reflectivepundit

What is the Life of an Innocent Iraqi or Afghan Worth?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Ten days ago, the New York Times published a dispatch from Kabul, Afghanistan, in which Barry Bearak and Taimoor Shah reported that seven children had been killed during an air strike by the U.S.-led coalition on what was believed to be both a religious compound and a hideout of Al Qaeda fighters. The correspondents reported that “ More than 130 civilians have been killed in airstrikes and shootings in the past six months, according to Afghan authorities.”

Two days ago, the BBC reported on a dispute between Iraqis in al-Khalis and the U.S.over the victims of an air strike on June 22: Whereas the U.S.military announced and the news media reported that 17 al-Qaeda fighters had been killed, “villagers in largely-Shia al-Khalis say that those who died had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. They say they were local village guards trying to protect the township from exactly the kind of attack by insurgents the U.S. military says it foiled. They say that of 16 guards, 11 were killed and five others injured - two of them seriously - when U.S. helicopters fired rockets at them and then strafed them with heavy machinegun fire.”

The term “collateral damage” does not at all capture the tragedies caused by such incidents. It does not matter whether innocents are killed in terrorist strikes or by troops engaged in a “war on terrorism.” Bill Scheuer, editor of the PeaceMajority Report, writes that civilian casualties of U.S. military operations continue to rise in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the U.S. increases its current attacks in both countries, and its use of air power, this will only get worse. Scheuer points out that the “U.S.government paid $1.8M for each victim of the 9/11 attacks. That is the problem. Our lives are worth nearly 1,000 times more than theirs, in the eyes of our government.” Indeed, according to AlterNet, the value of an innocent person killed in Iraq by U.S. troops is $2,500 and that of an innocent civilian killed in Afghanistan $2,000. Or, as Walter Pincus of the Washington Post put it: “What's an Iraqi life worth? How about an Iraqi car? For the U.S. military in Iraq, it may be roughly the same.”

Mainstream Media’s Obsession with Irrelevant Media Celebrities

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The other day,  an article by Heather Havrilesky and Rebecca Traister in Salon started with the following observation: “You can avert your eyes, cover your ears, change the channel and close your browser, but you can't escape the truth: Paris Hilton has become an omnipresent cultural icon, a symbol of the depravity of our times, and thanks to Friday's sobbing, O.J.-level arrest spectacle, she's destined to remain at the forefront of that rushing flow of global news until we're all old and gray.” Unfortunately, Havrilesky and Traister are right as is Nora Efron who closes the Huffington Post column “I love Paris” with the assurance at Paris Hilton is not going away—“We'll always have Paris.” Unfortunately, Ann Coulter and Anna Nicole Smith and Princess Diana and other media celebrities—however irrelevant they may be—will not go away either. Once promoted by the corporate media as celebrities, they receive more airtime than bloody wars, illegal immigration, health care problems, crises in education, climate change, or any other serious public affairs issues. Dead or alive—media celebrities get preferential treatment.

Take the media’s attention to far-right columnist and author Ann Coulter whose hate speech should disqualify her as a frequent source and guest of broadcast programs and print media. Yet, she remains the darling of media figures—especially those who strive for celebrity status themselves. Take Chris Matthews of “Hardball” who provided Coulter once again with a stage on his show and obviously arranged for Elizabeth Edwards to call in to confront Coulter and her put-downs of presidential candidate John Edwards. The polite Elizabeth Edwards was no match for the aggressive big mouth Coulter. But Matthews got what he and his kind strive for: confrontation, conflict, attacks, insults—not the civilized public discourse that Mrs. Edwards pleaded for.

What is the real strength of al-Qaeda in Iraq?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
As a result of the so-called troop surge, there are now about 170,000 American soldiers in Iraq. Yet, as Thomas E. Ricks reports in today’s Washington Post, a major offensive launched recently “has renewed concerns about whether even the bigger U.S.troop presence there is large enough.” If these American forces plus the allegedly better trained new Iraqi Army and police forces may not be strong enough to prevail, one wonders how strong the enemy is—in particular al-Qaeda in Iraq that the Bush administration and the Blair government consider the major foe in the Iraqi leg of the global war on terrorism. According to the Post, Lt. General Raymond T. Odierno, the second in command of American troops in Iraq, said the other day that senior al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders apparently fled the area in and around the city of Baqubah as American soldiers launched their new offensive named Arrowhead Ripper. The general said furthermore, “We believe 80 percent of the upper-level leaders fled, but we'll find them. Eighty percent of the lower level-leaders are still here." This is a stunning statement because it indicates that U.S. military leaders have a very good idea about the number of al-Qaeda terrorists. Otherwise, there is no way to figure out that most top-leaders fled and most secondary leaders stayed. Indeed, with respect to the high ranking al-Qaeda leaders, Odierno was even more specific. According to the New York Times he said, “I guarantee you, we’re going to track down those leaders. “And we’re in the process of doing that. We know who they are, and we’re coming after them, and we’re going to work that extremely hard.” How strong can this major enemy in Iraq be, if the U.S. military knows the precise number and the names of top leaders in particular localities? An Associated Press report about the killing of seven more U.S.troops by roadside bombs today mentions the capture of two senior al-Qaida members in Diyala province. Given the frequent announcements of al-Qaeda leaders captured or killed somewhere in Iraq, there are either mostly leaders in Iraq’s al-Qaeda—or there are so many terrorists in al-Qaeda and similar groups that there is a need for many leadership positions.

