct from the revelation of Janet Jackson's right breast,
the cynical obsession of some of the Washington politicians also seen partying
at the correspondents' dinner.

As we know from "Mission Accomplished" and Colin Powell's aerial reconnaissance
shots displayed as evidence to the United Nations, pictures can be made to lie
— easily. But over time credible pictures, because they have a true story to
tell, can trump the phonies. Try as politicians might to alter their meaning
with spin, eventually there comes a point when the old Marx Brothers gag comes
into play: "Who are you going to believe — me or your own eyes?" Last weekend
was a time when many, if not most, of us had little choice but to believe our
own eyes.

-- Frank Rich

excellent article there, exact on all issues i believe

sad thing is GWB jnr will kill alot more people before he is voted out
of office.

bush jnr has no regard for combat deaths of either side, as he has never
served in a war and has no concept of death.....

only his father has....

gwbs jnr whole political structure and the US dod knew about the abuse
but was hoping middle america would never find out..

fortunately for the western world brave men like hersh went beyond the
call of journalism and in doing so has revealed the true nature of war
yet again rather ironically and sadly ...

i give the pretzel presido a short time before he will be removed from
office for corruption in carrying out his duties.


WalterM140 wrote:

From the New York Times:

Just when you've persuaded yourself yet again that this isn't Vietnam, you are
hit by another acid flashback. Last weekend that flashback was to 1969. It was
in June 1969 that Life magazine ran its cover story "The Faces of the American
Dead in Vietnam: One Week's Toll," the acknowledged prototype for Ted Koppel's
photographic roll-call of the American dead in Iraq on "Nightline." It was in
November 1969 that a little-known reporter, Seymour Hersh, broke the story of
the 1968 massacre at My Lai, the horrific scoop that has now found its match 35
years later in Mr. Hersh's New Yorker revelation of a 53-page Army report
detailing "numerous instances of `sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses'
at Abu Ghraib." No doubt some future edition of the Pentagon Papers will
explain just why we restored Saddam Hussein's hellhole to its original use,
torture rooms included, even as we allowed Baghdad's National Library, a
repository of Mesopotamia's glorious pre-Baath history, to be looted and
burned.



The Vietnam parallels are, as always, not quite exact. We didn't "withdraw" for
another four years after 1969 and didn't flee Saigon for another two years
after that. We're on a faster track this time. News travels at a higher
velocity now than it did then and saturates the culture more completely; the
stray, silent images from the TV set at the gym or the p.c. on someone else's
desk lodge in our brains even when we are trying to tune them out. Last
weekend, the first anniversary of the end of the war's "major combat
operations," was a Perfect Storm of such inescapable images. The dense 48-hour
cloud of bad news marked the beginning of the real, involuntary end of
America's major combat operations in Iraq, come hell or June 30.

The first sign was the uproar over "Nightline" from the war's cheerleaders. You
have to wonder: if this country is so firm in its support of this war, by what
logic would photographs of its selfless soldiers, either their faces or their
flag-draped coffins, undermine public opinion? The practical effect of all the
clamor was only to increase hunger for "Nightline" — its ratings went up as
much as 30 percent — and ensure that the fallen's faces would be seen on many
more channels as well. Those faces then bled into the pictures from Abu Ghraib,
which, after their original display on "60 Minutes II," metastasized by the
hour on other networks and Web sites: graphic intimations of rape, with
Americans cast as the rapists and Iraqis as the victims, that needed no
commentary to be understood in any culture. (The word "reprimand" — the
punishment we first doled out for these crimes — may lose something in
translation to the Arabic, however.)

Then there were the pictures of marines retreating from Fallujah and of that
city's citizens dancing in the streets to celebrate their victory over the
American liberators they were supposed to be welcoming with flowers. And
perhaps most bizarre of all, there was the image that negated the war's one
unambiguous accomplishment, the toppling of Saddam. Now, less than 13 months
after that victory, we could see a man in Republican Guard gear take command in
Fallujah. He could have been one of those Saddam doubles we kept hearing about
before "Shock and Awe." But instead of toppling this Saddam stand-in we were
resurrecting him and returning him to power.

Through a cruel accident of timing, each of these images was in turn cross-cut
with a retread of a golden oldie: President Bush standing under the "Mission
Accomplished" banner of a year ago. "I wish the banner was not up there," Karl
Rove had told a newspaper editorial board in the swing state of Ohio in
mid-April. Not "I wish that we had planned for the dangers of post-Saddam Iraq
before recklessly throwing underprepared and underprotected Americans into
harm's way." No, Mr. Rove has his eye on what's most important: better
political image management through better set design. In prewar America,
presidential backdrops reading "Strengthening Medicare" and "Strengthening Our
Economy" had worked just fine. If only that one on the U.S.S. Lincoln had said
"Strengthening Iraq," everything would be hunky-dory now.

