Willy Pete and Friends

Jeff Taylor | November 30, 2005

John Pike supplies a spot-on look at America's supposed white phosphorus scandal in Iraq, including this observation:

So with no direct evidence of an atrocity, and the United States using lawful weapons, why does most of the world now believe just the contrary? And make no mistake: This slowly emerged as a story here, but it has been a big story around the world.

I was confronted with these disparate realities when I was interviewed both by CNN and CNN International a few days after the story broke. Domestic CNN, airing here in the United States, was skeptical of the scandal. CNN International, airing before an audience that had already accepted the Italian documentary as fact, took a far less skeptical approach. The two CNNs -- one for the U.S. and one for everyone else -- embodied the separate realities now occupied by the United States and the rest of the world. We see ourselves as well intentioned. Much of the rest of the world does not.

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|11.30.05 @ 3:00PM|#

As an old jarhead, therefore language maven, I refer to it as "Wooly Peter." Willy Pete is redundant.

|11.30.05 @ 3:03PM|#

This runs counter to the right-wing blogosphere/talk radio echo chamber which asserts that U.S. media outlets supply Americans with a politically motivated diet of anti-U.S., Iraq gloom-and-doom coverage.

Well, a lot of those guys have twigged to this sort of phenomenon ("say one thing to the US, another to the rest of the world"). They even point out non-American publications that make news more "American-friendly" in English-language versions.

It's not even really counter to their assertion, mind. It just means that foreign audiences can tolerate/want more anti-American propagandizing. ;)

|11.30.05 @ 3:06PM|#

While I agree with the gist of the article, the last line rings hollow.

At least during the Cold War, we made the Soviets work to discredit us.

We didn't need the Soviets to make us look bad during the Cold War. We did that all by ourselves.

|11.30.05 @ 3:25PM|#

|11.30.05 @ 3:28PM|#

|11.30.05 @ 3:29PM|#

clarification: I know that the independent judiciary was not specifically mentioned in this thread prior to my post. But I was just thinking about how they treat the free press as an enemy, and then I started thinking about how they also treat another vital institution as an enemy.

fyodor|11.30.05 @ 3:31PM|#

Freedom is a threat to freedom.

|11.30.05 @ 3:33PM|#

Eric the .5b,

Reinforcing stereotypes and various memes is what the press is best at. Or at the very least thye get conned into it a lot.

|11.30.05 @ 3:40PM|#

They guys you're talking about are not conservatives any more, if they ever were. You got rightwing big government statists, and leftwing big government statists. History has proven neither to be a lot of fun. All the democrats seem to want is my money though.

This runs counter to the right-wing blogosphere/talk radio echo chamber which asserts that U.S. media outlets supply Americans with a politically motivated diet of anti-U.S., Iraq gloom-and-doom coverage.

Just see the thread a few below here...poster JonBuck makes the same exact comment, something about not worrying about our propaganda machine because our press is so focused on the negative aspects of the Iraq war.

My apologies if I misunderstood his tone or if he was being facetious.

|11.30.05 @ 3:43PM|#

Am I the only one who gets a little scared that conservatives act as though the free press and independent judiciary are deadly threats to our way of life?

Yeah, I know, the left has its own problems too. I'm just saying.

I get a little scared that the party in power has that attitude, yeah. Switching parties in power is not an utterly reliable way to change that view, though. I'm starting to get interested in it, though.

Now, Thoreau, a question for you - how do you balance an interest in getting the Republicans out of power with an interest in divided government? :)

Timothy|11.30.05 @ 3:44PM|#

Whether or not the media is biased (probably is, probably isn't a conspiracy) is tangential to whether or not it matters. Okay, so the press is biased? What do we do about it? I'm okay with "whine and complain", which is (generally) what the rightospheric echo-chamber does. Mostly they don't, although some certainly do, call for any sort of sanctions against the press.

Really, even were "The Media" some big anti-American conspiracy, I'd have to ask "So what?" People are not mindless drones who do whatever adverts tell them, folks will figure it out, and adjust their expectations and understanding of news accordingly. After all, the oh-so-enlightened ones bringing us this hidden truth did, and I have a hard time believing anybody's dumber than Ann Coulter.

|11.30.05 @ 3:47PM|#

Now, Thoreau, a question for you - how do you balance an interest in getting the Republicans out of power with an interest in divided government? :)

There's a difference between power and unchecked power.

|11.30.05 @ 3:51PM|#

There's a difference between power and unchecked power.

