wrbones
04-14-03, 06:44 AM
"Lies, More Lies, and CNN's Lies"
Posted by Marc J. Rauch
Monday, April 14, 2003
As I opined in a recent essay, the first lesson that has hopefully been learned from the Iraq War is that the treacherous and cowardly acts perpetrated by Saddam Hussein and his goons are the same nefarious tactics that Israel has had to contend with for the past hundred years in order to defend themselves and build a homeland.
The second lesson that should be learned from the war is the extent to which lies have been told to protect the Arab governments and regimes.
Over the years, the world has heard from an incredible coterie of fraudulent Arab leaders and spokespersons who seem to grossly distort every fact and event related to the history of their people; not to defend themselves and their homelands against an aggressor that doesn't exist, but to defend their unjustified aggression against the Jewish State, as well as the atrocities that they commit each and every day against their own Muslim brothers and sisters.
On the leader side of the liar-ledger there was Haj Amin al-Husseini, Gamel Abdel Nasser, Hafez al-Assad, and there still is Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein (although whether Hussein is a is or was is still in question). Al-Husseini, by the way, was the notorious Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and disciple of Josef Goebbels.
For charlatan spokespersons, we've had to endure Saeb Erakat, Hasan Abded Rahman, Hanan Ashwari, and Diana Buttu (all representing the Palestinian Arab position). Twelve years ago, on behalf of the preposterous Iraqi position that took us into the Gulf War, the free world came to know and loathe Tariq Aziz, Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq (who is also now a questionable is or was).
Previously, these people were able to hide behind the cloak of time and distance in order to make their distortions sound plausible.* Communications technology was such that no immediate comparison between live reality and political commentary could be made. In many instances days and weeks would go by before any news of an event was reported to the public. And those reports would often be subject to the time and space limitations of the particular media that was disseminating the information. Arab propagandists relied upon abridged and time-dulled testimony, or information stemming from subsequent unrelated events, to color, diffuse, and obfuscate the facts and truth. When confronted with substantive contrary evidence, he or she often excused their prevarications from criticism by arguing that there are no objective facts, only subjective points of view.
However, as any sane person knows, there are indeed objective facts and truths. And over the last couple of weeks, thanks to the inadvertent efforts of one man, the historic pattern of Islamic propaganda tap dancing was exposed for the sham that it has always been. That man is Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, Iraq’s Minister of Information.
Al-Sahhaf (or as the media like to call him, Baghdad Bob) is as skilled a liar as any of the above mentioned people. One might even say that Baghdad Bob is the epitome of all Arab propagandists, the would-be poster boy for Liars Anonymous. What set Baghdad Bob apart from the other liars are his comical visage and the use of live split-screen television. With humorous, almost humane eyes, ample rounded nose, and a beret jauntily perched upon his head, Baghdad Bob instantly brought back memories of live television’s other great comedic liar, Jon Lovitz' hilarious Pathological Liar from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.
On a daily basis, Baghdad Bob point-blankly insisted to the world that Saddam Hussein and his regime were peaceful, God-fearing people. He railed against the atrocities that he claimed America, Britain, and its Zionist-handlers were committing against Islamic peoples. Bob fervently assured the global audience that Iraq would be victorious, cut the heads of the American invaders, and kick the soldiers in their asses as they ran away.
During the opening hours of the war, who could forget the humorous sight of Baghdad Bob and his cronies trying to conduct a serious press conference while ignoring the sounds of American bombing and the shaking of the studio’s cloth backdrop from the resultant explosions? This was something straight from a Johnny Carson Tonight Show skit.
Then there was the bit with Baghdad Bob rejecting the notion that Saddam International Airport had been captured, while on the other side of the screen we saw footage of American troops walking through the airport’s shopping concourse. The piece de resistance (excuse my French-no really, excuse my use of anything French) was his dogged denial that American tanks were parked along the Tigris River in downtown Baghdad. As a viewer, I felt certain that in any moment a U.S. soldier would walk up behind Bob, tap him on the shoulder, Bob would turn the opposite way, peer off into the distance, and then turn back to the camera and say, “Where? I don't see any American tanks. The only thing missing from Baghdad Bob’s diatribes to truly make them classic comic masterpieces was a tag line to equal Lovitz' “Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
Humor aside, what these episodes with Baghdad Bob prove is that even in the face of undeniable, incontrovertible evidence, these people will lie at any cost, rather than to admit a truth that is unfavorable to their position.
