The great irony of the current U.S. administrations’ doublespeak is often that it can be so inaccurate but so right at the same time. There was no lack of such speech during the recent hearings before the Congressional Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees where General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker pressed for a continued occupation of Iraq at current troop levels. In the sea of empty rhetoric from all sides, Crocker spoke of Iranian intentions of “Lebanonization” of Iraq. His words remind exactly why, as both Crocker and Petraeus repeated, supposed gains in Iraq are “fragile and unstable” - and why they will remain so as long as the U.S. continues its military and political occupation.
The statement which brought “Lebanonization” to the table, like many of the comments by Crocker, was historically inaccurate: “Iran is pursuing, as it were, a 'Lebanonization' strategy, using the same techniques they used in Lebanon, to co-opt elements of the local Shi'a community and use them as basically instruments of Iranian force,” he said.
Ignoring the fact that Hezba’llah cannot be seen as a mere tool of Iran, the comments do prompt a real reminder of what “Lebanonization” means and just how “fragile and unstable” Iraq becomes each day. In its commonly-held meaning, that Crocker surely must have been aware of, “Lebanonization” occurred when the Arab country of Lebanon entered a civil war led by internationally-backed feudal warlords and their militias claiming to represent sectarian and political groups.
Iraq fits this surface-level description all too well. Beyond this, though, the U.S. is literally architecting the deeper, more dangerous structural problems and militarization that fracture Lebanon to this day in playing a role similar to Syria and Israel in Lebanon.
If anything, Crocker and Petraeus’ speeches sounded like something directly out of the Syrian and Israeli spin machines during and post the Lebanese civil war. The U.S., like Syria, is all of a sudden the only thing that can stop Iraqis from killing themselves, done so by installing itself in the middle of the game and selectively arming groups. The U.S., like Syria, continues to shift its alliances according to its need and finds a new enemy every few months. For the Syrians in Lebanon, the enemy was one day the Palestinians and the next day the Israelis, one day one Shi’ite militia and the next one Christian one; for the U.S., yesterday it was Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and today Iran. U.S. hands are in every nook of the Iraqi democratic process, ensuring that only the most friendly to the U.S. make it to the government. There is even the standard Syrian and Israeli practice in Lebanon of torturing prisoners.
In the meanwhile, the presence of the U.S., like the presence of the Israelis in South Lebanon or the Syrians in Lebanon’s center, does nothing more than justify the existence of militias who claim they must protect their country. The Jaish-al-Mahdi in Iraq can claim its stake because it is fighting an occupation; this the current motivation behind the clashes in Sadr City that just yesterday killed 3 and has the U.S. army dressing up as Iraqi security to protect itself. Take away the impetus for these groups and you have a very different situation; as Hezba’llah learned, once the occupier flees armed groups must reshape their role to one of civil politics and have little legitimacy in keeping weapons.
“Lebanonization” also offers clarification of the many supposed successes Petraeus offered Congress on his many charts. The drop in inter-sectarian incidents is quite easily explained in the fact that Baghdad – and the country itself- is becoming a land of walls controlled by local militants. Internal displacement in Baghdad has risen dramatically as over five years of forced segregation becomes cemented, and the prospect of inter-sectarian violence has decreased as Shi’ite, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians, and the political groups-within-these-groups, interact with less frequency. Beirut, like in Baghdad was carved as such, with violence occurring in the same way, mostly on the dividing lines of the city’s sectarian quarters or in dramatic massacres and car bombs.
Lebanon also offers a quite important warning regarding the Sons of Iraq, the quasi-volunteer unit Petraeus touted, which is paid stipends around $10 a day to help defend neighborhoods against AQI, stipends. This barely-compensated group in a fractured society may prove already-armed membership for militias, as the underpaid Lebanese military did when it collapsed in the first days of the war.
This Lebanon-style militia-ization is being codified with efforts by the main U.S. allies in Iraq, such as the Supreme Council of Iraq, who want to capitalize on a federalist-type law that goes into effect this month. This law allows regions to apply for special status similar to that accorded the Kurdish region, giving the local government the right to establish local paramilitary forces and to negotiate deals with foreign oil companies. It now offers the potential for each political faction to arm and fund itself in a state-sanctioned way.
