G�day. I�m off to Canberra tomorrow to get the vibe of federal politics in the last session before the pre-budget break. Tonight, discussion on how reporters might penetrate the endless dishonest spin of the government. Tonight�s contributions on the Iraq/Spain terror debate are pro-war or responding to pro-war emails. It feels like people really want to think this stuff through.
Brian Long recommends the Boston Globe�s The Bushes’ new world disorder. A taste:
�In America, the new order of things is defined mainly by the sour taste of moral hangover, how the emotional intensity of the 9/11 trauma – anguished but pure – dissolved into a feeling of being trapped in a cage of our own making. As the carnage in Madrid makes clear, the threats in the world are real and dangerous to handle, but one US initiative after another has escalated rather than diffused such threats. Instead of replacing chaos with new order, our nation’s responses inflict new wounds that increase the chaos. We strike at those whom we perceive as aiming to do us harm but without actually defending ourselves. And most unsettling of all, in our attempt to get the bad people to stop threatening us, we have begun to imitate them.�
Philip Gomes has found a site allowing the world�s citizen�s to vote on who they�d like to be US president: Virtual election.
Webdiarist Matt Walker does flash do-ups: “My personal way of dealing with Howard and Co….. take the piss.” Here’s a sample: education, aggrudda, block, mars, hoax, overboard.
I�ve asked Antony Loewenstein to write a new column called Engineering consent, on the media and its machinations. Coming soon. Here�s a new Webdiarist, by Gary Le Clerc, on reporting political spin:
Interviewing politicians is not easy, especially given that so many have been lawyers in a past life, trained to lie/deceive in the interests of their clients. This skill is an unfortunate side-effect of Australia’s adversarial legal system, where truth is less important than persuading a jury, but is not useful to the community when employed by our political representatives.
In this political game, every word is important. When lying/deceiving, it is vital to include qualifiers so that future ‘plausible deniability’ is not endangered.
Then there is the pejorative term, carefully thought through in advance, and endlessly repeated in ‘on message’ sound-bites. Some obvious examples: ‘queue-jumpers’, ‘illegals’, ‘job snobs’, ‘un-Australian’, ‘elites’.
I am constantly disappointed by the instant acceptance by journalists/reporters of patently fatuous sound-bite words and phrases designed to distort meaning rather than to enhance it. Within hours of the original being spouted, we are treated to this ‘spin-bite’ being adopted and casually repeated (without quote-marks!) by sundry media outlets. These insults to our intelligence are compounded by journalists including these terms in their subsequent questions to the perpetrators (how satisfying that must be!).
Another point of despair for the quality of journalism is the apparent widespread inability of interviewers to recognise these qualifiers and call the interviewee to account on the spot. Interviewing media-savvy politicians is a very difficult task, as they are intent on re-framing every question into a ‘Dorothy Dixer’ and ‘staying on message’. The rarest skill in interviewers is the art of listening to the answers, rather than using that time to focus on what the next question will be. One of the most impressive interviewers of politicians in my experience was author Ramona Koval when she filled the drive-time slot on ABC Radio National (10 years ago?). It was a joy to hear answers being intelligently discussed rather than routinely ignored. A politician’s reputation (and that of his/her party) can be enhanced through such discussion… the sky doesn’t have to fall in.
For many years, I mistakenly believed that the reason political interviews were such a pointless, uninformative exercise was that interviewers were not asking the right questions. Eventually, it dawned on me that the politicians don’t really care how ‘hard’ the question is, because they are confident that their grab-bag of techniques will enable them to transform it into something unrecognisable they can then ‘answer’.
I am pleading for journalists to, firstly, call attention to politicians’ qualifiers on the spot, not leave it to some opinion column down the track. Secondly, treat spin-terms with the distrust they deserve by either not repeating them or, at least, putting them in quotes. An example: Howard: �Look, I can assure you there has been no improper communications in relation to the role of the Police Commissioner…� The next question could be: �You said ‘improper communications’, could you describe the proper communications in relation to the role of the Police Commissioner that have taken place?� (See Alan Ramsey�s column Bad call of a Keystone Cop routine.)
