Iraq Anniversary Passes With Little Attention

With all of the attention that has been given to the health care debate and the potential passage of the current legislation, there wasn't much coverage of yesterday's important anniversary.

Yesterday marked the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by the United States military.

The folks over at Brave New Films made a video that highlights the numerous costs of the war and urging President Obama to heed the lessons of Iraq in his decision-making in Afghanistan. Here is the video:

9/11/09 - Remembering our Collective Humanity

I don't really have much to say on this eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. So much has happened since that day, that day when the whole country was glued to their televisions and computers unsure of what to make of the tragic events. When I find myself watching footage from 9/11/01, I am almost overwhelmed in thinking about all of the historical steps that the United States would take beginning on 9/12. Wars, torture, lawsuits, the Patriot Act, wiretaps...connecting how we travelled from then to now is a confusing, frustrating, and often enraging task.

People were very afraid after the attacks and who wouldn't be afraid? Normalcy was abruptly interrupted by the horrific images that the entire world got to see in real time on television. The whole world seemed to be spinning as all kinds of information flowed into our heads and as all of us tried to make sense of every last detail. Some of us turned to our peers to comfort our fears, some of us turned to our families, and some of us turned to the leaders of this country for direction and guidance. Our leaders fed on this fear. Our leaders took this fear, mixed it with rage, and began to march this country into a war that is still going on to this day. All of a sudden we were bombarded with color-coded warning systems, enemies that seemed to take on mythological characteristics, and a version of Patriotism that was more interested in gathering support for "payback" as opposed to discussing a rational way forward.

The next thing you know, we were being led into a war that was based on false claims, our phones were being tapped to "protect us", and our leaders were justifying torturing prisoners and their supposed authority to hold them without charge for an indefinite amount of time. We had spiraled out of control and were a nation that was divided. "With us or against us", black and white, good versus evil. No middle ground and no questioning. Our leaders told us that they knew best and anyone that objected to torture or to launching an unprovoked war were labeled anti-American and accused of living in a "pre-9/11" mentality.

This was quite amazing considering that the real story on 9/11/01 centered around the heroism of the ordinary. In New York City, boundaries that once separated, were broken and stereotypes seemed irrelevant to those who were caught in the chaos of the falling towers in Lower Manhattan. Heroism was not defined in a singular figure that was a Hollywood creation, heroism was defined in the collective. The coworkers who helped others to safety, passersby who lent a helping hand to those fleeing the smoke and debris, and those who ran back into the danger to bring the helpless out. Simply put, we were human that day. Our labels didn't matter, our colors didn't matter, and our beliefs didn't matter...our humanity mattered.

Rebecca Solnit has a good piece posted today at TomDispatch.com on this very point and it is worth your time to read. These moments that allowed for the magnification our collective humanity were the real stories of 9/11 and I think that point needs to be stressed and remembered. This was all but forgotten as this country raced off into the so-called "War on Terror" and began eroding the very characteristics of humanity that were magnified on 9/11.

I will close with a portion of Solnit's piece:

Every city that has had, or will have, a disaster should have such a carnival of remembrance and preparation. For one thing, it commemorates all the ways that San Franciscans were not defeated and are not helpless; for another, it reminds us that, in disaster, we are often at our best, however briefly, that in those hours and days many have their best taste of community, purposefulness, and power. (Reason enough for many of those who are supposed to be in charge to shudder.) For the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleanians were invited to ring bells, lay wreaths, pray, encircle the Superdome, that miserable shelter of last resort for those stranded in the hurricane and flood, and of course listen to music and dance in the streets to second-line parades, but also to keep volunteering and rebuilding. (Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of that disaster is the vast army of citizen-volunteers who came to the city's aid, when the government didn't, and are still doing so.)

New York has its pillars of light and readings of names for the anniversary of 9/11, but it seems to lack any invitation to the citizenry to feel its own power and prepare for the next calamity. For there will be next times for San Francisco, New York, New Orleans, and possibly -- in this era of extreme and turbulent weather, and economic upheaval -- a great many other cities and towns in this country and elsewhere.