Irrationally removing a central government in weeks, the U.S. replaced it with a political system mirroring Lebanon’s. This very structure in Lebanon is the chief structural cause of sectarianism in Lebanon and continues to be the impetus for deadlock. U.S. actions during the sanctions and its destructive invasion have proved a boon for an underground economy feeding civil war. As in Lebanon, paramilitaries are using the black market to fund their armory and hold down their fiefs; they tax entry into cities and parts of Baghdad and own the channels of external and internal trade.
Crocker was right: “Lebanonization” is occurring and Iraq is “fragile and “unstable.” But the U.S. itself is as an architect and impetus for both these realities. The Democratic Congressmembers could easily have pressed this point, instead of speaking of vague Iraqi responsibility, had they remotely examined the facts of the ground. Instead, political grandstanding took over, another opportunity for change was lost, and the administration gained another green light to speed forward civil war in Iraq.
10.4.08
8.3.08
fun, while it lasted: the press and its old tricks
For maybe two months, at most, it seems the U.S. was seeing some mainstream press coverage that leaned on the more balanced, at the least in terms of our own elections. (I am not talking about international politics or anything of the like, and I am not talking about the Clinton mouthpiece, the New York Times) The new experiment in some sort of U.S. democracy – where for once in a long, long time, there was a slew of candidates markedly different from each other and to some degree, from their predecessors – risks being limited even further from its already limited scope by the mainstream press. Give time for corporate interests, for pressure from an old, entrenched political elite, to take full effect, and the mainstream press seems to be saying: yes, the fun has been had, but ain't no change on the horizon.
Starting with the lead up to the Iowa caucuses in January, it seemed for a second that the energy of the new breed – the Obama, Edwards and, sigh, even Huckabee camps, even the new “clean” McCain strategy, all of these – could captivate and distract the press for the briefest moment. Don’t get me wrong; this was a modest shift, but combined with the actual politics changes on the ground, it was somewhat encouraging. The press was saying things like, “Which universal healthcare plan works,” and asking about real strategies to end the war, shift away from oil, and promote healthier foreign policy.
But no more than three months later than these events, the press has taken hold of it’s old patrons and darlings, the Clintons and the Republican old guard, to lead us back to politics as usual, as dangerous.
Today’s Los Angeles Times presents a clear example of the press’ turn for the worse. The Top of the Ticket political blog took the Obama’s comment that its “premature” for him to speak of becoming vice president to Hilary on the Democratic ticket as Barack Obama “refus(ing) the notion of becoming vice presidential candidate.” Obama suddenly appears to be the grand refuter of the “dream ticket” of a woman and a black man, two birds, one stone, for simply stating that he is still running for President and will follow his intended course. This seems natural, particularly given he is and continues to be, following today’s primaries, the lead contender and yes, a presidential candidate. Clinton is meanwhile positioned as the saintly reconciler for offering Obama the position of VP twice in one week, re-iterating in both instances she would be “on top.”
The main article on the Wyoming victory makes a clear point in the lead paragraph that Wyoming is “sparsely populated” (i.e. meaningless). The article also re-iterated Clinton’s victory in Ohio and Texas, which is not so much a problem except for the fact that at present, the caucus results in Texas are still only partially counted and Barack Obama stands to win an overall victory in the state following the results. (Apparently no one has learned from the early prediction issues caused by the news networks during the 2004 elections.)
Add in the press that Obama supposedly walked off the March 3 press conference in response to "tough questions," while he made it perfectly clear he was simply staying on schedule and took the time to answer all the press' questions on Tony Rezko and other supposed scandals as best possible. The press, meanwhile, took it as a chance to say Obama could not handle the real power of a tough press.
These small examples are only the latest in a process that can be traced back to numerous shifts, or more appropriately, returns to the old ways. Many say the press all of a sudden feels the need to take such a negative tone across the board because of Clinton’s reiteration that the media has been so easy on Obama, a fact she hammered in through her appearances on Saturday Night Live and her other messaging. The key problem in this argument is in its assumptions, but the mainstream media has nonetheless used the argument as a segue into politics-as-usual.
