Wednesday, December 24, 2003/ New York
“Another Xmas and the corporate stockings are stuffed with the annual bonus checks. This has been quite a year all in all. An excellent year for news briefs with plenty of excitement, bombs exploding, daily episodes that were very often the result of Hollywood and not History.
The War in Iraq is a lot like driving over a cliff in your new car; thrilling until you stop at the bottom. Have we reached the bottom yet? No, but we are getting there faster than anyone wants.
Bush and his supporters have knocked over a serious hornet’s nest in the Middle East, and in Pakistan, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Europe. Their actions have initially caused some minor alarm that has rapidly developed into major panic.
The Arabs blew up the Trade Center because the U.S. gave blind support to Israel. The Arabs saw us as the financial supporter of their major enemy; an enemy that disposed them of their homes in 1948 (with the aid of the British and Americans) and also of many of their lives. Israel, backed unquestioningly by the US, has invaded their countries, their homes and done its best to destroy all the Arabs of Palestine. Discreetly at first and then with increasing boldness, the repression goes on.
With no sophisticated weaponry such as that possessed by America and Israel, the impoverished and embittered Arabs turned to suicide bombs and self-immolation, a certain sign of their end-game attitudes.
The duty of every national leader is to firstly concern himself with the well-being of his own country. The Bush people have not done this. Aside from some of the Bush cronies, the only entity that has profited from the turmoil; the destruction of Iraq and dispossession of Saddam Hussein, is the state of Israel.
We have removed one of their most dangerous enemies from their borders without a single IDF soldier being killed and at absolutely no expense to their treasury.
But now that Saddam is gone, the Israelis, and the Americans, have discovered that he has been replaced with a growing and very proficient Arab guerrilla movement. This movement, which shows no sign of abating, has taxed our troops to the limit with random and murderous attacks.
Gross ineptness on the part of the military command there has not won the hearts and minds of the Iraqi public but rather, by savage retribution against the civilian population has turned an entire country of millions of Arabs against our occupying troops.
Snipings, sabotage of the vital oil system, killing of Arabs that have cooperated with the U.S., to include revered religious leaders, random killings of GIs, destruction of the power infrastructure and a dozen other actions have created an intolerable strain not only in the U.S. military command but also inside Washington.
With the Neocon war party firmly in power, no suggestion of flexibility or compromise is possible. That the Neocons are all Jewish (and many of whom are actually Israeli citizens,) is becoming very clear to everyone, including, and very dangerously, the general public.
The role of the media, print and television, in this is mixed. On one level, the excitement of daily eruptions in Iran are good copy and produce fine ratings but the growing discontent, both among the ranks and also among the average citizens, is extremely dangerous in the long haul.
We in the media cannot be seen to attack the humble, brave and freedom-loving men in the field. The Bush Administration is just waiting for us to step over that line. On the other hand, it is no longer possible to simply ignore the growing storm and spend all of our time in lavishing praise on the Administration and parroting its memos. (Fox is by far and away the worst offender here. Murdoch gives sycophancy a very bad name indeed.
On the domestic scene, more and more is emerging about:
a. Bush’s probably foreknowledge of the 9/11 attack;
b. The growing problems not only in Iraq but possible eruptions and regime changes in a Pakistan that was bribed to support us;
c. A growing suggestion that vote fraud via deliberately defective electronic voting machines will revisit the terrible Florida election frauds in the Presidential elections;
d. The growing unhappiness, bordering on desperation, of the Administration about how it can put a lid on Iraq while at the same time preparing for probable other “shock and awe” attacks on the targets of the Neocon’s anger;
e. The actual number of the dead and, especially, the badly wounded troops in Iraq;
f. The growing “offshoring” of many hitherto “safe” middle class technical jobs to India, China and Singapore leaving tens of thousands of very apprehensive voters.
We are, I remind you, a business entity, not a charity or a blind supporter of lost causes. In light of this, I and many of my co-workers realize more and more that we will soon reach a point where we can no longer sit on the fence. We cannot run with the hares and hunt with the hounds at the same time and for myself, I would rather be a live hound than a dead rabbit!
The answer? We must find a consensus and very quickly. If, and I stress if, the public awakens from its hibernation and begins to growl in anger, we had all best have a simple and safe plan in place and it would be much better if we acted before we had to.
I would like your written opinions on this round robin on my desk no later than Monday, December 29th.
Let’s hope for a better New Year!”
http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a775.htm
For further perspective see:
Controlling the News Part 22
In-House Memos on Television And Print Media News Presentations
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?id=1200
Controlling the News Part 21
In House Memos on Television and Print Media News Presentation
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?id=1163
Bush Has to Go
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1150
Sensational Memos Lift the Lid on News Control
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?id=982