Useful Fools

If you mention the name Jane Fonda to those of us who are veterans of the Vietnam War, you will observe a visceral response of disgust, followed by words like traitor and hanging and others best not repeated. Jane Fonda went to Vietnam during that war and broadcast propaganda for the enemy, most notoriously smiling while being filmed pretending to operate an anti-aircraft gun, earning her the name “Hanoi Jane”. Hanoi Jane’s only mitigating factor is her intelligence, which is approximately that of a doorknob.

Now we have Peter Arnett broadcasting anti-American propaganda on Saddam’s TV network! Arnett reported that the coalition’s first war plan “had failed” because of “Iraq’s resistance” and said Americans are “trying to write another war plan.” He also credited reports of Iraqi resistance (i.e. deaths of Americans) with causing rising resistance against the war in the US (a total falsehood) and a rising challenge against President Bush (another total falsehood). Overall he gives the impression that the brave Iraqis are strongly resisting, defeating American plans and causing anti-war sentiment to rise significantly within the states.

Contrast this with the realities that will not be heard in the Arab world: the fastest military movement in history; the total dominance of the air and the use of weapons of extreme precision, harming very few civilians; the extremely lopsided casualty ratio; the many vile and vicious illegal tactics of the Iraqis; the history of horrible brutality by the Baathist regime.

Put yourself into the mind of a young, frustrated Arab in Lebanon or Syria, the Palestinian Territories, or other Arab countries. You have been exhorted to go to Iraq and martyr yourself. Maybe you are on the way there. You have been told that this is an imperialist invasion of “white people” vs “brown people” and infidels vs. muslims.

In addition to all the biased coverage you hear from Arab media, you now hear from an American reporter an interview that leaves you feeling that the Americans are losing.

What picture does this paint? Iraq needs resistance fighters. Such fighters may cause increased opposition to the war in the US, causing the US to withdraw. So you go to Baghdad, strap explosives to yourself, and blow up a few American soldiers!

Now imagine that you are an Iraqi military commander. The United States has been working very hard to get you to surrender. You have been considering it. Then you hear the Peter Arnett report and think better of it. If you surrender and the Americans don’t win, you and your family will be killed, horribly. This American reporter implies that the Americans might be losing their will and may quit. So you decide not to defect. The net result: some coalition soldiers die from your decision, and you and most of your men die.

Propaganda is one of the most important tools of this war. Peter Arnett knows this, and he knows that the US plans to use the truth in attempts to cause significant surrenders, saving potentially millions of Iraqi’s and hundreds to thousands of Americans and British.

Even knowing this, Peter Arnett helps the enemy counter our propaganda. This is the act of a traitor! Arnett has no excuse. He knows what he is doing… after all, he has done it before!

Peter Arnett is no better than Hanoi Jane. In some ways he is worse., although he hasn’t yet caused our POW’s to be abused, as she did. His reports during the first Gulf War were strongly biased towards Iraq.

Also, he was involved in an infamous 1998 CNN report accusing US Special Forces of using Sarin gas on a village to kill US defectors during the Vietnam War. This story was completely baseless, and even the leftish CNN reprimanded Arnett His job was temporarily saved by the Nuremberg defense: “I was just doing my job,”
although his contract subsequently was not renewed.

Peter Arnett is in Baghdad. He is proud to be the only western TV reporter allowed to stay by the vicious Hussein regime. The Special Forces have a serious grudge to settle with him over the Sarin gas lie. Let us hope he is still in Baghdad when they arrive… there would be an instance of “collateral damage” that few Amerians would shed a tear over.

If you feel like writing a letter, Peter Arnett works for both NBC (which is strongly backing Arnett) and National Geographic.

[Update 3/31 2105Z : Baghdad Pete has been fired by both NBC and National Geographic]

[Update: 4/1 0000Z: Baghdad Pete has been hired by the left wing Guardian UK

Listening to Col. David Hackworth on CNN, I am amazed at how consistently myopic he continues to be.

Hackworth is one of America’s most decorated soldiers, and proved in Vietnam that he was a courageous and deadly commander. His books are fascinating and moving (I highly recommend “Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts”).