What Exactly is Vetting?
The first disturbing assumption that jumps to mind is that this statement assumes that Obama has some secret harsh past that no one knows about, one similar to that of Clinton’s. If she had some clear point to speak on her opponent, let her bring it up; all she has found to do attack her opponents lack of time in government and his policy, not his integrity (all but for the Tony Rezko scandal, still impossible to link to the candidate). The press, never lazy for scandal, has dug without recourse. Is this a bad thing?
Clinton also acts as if the press has vehemently assaulted Hilary by being straightforward about the fact that Obama, a relatively young political figure, has come out to prove himself a formidable contender in the race and mobilized a formidable movement by running without the utilization of traditional negative campaigning. The other option would be to completely discount Obama’s grassroots campaigning and success and spew more clichés about “is America ready for..?”. The press was quite honest where it needed to, and gave Clinton credit where it was due: that Clinton controls the big states, that the union establishments support her (such as in Nevada), that she has held her own on Super Tuesday. Did she just want reporters to echo her exact words, to parrot her “maybe Obama is not experienced enough” and “maybe Obama is just a big talker?”
But more importantly, and more broadly relevant, the press played its usual “vetting” game with Obama; he has always taken every question with stride since his early campaigning, to the point where he even admitted that yes, he inhaled and “that was the point.” The same with Edwards, Huckabee and sadly, even McCain, who at the onset also campaigned without turning to negative slander. The problem is that none of these campaigners really have spent more than a few minutes of airtime answering to this and spent a lot more time early on speaking to their platforms.
Clinton’s was not a call to ask tough substantive questions: it was a call for the press to get back to the fun ol’ celebrity-image slander and distracting non-politics. It was a call for the press to move away from a potential direction addressing policy – healthcare, a collapsing economy, globalization– to the same political reporting that has dominated the U.S. at least since Reagan. Let’s avoid real politics and focus on the empty, with the occasional reference to terrorism and the threat from the outside. More “It’s 3 A.M. and the phone rings at the White House,” less questions on how to make healthcare accessible.
It’s the same call the Limbaughs and Coulters made to McCain: we do not play a fair game and will not allow any fresh, new ideas to dominate the airwaves or campaign trails. Repeat the word terrorism, abortion and Islam and shut the hell up.
And alas, the press (and Mr. McCain) took the bait. Maybe that Saturday Night Live skit was just that compelling. More likely, the behemoth corporate advertisers who also support the Clintons and the Bushes and the current state of things finally dug their fingers in and asked press to tow the line.
Whatever it is, the mainstream press has demonstrated it has no interest in politics-as-new and much more interest in protecting the status quo. It has now cowed down, erasing Edwards and Huckabee quickly (far too complicated to have more than two people in any race), pressing McCain publicly to become a good ol’ conservative again, and now making Obama look like he is barely hanging on. They even went for the third-partier-America-loves-to-hate, Ralph Nader, ignoring the fact that the Green Party is not even running him and is instead putting forward Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.
Another Missed Opportunity
The present elections would have been the perfect opportunity for the mainstream media to exhibit the fact that it responds to the needs of the masses and can ask real questions, instead of veering from any conversations on substantive political change. There are a million questions that could be asked that hit all sides: What exactly does “renegotiate NAFTA” mean? Are white college educated liberals looking to Obama because they want to appease racial guilt or is there a genuine belief in his platform? Is McCain going to stand his ground on immigration and torture or bow to his party’s old guard? What do the largest turnouts in recent history really mean, and what complexities are being caused in state after state by this unprecedented voting?
The first step in this path was to move away from the usual slander and talkshow politics and then really start pressing candidates further in regards to policy. The last stretch of primaries, in the gap time before the conventions, would have been the perfect time to go further and ask the tougher questions mentioned above, utilizing intelligently what may be the last chances before the “real thing.”
The only audacious hope is that the U.S. is wise – or fed up enough with its collapsing economy, infrastructure, and standing in the world – to tune this out.
