Troubled Times

I will try to sort all this out in the morning (Aussie time). In the meantime...

Lemme tell y'all somthing, Thanksgiving sure means a lot to people in Bush's USA.

The story that Bush planned to bomb al-Jazeera surfaced towards the end of last week and already a lot of people were into the vacation mindset. Over the weekend it has just about died in the US media. Fortunatly, the rest of the world is still awake (HEY AMERICA! THERE ARE A LOT OF US OUT HERE!)

And how big is Thanksgiving? Only 200 people turned out to support Cindy Cheehan's protest in Crawford. Hey, it was raining - bwah hah! LISTEN: This is why Bush is winning.

By the way, do you know what Bush's designer ranch is called? "Prairie Chapel" - now how sick is that for a political prop?

OK first up is Bush's Coalition Of The Token Effort:

About 177,000 foreign troops are in Iraq, the Coalition Press Information Center in Baghdad said yesterday. The vast majority, more than 155,000, are US forces. Britain contributes the next largest contingent, with 10,000 soldiers responsible for security in southern Iraq.

South Korea has 3,200 troops providing logistics in southern Iraq; Italy has 3,000 troops in the southern city of Nasiriyah training Iraqi police and building infrastructure; and 450 Australian soldiers provide security for the Japanese and help to train Iraq security forces.

The rest of the 27 nations that are part of the Multinational Forces are mostly made up of smaller contingents, some as small as a few dozen soldiers. They are either training Iraqis, working on specific rebuilding projects, or acting as liaisons.

So take out the USA and the UK and you have some 12,000 troops. Take away the Koreans and Italians and you have only 5,800.

Silvio Berlusconi is up to his ears in the Nigergate forgeries, while Korea has a self-interest in maintaijning support from the USA in case Kim Jong-il finally loses it completely. What's left? Just about nada. A handful of scared politicians hedging their bets. Remember, the coalition had 37 countries at its peak.

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From the right-wing UK Telegraph:

Tony Blair yesterday branded as a "conspiracy theory" claims that a leaked memo has revealed plans by President George W Bush last year to bomb the Arabic television station al-Jazeera.

People who have seen the document say the real reason that it is being suppressed by the Government is because it contains a potentially damaging private discussion between the two leaders about the controversial United States attack on the Iraqi city of Fallujah last year.

Mr Blair sought to play down the memo yesterday, despite the fact that two men, accused over its leaking, are to appear in court this week facing charges under the Official Secrets Act. He also shrugged off a request from the managing director of al-Jazeera, Wadah Khanfar, for a meeting. Mr Blair was speaking at the Commonwealth summit in Malta, where he has been locked in trade talks with African leaders.

Looking tired, he appeared to lose his cool when asked about reports claiming that the memo showed him talking Mr Bush out of mounting an air raid on al-Jazeera. "Look, there's a limit to what I can say - it's all sub judice," he said. "But honestly, I mean, conspiracy theories…"

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Some close detail from the Guardian:

The status of the now infamous five-page document concerning the meeting between Bush and Blair, on 16 April last year, has already reached mythic proportions among bloggers on the internet. It is the smoking gun to end all smoking guns, claim conspiracy theorists, who believe it details everything from an agreed date to pull the troops out, to plans to take the one-time rebel stronghold of Fallujah.

The one indisputable fact, though, is that part of the memo - 10 lines to be precise - concerns a conversation between Bush and Blair regarding Al Jazeera, the Arabic satellite television station that the US accuses of being a mouthpiece for al-Qaeda.

The author wonders:

Why is the most powerful man in the world worried about a 24-hour news organisation?

Salah Hassan, an Al Jazeera camerman, was arrested by US forces in November 2003, while filming the aftermath of an attack on a US convoy near the city of Baquba. Following his arrest he was surprised to discover he had been trailed by US troops for weeks and had been secretly photographed at the scene of other attacks. When he was interrogated, he was accused of having prior knowledge of attacks on coalition forces.