Not having any positive pictures of its own to counter last weekend's ugly
ones, the administration tried gamely to alter the images' meaning through
words instead. Little could be done to neutralize the mortal calculus of
"Nightline" — though Paul Wolfowitz trivialized the whole idea of a casualty
count by publicly underestimating the actual death toll by some 200. But back
in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt went for broke. "This is not a withdrawal,
it's not a retreat," he said, even as news video showed an American tank
literally going in reverse while pulling away from Fallujah. To counter the
image of the Saddam clone, the Pentagon initially told reporters that he was
not a member of the Republican Guard, even as we saw him strutting about in the
familiar olive-green uniform and beret. (Later the truth emerged, and the
Saddam clone in question, Jasim Muhammad Saleh, was yanked off-camera.)

As for Abu Ghraib, a State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said "I'm not
too concerned" about the fallout of these snapshots on American credibility in
the Arab world. Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, took to
three Sunday morning talk shows to say that only "a handful" of Americans had
engaged in such heinous activities — even though that low estimate was
contradicted by the two-month-old internal Army report uncovered by Mr. Hersh
and available to everyone in the world, it seemed, except the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs and his civilian counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld.

The general blamed the public's grim interpretation of the news from Iraq on
"inaccurate reporting" that he found nearly everywhere, from CNN to "the
morning papers." He and the administration no doubt prefer the hard-hitting
journalism over at Fox. "I end up spending a lot of time watching Fox News,"
Dick Cheney explained last month, "because they're more accurate in my
experience, in those events that I'm personally involved in, than many of the
other outlets."

It was instructive, then, to see how Fox covered the images of last weekend —
in part by disparaging the idea of showing them at all. Fox's (if not
America's) most self-infatuated newsman, the host of "The O'Reilly Factor,"
worried on air that "Nightline" might undermine morale if it tried to "exploit
casualties in a time of war." He somehow forgot that just five nights earlier
he had used his own show to exploit a casualty, the N.F.L. player Pat Tillman
— a segment, Mr. O'Reilly confided with delight, "very highly rated by
billoreilly.com premium members." (Lesson to families who lose sons and
daughters in Iraq: if you want them to be exploited on "The Factor," let alone
applauded by Web site "premium members" who pay its host $49.95 a year, be sure
they become celebrities before they enlist.)

Soon Mr. O'Reilly was announcing that he was "not going to use the pictures" of
Abu Ghraib either and suggested that "60 Minutes II" should have followed his
example. Lest anyone be tempted to take a peek by switching channels, a former
Army interrogation instructor, Tony Robinson, showed up on another Fox show,
"Hannity & Colmes," to assert that the prison photos did not show torture.
"Frat hazing is worse than this," the self-styled expert said.

Perhaps no one exemplified the principles of Cheney-favored journalism more
eloquently than the Sinclair Broadcast Group, the large station owner (and
Republican contributor) that refused to broadcast "Nightline" on its ABC
outlets. A spokesman, Mark Hyman, explained: "Someone who died 13 months ago
— why is that news?" Been there, done that, I guess.

The administration has been coddled by this kind of coverage since 9/11, until
fairly recently, and it didn't all come from Fox and Sinclair. Last Sunday,
Michael Getler, the ombudsman at The Washington Post, wrote that "almost
everything we were told before the war, other than that Saddam Hussein is bad,
has turned out, so far, not to be the case: the weapons of mass destruction,
the imagery of nuclear mushroom clouds, the links between al Qaeda and Hussein,
the welcome, the resistance, the costs, the numbers of troops needed." He was
arguing that, as good as much of the war reportage has been, "it is prewar
coverage that counts the most."

If that coverage had been sharper, and more skeptical of administration
propaganda, more of the fictions that sent us to war would have been punctured
before we signed on. Perhaps a majority of the country would not have been
conned into accepting as fact (as it still does, according to an April poll)
that Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam was in league
with al Qaeda. As fate would have it, last weekend was also when C-Span
broadcast live coverage of the annual White House Correspondents' Association
dinner, many of whose attendees were responsible for the journalistic shortfall
described by Mr. Getler. The revelers joined the president in pausing to mourn
Michael Kelly and David Bloom, two of the 25 journalists killed so far in the
line of duty in Iraq. Then it was back to Washington at its merriest, as the
assembled journalists could return to drooling over such fading or faded stars
as Ben Affleck, Morgan Fairchild and Wayne Newton.

That was an image, too — as ludicrous in its way as those second-rung Playboy
bunnies turning up in "Apocalypse Now" — but not as powerful as those from
the front lines. Mr. Koppel's salute to the fallen was heartbreaking, no matter
what you think about the war; one young soldier could be seen cradling his
infant child, others were still wearing the cap and gown of high school and
college graduations. The Abu Ghraib images shocked us into remembering that
real obscenity is distinct from the revelation of Janet Jackson's right breast,
the cynical obsession of some of the Washington politicians also seen partying
at the correspondents' dinner.