Sidenote:
The one bright spot in the Los Angeles Times today was Meghan Daum’s opinion, titled “Why we still need Clinton,” positing that she represents an old sofa we cannot get rid of. What is most important, though, and where she could not take it, is that though a good portion of the U.S. seems damn ready for new furniture in a collapsing house, those who own the house, and their mouthpieces, seem unwilling to let us make any change to the décor.
Select Sources and Further Reading:
Slate on the slow results of the Texas Caucus: http://www.slate.com/id/2185920
LA Times “Top of the Ticket” on Democratic VP spot: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/03/obamasays-novp.html
LA Times on Wyoming primary: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-nuwyoming9mar09,0,544094.story
Meghan Daum in the LA Times, “Why we still need Clinton” (op): http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-daum8mar08,0,5282321.column
Starting with the lead up to the Iowa caucuses in January, it seemed for a second that the energy of the new breed – the Obama, Edwards and, sigh, even Huckabee camps, even the new “clean” McCain strategy, all of these – could captivate and distract the press for the briefest moment. Don’t get me wrong; this was a modest shift, but combined with the actual politics changes on the ground, it was somewhat encouraging. The press was saying things like, “Which universal healthcare plan works,” and asking about real strategies to end the war, shift away from oil, and promote healthier foreign policy.
But no more than three months later than these events, the press has taken hold of it’s old patrons and darlings, the Clintons and the Republican old guard, to lead us back to politics as usual, as dangerous.
Today’s Los Angeles Times presents a clear example of the press’ turn for the worse. The Top of the Ticket political blog took the Obama’s comment that its “premature” for him to speak of becoming vice president to Hilary on the Democratic ticket as Barack Obama “refus(ing) the notion of becoming vice presidential candidate.” Obama suddenly appears to be the grand refuter of the “dream ticket” of a woman and a black man, two birds, one stone, for simply stating that he is still running for President and will follow his intended course. This seems natural, particularly given he is and continues to be, following today’s primaries, the lead contender and yes, a presidential candidate. Clinton is meanwhile positioned as the saintly reconciler for offering Obama the position of VP twice in one week, re-iterating in both instances she would be “on top.”
The main article on the Wyoming victory makes a clear point in the lead paragraph that Wyoming is “sparsely populated” (i.e. meaningless). The article also re-iterated Clinton’s victory in Ohio and Texas, which is not so much a problem except for the fact that at present, the caucus results in Texas are still only partially counted and Barack Obama stands to win an overall victory in the state following the results. (Apparently no one has learned from the early prediction issues caused by the news networks during the 2004 elections.)
Add in the press that Obama supposedly walked off the March 3 press conference in response to "tough questions," while he made it perfectly clear he was simply staying on schedule and took the time to answer all the press' questions on Tony Rezko and other supposed scandals as best possible. The press, meanwhile, took it as a chance to say Obama could not handle the real power of a tough press.
These small examples are only the latest in a process that can be traced back to numerous shifts, or more appropriately, returns to the old ways. Many say the press all of a sudden feels the need to take such a negative tone across the board because of Clinton’s reiteration that the media has been so easy on Obama, a fact she hammered in through her appearances on Saturday Night Live and her other messaging. The key problem in this argument is in its assumptions, but the mainstream media has nonetheless used the argument as a segue into politics-as-usual.
What Exactly is Vetting?
The first disturbing assumption that jumps to mind is that this statement assumes that Obama has some secret harsh past that no one knows about, one similar to that of Clinton’s. If she had some clear point to speak on her opponent, let her bring it up; all she has found to do attack her opponents lack of time in government and his policy, not his integrity (all but for the Tony Rezko scandal, still impossible to link to the candidate). The press, never lazy for scandal, has dug without recourse. Is this a bad thing?
Clinton also acts as if the press has vehemently assaulted Hilary by being straightforward about the fact that Obama, a relatively young political figure, has come out to prove himself a formidable contender in the race and mobilized a formidable movement by running without the utilization of traditional negative campaigning. The other option would be to completely discount Obama’s grassroots campaigning and success and spew more clichés about “is America ready for..?”. The press was quite honest where it needed to, and gave Clinton credit where it was due: that Clinton controls the big states, that the union establishments support her (such as in Nevada), that she has held her own on Super Tuesday. Did she just want reporters to echo her exact words, to parrot her “maybe Obama is not experienced enough” and “maybe Obama is just a big talker?”
