| Number 144 | February 8, 2002 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, Special "double issue" this week, although I'm not sure if it's really double. It's bigger than normal, anyhow. This is quite unusual—in fact, I'm not sure I've ever done it before—but I have such a huge pile of news clippings that I felt compelled to go overboard this time. As I write these words, I am too surrounded by mountains of newspapers to know if I will have to do the same thing next week. I don't think so. We'll see. With the exception of the necessary second installment of my eloquent and compelling plea for financial support, this week's issue of the Notes is all about the current-and-forever U.S. "War Against Terror." I hate to use this semi-official term, since I think it is misleading, but it does give me the opportunity to use the amusing acronym "The WAT?!" So I will stick with it for now. When you see "The WAT?!" in the pages of the Notes, simply translate it as "The So-called War Against Certain Limited Types of Terror Which is Really A Revival of The Cold War That Was So Useful To Maintaining The Permanent War-Based Economy of The United States That We Had to Replace It With Something And That Something Seems To Have Been Delivered To Us On September 11th." See, it's much easier to just say, "The WAT?!" Thank you kindly to the readers who have already sent in their pledges for 2002. You can all skip the part about pledging this week. It's the smallest part of the issue, though, unlike last week, so you won't miss much. Thank you, thank you, thank you! For those of you still on the fence, I really do need your support, and section 2 in this week's Notes will give you some food for thought. Welcome to the new readers this week. I look forward to your feedback! In solidarity, Nygaard |
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I'm sure many readers have already decided to donate to the Notes, but have just not yet gotten around to it. If you are one of them, don't waste time reading this section of the Notes: Write out your check right now instead! That address, once again, is: Nygaard Notes Here's some thoughts to help convince those of you still on the fence: Why Support Independent Media? I have been involved with two different independent media projects during the time I have been publishing Nygaard Notes. One was a weekly newspaper called Siren, which went out of business in the fall of 2000, after just 10 months. Money was the main problem with Siren, the lack of which made all of its other problems, significant enough on their own, that much more difficult to overcome. I wrote a couple of pieces for Siren, and they had approached me about writing a regular column on media, so I felt a personal loss when they went under. But, even more so, Siren showed reason to hope that they would develop into a valuable part of the Twin Cities journalistic scene. Part of what they offered seemed to be a simple commitment to good, solid journalism. Sadly, this is not easy to find in these parts. The lack of good journalism around here is part of the motivation for Nygaard Notes. Before Siren, I had been involved in planning for a different weekly newspaper that was to have been called The Toaster. The Toaster met its official demise in 1999, before the first issue hit the stands, lack of money also being the primary issue. These two failures bring into stark relief some of the larger issues that face journalism and journalists early in the 21st century. Many years ago, in a stockholders' meeting at giant breakfast cereal manufacturer General Mills, a stockholder posed a question about a new product line that might be more "healthy" and prefaced his question with the phrase, "Since General Mills is in the business of making food, why don't we..." The CEO, to whom the question was posed, responded that, "General Mills is not in the business of making food. We are in the business of making money." His (refreshingly honest) point was that health has nothing to do with product development, at General Mills or any other corporation; profitability rules the day. In the same way, a commercial, for-profit news operation has little concern with informing the public. What it's all about is producing large numbers of readers to sell to advertisers. I remember being at a meeting a couple of years ago in which the general manager of a local TV station stated, in talking about their local news show, "We are a commercial TV station. We have to bring in viewers to get the advertising to pay the high costs of doing local news." She was not implying that viewers would be "brought in" by good journalism, as she made clear in her answer to a later question about why TV news is so focused on gore and crime: "We need to lead with a ‘grabber.' It may not be good journalism, but we need to keep our ratings up." Any honest journalist will tell you that this is how it works. This is not how it works at Nygaard Notes. I am not looking to reach a "mass market," although the more, the merrier. If I could get just 1,000 people to send me $10 per year, I would have it made. If I get more than that—and I hope to get many more than that—then I will in some other way use the power that comes with this readership to benefit the community. This is the freedom that comes from not having to make ever-more money. Truly independent journalists are free to act on principle, and to be truly accountable to their communities. This is what I strive for, and if you think this is worth something, then you should send some money to support it. If not, keep reading Nygaard Notes for free, whatever your reasons are. Maybe later you'll find it valuable enough to support with your hard-earned dollars. |