Even if there is a droning meaningless response or ‘no comment’, the qualifier ‘improper’ has been highlighted and people can focus more closely on Howard’s word plays. When an interviewer ignores a qualifier and moves on, that is a tacit acceptance, thus giving the answer more credibility than it deserves.
Another classic is ‘formal advice’. This is fondly regarded by lawyer-politicians as they can later define it in the narrowest terms if things get messy. It’s worth pondering the myriad of ‘informal advice’ methods which people who don’t work in these rarefied worlds would consider as perfectly normal, accountable advice � verbal briefing, written memo, file note on non-letterhead paper, memo sighted and initialed but addressed elsewhere, margin note… you get the picture.
One of many variations on a theme: Ruddock: �I have no formal recollection of any of those discussions which I am prepared to discuss�.
How is it possible to do one’s job competently or professionally if one doesn’t know certain key facts relevant to said job? Why isn’t more made of this when politicians shamelessly plead ignorance. Ignorance is not a defence.
As a side issue, one of Downer’s favoured techniques when things get rough appears to be along the lines of ‘I find that question offensive’, but I digress.
I thought it instructive in the pre-amble to the invasion of Iraq a year ago that throughout every level of society there was a lively debate as to whether Australia should take part or not. That debate cut across all boundaries, be they family, social or political. There was one group of individuals, however, who apparently had no (public) doubts or variations in opinion – the Liberal Party MP’s in Canberra. This was truly remarkable, and says a great deal about how far spin control and party discipline/bullying has come.
The examples used relate only to the happenstance that the Liberal Party rules the day. Spin increases with increased responsibility, ie the party in power. Labor also appalls me with its behaviour.
Finally, what about the party politician who accidentally (or not) says something truthful in public? Apart from the career-threatening anger of his/her boss, there is all too often the observation from well-known political commentators that the politician should have lied, or else ridicule at his/her political ineptness. How about some positive acknowledgement? The saddest part of this sorry tale is that the media eats alive any politician who does this. This treatment is kindergarten stuff and it stifles political debate in this country. It’s as if many journalists see the same world out there as the politicians…
MARGO: Politicians get trained in how to answer media questions, often by journalists! They�ve got us pegged � now we need training of journalists on how to break the spin.
When Michael Wooldridge was health minister and engulfed in the MRI scandal, he made the startling admission in Parliament that when a politician says �to the best of my recollection� he actually means he�s sure he won�t get caught out.
You can tell when John Howard has run out of plausible spin when he refuses to comment on a matter of public importance. I�d like journalists to start calling this play for what it is � an admission.
Alan Ramsey gives this example from the Keelty scandal, in an interview on Adelaide ABC radio:
Q: Prime Minister, did your office urge AFP Commissioner Keelty to issue a clarification over his remarks linking the Madrid bombings to Spain’s involvement in Iraq?
Howard: I’m not going to comment.
Why not? – Because I’m not commenting on it. You can’t say whether Mr Keelty’s statement on Tuesday was made after a request from your office? – I don’t have any comment on those matters. He made a statement, the statement speaks for itself. I really don’t have anything further to say.
But isn’t it legitimate for Australians to know whether there was any pressure applied from a political office on a law officer?
Look, I can assure you there has been no improper communications in relation to the role of the Police Commissioner. We totally respect his complete authority and independence in relation to confidential operational police matters.”
But if you don’t tell us whether or nor that contact was made…?
I am telling you there has been nothing improper.
During the height of the SIEV-X debate, I pressed Howard to provide the evidence on which he repeatedly claimed during the 2001 election that SIEV-X did not sink in international waters, and was thus outside Australia�s intensive surveillance zone during �Operation Relex�. The background is at SIEV-X: Another bombshell. Here�s his response to my attempt to get the truth at a press conference:
Are you now able to advise where you got the information on or before the 23rd of October that SIEV-X sank in Indonesian waters?
PRIME MINISTER: I haven’t got anything to add to what I�ve said.
But you recall that I asked you this question last week and you said that you’d have to check.
Well I’m telling, you I don’t have anything to add to what I’ve said.
So you’re not able to advise –
I’m telling you I’m not adding anything to what I’ve said.