Fortunately for Yasser Arafat, last year when he was screaming on live television about a massacre occurring in Jenin, that CNN didn't do a live split-screen feed to show what was really happening. But there may be a reason why CNN didn't supply a live split-screen feed that would have exposed Arafat’s lies, and the reason is much deeper than just the obvious. This brings up my final point in the lessons to be learned from the Iraq War. It is also the most disturbing revelation of all.
continued
Posted by Marc J. Rauch
Monday, April 14, 2003
As I opined in a recent essay, the first lesson that has hopefully been learned from the Iraq War is that the treacherous and cowardly acts perpetrated by Saddam Hussein and his goons are the same nefarious tactics that Israel has had to contend with for the past hundred years in order to defend themselves and build a homeland.
The second lesson that should be learned from the war is the extent to which lies have been told to protect the Arab governments and regimes.
Over the years, the world has heard from an incredible coterie of fraudulent Arab leaders and spokespersons who seem to grossly distort every fact and event related to the history of their people; not to defend themselves and their homelands against an aggressor that doesn't exist, but to defend their unjustified aggression against the Jewish State, as well as the atrocities that they commit each and every day against their own Muslim brothers and sisters.
On the leader side of the liar-ledger there was Haj Amin al-Husseini, Gamel Abdel Nasser, Hafez al-Assad, and there still is Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein (although whether Hussein is a is or was is still in question). Al-Husseini, by the way, was the notorious Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and disciple of Josef Goebbels.
For charlatan spokespersons, we've had to endure Saeb Erakat, Hasan Abded Rahman, Hanan Ashwari, and Diana Buttu (all representing the Palestinian Arab position). Twelve years ago, on behalf of the preposterous Iraqi position that took us into the Gulf War, the free world came to know and loathe Tariq Aziz, Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq (who is also now a questionable is or was).
Previously, these people were able to hide behind the cloak of time and distance in order to make their distortions sound plausible.* Communications technology was such that no immediate comparison between live reality and political commentary could be made. In many instances days and weeks would go by before any news of an event was reported to the public. And those reports would often be subject to the time and space limitations of the particular media that was disseminating the information. Arab propagandists relied upon abridged and time-dulled testimony, or information stemming from subsequent unrelated events, to color, diffuse, and obfuscate the facts and truth. When confronted with substantive contrary evidence, he or she often excused their prevarications from criticism by arguing that there are no objective facts, only subjective points of view.
However, as any sane person knows, there are indeed objective facts and truths. And over the last couple of weeks, thanks to the inadvertent efforts of one man, the historic pattern of Islamic propaganda tap dancing was exposed for the sham that it has always been. That man is Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, Iraq’s Minister of Information.
Al-Sahhaf (or as the media like to call him, Baghdad Bob) is as skilled a liar as any of the above mentioned people. One might even say that Baghdad Bob is the epitome of all Arab propagandists, the would-be poster boy for Liars Anonymous. What set Baghdad Bob apart from the other liars are his comical visage and the use of live split-screen television. With humorous, almost humane eyes, ample rounded nose, and a beret jauntily perched upon his head, Baghdad Bob instantly brought back memories of live television’s other great comedic liar, Jon Lovitz' hilarious Pathological Liar from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.
On a daily basis, Baghdad Bob point-blankly insisted to the world that Saddam Hussein and his regime were peaceful, God-fearing people. He railed against the atrocities that he claimed America, Britain, and its Zionist-handlers were committing against Islamic peoples. Bob fervently assured the global audience that Iraq would be victorious, cut the heads of the American invaders, and kick the soldiers in their asses as they ran away.
During the opening hours of the war, who could forget the humorous sight of Baghdad Bob and his cronies trying to conduct a serious press conference while ignoring the sounds of American bombing and the shaking of the studio’s cloth backdrop from the resultant explosions? This was something straight from a Johnny Carson Tonight Show skit.
Then there was the bit with Baghdad Bob rejecting the notion that Saddam International Airport had been captured, while on the other side of the screen we saw footage of American troops walking through the airport’s shopping concourse. The piece de resistance (excuse my French-no really, excuse my use of anything French) was his dogged denial that American tanks were parked along the Tigris River in downtown Baghdad. As a viewer, I felt certain that in any moment a U.S. soldier would walk up behind Bob, tap him on the shoulder, Bob would turn the opposite way, peer off into the distance, and then turn back to the camera and say, “Where? I don't see any American tanks. The only thing missing from Baghdad Bob’s diatribes to truly make them classic comic masterpieces was a tag line to equal Lovitz' “Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
Humor aside, what these episodes with Baghdad Bob prove is that even in the face of undeniable, incontrovertible evidence, these people will lie at any cost, rather than to admit a truth that is unfavorable to their position.
Fortunately for Yasser Arafat, last year when he was screaming on live television about a massacre occurring in Jenin, that CNN didn't do a live split-screen feed to show what was really happening. But there may be a reason why CNN didn't supply a live split-screen feed that would have exposed Arafat’s lies, and the reason is much deeper than just the obvious. This brings up my final point in the lessons to be learned from the Iraq War. It is also the most disturbing revelation of all.
continued