-Caveat Lector- Arab News SAUDI ARABIA'S FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE DAILY http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=21505
New hate figures and oil revenues By Robert Fisk Published on 28 December 2002 Who would have believed, a year ago, that it would be the beardless features of Saddam Hussein we’d have to hate rather than the unshaven Osama bin Laden? When did it take place, this transition from “the evil one” (Newsweek) to the Beast of Baghdad? As usual, our newspaper and television journalists connived at it all. Wasn’t it their job to point out that something funny was going on? Wasn’t it the task of reporters to say: hang on, I thought the enemy was Bin Laden — you’ve just changed the picture? But no. Osama faded from our screens, to be replaced by Saddam. Our enemy no longer lived in Afghan caves, but on the banks of the Tigris. And instead of graphics of Afghan mountains and Al-Qaeda networks, we got stories of weapons of mass destruction and human rights abuses in Iraq. I recall a similar phenomenon more than a decade ago. Saddam had been our hate figure ever since he invaded Kuwait, but we had driven the Iraqis out of the emirate and, all of a sudden, Gen. Colin Powell turned up in northern Iraq — the Kurdish bit we had decided to save rather late in the day — talking about “Iraqi officials”. I was at Powell’s press conference that day, and I asked him why he no longer mentioned Saddam. And he just shrugged his shoulders and went on talking about “Iraqi officials”. Saddam had been airbrushed out of the US administration’s script — just as he was written back in, center stage, earlier this year. So I owe it to Professor Robert Alford of the City University of New York Graduate Center, who enlightened me about the mystical transition the Americans accomplished. A series of tables he has drawn up show something remarkable: that the “Iraq” story started growing — and the Osama saga diminishing — just as the Enron scandal broke. Back in January, Enron was receiving 1,137 “mentions” in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, and Iraq only 200. Iraq stories grew almost 100 percent by early spring as Enron mentions declined by 50 percent to 618. After a dip in early summer, Iraq soared to 1,529 mentions, with Enron down to 310. Remarkable, isn’t it, how you can clear a messy economic scandal off the front pages by renaming your hate figure? Of course, it’s also a good idea to change hate figures when your closest ally, Israel, is in danger of producing one in the form of Ariel Sharon. If we hadn’t had Bin Laden and Saddam to worry about, we might all have been taking a closer look at Sharon, the man who greeted the slaughter of one Hamas man and nine children in Gaza as “a great success”. We might also have been taking a closer look at his involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 when — as is now clear — more than a thousand male survivors of the original massacre were handed back by the Israeli Army to the Phalangist mass murderers. But the failure of a few survivors to prosecute Sharon in Brussels scarcely made a headline. Then there was the Middle East peace conference that was going to take place this summer. Colin Powell announced just that in the spring. But it never happened. The “peace” conference vanished, just like Bin Laden. And we never even asked why. In a new world of secrecy, we don’t bother to do that. And oddly, that’s what this past year has produced: a kind of lethargy about the tragedy of the Middle East, a failure to respond to real injustice and occupation and misery. Instead, we are allowing ourselves to wander off to war in Iraq. So let’s go back — post-Enron — to the UN arms inspectors. They got into Iraq and — horror — didn’t find a single microbe. Then we had to get our hands on Iraq’s weapons manifesto. And when it arrived — all 12,000 pages — we complained there was too much of it. The Americans — who would have screamed foul if Saddam had handed over a mere 10 pages — announced that it was a “blizzard”, a deliberate attempt to obscure what we all knew to be true but couldn’t actually find out; that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. At which point, the Americans simply hijacked the whole document because — so we were informed — they had better security with photocopying machines and faster translators. This, remember, from the country that failed to warn us about Sept. 11 because — yes — the interpreters couldn’t translate Arabic fast enough. It was also the year of “regime change”. Not just Saddam’s, but Yasser Arafat’s too. Arafat must go, his corrupt regime replaced by a state-of-the-art democracy amid the ruins left by Israel’s air raids. Or so we were told. Bush’s decision that Arafat had to pack up ensured that the old man would be re-elected the following month. But when the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld referred to the “so-called” occupied territories — presumably thinking that the soldiers all over the West Bank were Swiss — it looked as if the US administration had lost its grip on Middle East reality. So let’s talk oil. Bush was an oil man. Vice president Cheney was an oil man. Condoleezza Rice was an oil lady. And we owe it to The New York Times’ most right-wing columnist, William Safire — well connected to both the Bush administration and, personally, to Ariel Sharon — to learn what all this means. In a remarkable article in October, he gave the game away about our forthcoming war in Iraq. “The government of New Iraq,” he wrote, “... would reimburse the United States and Britain for much of their costs in the war and transitional government out of future oil revenues and contracts...” The evolving democratic government of New Iraq “would repudiate the corrupt $8 billion ‘debt’ Russia claims was run up by Saddam...” Far more disturbing for President Putin of Russia, according to Safire, would be “the heavy investment to be made by the US and British companies that will sharply increase the drilling and refining capacity of the only nation [Iraq] whose oil reserves rival those of Russia, Saudi Arabia and Mexico”. I wonder if we will remember that when we go to war in the next month or so? Certainly we won’t be talking about Enron. (The Independent) Arab News Opinion 28 December 2002 Copyright © 2002 ArabNews All Rights Reserved. A<:>E<:>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Forwarded as information only; everything sent has to stand on its own merits, not on my recommendation. Dissenting ideas are the health of the American system. A<:>E<:>R + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it." The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "War is the health of the state. It automatically sets in motion throughout society these irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense." RANDOLPH BOURNE (1886-1918) in War and the Intellectuals + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." --- Ernest Hemingway <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