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Readers needing reassurance that all was well and that the Good Guys were winning The WAT?! had only to pick up the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!) on Christmas Eve to see the headline "The War on Terrorism: So Far, So Good, but Hard Choices Lie Ahead." The lead paragraph informs us that we "Americans have solid reasons for celebration," which fit with unnamed opinion polls that "are detecting swelling confidence and shrinking fear." As for the "hard choices" lying ahead, the first one, according to the Star Trib, is whether or not the U.S. military should "move to a new country where terrorists operate and attempt to duplicate its success [sic] in Afghanistan." The paper dug up former Reagan administration UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick to let us know that the decision to globalize the war has already been made. After commenting that "Bush's campaign will ultimately lead to Iran, Iraq, and Syria," Ms. K. was quoted as saying, "Some of these regimes will have to be toppled," and "all must be made to understand the simple message—surrender terrorism or surrender power." Ms. K had the list a little wrong; Bush has named North Korea as the third part of the Evil Axis, not Syria. But the point stands. If there were any doubt about elite consensus on the broad outlines of The WAT?!, one need only look at an Associated Press report of February 7th, which reported that "Secretary of State Colin Powell told Congress on February 6th that there must be ‘a regime change' in Iraq." The AP reported that Powell added, in the standard disregard for the will of the international community, that the United States "might have to do it alone." Forgive me for interrupting the celebration, but wasn't our primary goal in Afghanistan the apprehension of Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders? Nobody knows where they are today. That's not exactly "success," in my view. And the negative consequences of our attack are quite clear: For one thing, the unilateral actions and imperial attitude of the U.S. government, as expressed so eloquently by Ms. Kirkpatrick and Mr. Powell, have exacerbated the feelings of subjugation and powerlessness on the part of large numbers of people around the world that are considered by many to be among the root causes of the brand of terrorism of which we are so afraid. (Individual terrorism, that is. State terrorism on the part of the U.S. and its allies remains unmentioned and unchecked.) Secondly, what little integrity and respect for international law that may have existed before the U.S. attacks has taken a body blow from the insistence by the U.S. that there is no need for the powerful to respect, or even to consider, anything other than their own interests. What Is Happening? There is the occasional hint in the U.S. press of the ongoing carnage wrought by the American bombing campaign. An Associated Press photo published on November 30th mentioned in the caption that "the unheated orphanage" where the photo was shot "used to get help from international aid organizations, but after the September 11th attacks and the withdrawal of foreign aid workers, most of the aid stopped coming." In fact, the withdrawal was caused by the U.S. attacks. The caption pointed out that "there is enough rice" left over "from Taliban times" to "last for another two weeks," although what happened at the orphanage after those two weeks expired was never reported, as far as I know. On January 15th the Star Tribune reported in an Associate Press article headlined "U.S. Wraps Up Attack on Cave Complex" that "U.S. military forces are looking for new targets to strike." Buried in the article is the single sentence "Civilians living near the bombing zone were fleeing and said many people had been killed and wounded by bombs." No further comment was deemed necessary. At least the Star Trib mentioned the deaths of innocent civilians. The story of the same day in The New York Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print"), while reporting that the day's attack was "the 10th bombing in 11 days," remained completely silent on the subject of civilian casualties. Even fanatical readers of the U.S. media would be hard-pressed to know that the U.S. bombings have now killed far more innocent people than the bombings of September 11th did. Current credible estimates put the Afghan toll at somewhere above 5,000, although "the Pentagon is reluctant to talk about civilian deaths, and keeps no tally," according to the Sydney, Australia Morning Herald in a recent article headlined "Civilian Deaths No Cause for Concern." It's not difficult to find such reports in the foreign press, although it's almost impossible in the U.S. mainstream. Reports of the 3 or 4 U.S. casualties, however, have been prominently placed on the front pages in the Respectable Media. It may be true that the bombing campaign is "nearly complete," as "senior Pentagon officials" were heard to say last week. Still, the attack on the Afghan people will continue for years, in a variety of forms. One of those forms was explained by the humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders, in a January 21 press release entitled "Cluster Bombs the Legacy to Afghan Population." No one knows how many cluster bombs the U.S. dropped in Afghanistan, but DWB reports that each one "contains another 202 smaller bombs, that spread through the area and explode." They add that "Over 20% of the bombs do not explode on impact [Ed note: That's twice as many as the 10 percent the Pentagon claims] and remain, effectively, as anti-personnel devices." They will remain so for years, I might add, since they will patiently wait in their hiding places for people to accidentally trigger them. Many of them will likely be picked up by children who may mistake them for the yellow "humanitarian" food packets dropped by the U.S., which they resemble. Reporters would not have to work too hard to learn and report on the ongoing human consequences of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, as numerous reports have been published by diverse groups, including the previously-mentioned Doctors Without Borders, as well as the Red Cross and the World Health Organization. A good listing of current reports from around the world can be found on a United Nations website called ReliefWeb, at www.reliefweb.int. And, of course, every humanitarian group has a press office that would be glad to talk to any media representative that bothered to call. Perhaps, if enough readers or viewers call their local papers and television stations, they will bother to call some of these groups. |
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I rarely comment on the things that appear in the editorial pages of the newspapers, believing as I do that the important editorializing occurs in the news pages. An editorial in the February 1st New York Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print") demands comment, however. Authored by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas D. Kristof, the editorial was entitled "A Merciful War," and attempted to explain "how bombing can save Afghan lives." His basic point is that, due to the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, the Taliban is now gone, so therefore "aid is pouring in, and lives are being saved on an enormous scale." In his conclusion Kristof states the following "simple truth," which "we should be able to acknowledge," since "enough time has passed since Vietnam:" "Military intervention, even if it means lost innocent lives on both sides [!], can serve the most humanitarian of goals." Allow me to make three points in response.