*shrug*

|11.30.05 @ 3:52PM|#

Eric-

What I mean is that it's one thing for a party to control part of the government, and another for that party to control the whole enchilada.

|11.30.05 @ 3:53PM|#

On the other hand, what exactly does "conservatives act[ing] as though the free press and independent judiciary are deadly threats to our way of life" have to do with the observation that the foreign outlets of American media groups cheerfully promulgate unsupported claims of American wrongdoing?

|11.30.05 @ 3:56PM|#

Right, Thoreau, but I'm not sure knocking the Republicans out of one branch is sufficient to address the harms they cause. Unfortunately, many of those harms are bipartisan or are entirely plausible for the Democrats to engage in.

So...hmm.

|11.30.05 @ 3:57PM|#

Eric-

I was referring to what Jeff Taylor referred to as "the right-wing blogosphere/talk radio echo chamber which asserts that U.S. media outlets supply Americans with a politically motivated diet of anti-U.S., Iraq gloom-and-doom coverage".

Timothy|11.30.05 @ 3:58PM|#

Take up my new plan: always vote against the incumbent.

The Wine Commonsewer|11.30.05 @ 4:00PM|#

This runs counter to the right-wing blogosphere/talk radio echo chamber which asserts that U.S. media outlets supply Americans with a politically motivated diet of anti-U.S., Iraq gloom-and-doom coverage.

I don't think so. It's really apples and oranges, for example, ask any Palestinian about America and see if you get an answer that in any way is grounded in reality.

The news in the US tends to be biased. The news in other countries is also biased. Different biases or degrees of bias, certainly, but still bias.

|11.30.05 @ 4:03PM|#

Timothy - that should be the default voting strategy in my mind, unless you've got the time to review each candidate, which would be the best option. Sometimes you just don't have the time to.

Luckily, I pretty much always vote Libertarian, so I don't have to worry about voting for the incumbent! :)

However, I do see that a couple of my Republican Senate and Congress folks aren't totally bad. See Jeff Flake, for instance, although he's set a terms limit for himself which would see him not seek re-election.

|11.30.05 @ 4:09PM|#

I was referring to what Jeff Taylor referred to as "the right-wing blogosphere/talk radio echo chamber which asserts that U.S. media outlets supply Americans with a politically motivated diet of anti-U.S., Iraq gloom-and-doom coverage"

Then we're talking about completely different things; never mind.

The Wine Commonsewer|11.30.05 @ 4:10PM|#

Well, Eric, that is a good point, particularly if, like me, you remember that the Dems have controlled most of the enchilada for a large part of the 20th Century. The Repubs are actually newcomers to screwing the populace. They had decades to learn how and apparently were good students. If we look beyond the myopic view of our current dilemas we see that almost every evil we libertarians decry was foisted onto us by Dems who controlled the whole enchilada. Every major war, high taxes, tarrifs, prohibition, Davis-Bacon, Jim Crow, farm subsidies, social security, eminent domain abuse, and on, and on, and on.

Comparatively, the Repubs are pikers having only given us ADA under Bush the I and some really bad intrusions into our lives after 09-11 that were merely the culmination of DECADES of abuse that everybody just yawned about.

GWB's crap didn't grow out of a vacuum, it had a long and elaborate evolutionary history that began when the Dems had all the power and continued under their stewardship for years and years until the mantle of Big Government was passed to them.

|11.30.05 @ 4:12PM|#

Let's not forget the major problems the MSM has had in the past few years with their credibility. I think any news station or paper in the US would be reluctanct to push a grossly unsupported story, even if they had a real political agenda.

|11.30.05 @ 4:13PM|#

Am I the only one who gets a little scared that conservatives act as though the free press and independent judiciary are deadly threats to our way of life?

Yeah, I know, the left has its own problems too. I'm just saying.

Thoreau,

I am not aware that anyone right or left is calling for the sensorship of the media. A free press goes both ways. If the press is free to print what it wants, everyone else is free to criticize and attack the media for what they print. Am I the only one who gets a little scared when the media acts as though any criticism or attack on the substance of its reporting is an attack on the free press and a deadly threat to our way of life?