That hydrant on a quiet residential corner of San Francisco is about the only monument to the 1906 earthquake and fire. The rebuilt city, the eventual rise of disaster preparedness, the people who go on with their everyday lives -- these are the monument San Francisco needed and every city needs to transcend its calamities. New Yorkers could gather in Union Square and elsewhere to remember what happened, really remember, remember that the heroes weren't necessarily men, or in uniform, but were almost everyone everywhere that day.

They could open their hearts and minds to discuss mourning, joy, death, violence, power, weakness, truth and lies, as they did that week. They could consider what constitutes safety and security, what else this country could be, and what its foreign and energy policies have to do with these things. They could walk the streets together to demonstrate that New York is still a great city, whose people were not frightened into going into hiding or flight from public and urban life. They could more consciously and ceremoniously do what New Yorkers, perhaps best of all Americans, do every day: coexist boldly and openly in a great mixture of colors, nationalities, classes, and opinions, daring to speak to strangers and to live in public.

The dead must be remembered, but the living are the monument, the living who coexist in peace in ordinary times and who save one another in extraordinary times. Civil society triumphed that morning in full glory. Look at it: remember that this is who we were and can be.

This piece is crossposed here.

Rachel Maddow Interviews Tom Ridge

Rachel Maddow interviewed former Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, earlier this week on The Rachel Maddow Show. The interview covered Ridge's recent book release, in which he seems to claim that he was pressured to raise the color-coded terror alert system in order to give President Bush's approval ratings a boost prior to the 2004 election. In this three part interview with Maddow, Ridge backtracks on these claims as he tries to "clarify" what he meant.

Ridge and Maddow also discuss the impact that the Department of Homeland Security had on the government's lack of response to the citizens of New Orleans during the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 and how Ridge was very vocal in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003. As you will see, Ridge is still very adamant that invading Iraq was the correct thing to do and that the failure was one of faulty intelligence. Maddow presses him on the Iraq War being a war of choice in which the evidence was fixed around a political policy, but Ridge is adamant that this was not the case. The interview concludes with one of the more interesting exchanges of all three segments.

It is also worthy to note that Maddow's style and temperament are top-notch and, as Ridge even states, this turns out to be a very good discussion that allows for an open exchange of views. Maddow does a good job in pressing Ridge on various points and while there is much more that I would have liked to have seen covered, she does a good job given the time constraints. Below are all three segments:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Fairness Doctrine, the Broadcaster Freedom Act, and the Expansion of Public Discourse

Martha Zoller has a new column that I happened to run across today that voices its support for the "Broadcaster Freedom Act". The "Broadcaster Freedom Act" will effectively bar the FCC from making any new rules or regulations that would reinstate or re-implement standards once set in the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine was established in 1949 to provide for a more balanced discourse on controversial issues that were discussed on public airwaves. The belief was that there were fewer broadcast licenses than there were people who would like to have them, therefore licensees accept certain public responsibility for the use of the airwaves. Given this acceptance of public responsibility, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to devote some of their time to discussion of issues in the public interest and to give airtime to opposing viewpoints. Broadcasters could air opposing views in many different formats (news segments, editorial spots, etc.) but were not required to air the opposing views within the same program. The Fairness Doctrine also didn't require broadcasters programming to be split down a 50/50 line, but merely provide a balance in discussion of issues in the public interest.

The Fairness Doctrine stopped being enforced in the mid-1980's when then FCC Chair Mark Fowler expressed the belief that the view of broadcasters as community trustees should be replaced with the view of broadcasters as marketplace participants. In other words, Fowler advocated the position that content being broadcast on the airwaves should be left to the "free-market". Fowler would also argue, as does Martha Zoller, that the Fairness Doctrine limited free speech by giving the government control over a station's editorial content. Zoller states:

We must protect the free market everywhere it is being assaulted, and talk radio is a free speech market that should be left alone by regulation.

We must remember when discussing this issue, that the airwaves belong to the public and that broadcasters should serve the public interest. Since the end of the Fairness Doctrine we have seen continued concentration of the media into the hands of just a few companies. Though some would argue that we have more channels now with the existence of cable, I am reminded of Senator Byron Dorgan's observation that this is like many voices coming from the same ventriloquist. We have seen opinion and viewpoints become more limited on the airwaves, not expanded since things have been turned over to the "free-market". You can see this firsthand in the coverage in the lead-up to the Iraq War and in the "post-9/11 world" where dissenting opinion was suppressed. Zoller further claims in her article:

The marketplace doesn’t want liberal talk radio. There have been some shows that have done well, but the numbers are not in their favor. This year at the Talkers New Media Seminar, there were more liberal/progressive/independent hosts represented, but the bread and butter still goes to conservative talk because conservatives are so under-represented in the rest of the media market.