However, he also proved that he could not see the larger picture when he turned against the Vietnam War in his poorly reasoned book “About Face”. He argued that the war was unwinnable, and yet shortly afterwards the war was won by Richard Nixon’s shift in tactics (the Haiphong mining, the Hanoi bombings, and continued Air Force aid to the ARVN). Only the subsequent perfidy of the US Congress led to the loss of Vietnam (hardly Hackworth’s argument, although ironically his widely publicized about face might have contributed to the political change).

Ever since he has been singing the same tune. The Pentagon (”perfumed princes” in his phrase) are always wrong. The troops are always being let down. The political leaders are always liars. The strategy is always stupid and he knows a better one.

Now he is saying exactly the same thing. He even brought up the old Vietnam saw about destroying a village in order to save it. We are a week into the war and all Hack can see is blunders by generals and civilian officials.

Hack is not always wrong. He certainly knows a lot about fighting and has a network of lower ranking officer informants. But it would be nice to hear him actually find something positive once in a while.

He has never demonstrated a strategic viewpoint. It is not surprising the he is a retired Colonel and not a retired General. Generals get paid to make and execute strategy. Colonels get paid to carry it out.

Last week I was pleased to discover that I could get live streaming feeds from the network cameras in Baghdad. These were available from CNN and ABC with a purchase from Real of their “RealOne SuperPass.”

This is a revolutionary concept. Rather than providing news as an editor sees fit, or even the live news from commentators, they were allowing the viewers to watch the raw news, totally unedited, as it happened.

So I signed up. My thought was to leave the video running on one of my monitors while I was working. And it was most interesting… yesterday’s bombing of the information ministry almost knocked me out of my chair as the normally quiet speaker suddenly came to life.

Unfortunately, it seems that neither CNN nor ABC understand the value of this service. Their edited, TV-on-the-web services appear quite reliable, while the live feed is not. ABC’s Baghdad camera hasn’t worked since yesterday. CNN’s Baghdad camera had no sound when I first tried it. Today, it had sound for a while, but it has stopped. Note that both of these feeds are from the same camera which is commonly seen on the news networks.

Obviously these old media companies don’t understand! Some of us would rather watch the news as it happens rather than only see what their editors select, when their editors choose. Haven’t they noticed the web-cam phenomenon over the last several years?

If the companies understood this new media, they would keep their live camera feeds working. They might even have more of them. They might experiment with ways to make money from this new media.

In spite of how government ministers and the press make it look, we have many friends in many countries. A long term friend of the US has been Canada, fighting with us most recently in Afghanistan, even though the current Liberal government has decreed that they will not be with us in Iraq.

To show their solidarity, many Canadians are planning a “Rally for America” for Toronto on Friday, April 4th.

What do the UN Security Council, Turkey and Cameroon have in common?

All were pressured by the French to obstruct the United States in its War on Terror.

France joined with us to give Iraq a last chance in Resolution 1441. Then they stabbed us in the back by preventing any subsequent enforcing resolution. In addition to promising their veto, they used active “persuasion” to get “no” votes from African countries (over which they have great influence, having invaded two in the last couple of months).

But worse, much worse was their behavior once the war started. France blackmailed Turkey into stopping the long promised passage of our troops into Iraq. They did so by threatening that Turkey’s allowing our troop passage would result in Turkey being locked out of Europe for a generation! This was a powerful threat, since Turkey has long been seeking entrance to the EU.

This is the act of an enemy. The last minute hobblng of our most modern armored division endangers our troops and their mission. It is betrayal in war! It is inexcusable, or as Michael Ledeen, who wrote this up says, it is “the diplomatic equivalent of chemical and biological war.”

So, what do you call the French? Friends? Certainly not. Friends do not sabotage your army during a war. Ally? Not a chance! Allies don’t either. Trading partner? Not much longer, as more Americans hear about this perfidy!

France, in fact, is a strategic enemy of the United States. It is no more friendly to us than mainland China! It is willing to engage in arrogant acts of treachery because of its narcissistic ambitions towards dominance of Europe. This is a danger to the United States, and France has proven that it will go to any lengths, including actions against our troops, to achieve it’s ends.

The United States should use all possible means to destroy the current French government and to defeat their aims. As individuals, we should boycott their goods, as individuals. Our nation should work to isolate France diplomatically. We should veto any UN Security council resolution authorizing France to meddle in Africa. We should make it difficult for French to visit the US, subjecting them to difficult visa requirements. We should use the CIA to actively sabotage their economic activities around the world (a tactic France uses anyway).