As we know from "Mission Accomplished" and Colin Powell's aerial reconnaissance
shots displayed as evidence to the United Nations, pictures can be made to lie
— easily. But over time credible pictures, because they have a true story to
tell, can trump the phonies. Try as politicians might to alter their meaning
with spin, eventually there comes a point when the old Marx Brothers gag comes
into play: "Who are you going to believe — me or your own eyes?" Last weekend
was a time when many, if not most, of us had little choice but to believe our
own eyes.

-- Frank Rich

Just when you've persuaded yourself yet again that this isn't Vietnam

Which, no matter how bad you leftys want it to be, it is not.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

Just when you've persuaded yourself yet again that this isn't Vietnam

Which, no matter how bad you leftys want it to be, it is not.


It is in the most important respect. The most determined fighters are on the
other side.


Also, just like Viet Nam, we cannot make these people set up a democracy and
fight for it. That was beyond our power then, and it is beyond our power now.

Walt

t is in the most important respect. The most determined fighters are on the
other side.

The most important difference between Vietnam and Iraq is Oil.
The former had no oil whereas the latter has worlds second largest oil
reserves.

"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message
...
"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...

Which, no matter how bad you leftys want it to be, it is not.

You're right -- even McNamara could do a better job than
Rumsfeld...

Unfortunately, your following justification for that statement falls flat...


Failing to take quick and effective action against the abuse of
prisoners at once when the first report of it arrived (we are
not even talking about taking effective measures to prevent it)
was not just callous, it was also truly monumentally stupid.

Let's see, according to the AP's timeline for this incident:

"Jan. 13, 2004: Army Spc. Joseph M. Darby, an MP with the 800th at Abu
Ghraib, first reports cases of abuse at the prison.

Jan. 16: Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez orders a criminal investigation into
reports of abuse at the prison by members of the brigade. The military also
announces the investigation publicly."

Yeah, there is a real timelag there...three whole days. And note the rapid
public disclosure. As to not doing anything about it, the chain of command
does indeed seem to have begun taking action rather quickly...

"Jan. 18: A guard leader and a company commander at the prison are suspended
from their duties, and Sanchez admonishes Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who
commanded the brigade.

Jan. 19: Sanchez orders a separate administrative investigation into the
800th. Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba was appointed to conduct that inquiry on
Jan. 31."

Emmanuel, what would *you* have done more rapidly or differently from the
above? The first courts martial related to this incident is getting ready to
kick off as we speak; what would you rather have us do, summarily execute
those accused? That would appear to be about the only way one could have
moved any more rapidly to address this situation....

Your political sentiments are again affecting what should pass as your
better judgement in this case...

Brooks


--
Emmanuel Gustin

Your political sentiments are again affecting what should pass as your
better judgement in this case...

Brooks

This has reached epidemic proportions on this newsgroup.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

In article ,
on Sun, 09 May 2004 19:00:46 +1000,
Aerophotos attempted to say .....

excellent article there, exact on all issues i believe

sad thing is GWB jnr will kill alot more people before he is voted out
of office.

bush jnr has no regard for combat deaths of either side, as he has never
served in a war and has no concept of death.....

only his father has....

gwbs jnr whole political structure and the US dod knew about the abuse
but was hoping middle america would never find out..

That's funny, since DOD released news of the relief of command and that
investigations were ongoing back in January.



fortunately for the western world brave men like hersh went beyond the
call of journalism and in doing so has revealed the true nature of war
yet again rather ironically and sadly ...

Can he expect his check his check soon ?
You folks in Russia seem to be behind in your payments, why the local
comunist book store even had to close its doors.


i give the pretzel presido a short time before he will be removed from
office for corruption in carrying out his duties.

Make up your mind, is he going to be voted out or removed for your fictional
offenses ?

--
When dealing with propaganda terminology one sometimes always speaks in
variable absolutes. This is not to be mistaken for an unbiased slant.

In article ,
on Mon, 10 May 2004 00:28:48 +0200,
Emmanuel Gustin attempted to say .....

"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...

Which, no matter how bad you leftys want it to be, it is not.

You're right -- even McNamara could do a better job than
Rumsfeld...

Failing to take quick and effective action against the abuse of
prisoners at once when the first report of it arrived (we are
not even talking about taking effective measures to prevent it)
was not just callous, it was also truly monumentally stupid.

I guess relief of the general in charge and letting the 15-6 investigation
be completed isn't enough ?

You can't have instant justice.

--
When dealing with propaganda terminology one sometimes always speaks in
variable absolutes. This is not to be mistaken for an unbiased slant.

"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...
Your political sentiments are again affecting what should pass as your
better judgement in this case...

Brooks

This has reached epidemic proportions on this newsgroup.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it
harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

Not just the newsgroups I'm afraid. Common sense and rationality have long
since departed from those screaming for Pres. Bush's head.