When we discuss topics such as the public airwaves, which are owned by the public and should serve in the interest of the public, it is not productive to speak about such topics as "products" subjected to the "marketplace". Public forums for debate, discussion, and the expansion of ideas are fundamental to democracy and speaking about different viewpoints as if we are choosing between brands of soda pop, is grossly missing the point. Simply stating that the public "doesn't want" the other view is no excuse for its suppression and in a society that benefits from debating all viewpoints, it is completely necessary to further open up the level of discourse.

Media consolidation has hurt democracy and it is not productive to think about the issue in terms of a "liberal" or a "conservative" media, but rather recognize that our media outlets are largely stenographers to power. Our media outlets produce sanitized infotainment that passes as news and keeps advertisers coming back for more. Perhaps it is more beneficial to look at this issue of "Fairness" through the eyes of a 1969 Supreme Court decision that upheld the Fairness Doctrine:

A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a...frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.

— U.S. Supreme Court, upholding the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 1969

In Reaction to Barack Obama's Speech on Patriotism

This week, Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a speech in Independence, Missouri on patriotism. Obama has been criticized by many on the right for not wearing a flag pin on his lapel and not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem so Obama decided to address the underlying issue behind these attacks in a speech.

Like Obama's speech on race ,which he gave following the comments of Rev. Wright, Obama's speech on patriotism was reactionary and designed not to dismiss his critics baseless attacks but at defining his own idea of acceptable and patriotic actions.

Obama states early in his speech, "I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign and I will not stand idly by when I hear others question mine." Shortly after Obama makes this declaration he states that much of the debate on today's patriotism can find roots in the culture wars of the 1960's. Obama states:

Meanwhile, some of those in the so-called counter-culture of the '60s reacted not merely by criticizing particular government policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases the very idea of America itself, by burning flags; by blaming America for all that was wrong with the world; and, perhaps most tragically, by failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day.

Obama equates the "counter-culture of the 60's" with flag burning, blaming America for the world's wrong doings, and not honoring veterans coming home from Vietnam. This simplistic view of this era does little to understand the different viewpoints during the decade and resorts to tactics used by right-wing factions in this country. The phrase "blaming America for all that is wrong in the world" or "the blame America crowd" has been used recently by several pundits in the media to attack dissenting voices. Obama, who earlier in the speech claims that he will not attack anyone's patriotism in this campaign, does just that by painting members of a dissenting counter-culture in blanket terms and by failing to give examples of what exactly makes up the views of the people who he feels are "blaming America" for all the world's problems. Obama also makes no mention of the illegalities of the Vietnam War nor does he take into account veterans own testimony at the Winter Soldier hearings which call into question the honor of some of those who served. Are the soldiers who testified to atrocities which were committed in Vietnam part of the "national shame that remains to this day"?

Obama continues:

All too often, our politics still seems trapped in these old, threadbare arguments, a fact most evident during our recent debates about the war in Iraq, when those who opposed administration policy were tagged by some as unpatriotic, and a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal.

Obama's reference to the "general in Iraq" who was "accused of betrayal" refers to this ad run by MoveOn.org which criticized General David Petraeus for being a political General who would report findings favorable to the goals of the Bush Administration. There is no mention by Obama of the criminality of the Iraq War , but rather he equates the critique of Gen. Petraeus with the "counter-culture of the 60's" that he had already denounced. It is also noteworthy to remember that Congress passed a resolution denouncing MoveOn.org for running this ad and while Obama did not vote for the specific resolution, he did vote for a similar one to "strongly condemn all attacks on the honor, integrity and patriotism” of anyone in the United States armed forces."