At the heart of the accusation is the fundamental tension between journalists - largely Arab reporters catering for an Arab audience - who say they are anxious to cover the story from both sides, and a United States that regards reporting on some aspects of the insurgency as tantamount to collaboration with terrorism.

And there you have it. Questioning the Bush administrations use of intelligence leadin up to the war is tnatamount to terrorosim. Reporting on the "other side" of the war is tantamount to terrorism. You are either with us or against us - which part don't you unnerstand?

There is only one thing that the Rove-Cheney-Bush administration has ever been able to do well, and that is SPIN. The War in Iraq is not merely another propaganda war like Vietnam, it is a Spin War. Mere news is not enough, facts are not enough, even massive public support (at the onset) is not enough. The real trick is to spin the story from one point to another and then another, so that you can actually chart a course and follow it by deliberate spinning.

Problem is, the rest of the world doesn't believe a word of it.

* * *

The Sunday Times calls it death by a thousand leaks:

Retired generals, SAS soldiers, Downing Street aides, diplomats and spies are queueing up, eager for profit or revenge. Blair will pay dearly for his lavish entourage of cronies and his contempt for discreet civil servants.

I think the fact that the UK newspapers have taken the lead in revealing the dirty secrets of the Bush-Blair conspiracies is no coincidence. Murdoch controls the right-wing papers in the UK, which are foaming at the mouth in an attempt to get at Tony Blair. Finally they have some red meat in sight and Murdoch can't hold them back.

But it's still passing strange that Blair's Labour government is even involved in such an adventure. I mean, compare left-wing Blair to all the other right-wing nut-case administrations in Iraq: Howard, Berlusconi or the former Spanish right-wingers...

And it is not just the press, of course. Right-wing politicians see the Iraq War debacel as a great chance to score personal points. Good news is that Blair is now facing a full-scale parliamentary inquiry into the Iraq war - including its justification, conduct and aftermath. That's exactly what Bush has been struggling to avoid.

Leading opposition figures from the Conservative, Liberal-Democratic, Scottish National and Plaid Cymru (Welsh) parties have banded together to back the cross-party motion titled "Conduct of Government policy in relation to the war against Iraq" to demand that the case for an inquiry be debated in the House of Commons. They seem assured of the 200 signatures required to get such a debate -- and then the loyalty of Blair's dismayed and disillusioned Labor members of Parliament will be sorely tested.

"This apparently modest motion may be the iceberg toward which Blair's Titanic is sailing," said Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond.

Labor Party rebels have already inflicted one unprecedented defeat on Blair in this parliamentary session, and on the issue of Iraq, he commands little confidence. One leading Labor rebel, Alan Simpson, MP for Nottingham, has already signed on to the motion.

It reads: "This House believes there should be a select committee of seven Members, being Members of Her Majesty's Privy Council, to review the way in which the responsibilities of government were discharged in relation to Iraq and all matters relevant thereto in the period leading up to military action in that country in March, 2003 and in its aftermath."

And from the same article, here is a little gem of reporting that should be included in all US journalism courses:

Confidences well kept are a sign of sound leadership. When discipline crumbles it is a sign of decay...

The job of the press is to test this discipline, not respect it. Disclosure of the processes of government is its “public interest”. As secrecy aids the blood flow of those in power, so combating it aids those seeking to improve the flow of public debate. Presented with a scoop, the reporter does not stop and ask whether it might embarrass a prime minister. Embarrassment starts from the moment the reporter knows it, for his task is to pass what he knows into the public domain...

Secrets that government cannot keep, it cannot expect others to keep for it.

(I'm sure Murdoch's Times reporters will remember that if another Conservative government ever rises to power).

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The funny thing is that events on the UK side of the Atlantic seem to filter through to the US via a very xenophobic filter. By the time it breaks in US media (it takes a few days, at least), a scandal like this is already old news to those who care. And already dismissed by those who don't care.