There is no doubt that the invasion and post-invasion phases brought al-Qaeda recruits from a host of countries into Iraq and recruited Iraqis into the organization and like-minded groups. But the number of these terrorists pales in comparison to home-grown insurgents with no organizational and ideological ties to al-Qaeda. The insurgents resort to deadly terrorist methods against Iraqi civilians and security forces as well as against members of coalition forces--and, yes, they are terrorists. But these indigenous terrorists have a domestic agenda and fight in Iraq’s civil war and/or against the foreign occupiers. They are not part of the global terrorist scheme a la Osama bin Laden. And contrary to what Iraq hawks in Washington claim, these insurgents would not take their terrorist attacks to the United States under any circumstances.

Rudy Giuliani: Post-9/11 Riches rather than Serving in the Iraq Study Group

By Brigitte L. Nacos
9/11 and the fact that he was New York’s mayor at the time made Rudy Giuliani a very wealthy man. Without 9/11 and his widely praised role as the city’s crisis manager-in-chief, Giuliani wouldn’t have collected super-high fees for his speaking engagements or lucrative contracts at home and abroad for his consulting firm. Never mind that serious questions about the city’s emergency preparedness on Giuliani’s watch and the actual response to the 9/11 attacks were raised. Without 9/11, Rudy Giuliani wouldn’t be one of the frontrunners in the field of Republican contenders for the GOP’s presidential nomination. But even with the White House in his sight, “America’s Mayor” was more interested in adding to his wealth and collecting campaign contributions rather than in public service and a unique chance to educate himself on foreign and defense policies. As a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, Newsday reveals today, Giuliani did not find the time to attend meetings because he made “paid public appearances” at the time and eventually resigned from the group. According to the Newsday story,

“Rudolph Giuliani's membership on an elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt end last spring after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel's top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit, several sources said. Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last May after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race, the Iraq war.”

Indeed, as an active member of the Study Group Giuliani would have had a unique chance to educate himself on the dismal situation in Iraq and the problems plaguing the whole region. A solid background and fact-finding on the most difficult problems of our time should be a must for any presidential contender—especially one like Rudy who has no experience in foreign and defense policies. Having not served in the military as others in his age bracket, this hawk on Iraq and the “war on terrorism” cannot claim personal knowledge of fighting in a war either. Had he been an active member of the panel throughout its existence, Giuliani would have had a chance to visit Iraq as other members of the group did. But perhaps he figured that he got all the information needed from his (no longer?) friend, former New York police commissioner and would-be Secretary of Homeland Security Bernard Kerik, who went to Iraq in 2003 to train a new Iraqi police force that four years later cannot hold its own yet.

Beyond Gaza and the West Bank: When Masked Gunmen Terrorize

By Brigitte L. Nacos
As I looked at the images of masked gunmen in the Gaza strip and the West Bank, I was reminded of the hostage-holders during the 1985 TWA Flight 847 hijacking and the subsequent hostage crisis. Then, the terrorists hid behind masks, when they held a press conference to justify their hijacking during which a young U.S. Navy diver was brutally murdered. I thought of the masked terrorists in Iraq who videotaped their unspeakable violence—the decapitation of their Western hostages. And I thought of Palestinian militants hiding their faces in their clashes with Israelis. Last week, masked Hamas and Fatah gunmen in Gaza and the West Bank fought and killed each other not in one more brawl but in all-out battles for control of the two regions. Since all of these men claimed that they acted for just and good causes, why would they hide their faces behind masks-- because they fear the wrath of their foes—or because it is easier to kill when human faces give way to faceless inhumanity?