Barack Obama's speech on patriotism was a reaction to the criticisms of the right and also served to put himself into a position that secured his support for the military while at the same time aligning himself with members of the right by denouncing the counter-culture of the 60's in simplistic terms. Barack Obama spoke about the sacrifice of those who served in Iraq, but failed to address that it was a forced sacrifice in an aggressive and illegal war. Obama praised the service of those who are fighting in Iraq "for a greater cause" but fails to address exactly what the cause is. This speech was an opportunity to have a deeper conversation about how patriotism can often obscure reality but instead the speech acted to echo baseless claims of the right and signal that he is in support of dissent, as long as it is the right kind of dissent.

A Sanitized War: Coverage both McDonald's and the Pentagon can Agree on

The lens through which the citizens of the United States view war is often sanitized and "advertiser friendly". In the run-up to the Iraq war, the focus of the media was often aimed at the weaponry that would be used in the war and a fascination with the technological aspects of the United States military. Different types of aircraft were analyzed and their capability for dropping bombs on Iraq were discussed like analysts were discussing a video game. Once the campaign of "Shock and Awe" was underway we saw cameras perched on hotel balconies beaming images of wild explosions back to our living rooms. Spectacular clouds of smoke and fire filled the Iraqi sky as bursts of sporadic anti-aircraft fire swept across our screens. The invasion of Iraq also provided us with a new way to view war, through the eyes of embedded reporters. We were told that this would give us a never before seen, first-hand look at how wars are fought by putting reporters alongside troops on the front lines. This move was pure genius on the part of the Department of Defense because the reporters who were embedded with the U.S. troops developed a militarized type of Stockholm Syndrome. What I mean by this is that the reporters developed a unique bond with the troops who were protecting them and because of this, objective and independent journalism suffered. We began to see the war through the eyes of the invading forces and sanitized war coverage was what we consumed.

The reality of war is not good for advertisers. Picture this: a reporter, on the ground in Fallujah takes his cameraman to the scene of where U.S. forces just clashed with Iraqi resistance fighters. Some civilians were caught in the crossfire and three children, ages ranging between 8 and 14, were gunned down. The reporter is fresh on the scene and instructs his cameraman to show the bodies of the dead children, with pools of blood still fresh on the ground. After this report the network must throw to commercial and then you see an advertisement for McDonald's complete with happy children and families laughing and living in a carefree world of Big Mac's and Happy Meals. This is specifically what advertisers do not want; certainly a war without the casualties is more appealing for the advertisers to sell their products. Not only do advertisers benefit from such sanitized coverage, but the government also benefits from an "advertiser-friendly" war. There is a known realization that people would be horrified if they saw actual images of war: the dead bodies, the maimed civilians, and the voices of the oppressed. This is illustrated by the ban that was placed on the media (by the U.S. government) of photographing the coffins of U.S. service men and women upon their return to the U.S. They want our support for the war, as long as we get to see the war they want us to see.

Who benefits from this type of coverage? Clearly the news networks benefit from such coverage. As illustrated, advertisers will continue to spend money to advertise in programs that are sanitized so as not to conflict with the Utopian worlds that they present to us in each :30 second commercial. The government also benefits from such coverage. Public support for wars can be manipulated much easier if the public sees the war through a lens that does not present a true reality.

Who does not benefit from this type of coverage? First and foremost, all of us do not benefit from this type of coverage. We are not seeing the full picture and we are not getting independent reporting that shows us reality, no matter how ugly. I argue that we need to see these images on our television screens and in our newspapers. We need to see the dead children, the maimed populations, and hear the voices of the oppressed. There are some who may say that they do not want those types of images on their televisions and I say to them, that if that is the case, then maybe we should rethink what we are doing overseas and stand up for ending the torment of the Iraqi population. Public opinion would strongly shift if we started showing the actual images of war on our television screens. We are indeed a compassionate people, we just need to be given the full and accurate picture of what is happening.

Let's give up our fascination with machines that make war on populations and refocus our attention on the real issue surrounding war, the human cost. The human cost of the Iraqi family that has lost a child due to a cluster bomb, the human cost of the American family whose child came back from serving in Iraq and has committed suicide, and the human cost of the population of Fallujah whose children are experiencing birth defects thanks to the white phosphorous that the United States used in their assault on the city. If our country wants our support for war, we must be prepared to see the ugly, gritty, brutal human cost of war.