Realizing the disaster
Tracking the American media over the last year has been a less than exhilarating experience in obfuscation and selective reporting. Therefore, it's always a surprise to find articles in U.S. newspapers reporting international events in an almost neutral light.
This week, Wisconsin's Green Bay Chronicle carried an in-depth report on the worsening situation in Iraq, including quotes from Polish publications. The central theme was the continuing decline in the Coalition of the Willing's willingness, which the paper managed to report without once suggesting that cowardice or appeasement were involved, but which was due instead to the appalling humanitarian disaster the occupation has become.
The article quoted the opposing views of Fakt and Rzeczpospolita. The editor of the former complained that Polish forces were being used to quell popular dissent, not to liberate, while the latter insisted that '...the war is necessary. Surrender in the face of terror means only one thing - more terror.' The editor of Fakt, however, went on to say that Poles had gone to Iraq as peace-keepers, not as a penal expedition. The Americans are responsible for what has happened, and it should be their war alone.
Also included in the article were press views from Italy, El Salvador and Ukraine, whose troops have all suffered to one degree or another, and of course the UK. George Bush's staunchest ally in his personal vendetta against Saddam Hussian was liberally quoted running out the same old vitriol that, in Britain, is called 'codswallop'.
The story in the Green Bay Chronicle also included a quote from outgoing Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller, who at least had the sense to admit that the current deployment of Polish forces represented 'the maximum of our possibilities,' and conceded that public and political pressure in Poland to pull out of Iraq was likely to increase.
As popular opposition to the war has been growing more and more vociferous in many allied countries, so Bush and UK Prime Minister Blair's defense has become more desperate. Their reluctance to admit their mistake is quite understandable, as it may go to show that they are unfit to govern. While in the UK this isn't a problem for Blair (as there is no effective political opposition), Bush still needs to spin the American media as much as possible ahead of the November poll. Therefore, most English-language newspapers report that what's happening in Iraq is all part of the vague but deadly 'terror' directly connected with Bin Laden and 9/11. As long as this fallacious oversimplification can be maintained, most readers (not to mention newspaper editors) will not trouble themselves to peer too closely at the contradictions and half-truths that the Coalition continually use to cloud the issues surrounding this violent occupation.
In any event, it is at least refreshing to see some U.S. papers slowly getting pulled back to the middle ground.
This week, Wisconsin's Green Bay Chronicle carried an in-depth report on the worsening situation in Iraq, including quotes from Polish publications. The central theme was the continuing decline in the Coalition of the Willing's willingness, which the paper managed to report without once suggesting that cowardice or appeasement were involved, but which was due instead to the appalling humanitarian disaster the occupation has become.
The article quoted the opposing views of Fakt and Rzeczpospolita. The editor of the former complained that Polish forces were being used to quell popular dissent, not to liberate, while the latter insisted that '...the war is necessary. Surrender in the face of terror means only one thing - more terror.' The editor of Fakt, however, went on to say that Poles had gone to Iraq as peace-keepers, not as a penal expedition. The Americans are responsible for what has happened, and it should be their war alone.
Also included in the article were press views from Italy, El Salvador and Ukraine, whose troops have all suffered to one degree or another, and of course the UK. George Bush's staunchest ally in his personal vendetta against Saddam Hussian was liberally quoted running out the same old vitriol that, in Britain, is called 'codswallop'.
The story in the Green Bay Chronicle also included a quote from outgoing Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller, who at least had the sense to admit that the current deployment of Polish forces represented 'the maximum of our possibilities,' and conceded that public and political pressure in Poland to pull out of Iraq was likely to increase.
As popular opposition to the war has been growing more and more vociferous in many allied countries, so Bush and UK Prime Minister Blair's defense has become more desperate. Their reluctance to admit their mistake is quite understandable, as it may go to show that they are unfit to govern. While in the UK this isn't a problem for Blair (as there is no effective political opposition), Bush still needs to spin the American media as much as possible ahead of the November poll. Therefore, most English-language newspapers report that what's happening in Iraq is all part of the vague but deadly 'terror' directly connected with Bin Laden and 9/11. As long as this fallacious oversimplification can be maintained, most readers (not to mention newspaper editors) will not trouble themselves to peer too closely at the contradictions and half-truths that the Coalition continually use to cloud the issues surrounding this violent occupation.
In any event, it is at least refreshing to see some U.S. papers slowly getting pulled back to the middle ground.