The Meaning of Mercy Point 3 is the most important point: Kristof calls the U.S. intervention "merciful." According to my dictionary, to be merciful is to be "unwilling to punish for injuries." The quality of mercy is defined as "kindness in excess of what may be expected or demanded by fairness." Even if one agrees for some reason with the U.S. decision to attack Afghanistan, I don't think it is reasonable by any stretch of the imagination to claim that the U.S. war has been "merciful." It was hardly reported at the time, but when the U.S. attacked Afghanistan back in October, anti-Taliban Afghans of all persuasions pleaded with the U.S. to stop the bombing and to instead support local attempts to overthrow the Taliban. Many, including the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, maintained that, with appropriate international support, the indigenous Afghan resistance would be able to overthrow the Taliban, with far less suffering and death than the U.S. plan promised. The pleas of these heroic Afghans, who have suffered far more than Americans at the hands of the Taliban, were ignored. In addition, humanitarian groups from all over the world warned that the U.S. attacks would likely cause the deaths of thousands, if not millions, of Afghans who were already teetering on the brink of starvation prior to the start of the U.S. bombing. Their pleas were also heard and ignored. We don't know yet the full consequences for the massive refugee population of the U.S. campaign, as some of the effects of that campaign—such as the interruption of the planting of next year's crops—will not be seen for months. Those who rely on the U.S. media for their information will likely never know the consequences, as it is unlikely to be considered newsworthy in this country by the time the facts come in. Consider the almost total lack of follow-up reporting on conditions in some other countries that have been the victims of recent U.S. military attacks, such as Grenada, Panama, or Nicaragua. Even on the straight facts, Mr. Kristof gets it wrong. He states that "about 1,000 Afghan civilians" have died in the U.S. war. The real figure is likely more than 5,000 although, in perhaps the best illustration of how little U.S. planners value Afghan lives, official figures are neither sought nor recorded. What we see when we look at the U.S. war on Afghanistan is that U.S. planners engaged in a supposed police action targeted at a small number of individuals, with full knowledge that the operation was likely to cause the deaths of many thousands or millions of innocent civilians. If the consequences do turn out to be less severe—or even if they turn out to "save" lives, as Kristof argues—this does not make the U.S. planners "merciful." If anything, it makes them lucky. Not being a mindreader, I can't say why Mr. Kristof chose to make this argument. Maybe it has something to do with having a Pulitzer Prize. Two Stories of U.S. "Mercy" 1. Witness the treatment of the prisoners—remembering, always, that they are officially "detainees," not "prisoners"—currently being held in Cuba. We are told that the widely-condemned treatment of these—dare I say it?—human beings is just a mistake, as is clearly stated by the most liberal columnist in the NY Times, Anthony Lewis, in the opening line of his January 26th column: "The Bush administration has done well militarily in Afghanistan, but it has badly fumbled the question of justice for its captives." Fumbled? In a related story, the Times reported on January 29th that "military officials have expressed concern that by denying the captives [being held in Cuba] the protections of the Geneva Conventions, the United States was setting a precedent that could put future American battlefield captives at risk." That's a good practical argument for strengthening the international laws our government is trying to weaken, but such self-serving calculation leaves little room for mercy. 2. All of the following quotations are from the NY Times of Feb 2, in an article headed: "U.S. and Britain Agree on Expanding the International Security Force in Afghanistan." The lead paragraph states that "Top officials in Britain and at the State Department have endorsed the idea of expanding the international security force in Afghanistan, which is now restricted to Kabul and limited to 5,000 soldiers...[b]ut President Bush has indicated that he has no intention of sending American troops as peacekeepers." The Times adds that "Even if foreign governments agree there is a need, it is not clear that they have the will to provide the additional forces." Merciful words, cruel pocketbooks. |
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