But more importantly, and more broadly relevant, the press played its usual “vetting” game with Obama; he has always taken every question with stride since his early campaigning, to the point where he even admitted that yes, he inhaled and “that was the point.” The same with Edwards, Huckabee and sadly, even McCain, who at the onset also campaigned without turning to negative slander. The problem is that none of these campaigners really have spent more than a few minutes of airtime answering to this and spent a lot more time early on speaking to their platforms.
Clinton’s was not a call to ask tough substantive questions: it was a call for the press to get back to the fun ol’ celebrity-image slander and distracting non-politics. It was a call for the press to move away from a potential direction addressing policy – healthcare, a collapsing economy, globalization– to the same political reporting that has dominated the U.S. at least since Reagan. Let’s avoid real politics and focus on the empty, with the occasional reference to terrorism and the threat from the outside. More “It’s 3 A.M. and the phone rings at the White House,” less questions on how to make healthcare accessible.
It’s the same call the Limbaughs and Coulters made to McCain: we do not play a fair game and will not allow any fresh, new ideas to dominate the airwaves or campaign trails. Repeat the word terrorism, abortion and Islam and shut the hell up.
And alas, the press (and Mr. McCain) took the bait. Maybe that Saturday Night Live skit was just that compelling. More likely, the behemoth corporate advertisers who also support the Clintons and the Bushes and the current state of things finally dug their fingers in and asked press to tow the line.
Whatever it is, the mainstream press has demonstrated it has no interest in politics-as-new and much more interest in protecting the status quo. It has now cowed down, erasing Edwards and Huckabee quickly (far too complicated to have more than two people in any race), pressing McCain publicly to become a good ol’ conservative again, and now making Obama look like he is barely hanging on. They even went for the third-partier-America-loves-to-hate, Ralph Nader, ignoring the fact that the Green Party is not even running him and is instead putting forward Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.
Another Missed Opportunity
The present elections would have been the perfect opportunity for the mainstream media to exhibit the fact that it responds to the needs of the masses and can ask real questions, instead of veering from any conversations on substantive political change. There are a million questions that could be asked that hit all sides: What exactly does “renegotiate NAFTA” mean? Are white college educated liberals looking to Obama because they want to appease racial guilt or is there a genuine belief in his platform? Is McCain going to stand his ground on immigration and torture or bow to his party’s old guard? What do the largest turnouts in recent history really mean, and what complexities are being caused in state after state by this unprecedented voting?
The first step in this path was to move away from the usual slander and talkshow politics and then really start pressing candidates further in regards to policy. The last stretch of primaries, in the gap time before the conventions, would have been the perfect time to go further and ask the tougher questions mentioned above, utilizing intelligently what may be the last chances before the “real thing.”
The only audacious hope is that the U.S. is wise – or fed up enough with its collapsing economy, infrastructure, and standing in the world – to tune this out.
Sidenote:
The one bright spot in the Los Angeles Times today was Meghan Daum’s opinion, titled “Why we still need Clinton,” positing that she represents an old sofa we cannot get rid of. What is most important, though, and where she could not take it, is that though a good portion of the U.S. seems damn ready for new furniture in a collapsing house, those who own the house, and their mouthpieces, seem unwilling to let us make any change to the décor.
Select Sources and Further Reading:
Slate on the slow results of the Texas Caucus: http://www.slate.com/id/2185920
LA Times “Top of the Ticket” on Democratic VP spot: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/03/obamasays-novp.html
LA Times on Wyoming primary: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-nuwyoming9mar09,0,544094.story
Meghan Daum in the LA Times, “Why we still need Clinton” (op): http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-daum8mar08,0,5282321.column
returning, with too much to say
ok, so i'm back. yes, there is an extremely large gap in time I have to fill in and many things to say, between Chavez-shut-up and Chavez-you-want-war-Colobmia? but there are oh so many interesting things going on in the U.S. that I'll have to mix and match, a la old mervyn's (?) ads..so yes, i'll be writing more, since i'm in kinda one place.
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