Not that the right doesn't have problems too, but I am just saying.

The Wine Commonsewer|11.30.05 @ 4:13PM|#

them in the foregoing post meaning that the mantle of Big Government was duly passed to the Republicans

|11.30.05 @ 4:22PM|#

fyodor,
You are right, "freedom is a threat to freedom."
That's why the peaceful anarchy I advocate will be as hard to produce as cold fusion.

|11.30.05 @ 4:27PM|#

Doesn't anyone in other countries wonder if the US was really as bad as it's made out, wouldn't we be leaving radiation filled moonscapes behind in our Endless War on >FillInTheBlank

|11.30.05 @ 4:33PM|#

My view is this: If it bleeds, it leads. It's all about fighting for ratings--and thus ad dollars--beween news networks. Negative, sensationalist stories sell advertising. It's less about truth and more about profit.

So I don't believe the media is inherently liberally biased--it's just turned out that way because it (supposedly) gets viewers. But you do have to look behind the scenes. What information do they leave out that might damage the sensationalist nature of the story? Even the LA Times admits that the information in those propaganda stories is factual. If they were making things up, I'd feel quite differently about it.

As for the White Phosphorus story, I think we're running into something else: What one feels must be true, versus what the facts support. What is emotionally acceptable compared to the facts on the ground, in other words. As the linked article notes, WP is not considered a chemical weapon by international agreements. The facts and evidence does not support the Italian documentary's accusations. Nevertheless, because people around the world are more inclined to consider the United States in a negative light, they have much lower standards of evidence for these accusations. The WP story just confirms what they feel must be true.

|11.30.05 @ 4:35PM|#

The difference is that the U.S. media's playbook is essentially taken from the late '60s, early 70's and is always trying to pull a Woodward and Bernstein and pull down the incumbant power (or to fine a 'Westmoreland' lying about the war). The problem is that they don't realize (or don't care to think about) how their focus is damaging to the U.S., support the incumbant power or not; or that they turn the heat up (a smidgeon more) against a Republican incumbant in power.

The international press however takes its playbook from essentially the same period, however its form is Marxist critique, in which the big capitalist country is always suspect and always wrong. It's about the thought level of a college leftist and about the same quality.

Of course there are variations to these themes and it is sometimes troubling that mainstream European critiques of the U.S. often parrot lines or themes that could've come out of mid century facist and communist propaganda.

And that's it. Our guys want glory, but they still consider themselves our guys (i.e. to expose is patriotic). They (i.e. the other) just hate us out of course and revel in the chance to justify the hate.

|11.30.05 @ 4:41PM|#

Curious,
Not to put words into unknown foreigners' mouths, but I think the US is "bad" in the sense of "insufferable."

|11.30.05 @ 4:48PM|#

The news in the US tends to be biased. The news in other countries is also biased. Different biases or degrees of bias, certainly, but still bias.

Is there such a thing as unbiased news? I can't wait for the book that one day explains why the documentary about news bias documentaries was in fact biased itself.

R C Dean|11.30.05 @ 4:55PM|#

Compared to who, Ruthless? The UN? The French? The frickin screw-the-foreign-barbarian Chinese?

|11.30.05 @ 5:02PM|#

I have a hard time believing anybody's dumber than Ann Coulter. - Timothy

Ann's not dumb. She's smart enough to get herself on national TV and make a pile of money. She figured out that the vast majority of people don't want truth in media, they want reporting that reinforces what they already believe. She's picked her audience, and does she reinforce with gusto or what ... ?!

I'd guess that's the same reason CNN USA's reporting of WP matches the majority American view, and CNN International's matches the majority European view. And why people on both sides of the aisle accuse the media of being biased in the opposite direction. (I mean, come on, reinforce my beliefs already! What is this, some sort of propaganda?)

I think JonBuck's comment is spot-on.

|11.30.05 @ 5:29PM|#

Shouldn't this thread already be teaming with screaming NRO bots denouncing Taylor for a bunch of stuff he didn't say?

...What, are they goin' soft?

|11.30.05 @ 5:37PM|#

Compared to who, Ruthless?

Why do we have to compare? Why can't the U.S. just be insufferable because of what it does independent of what other countries do?

Not that I think other countries are less insufferable (they all have their own special ways of being insufferable), just that we should take responsibility for our own shortcomings without pointing our fingers at the shortcomings of others.