To be sure, non-state and state actors committed in the past and commit today horrendous violence in many parts of the world. But it is also true that violence at this particular time is especially prevalent in Arab and Muslim countries—and not only in response foreign forces, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq. Like in Gaza and the West Bank, domestic factions fight each other in Iraq and elsewhere.

While not disregarding or excusing the policies of the U.S.and others in these regions—and their impact, I believe that only Arab and Muslim leaders, secular and religious, have the credibility and, hopefully the authority to stop the out-of-control violence in so many places. Unless home-grown voices of reason and morality speak out forcefully against violence and show the will to prevail with a united front against violence and anarchy, conditions are likely to deteriorate further.

The latter would be only in the interest of lawless individuals, groups, and their governmental sponsors.

Escalating Violence in the Middle East: The World is Merely Watching

 

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Today’s TV morning shows reported prominently on the world’s largest cereal maker’s decision to increase the nutritional quality of its snacks and cereal products to help fight obesity among our children. Certainly a good piece of news that was worthwhile to report. But as I watched the top of the news, I was mostly struck by the stark contrast between the images of carefree children here watching cereal ads and of frightened youngsters in the midst of wildly firing Hamas and Fatah fighters. There were reports of captured Fatah members executed in cold blood by Hamas rivals—in front of their children and wives and of peaceful Palestinians in Gaza shot at as they demonstrated for an end of the senseless violence in what comes down to another civil war in the region. The Associated Press quoted a 34-year old Gaza resident who said, “The world is watching us dying and doing nothing to help. God help us, we feel like we are in a real-life horror movie.” It seems that Hamas is in control of or on the verge of controlling the Gazas strip. While both the UN and the EU suspended their humanitarian aid because of the all out violence, a spokesman for Hamas said on the group’s radio, "We are telling our people that the past era has ended and will not return; the era of justice and Islamic rule have arrived." What a horrible prospect! Although weaker in the West Bank, Hamas seems poised to take the fight there as well. Late today, the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Palestinian unity government and declared a state of emergency as the Islamic extremists of the rival Hamas movement seemed close to completing their military domination of the Gaza Strip.
Is the rest of the world left to merely watch this nightmare and the unspeakable suffering of ordinary people who are pleading in vain that enough is enough?

International Terrorism: The “Forgotten Threat” in a still “Provincial World”?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Pointing out that lead stories about last week’s G-8 summit in Germany were different in different countries and regions (Africa and AIDS in the United Kingdom, climate change in Germany, President Bush’s stomach ache in the United States), Anne Applebaum concludes in her column (“The Forgotten Threat”) in today’s Washington Post, “it's not exaggerating at all to say that the events of the past week -- and the wildly divergent international news coverage that accompanied them -- illustrate a profound transformation that has taken place, slowly and quietly, over the past several years. Call it post-post-Sept. 11, or maybe just a return to status quo ante: Either way, it's pretty clear that that brief moment of consensus -- those very few years when the world's most powerful governments all believed that the world's worst problem was international terrorism -- has now passed.”

Does a very cursory look at the reporting accents of a few media organizations in a few countries allow such sweeping generalization? This morning, I consulted the electronic Lexis/Nexis media archive and found for that today the listed European print media published 77 articles containing the term “terrorism” either in headlines or lead paragraphs. The total for last week was more than 1,000 articles. As for the listed U.S. print media, they published today 185 items with “terrorism” in headlines or lead paragraphs. The total for last week was more than 1,400. These numbers do not support columnist Applebaum’s claim that the “world’s attention has wandered away from international terrorism—and so, if I may say, has ours.” Certainly not as far as the news media are concerned.

Is America Safer Now than Before 9/11? Clinton vs. Edwards

By Brigitte L. Nacos
During last Sunday’s CNN debate between the eight Democratic contenders for their party’s presidential nomination, Senator Clinton echoed one of President Bush’s [and Vice President Cheney’s] favorite talking points, as Paul Krugman points out, namely, that the U.S. is safer today than it was when the 9/11 terrorists struck. “I believe we are safer than we were,” Hillary Clinton said. “We are not yet safe enough, and I have proposed over the last year a number of policies that I think we should be following.” This was in sharp contrast to John Edward’s contention that the administration’s “war on terrorism” is more of a bumper sticker and sound bite misused to pursue policies like the Iraq war that has actually increased the number of terrorists. As for the administration officials, they claim that the evidence for a safer homeland is the fact that there has not been another major international terrorism attack in the close to 6 years since 9/11. However, there was no such attack in the 6 years before 9/11 either.

