How to Save the World

Dave Pollard's environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays.

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March 17, 2003

THE MEDIA AND THE WAR

We've all read the reports about how Bush's military will have total control of all media activity relating to the war. Since the war starts tomorrow, it will be interesting to see how these two possible exceptions to complete censorship and one-sided reporting will fare:

First, in today's Salon , ex-NBC reporter Arthur Kent, who was omnipresent in the previous Iraq war, and who believes that Bush is mishandling the war plans in a way that will inevitably lead to an unnecessarily long and bloody conflict and a huge Anti-American backlash, says he will be reporting on the progress of the war from this side of the Atlantic this time. Since of late I have noticed a lot less reporting in the U.S. media of facts damaging to the U.S. administration's war position, and since Kent is a Canadian with a fairly free reign to report here, I will be posting links to his reports and analyses as the war progresses.

Second, CNN reporter Kevin Sites has started a blog on-site in Iraq (if you'll pardon the pun). From my knowledge of his style and early postings on his blog, I'm not convinced we're going to get much of a 'human interest' slant from Kevin. He seems more preoccupied with capturing the sensational, whether that be a wall of fire or a wall of soldiers. No front-page coverage for reporting on dead children, I guess. But this blog will definitely be worth watching, if only to see whether we learn anything that isn't covered by his pandering network, and if so, whether it, too, will be censored or closed down as the military has threatened.

ADDENDUM: Jim Hanna added a comment to this post saying that this blog appears to be from a citizen in Iraq. Gotta keep an eye on it too.

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WHY EASTERN EUROPE SUPPORTS WAR WITH IRAQ, PERHAPS

Following is the explanation of a Romanian named Calin Morar, responding to my previous blog post, suggesting why some of the governments and people of Eastern Europe have allowed themselves to become part of Bush's 'coalition of the willing.' Sometimes we forget how hard life is in other countries, even European countries, and fail to appreciate the impact that can have on what people are prepared to do to look after their loved ones:
A possible scenario (that can be applied to Eastern-European countries) is: [Suppose your] country [has been] waiting for [prosperity] for 60 years. The American leadership promises huge economic and political support, in a manner that will shorten [by] 20 years the [wait for] a normal life. [The] people [have been] working hard, struggling every day, working abroad and far from [their] families, just to have money to live. [You are living in] a country where you have to be rich to buy a new car and very rich to build a house. And imagine that the Prime Minister of this country says: "If we [agree to go] to war [alongside the] US against the terrorists (even [though the] terrorists never pointed guns against this country), your children will be rich. You may die, but your wife will make out of your death the money you [would take ten lifetimes to earn]. Fight with us and the [curse that has befallen] our country will vanish!"

2:48:12 PM trackback [] comment []