That said, the U.S. is my favorite insufferable country.

Dave W.|11.30.05 @ 5:46PM|#

"As the linked article notes, WP is not considered a chemical weapon by international agreements."

How much of Saddam's Kurd gassing was WP? If Saddam used WP instead of other chemicals, does that mean he walks? That would be kind of silly.

|11.30.05 @ 5:55PM|#

Insufferability is in part a function of distance. For example, my wife's a wonderful woman, but sometimes I've just got to get out for a cup of coffee on my own. Her grandfather ... so long as he stays in his apartment 100 miles away and doesn't have our phone number, isn't half bad.

If the U.S. would keep our troops home rather than basing them in 2/3rds of the civilized world and bombing everything that wears a tin hat, distance would make the international heart grow so much fonder.

|11.30.05 @ 5:56PM|#

How much of Saddam's Kurd gassing was WP?

None of it. It's not something you gas anyone with.

Dave W: Please read about the physical and chemical properties of WP before you ask that question. WP smoke is not toxic like VX. This is why we can use it as a smoke marker in the first place.

|11.30.05 @ 6:00PM|#

Now let me be a total wiseguy by asking whether a chemical explosive like plastiqe or gunpowder is a chemical weapon. Be nice to get the Bloods and Crips up on Geneva Convention violations. Maybe we could even hold them without charges ...

|11.30.05 @ 6:33PM|#

"Dave W: Please read about the physical and chemical properties of WP before you ask that question."

Yeah - what the hell are you trying to do, learn something from this thread?

Viking M|11.30.05 @ 7:04PM|#

the Guardian (? can't remember) ran a piece a few weeks ago talking about the us "using chemical weapons" in iraq.

then later mentioned as an aside that WP is not classified as an ABC weapon.

the big thing a bit back (yugoslavia, Gulf War I) in the euro press was the us using "radioactive weapons" that "caused the syndrome" (depleated uranium).

they're gonna latch onto anything to confirm their superior position to the us. and since this country uses torture, why not chemical weapons? sure. in for a penny... etc.

TallDave|11.30.05 @ 7:56PM|#

|11.30.05 @ 8:02PM|#

R C Dean,
I'm enjoying Mark Helprin's newest book, "Freddy and Fredericka," which is loosely based on the lives of Prince Charles and Diana.
The book makes clear British royalty has a heavy burden laid upon them for various reasons.
I'm suggesting the US government has a heavy burden laid on it to have a stiff upper lip (and other cute Britishisms) because of the US being the HumVee of national economies.
Dubya is so not up to the task I'm pretty sure it's crossed the mind of Helprin to write his next fantasmagoric book about the Bush Dynasty.
Insufferable is a hard reputation to alleviate.

|11.30.05 @ 8:04PM|#

Meh, the media is obsolete.

What do they do other than record statements, collect video, and talk their heads off repeating said statements over the video? Ask Questions?

With the internet, everyone can ask the questions. You can hit up google and go straight to everyone's statements. You can bittorrent the newest clips of video that you can watch again and again at your own leisure. You can ask questions directly, or indirectly by posting the questions.

Mike Laursen|11.30.05 @ 8:23PM|#

I don't accept John Pike's narrow definition of "atrocity". Just because white phosphorus is or isn't on some list of atrocious weapons, doesn't make this entire unjustified war any less of an atrocity.

raymond|12.1.05 @ 2:04AM|#

So with no direct evidence of an atrocity, and the United States using lawful weapons, why does most of the world now believe just the contrary?

That's the question, isn't it.

I can't speak for "most of the world" (and I imagine that "most of the world" now includes a whole lot of Americans) but the present US government is seen to be a we-will-do-whatever-it-takes kind of outfit.

If it takes starting an illegal war, the US will do it. Torture? Bullying? PATRIOT Acts? Secret prisons? Violations of neutrality? Torture? So why not white phosphorus?

"The end justifies the means" seems to have replaced fundamental human rights as the guiding principle of your country (if respect for fundamental human rights ever was a guiding principle).