Why not Mr Howard?
Because I’m not adding anything to what I’ve said.
What�s your reason for it? I’m not adding anything to what I’ve said.
Howard is tacitly admitting he had no evidence – that he lies over the bodies of 353 people. But this tactic works because traditional �news judgment� doesn�t allow the reporting of such stonewalling prominently, or at all. I suggest a daily update for newspaper readers on the questions they WON�T answer, and why that might be.
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THE WAR DEBATE
Mike Dean in Houston, Texas, USA.
It’s been nearly 3 years since 9/11. Previous attacks by terrorism on the US were never addressed by the Clinton administration. After 9/11, the Bush administration decided that it was time to declare a ‘war on terrorism’. I personally think it was appropriate.
Since that moment, there has been a worldwide movement condemning this ‘war’. Most definitely in the press, of whom you belong to.
I have been in a position to have observed the daily press briefings, and ‘alerts’ firsthand, etc. So I have observed the questions and accusations the press ask of officials. These guys are no lightweights. They have an agenda.
First up, Afghanistan (and Iraq later)….. “quagmire”, “Viet Nam”, etc. The press was very solid. They did not want success, but it happened. Afghanistan is a free nation today, although in it’s infancy.
Every other effort, from freezing assets to arresting terrorists, to trying to bring certain nations into helping to reduce terrorism has been fought ‘tooth and nail’ by journalists.
Now Iraq. Hussein, a known supporter of terrorism and all else…. I don’t need to go into ANY detail as only a fool would not know what a S.O.B. he was. The press is, once again, against his removal. Or, more likely, the US removal of him.
Two questions. Why are so many in the press, yourself included, seemingly so ‘against’ removing terrorism from this world? Why do the forces of good have to fight you as well as terrorism?
I’m very unhappy about this, and as this is the 1 year anniversary of the liberation of Iraq, the Iraqis are free now, and there STILL is a concerted effort to remove coalition forces from Iraq. Why? Help me to understand this. Please, I’m desperate for a useful explanation.
A very, very evil tyrant has been removed. Do you think Iraqis were better off with Saddam?
MARGO: The bottom line of the debate is whether invading Iraq has made the world a safer or more dangerous place. The world is split on this, with most world leaders bar the Anglo-leaders believing the war has increased the risk of terror, not reduced it. The journalist’s role is to test what our leaders tell us, for its truth and its reasoning.
***
Russell Dover in Canberra
HR’s email in Spain aftershock: your say is the response lefty rhetoric on the Iraq war really needs in order to dig out the confusion and inconsistency that plagues the anti-war position.
I am vehemently anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-Howard. However, a few things that HR said rang true. One was that the Iraq war was always about destroying a violent, despotic regime, and that surely it’s a good thing to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and all the other violent tinpot dictators around the world who brutalise and torture their citizens.
Well, it’s a great idea, in theory. If there are bad guys in the world, well, use the West’s superior firepower to throw them out, and free their people!
It’s never been that simple, unfortunately. While the US has certainly gotten rid of Saddam Hussein because they are the world champions at winning conventional war with messy, overwhelming brute force, they are incompetent when it comes to nation-building. I mean mind-numbingly, catastrophically foolish. They have no hope of winning the peace on their own. Which is why they are now begging the UN to save Iraq from the mess that the US created, before the US elections, so George Bush can pretend that he had a UN mandate all along, and win the election.
To get back to HR, though, this enigmatic character’s email was glaringly different from the usual right-wing emails to Webdiary. It wasn’t just a tired parroting of something John Howard said to Alan Jones, and it didn’t seem cut-and-pasted from The Australian.
This strange beast contained an original thought! The reference to Tony Blair’s hopeful comments about invading other countries to free their people, and how we’ve all thought that’s a good idea for at least a little while, is not something you’d hear from the current government.
Far from being divisive, HR actually seems to want people to work together in fighting global terrorism, whereas the Howard government doesn’t bother to hide the fact that it exists solely to win the next election, by any means necessary.
