The holidays are upon us, and the news outlets are obsessing about “Black Friday” – good thing? bad thing? – to the point where no other news really seems to matter. It was a lead story on NBC and PBS evening news, I’m certain, and my morning newspaper is chock full of nuts waiting in long lines at 6:00 a.m. for the doors to swing open on the cultural utopia that is Best Buy. Just doing their patriotic duty, as defined by our commander-in-chief. It’s not really just about fighting and dying… They also serve who borrow and spend, right? Float the economy for Dubya. Fight a short, sweet, victorious war for Dubya. (Hurry up… only 14 months to go.) Still the pavlovian networks pump out the pabulum, and if you don’t listen too closely it can almost seem like things are just as right as they need to be. War is over (if you want it), NPR – just don’t report on the sucker and it will go away.

Fact is, it’s really more about how the story is reported on. Following it like a sports story (as they typically do) ensures that those responsible for the killing of thousands and the destruction of a society will not be held accountable. Violence is down? That means the score is up for the home team. Meanwhile, the other side is boiled down to “Al Qaeda” in northern and central Iraq and Iran elsewhere. (Though today I heard a story that brought both together in one handy package.) Then when (and if) we finally leave Iraq, they can report on the shithole we leave behind without ever mentioning our part in creating it. (Hell, they’ve already dropped any mention of our involvement in Iraq prior to 2003, so this should be easy.) There are precedents. Just the other day, I heard two stories back to back that illustrate the mainstream media’s capacity for encouraging collective denial about our consistently interventionist foreign policy over the past sixty years. Both stories were on NPR Morning Edition. The first was about a former Khmer Rouge official being brought up before the Cambodia tribunal. Not one word about what we did to Cambodia – not one. They talked to Sydney Schanberg about how Cambodians still burst into tears – understandably so – when you bring up the Khmer Rouge years. I wonder what happens when you mention the preceding five years, when we fomented a military coup and dropped more ordinance on that tiny country than the allies used in all theaters during World War II? Short answer: it doesn’t get mentioned. No tribunal for Henry Kissinger, I guess.

Then there was a story about refugees in Somalia and the appalling conditions they’re living under. Now, I wouldn’t expect the reporter to talk about the nearly $1 billion in aid we gave to the murderous Siad Barre regime in the 1980s that tore the country apart, nor would I expect them to talk about how our 1992-3 “humanitarian” intervention mostly managed to get a bunch of Somalis killed. But they could have brought up what happened earlier this year, when we supported Ethiopia’s invasion both diplomatically and militarily (mostly with air power). Yet another mess we’ve gotten someone into, and yet even this very recent involvement was not worthy of a single reference on NPR’s radio broadcast (though, to be fair, there is a brief review of history on their Web posting, for those who bother to check). This should be encouraging to those in the White House and Congress who supported the Iraq war. So long as we perpetuate this fantasy that we are all about helping people – Iraqis, Somalis, Cambodians – we will continue to become embroiled in these endless conflicts that bleed both invader and invaded dry, and benefit only war profiteers and geostrategic power players.

Just remember … when they claim to be helping, they’re only helping themselves.

luv u,

jp

The military establishment went to Congress this week to argue for that fat supplemental spending package Bush requested for the Iraq and Afghan wars. The air was thick with dire warnings. We don’t have enough troops to defend the nation against attack. Half of the army’s equipment is tied up. Without some $200 billion more in supplemental funding, civilian workers at military bases all across the country will be laid off for the holidays. How’s that for rattling their little brass cup? I’ll tell you, $470 billion per annum just doesn’t buy what it used to. Seriously… you’d think with a budget of that magnitude, the Pentagon could find a way to keep both of Bush’s phony wars going and still send all those defense department civilian employees home with a holiday bonus. So cancel a couple of useless weapons programs – you could do it with your eyes closed.

I mean, isn’t this exactly why you don’t start wars for no good reason – because they’re costly in about a dozen different ways? Now we’re hearing from the generals about how thin the army is stretched, how they need more money, more soldiers, more gear…. and yet no one seems interested in attaching blame to this seemingly authorless crisis. Sure, there’s plenty of blame to go around. Just look at that rostrum full of Democratic candidates for president. Out of eight, there’s only one of them – Kucinich – who was actually faced with the decision whether or not to support Bush’s war plan and turned it down. The rest either weren’t in Congress in 2002 (talk is cheap) or voted for the resolution (who’s sorry now?). They bear substantial responsibility, but the ones who planned this war and deliberately stoked the fires of fear in advance of it are primarily at fault. Now that more than 3,800 Americans are dead, thousands wounded, upwards of a million Iraqis dead, 4.5 million made refugees, plus a ballooning military budget already blown, it’s about time we talked about calling these people out. But aside from Kucinich’s impeachment articles, no one seems to have the stomach for it.

Of course, now that the catastrophe has already occurred in Iraq, the war’s defenders are trying to cast the smoking ruins of that nation as a panorama of victory. (Spoiler alert: the war’s serial hardships will be blamed on those who were against it from the very beginning – stay tuned.) Seems like every time I hear a report from an embedded reporter with a U.S. patrol somewhere in “Indian country”, some public affairs officer will at some point pipe up with the comment that while things in Iraq are “not perfect,” they’re better than they were. Not perfect? Who sent that piece of copy down the firing line? Is that some not-too-subtle way of suggesting that the American people expect too much of this mission? Trust me, Mr. President, no one is anticipating “perfection”, though it could very well be that, by Bush’s standards, we’re getting pretty close. After all – the goal here is to establish permanent bases in Iraq, and they are doing it. Their manifest indifference to the suffering of others – Iraqi and American alike – merely indicates that such hardship is immaterial to reaching that goal. Just one of many costs to be taken into account.

So, in a sense, it looks as though a hardy “mission accomplished” is in order after all. This is the kind of lack of perfection Bush, Cheney, and crew can comfortably live with.

luv u,

jp