Perhaps your government is seen as having no moral compass.

|12.1.05 @ 10:07AM|#

For all those who think that phosphorous bombs exploding overhead is A-OK, you can kiss those sodium street lights goodbye 'cause the phosphorous lighting in your neighborhood begins tonight.

|12.1.05 @ 10:54AM|#

There is something really, really wrong with people who, when they read the sentence "CNN International reported today that the US army has been using white phosphorus artillery shells in a city with tens of thousands of civilians still living there", focus on the "CNN International reported" part rather than the "burning civilians" part.
In the words of the first and greatest war correspondent, William Howard Russell (Crimea), "My lord, if you don't like me reporting what you are doing, may I respectfully suggest that you stop doing it!"

gaius marius|12.1.05 @ 12:34PM|#

"The end justifies the means"

exactly, mr raymond. when you claim to be fighting for the unquestionable, the holy of holies -- freedom, democracy, markets, what-have-you -- what means are out of bounds?

none.

gaius marius|12.1.05 @ 12:36PM|#

Oh, they do. It's just that the rest of the world is often even worse.

lol -- when the entire world is in one direction from your views, mr talldave, it ought to be a clue that you are way out on one wing of it.

|12.1.05 @ 12:57PM|#

The U.S. government exists for one primary purpose: to protect the health and wealth of U.S. citizens from outsiders. Now one might argue that it would better do so by being less interventionist (probably true), but all the stuff about 'fundamental human rights' is so much internationalist blather. International relations are far more of a Hobbsian affair than many would care to admit. All of the western internationalist fantasies exist in a bubble of U.S. military might, or its threat.

You ask me, the business of America is business. It is a waste of our resources sending our military galavanting around the world in 'peacekeeping' adventures, or to depose tinpot dictators of various stripes. If folks in other lands want to stop living in the 8th Century, that's their job, not ours.

gaius marius|12.1.05 @ 1:10PM|#

International relations are far more of a Hobbsian affair than many would care to admit.

certainly that becomes true if you behave as though it were true.

one might consider, however, with less hubris, that american military might is on the wane -- and that we might plan for a future where we cannot extort terms.

|12.1.05 @ 2:33PM|#

gaius:

certainly that becomes true if you behave as though it were true.

It's true regardless of how you you behave. Nations act in their perceived self-interest. Which is why I take relatively little interest in the foreign commentariat regarding our country. It's not generally in our interest to go pushing other people around, but nor should we assume that the stuff they say about us is accurate. They are, after all, an interested party.

one might consider, however, with less hubris, that american military might is on the wane -- and that we might plan for a future where we cannot extort terms.

Our military might is hardly waning, except in relative terms--and then only to the Chinese. We cannot now 'extort terms' from them, and the future will be no different in that regard. And, in any event, our relationship with the Chinese is interrelated and too complex to characterize as adversarial. Europe has largely become a free rider on our military might, which probably has something to do with why they whine so loudly over our actions. They have quietly become irrelevant.

raymond|12.1.05 @ 2:55PM|#

The Declaration of Internationalist Blather

gaius marius|12.1.05 @ 3:46PM|#

hardly waning

which must be why we're blowing through countries like vietnam and iraq as a divine wind. i assure you, we are waning -- the military has gotten too technological and expensive to operate with effectiveness and duration. it has become, finally, a police force for our suzerainity -- which, if severely challenged (by say china, or perhaps india in the not too distant future), would stand aside to the amazement of many.

Nations act in their perceived self-interest.

if they choose to, mr chriso. this is not a law of nature. nations are organizations of men, and men are actors possessed of free will.

if all you aspire to act as is a savage, you can be a savage, there is no doubt.

raymond|12.1.05 @ 4:12PM|#

I have no doubt that all men act in what they perceive to be their own best interests.

The trick - and one not mastered by bush et al. - is to incorporate some basic selfish rules into one's self-interest.

"Do not do to others what you don't want them to do to you" is one.

Is torture really in the best interest of the people of the US? I think not. Ignoring the Geneva Conventions? The generals don't seem to think so.

I listened to an army spokesman talking about white phosphorus the other day. He said: "The primary use is..." That careful "primary" leads me to believe that a secondary use might be what the documentary accuses the US of; namely, as a weapon aimed at human beings, to burn them.

Today I heard on the news that 65% of polled high-school students admitted to cheating. "Perceived self-interest" - without a moral code.

|12.1.05 @ 5:48PM|#

"We see ourselves as well intentioned."

Speak for yourself....

Ted

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