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COMMENTARY
August 27, 2003
One-a-day
As we were all told yesterday through print radio and TV the number of U.S. deaths in Iraq since President Bush declared "the end of major fighting" now exceeds the number before. This was not news. Readers of no better source than my own columns were told at the time that the Pentagon anticipated this; that they knew perfectly well both the number of casualties and the time it would take to root out Ba 'ath-regime stragglers would be much greater than had been suffered through the main invasion. Iraq is after all a big country and the enemy now has the advantage of surprise. What we were told was therefore not news but rather a part of the media drumroll on U.S. casualties -- designed to do what Saddam Hussein could not and mount pressure on the Bush administration until it agrees to cut and run leaving its pro-democratic Iraqi allies to the dogs and inspiring an escalation of Islamist terrorism all over the world at this proof that America is a "paper tiger". Returning from four weeks of holiday in which I did my best to avoid all news I find myself again somewhat shocked by the sheer malice of the mainstream media. The journalists themselves are overwhelmingly "liberal". In the U.S. for instance they have been shown to vote as a class for Democrats over Republicans by margins of more than ten-to-one; and further that they tend to identify with the left wing of that Democrat Party. They want to bring down President Bush at all costs; and if Iraq is turned back into a Saddamite killing field or Al Qaeda is given a new lease on life they don't particularly care. For they smell Republican blood. Turning to Iraq itself the situation continues to improve. It was never going to be a rose garden but it is clear to impartial observers within the country that Iraqis themselves are co-operating -- the overwhelming majority within each of its religious and ethnic groups including even the Sunnis co-operating with each other and with the U.S. military to hunt down Ba' athists and insurgents and rebuild the country both physically and institutionally even through the baking summer heat. It is the most promising event in post-colonial Arab history. Yet it could all be overthrown tomorrow if the U.S. decides it cannot stay the course. Terrorism achieves its results by drama. The long uphill climb from catastrophe doesn't make much of a story; and for this reason the media must be partially forgiven. We necessarily prefer the obvious to the subtle. It is the moment when human bodies are blown to bits that hold everyone's attention; the daily grit of human decency is just not news. And the problem from the political view is that while the U.S. soldiers may be risking their lives for the good of Iraq what they are doing for the folks back home is much less obvious. It is very real -- for a functioning non-totalitarian Iraq will make a huge difference in the fate of nations -- but this requires some explanation. Back home in the U.S. people want to know how they are benefiting by putting the lives of "our boys" on the line. It is still August -- the media doldrums -- and as last year the Bush administration has decided to leave the whole month to its enemies. Soon after Labour Day we will hear the counter-spin as the President and his senior staff pull facts and arguments out of their sleeves as they did last September. I think they have several surprises in store on such subjects as weapons of mass destruction. Last year they were able to swing public opinion which was growing sceptical of the enterprise of invading Iraq quite suddenly right around. Can they do it again this year with the excitement of the war behind rather than ahead of everyone? My own gut feeling from what I can see and hear from my Stateside correspondents is that they cannot. The American people have grown tired of being in Iraq and want to move on. Their attention is refocusing on domestic threats and the Democrats are making hay with the notion that progress against the enemy abroad is made at the cost of progress at home. This is a lie but it is a good one. Paradoxically the Democrats are riding a wave in which Americans have become much more insistent upon ethnic profiling. The new Homeland Security Department is already responding to this grassroots political pressure to provide for instance the highest degree of security possible to the flying public in a cost-effective manner . Anti-American demonstrations around the world feed this latent isolationism. Foreign imperial responsibilities have always gone against the American grain. They get fed up quickly if they cannot see direct U.S. interests at stake. So that the "one-a-day" media show on U.S. casualties in Iraq finds an increasingly receptive audience. The question on my mind is thus will the Americans funk out? And the only thing I can say for sure is that if they do it will be an unparalleled disaster. For 9/11 itself was the payback for the last U.S. funk-out from its responsibilities as a superpower. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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