Senator Schumer has said that “America's first responders have worked tirelessly over the last six years to make the nation's cities and towns safer." But the question is whether their efforts have received enough support from the administration and Congress.

In late 2005, when the 9/11 Commission released its final grades, predominantly Cs, Ds, and Fs--for the implementation of measures to prevent terrorism (and prepare for the case of another attack), Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean warned: “Our leadership has been distracted in this country. Some of the failures are shocking.” According to Kean, a former Republican Governor of New Jersey, some failures were outright “scandalous,” for example the fact that “we still allocate scarce Homeland Security dollars on the basis of pork barrel spending and not on risk.” While security has been tightened in some areas, especially with respect to airports and aviation, this is a far cry from assuming that we are safer today than we were a few years ago.

Iraq, the Washington Post’s Editorial Page, and the State of Denial

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The Washington Post’s editorial page has not only been a staunch supporter of the Bush administration’s
Iraq war and its utopian goals but also hospitable to like-minded conservative and neo-conservative columnists and contributors of op-ed articles. Today’s editorial (“on the need for an American presence beyond the current surge of troops…”) is a case in point as is a column by Robert Kagan, one of the neo-conservative most persistent Iraq hawks.After mentioning a senior U.S.commander’s remark that the results of the military surge have been ‘small’ so far, the Post editorial states, “While the deployment of more American troops may further improve security in the capital during the summer [emphasis added]…” Further improve security in Baghdad? Whom are the editorial writers kidding? Just read Terry McCarthy’s “Life in the Inferno of Baghdad” in today’s Outlook section of the Post.  McCarthy reports, “Car bombs punctuate life here with percussive malevolence. They have become more frequent since the U.S. troop "surge" began three months ago. Loud enough to be heard across much of the city, they quickly throw up a characteristic plume of black smoke, which comes from the instant vaporization of the tires by the heat of the blast.”
While increasingly targeting American soldiers since the “surge” began, insurgents continue to kill and maim far more Iraqis--civilians and members of Iraqi security forces.

Like the Post’s editorial page,Iraq war and “surge” advocate Kagan ignores what correspondents on the ground see, hear, and report. Otherwise he could not write, “Signs of life are returning to Baghdadand elsewhere.” This claim is so far removed from reality that war supporters Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman were ridiculed, when they made it after a visit in Iraq’s capital.

These hardliners, who are in a state of denial, see Iraq not as it is but as they want it to be. Little wonder that Kagan states in his column, “The fact is that, contrary to so many predictions, Iraq has not descended into civil war.”

I rather trust the remaining press corps’s daily dispatches from Baghdad and elsewhere in the country. Reporting from the ground in Iraq. Edward Wong, for example, writes in Sunday’s New York Times, “Caught in the middle of the civil war are the Americans.”

Do we really want to be in the midst of another nation's/religion's civil war?

 

The Wall Street Journal , Murdoch’s Media Empire, and the Marketplace of Ideas

By Brigitte L. Nacos
According to their own press release, members of the Bancroft family have agreed to meet with Rupert Murdoch early next week to talk about his offer to buy Dow Jones & Company, which the family controls. What Murdoch really wants, is the Wall Street Journal. As Joe Nocera puts it, “he’s wanted it forever.” Financially speaking, the owners of Dow Jones should be delighted. The company’s prospects are far from rosy. According to the New York Times, since Murdoch made his take-over offer, “family members heard a consistent message from their bankers and from Dow Jones officials: On its own, Dow Jones had middling long-term prospects, at best, and had little chance of getting the stock price anywhere near the $60 Mr. Murdoch offered.” Indeed, after Murdoch made his bid, Dow Jones stock price shot up from the mid-$30s to over $61 at the closing bell on Friday. So, why is there hesitation on the part of at least a number of Bancroft family members to sell to Murdoch and a great deal of regret and sadness on the part of many Journal staffers who, in Nocera’s words feel “that a glorious era of journalism is coming to an end?” Certain members of the Bancroft family and the Journal newsroom are convinced that Murdoch plans to remake the Wall Street Journal in his image of a successful newspaper. He has already expressed his dislike for the Journal’s long stories that are at the core of the paper’s excellent news reporting. I am not surprised to read that the staunch conservatives that put their imprint on the editorial page, are, without saying so, in favor Murdoch’s take-over. They share Murdoch’s staunch pro-business bias and would not mind, if he would reel in their politically less conservative colleagues on the news side. If Murdoch prevails and becomes owner of the Wall Street Journal, as many observers believe, it will be another victory for those who control the domestic and global media monopoly as would be Canadian publisher Thomson’s acquisition of Reuters.