We on the left need to stop listening to our idiots who tell us to immediately withdraw from Iraq, leaving the country to slide into its own little hellhole of civil war. Just as the right needs to stop listening to their idiots, who say that the way to beat terrorism is with M1 Abrams tanks.
We need to start actually listening to people like HR, because while we may disagree with what s/he says, at least HR argues on a logical basis, and doesn’t just regurgitate a tired “Everything we say is right, you losers” government line.
Talking, rationally and thoughtfully, with an open mind, with the “other side” of the political arena is the only way we are going to beat Howard’s wedge politics. It is the only way that we can bring Australia out of the hole we’ve dug with our ignorance, fear, and credulity.
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Tim Gillin in Kensington, Sydney
Left and liberal critics of the war on terrorism would have more credibility if they outlined a realistic alternative strategy to defeat terrorism. It’s no good sniping from the sidelines.
History books tell us that wars are messy, chaotic and even nations fighting just causes make horrid moral mistakes and battlefield blunders. Dresden and the largely unprovoked allied mass murders of German and Japanese civilians with night aerial bombardment come to mind. I am making an unremarkable assumption here that the war against Hitler was something of a just cause, even if “victory” merely meant that Stalin beat Adolf to the top the list of 20th century’s bloodiest tyrannts.
We may as well have thrown the towel in after contemplating the moral fine points of Churchill’s sinking of the French fleet at Oran. And what about John Curtin’s illegal pre-emptive invasion of the peaceful and neutral territory of Portugese East Timor in 1942? Time honoured international law rejected due to national security considerations. Doesn’t that make Labor’s national hero a war criminal with the blood of about 60,000 East Timorese on his hands? Morally Curtin’s Timor was probably worse than Kissinger in Cambodia – at least the Viet Cong were actually using the Khymer Kingdom as an invasion route into South Vietnam before the USA-ARVN invasion. Nixon wasn’t pre-empting anyone.
The liberal left has yet to tell us how they are going to eliminate (kill) terrorists and their support networks. They have so far winced out.
Invading Iraq may have been the biggest mistake since the British Empire decided to squash the Boer republics. But pulling out of Baghdad now will not revise last year’s mistakes. Reversing over a pedestrian you previously hit will not restore him to health. History gives us no simple way out.
Withdrawl would most likely spark a bloody racial and religious civil war. And whatever brave steps the Iraqis have made under American rule towards freedom of speech and public debate – the core of democracy – whilst coping with occupation, lawlessness and brutal terror would certainly be drowned in blood.
And however incompetent the Bush administration most certainly is, the cynical merry-go-round of the UN, where security council votes are essentially swapped and auctioned, is even more incompetent, immoral and unaccountable. At least US voters will have the opportunity to sack Bush if his adventure goes pear shaped.
One gets the feeling that those leftoids who “accept that we all want to fight terrorism”, think they could do it without getting their hands or consciences dirty. History books also tell us that guerilla wars are generally dirty wars. Britain used internment in Northern Ireland. And France’s use of torture and summary executions in the Algerian War made Guantanamo look like a holiday camp. The war against terrorism will have to get a lot dirtier if it is indeed to be won.
The left love to tell us how much more morally sophisticated they are than Bush, Howard and Blair. The reality is however that the Clinton – Blair left’s vision of global humanitarian interventionism is barely distinguishable from the Bush – Blair right’s vision of preventing terror.
Indeed it may have been Clinton’s green light for the covert shift of Arab “Afghans” to Kosovo that truly turned Al Quaeda into an international threat (Cross-border terrorism: a mess made by the West ).
Sure we found no WMDs in Iraq, but wasn’t the same line propagated through the 1990s by Clinton, Hawke and even Keating? At least Fraser and former “neo-liberal” Liberal leader John Hewson signed a letter of protest against US invasion without UN approval. Keating and Crean refused to sign.
And surely the mass graves of Yugoslavia were similarly sexed up. As Phillip Knightley said:
“The American government (Clinton) decided that 500,000 Kosovar Albanians missing, feared dead, was an impressive figure and this was the one issued by the State department on 19 April. The US defence secretary, William Cohen, reduced this on 16 May to 100,000. “We’ve now seen about one hundred thousand military-aged men missing,” he told CBS News. “They may have been murdered.” The British government said on 17 June that the Serbs had killed 10,000 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in more than 100 massacres and this is the figure Robin Cook insists is still correct… The (Red Cross) says now that 2,700 Albanians are missing, repeated missing, as a result of the conflict in Kosovo and it actually has their names..”
