Short Tales from Bizarro World

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/051905X.shtml

 

Short Tales from Bizarro World

By William Rivers Pitt

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

 

Thursday 19 May 2005

 

" I met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald

Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to

sell him guns, and to give him maps the better to target those guns. "

-George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, 05/17/05

 

You know things have gone more than a bit around the bend when it

takes a British MP with a hard Scottish brogue to throw a little truth

against the walls of the U.S. Senate chamber to see what will stick.

George Galloway, accused of profiteering in the UN oil-for-food

scandal, sat before Senators Coleman and Levin on Tuesday and raked

America's Iraq invasion slowly and deliberately over the coals.

 

" I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, did not have

weapons of mass destruction, " said Galloway. " I told the world,

contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I

told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection

to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your

claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American

invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be

the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and

you turned out to be wrong, and 100,000 people paid with their lives;

1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies;

15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies. "

 

Coleman and Levin, and anyone else listening in, must have felt

like they were receiving a tongue-lashing from an angry Sean Connery.

The fact that Galloway's outraged testimony went out live over the

airwaves on most of the 24-hour news channels was likewise an odd

twist. The American people actually saw a well-spoken contrary opinion

broadcast into their homes on Tuesday, a rare event, and then watched

as the talking heads scrambled to spin this square peg back into its

round hole.

 

News about the news has been all the rage of late. In the frying

pan this time around is Newsweek, which published a report recently

from investigative journalist Michael Isikoff about American military

interrogators at Guantanamo flushing a Koran down the toilet as a

means to wring information out of Muslim prisoners. The story cited an

anonymous source whose credibility and information turned out to be

less than solid. The White House blamed Newsweek and this story for

igniting riots in Afghanistan that killed 15 people.

 

While it is unfortunate that Newsweek allowed itself to be

undermined by the always-dangerous 'anonymous source,' the White House

reaction to this has been amazing in its brazen hypocrisy. The

administration has said, with solemn grief, that the reputation of the

U.S. has suffered irreparable harm in the Muslim world because of

Newsweek. Not because we invaded and occupied a Muslim nation based on

false information and bald-faced lies. Not because American

interrogators designed torture techniques specifically created to

denigrate and humiliate anyone of Muslim faith (pantomiming homosexual

sex, smearing of menstrual blood on faces, etc.). Not because innocent

Iraqis were raped and murdered at Abu Ghraib. Nope, it is all on

Newsweek now.

 

In reacting to the Newsweek story, the White House gravely

asserted its abiding respect for the Muslim faith. One wonders exactly

where this newfound respect comes from, given the Abu

Ghraib/Guantanamo/invasion elephant in the room, and given the other

stories that have been out there for a while now. The BBC reported in

October of 2004 that Guantanamo prisoners alleged their Korans were

thrown into toilets and they were ordered to abandon their faith. Lt.

General William Boykin, deputy undersecretary for defense, did a tour

of fundamentalist pulpits not long ago and spoke of the clash between

Christianity and Islam. " I knew that my God was bigger than his, " said

Boykin. " I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol. "

 

Then, of course, there were those other riots. You know, the ones

Jerry Falwell started back in October of 2002. In an edition of '60

Minutes' broadcast on October 6th, Falwell said, " I think Mohammed was

a terrorist. I read enough by both Muslims and non-Muslims, to decide

that he was a violent man, a man of war. " The Muslim world was

outraged, and sectarian riots broke out in India that left at least

eight people dead. There was no mention by the White House of Falwell

destroying America's reputation.

 

Josh Marshall, in his TalkingPointsMemo blog, asks a pertinent

question: Why is the White House involved in this Newsweek thing to

begin with? " The White House is not a party at interest here, " writes

Marshall. " Perhaps the people who have been falsely accused are.

Perhaps the Pentagon could demand an apology if the story turns out to

be false. Or the Army. Not the White House. They are only involved

here in as much as the story is bad for them politically. What I see

here is an effort by the White House to set an entirely different

standard when it comes to reportage that in any way reflects

critically on the White House. That's dangerous and it should be

recognized as such. "

 

Perhaps the most deliciously weird aspect of all this is the White

House's description of Newsweek's Michael Isikoff as being motivated

to write his stories by his hatred of all things Republican and all

things Bush. Yet it was Isikoff's relentless pursuit of the Monica

Lewinski story back in the go-go 90s that eventually led to the

impeachment of President Clinton. One could argue that the impeachment

was, above all other factors, the reason Bush was able to keep close

enough to Gore in 2000 to let the Supremes do their thing. One wonders

if Linda Tripp will be the next Clinton crusader to be thrown under

the bus.

 

Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher frames the essential

strangeness of this Newsweek situation perfectly. " This is an

administration, " writes Mitchell, " that helped sell a war on

intelligence often based (as in Newsweek's case) on a single source.

Remember 'Curveball'? The mobile biological labs? Now McClellan

reminds the media about standards that 'should be met' before running

a story. Reporters at today's press briefing pressed McClellan on why

he now denounces the idea of articles based on a single source when he

routinely demands that they rely on just that in White House

backgrounders. Or as one put it, 'it sounds like you're saying your

single anonymous sources are okay and everyone else's aren't.' "

 

" But, really, " continues Mitchell, " you almost have to laugh when

administration officials get all huffy about the U.S. losing respect

in the Muslim world - and the fact that 'people have lost lives' -

because of the nugget in Newsweek, when this follows Abu Ghraib, the

confirmed deaths of dozens of prisoners in U.S. custody, the

outsourcing of torture to Egypt and other countries, not to mention

the killing of tens of thousands in Iraq in a war largely based on

bogus tips from unreliable sources. "

 

It takes an irate Scot to play the role of the dogged opposition

in the U.S. Senate, and it takes a Newsweek article by the guy who got

Clinton impeached to ruin America's reputation in a Muslim world

reeling from invasions, torture, rape and murder. Yes, you almost have

to laugh. It's either that, or start breaking things.

 

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally

bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't

Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence. Join the

discussions at his blog forum.

 

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