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Times Watch for 04/02/03
Don’t Second-Guess The War, Generals…That’s Our Job
The Times lead editorial on Wednesday, “Second-Guessing the War” sensibly points out that military criticism of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shows “an amazing amount of rancor for a war that is less than two weeks old and appears to have gone fairly well so far on the ground….In a free country at war, it is natural for the political conversation to focus on whether the military is using the right plan. But it does seem too early to make many judgments.”
Too bad the Times didn’t follow that sage counsel even earlier in the war. We could have been spared editorials like this one, from yesterday, entitled “The Death of Innocents”, concerning the accidental shooting of civilians in a van at an American checkpoint: “It wasn't supposed to be like this. The Bush administration had envisioned a different kind of invasion in Iraq, one that would flood the Arab world with pictures of American soldiers feeding hungry people and giving medical attention to sick children.”
Or this, from March 28, titled “The Vulnerable Supply Lines”, “American military leaders insist that supplies are getting through and that no shortages have developed to hinder operations at the front. But the potential for problems is there and is one reason for more gloomy assessments on the likely length of the war….Disturbingly, officials revealed that intelligence analysts had warned that the invasion would face stiff resistance from hard-core paramilitary units but that may have been overridden by the optimism of the Pentagon's political leadership.”
From March 25, “Diminished Expectations in Iraq,” with the war just a few days old: “It was the latest evidence that some of the initial hopes — even assumptions — that Iraqi resistance would quickly crumble seemed not to be panning out. The American and British military are prepared to fight a war against a resistant enemy, and they insisted yesterday that everything was on or ahead of schedule. But the public had reason to expect something different. The Bush administration had conveyed the impression that the Iraqi government was shaky, that much of the army was not likely to fight and that the Iraqi people would welcome the invasion force with cheers and flowers.”
Just In From Britain: Americans Still Ugly, Now “Clumsy,” “Helpless” Too
“Most Britons Back the War, but Mistrust How the U.S. Is Waging It,” by Sarah Lyall, for Wednesday’s Times, heralds the return of that old bugbear, American bravado: “Britons generally support the war in Iraq, in that they want Saddam Hussein removed from power. But there is a deep unease here about the way the war is being waged, with what many regard as a bluster and swagger both dangerously inappropriate and all too American.” Lyall’s sneer is almost audible: “Basing their accounts on interviews with British and American soldiers in the field, the papers have portrayed the Americans as Godzilla-like invaders, stumbling clumsily through foreign terrain, ill-prepared to the point of helplessness to reach out to the population they have pledged to liberate.”
Not to worry, though: The British are there to play good cop to America’s bad cop. “Many British soldiers see their job, it seems, as helping to heal the wounds inflicted by the Americans’ heavy-handed assault.” They do this, apparently, by going into Umm Qasr’s “now quiet city streets without flak jackets, wearing berets instead of helmets…in contrast to the Americans in their full combat gear and protective chemical warfare suits.” No offense to the British, who’ve proven themselves staunch allies, but given Iraqi terror tactics, a little discretion (and a helmet) might seem in American eyes to be the better part of valor.
Arab Volunteers for Hussein “Driven by Pride, Religion”
The inside headline of Neil MacFarquhar’s story on Arab volunteers for Saddam Hussein reads: “For Arabs Driven by Pride and Religion, the New Jihad Is in Iraq.” The story in Wednesday’s Times neglects to mention other ties that bind these Arab volunteers: A taste for terrorist tactics and anti-Semitism. MacFarquhar insists: “A combination of religious zeal and Arab nationalism drives the volunteers, plus no small amount of outrage and horror at the daily scenes of civilian carnage broadcast from Iraq.” MacFarquhar doesn’t mention the decade-long civilian carnage under Saddam Hussein, which Hussein ensures is never broadcast from Iraq.
The Columbia Professor that’s Pro-War…For Iraq
In “For a Future Soldier, Life on a Liberal Campus Can Be a Battle,” Times reporter Dan Barry takes a novel approach, portraying a pro-war Ivy League student as a campus rebel. But while his Wednesday story on a Columbia University student is mostly sympathetic, it also whitewashes the violent anti-American comments recently made by Columbia assistant professor Nicholas De Genova.
Barry writes: “It turns out that Ms. Pazmino, the future soldier, is a student of Nicholas De Genova, an assistant professor whose rhetorical wish for a ‘million Mogadishus’ and other antiwar comments have caused an uproar.” One of those “other antiwar comments,” as reported by the Associated Press: “The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military.” That’s not ‘antiwar’--that’s being for the other side.
Who’s Denying Due Process For Palestinians?
Jerusalem correspondent James Bennet thinks Israel and the U.S. are hypocrites for trying to crack down on Palestinian terrorism. His “Letter From The Middle East” Wednesday concerns Palestinian efforts to draw up a constitution in preparation for statehood: “[Palestinian leader Yasir] Arafat evidently prefers a weak judiciary. But past American and Israeli administrations have themselves demanded security crackdowns without much regard for securing for Palestinians the rights of due process that they prize at home.” As opposed to the vigorous due process the Palestinians currently enjoy under Arafat.
Republican Efforts To Muffle Dissent—Scurrilous or Not?
“Democrats also say the Republican effort to muffle dissent has been scurrilous, a strategy of impugning the patriotism of people who dare speak out against administration policy.” -- Carl Hulse in Wednesday’s Times
E-mail Times Watch Director, Clay Waters, with Times Watch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org