This Week:

Star Tribune and Iraq, Part 2

Greetings,

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‘Til next week,

Nygaard

The Star Tribune and Iraq: Part 2

Making the Headlines

In last week's Nygaard Notes (#16) I mentioned the phenomenon wherein the text of an article appears to contradict the headline. For some reason, this is not that unusual in the Star Tribune (Newspaper of the Twin Cities!). A second, and even better, example of this irregularity was found in the Star Tribune for Friday, December 18th. On page A20, the headline reads "In Twin Cities, folks support bombing, question the timing, want Saddam out." In fact, two of the five interviews reported in the article revealed absolutely unambiguous opposition to the bombing, including such quotes as "Who made [the U.S.] the world police?" and "I don't think bombing is the best means to correct the situation."

The article further reports that three women eating lunch at the Norwest Center (one from Ethiopia and two from "Asia") "were fearful of giving their names because they disagreed with the U.S. attack." My own headline would have been something more like: "War fever at high pitch; American citizens confused and frightened." Or maybe, "Iraq bombings raise fears of racist repercussions at home."

Key Questions

Page A16 of the December 17th paper gave us an article by Eric Black, the Star Tribune's resident context/history reporter, entitled "Q&A: Answers to key questions about attack." There were 7 "key" questions presented:

1. What is the U.S. justification?
2. What are the goals of the bombing?
3. What about toppling Saddam Hussein?
4. What is Iraq's position?
5. Why bomb now?
6. How long will the bombing continue? and
7. How can the United States and Britain claim to be acting on behalf of the United Nations when the U.N. Security Council didn't explicitly authorize the bombing and some council members seemed to oppose it?

Typically, one could read this entire piece and have no clue that anyone in the United States was opposed to the bombings - at all! Every answer was apparently drawn from official government sources, with the only "critic" cited being a critic of not using "whatever means necessary" to "remove Saddam." (To Mr. Black's credit, it was pointed out in a later answer that "removing Saddam" is forbidden by U.S. law.)

Here are a few key questions (and answers) that were not on the list:

• What will be the effect of the bombing on innocent Iraqi civilians? (Devastating)
• Isn't this bombing illegal under international law and under U.S. law? (Yes, to both questions)
• Are there any other countries that have repeatedly violated U.N. resolutions, and has the United States attacked them, also? (Yes and no, respectively)

The Unthinkable

Many people around the U.S. and here in the Twin Cities have an interpretation of "Operation Desert Fox" that puts it in the context of U.S. imperial designs on the region. In this interpretation, the primary motivation for an attack on Saddam Hussein's Iraq is that he is insufficiently subservient. Or, to use the technical geopolitical terminology, "uppity." Noam Chomsky states it clearly: "It's been a leading, driving doctrine of U.S. foreign policy since the 1940s that the vast and unparalleled energy resources of the Gulf region will be effectively dominated by the United States and its clients, and, crucially, that no independent, indigenous force will be permitted to have a substantial influence on the administration of oil production and price." I read essentially the same thing last week in a newspaper called "Investor's Business Daily." (The business press is often refreshingly candid about these matters.)

Anyone who possesses an understanding of U.S. imperialism (and I use the word in it's precise dictionary definition) can relatively easily sort through the confusing and contradictory reports on the repeated U.S. attacks on Iraq. Without such an analysis, it must be extremely difficult to understand why our government would attack Iraq's Hussein and not Indonesia's Suharto, whose dictatorship was not only much more bloody but a far greater threat to his neighbors. For those who think that America's foreign policy is motivated by a love for democracy, it must be extremely difficult to explain our repeated subversion (or destruction) of democratically-elected governments around the world (Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Grenada, et al).

With this in mind, an article by Randy Furst, who is usually quite a good reporter, on the local opposition to the bombing, was quite disturbing. The story, on page A19, was headlined, "Peace activists gear up for rally today against U.S. bombing of Iraq." This headline accurately reflected the text of the article, which referred to the local opposition simply as "antiwar groups" or "metro-area peace organizations." I know some of the individuals involved in these groups and, while they are certainly opposed to this particular "war," for many of them their opposition is a principled stand against U.S. imperialism, and not a simple "anti-war" stance. In light of the above, this can be seen as a serious misrepresentation.

This is not a trivial point. According to the polls, most Americans either accept the administration's goals and justification for the bombing, or chalk it up to domestic political considerations (i.e. impeachment). And why is that? In the mass media in this country, of which the Star Tribune is an unexceptional example, an institutional analysis that includes the idea of a U.S. empire is completely marginalized, and in fact is completely unthinkable. Since most people get most of their information about American foreign policy from the mainstream press, this presents a significant impediment to building serious grassroots opposition to future attacks, in Iraq or elsewhere. After all, how can people oppose (or support) something they can't even think about?

Next week: Race and Compassion