The squandered goodwill myth

Anne Applebaum sets things straight

Excerpt:

But it's also true that this initial wave of goodwill hardly outlasted the news cycle. Within a couple of days a Guardian columnist wrote of the "unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population". A Daily Mail columnist denounced the "self-sought imperial role" of the United States, which he said had "made it enemies of every sort across the globe".

That week's edition of Question Time featured a sustained attack on Phil Lader, the former US ambassador to Britain - and a man who had lost colleagues in the World Trade Centre - who seemed near to tears as he was asked questions about the "millions and millions of people around the world despising the American nation". At least some Britons, like many other Europeans, were already secretly or openly pleased by the 9/11 attacks.

And all of this was before Afghanistan, before Tony Blair was tainted by his friendship with George Bush, and before anyone knew the word "neo-con", let alone felt the need to claim not to be one.

The dislike of America, the hatred for what it was believed to stand for - capitalism, globalisation, militarism, Zionism, Hollywood or McDonald's, depending on your point of view - was well entrenched. To put it differently, the scorn now widely felt in Britain and across Europe for America's "war on terrorism" actually preceded the "war on terrorism" itself. It was already there on September 12 and 13, right out in the open for everyone to see.

I say:

I ran into it myself on Kur05hin, the days after 9-11. Sickening. It's one big part of why I refuse to give an airborne fornication what the "world" thinks of us. It's also why I oppose member moderation of posts. Member moderation is a mechanism for mob censorship. And I can tell you exactly what mob will exercise it.

Some people just aren't worth trying to make friends with. The cost is too high, the benefit too low, and the result far too transitory.


Angelfire link (turn off Javascript to avoid popups)

No Saddam al-Qeada link?

Not so fast, says Weekly Standard

Excerpts:

The committee's staff made little effort to determine whether or not the testimony of former Iraqi regime officials was truthful. In fact, Saddam Hussein and several of his top operatives--all of whom have an obvious incentive to lie--are cited or quoted without caveats of any sort...

Hijazi admitted to meeting bin Laden once in 1995, but claimed that "this was his sole meeting with bin Ladin or a member of al Qaeda and he is not aware of any other individual following up on the initial contact."

This is not true. Hijazi's best known contact with bin Laden came in December 1998, days after the Clinton administration's Operation Desert Fox concluded. We know the meeting happened because the worldwide media reported it. The meeting took place on December 21, 1998. And just days later, Osama bin Laden warned, "The British and the American people loudly declared their support for their leaders decision to attack Iraq. It is the duty of Muslims to confront, fight, and kill them."

THE MEDIA HAS ALSO BEEN QUICK to cite the report's conclusions concerning Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's relationship (or lack thereof) with Saddam's regime. But once again the committee's staff overlooked much contradictory evidence. The report concludes, "Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi."

The staff cites debriefings which support this conclusion, but do not give any weight at all to testimony which runs counter to it. For example, the Phase I Senate Intelligence report noted that a top al Qaeda operative named Abu Zubaydah "indicated that he heard that an important al-Qaida associate, Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi intelligence."

Zubaydah's testimony has since been further corroborated by a known al Qaeda ideologue, Dr. Muhammad al-Masari...

A cursory examination of Zarqawi's cell in Iraq reveals that many of his top operatives were once Saddam's military and intelligence officers. It appears, therefore, al-Masari's testimony should be taken seriously.

Yet, neither Abu Zubaydah's nor Al-Masari's statements are given any weight by the committee.


Angelfire link (turn off Javascript to avoid popups)

Washing their hands of the Plame affair

Well, it's recently been revealed that Plamegate was a fraud perpetrated by the prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. He knew all along that war doubter Armitage was behind the leak, but he pretended he had the goods on someone more in support of the Iraq intervention. So he cooked up the whole scandal. The New York Times and Washington Post were making hay of it. Now they're trying to distance themselves from it.

I don't suppose we'll see an apology from the mainstream media for this witch hunt. But let's never forget. And never let them live it down.

See, this sort of thing is why people don't trust the news anymore.


Angelfire link (turn off Javascript to avoid popups)