Presumably some imperialist lies are politically correct and others aren’t. The left’s selective fury over the Iraq invasion whilst giving silent complicity to equally illegal invasions in Yugoslavia is sheer humbug. Spare us the moral high horse stuff.
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Shaun O’Brien
Shaun wrote Missive from a critic last week, provoking responses in Spain and Australia: the parallels. Here he goes again.
After receiving what I thought was a tame response by fellow Webdiary readers, I shall press ahead with a further look at the issues surrounding the War on Terror. Even though I am just a layman in terms of detailed knowledge, I feel I can articulate some interesting thoughts that can be mulled over.
A few ideas spring to mind when looking at how we have arrived at these horrific events and how we can try to minimise future terror incidents. I take a simplistic view but then I feel that a simpler view creates an atmosphere where a solution can be found. Make a problem seem too complex and then noone can feel that they can fix it.
Why has the Middle East been a source of troubles for the last century? Without doubt oil is a major cause. It’s not the product per se but the treatment of the countries and their peoples who have the precious commodity from oil users. Ever since oil became the driving force of developed nations its importance has seen the subservience of the “lucky” occupiers of the Middle East. To western nations the ability to receive black gold without supply or pricing problems was the only consideration, regardless of how many Middle East people were trodden on.
The next problem was the creation of Israel. Before I’m criticised as anti-Jewish, the creation of Israel and the continued mistreatment by western nations of Arab countries are part of the main reason why the Middle East is in so much trouble: LACK OF RESPECT!
If you were your average Arab citizen and saw that your country’s wealth was being bled by greedy Western Nations and their puppet rulers as well as (let’s not beat about the bush here) loathed Jews given territory to form a new nation supported by those western nations then you can see why the hatred began.
Add further fuel to the flames over the next decades with Lebanon, the Palestinians and the 6 Day War and still the Arab nations did not earn respect from the nations that were happily raping and pillaging their natural resources, the very resources which move the west further and further ahead in terms of individual and collective wealth. Arab history for most of human existence been a source of strength and power except for the last 100 or 200 years so to lose that respect when you are standing on the world’ driving liquid is a powerful kick to the unmentionables.
Add to that the religious angle and again another source of anguish through a perceived/actual lack of respect by Christian nations to Islam and here we are today.
Respect is a funny thing. We think in terms of gaining or earning respect through good deeds, hard work, strength and abilities under pressure etc. I am not referring to the respect that some people believe they have achieved purely because of money, power or influence, which isn’t respect at the end of the day. The terrorists believe that another form of respect can be achieved by using FEAR. When all forms of activity over the years have failed to achieve one ounce of respect from Western Nations then the only one left is fear.
But like all other activities that earn respect it is not everlasting. And the other problem is that only like minded people see terror activities as capable of earning respect and not the actual people who are the targets – for them fear will always be fear and will never turn into respect.
So the use of terror tactics is usually a failure in the long term except when people have had enough of being the target – this depends on the fortitude of those at the pointy end of terror (the Israelis seem to have a high threshold).
Also terror is a hard thing to let go for those who wield it, like any form of power.
Can this lack of respect be undone? Yes, at a large cost to the West. It means that oil should be totally under the control of the countries that have it without external influences. The US should remove its presence from the Arab world in a militarily sense forthwith. But in doing that it should have a huge stick ready for any intervention if any of the Middle Eastern countries see that they would like to conquer weaker states or would like to have a go at Israel.
And speaking of Israel an immediate resolution to the Palestinian problem should be the priority, with recognition of Israel’s right to exist by Arab nations. No if or buts!
The US and other Western nations should then put in, without ties, funds to the Arab nations to bring these nations up to the standard that is enjoyed by ourselves. As far as the religious problems I feel that elevating problems at the grass root level by providing better economic opportunities goes hand in hand with less religious fanatism.