Dustin M. Wax

The Difference Between Winning and Losing

Yesterday morning, Coalition forces liberated Baghdad, and we finally got to see some of that rejoicing in the streets (and also, a goodly helping of “beat the collaborator”) we’ve been missing so far in the execution of the war. People looked elated, attacking that statue of Hussein with glee and toppling it, elderly women beating Saddam’s image with their shoes (apparently a very strong insult in Arabic cultures; thanks to Electrolite for pointing out the pictures), and welcoming the Coalition troops with the openness our administration has always said they deserved. It was a good moment, when the people of Iraq seemed to finally accept that they were no longer under Hussein’s lash.

By yesterday evening, of course, right-wingers were accusing liberals of not being happy enough, of sulking because we wanted the war to fail, or at least get stuck in a “quagmire”, and so on and so on. Of course, we knew it was coming, no matter what objective was met. When Coalition troops found what they thought was chemical weapons earlier this week, a hearty round of “told you so’s” was raised, and we could hardly expect the capture of Baghdad not to fuel another. For the record, I’m happy for those people of Iraq still living (and civilian casualties seem to have been pretty low, but unfortunately not non-existent; military casualties, on the other hand, don’t seem to play into anyone’s concept of victory, but it’s thousands of young Iraqi men who will never get to take advantage of the liberty America is supposedly going to provide their people, who will never return to their families and loved ones) and I’m especially glad that the Battle of Baghdad didn’t get embroiled in the kind of army-crushing, civilian-slaughtering, urban guerilla warfare that many predicted. But let’s not be too proud of ourselves just yet. The real work in Iraq only starts with the occupation of the country–and it will be a long time before the ramifications of our actions there start to make themselves felt.

Also, all this news of the Iraqi people welcoming their “liberators” makes me wonder. The Iraqis aren’t idiots; they know who butters their bread at the moment. I’m reminded of an excerpt from Joseph Heller’s “Catch 22”, posted a couple weeks ago at Busy, Busy, Busy:

“I don’t believe anything you tell me,” Nately replied with a bashful, mitigating smile. “The only thing I do believe is that America is going to win this war.”

“You put so much stock in winning wars,” the grubby iniquitous old man scoffed. “The real trick lies in losing wars, in knowing which wars can be lost. Italy has been losing wars for centuries, and just see how splendidly we’ve done nonetheless. France wins wars and is in a continual state of crises. Germany loses and prospers. Look at our own recent history. Italy won a war in Ethiopia and promptly stumbled into serious trouble. Victory gave us such insane delusions of grandeur that we helped start a world war we hadn’t a chance of wining. But now that we are losing again, everything has taken a turn for the better, and we certainly will come up on top again if we succeed in being defeated.”

Nately gaped at him in undisguised befuddlement. “Now I really don’t understand what you’re saying. You talk like a madman.”

“But I live like a sane one. I was a fascist when Mussolini was on top, and I an an anti-fascist now that he has been deposed. I was fanatically pro-German when the Germans were here to protect us against the Americans, and now that the Americans are here to protect us against the Germans I am fanatically pro-American. I can assure you, my outraged young friend” – the old man’s knowing, disdainful eyes shown even more effervescently as Nately’s stuttering dismay increased – “that you and your country will have no more loyal partisan in Italy than me – but only as long as you remain in Italy.”

“But,” Nately cried out in disbelief, “you’re a turncoat! A time-server! A shameful, unscrupulous opportunist!”

“I am a hundred and seven years old,” the old man reminded him suavely.

[…]

“I can’t believe it,” Nately remarked grudgingly, trying stubbornly not to watch him in relation to the girls. “I simply can’t believe it.

“But it’s all perfectly true. When the Germans marched into the city, I danced in the streets like a youthful ballerina and shouted ‘Heil Hitler’ until my lungs were hoarse. I even waved a small Nazi flag that I had snatched away from a beautiful little girl while her mother was looking the other way. When the Germans left the city, I rushed out to welcome the Americans with a bottle of excellent brandy and a basket of flowers. The brandy was for myself, of course, and the flowers were to sprinkle upon our liberators. There was a very stiff and stuffy old major riding in the first car, and I hit him squarely in the eye with a red rose. A marvelous shot! You should have seen him wince.”

Now, this administration seems to be doing everything possible to make sure that the Iraqi people do not win this war (or the peace), but let’s face it, where brute force won’t get the job done, we’re just not very effective forces. You need a leader assassinated, a democratically-elected government overthrown or undermined, call America; but if you need a democratic system–a People’s government, if you will, but don’t tell anyone I said “People’s”–built up that recognizes basic human rights and works to establish equality for everyone, if you need a reconciliation process to clear away 25 years of bad, bad memories, if you need a nation free from the tyranny of terrorism and warlordism, an ethnically and religiously pluralistic society in which men, women, and children of all sorts can live and prosper… well, American is not the team to call in.

So, three cheers for the Iraqi people. They’ve defeated Saddam, now they have to fight a war for the hearts and minds… of America.

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Coverage of the War

David Edwards of Media Lens has an interesting article over at ZNet, documenting a conversation he had, by phone and e-mail, with George Entwhistle of BBC’s Newsnight. Edwards starts by asking Entwhistle why anti-war voices like Scott Ritter’s, who both agree is “an incredibly important, authoritative witness” on the state of Iraq’s potential WMD programs, haven’t been invited to appear on Entwhistle’s show as often as pro-war voices. We’ve heard this conversation before–Amy Goodman’s recent Democracy Now interview with CNN‘s Aaron Brown and FAIR‘s Steve Rendall covered some of the same ground–but where it get’s interesting is in the post-interview e-mail follow-ups. We rarely get a chance to look “behind the scenes” at what goes on after the story airs or is published.

What we see here is an exceedingly polite exchange between two journalists–journalists who obviously admire each others’ work–struggling with difficult concepts. How can we measure media bias? How do journalists decide who can best give a fair and balanced report? (Note: really fair and balanced, not Fox News’ style of “fair [to those we agree with] and balanced [between people who share our point of view and those we have on but don’t let talk]”) Entwhistle relies heavily on his program’s audience appeal to show he’s doing a good job–feeling that people want coverage that makes sense of the world around them, and if his coverage were not balanced, it wouldn’t do that for viewers and viewership would go down. Edwards does not see the link, noting that when people are hungry for news, all news outlets see an increase in audience, but that this does not necessarily correlate to the quality of the news being presented.

What I find especially appealing about this article is that both men come across as reasonable, sympathetic figures, each struggling in his own way to make good journalism. This doesn’t mean that Edwards should not be held to account for failing to feature dissident voices like Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, Howard Zinn, and Michael Albert, and for featuring voices like George Monbiot, Edward Said, Denis Halliday, Rolf Ekeus, Guada Razuki, Mike Marqusee, Tony Benn, Joan Ruddock, Alice Mahon, Martin Amis, John Rees and Harold Pinter less often than they could. Edwards provides an “action item” at the bottom of the article for readers to contact Entwhistle and ask for more of this kind of voice. Interestingly, he asks that, when writing letters to journalists, writers “maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone” (showing something of the character difference between Americans and Brits, I think), a tone that is all too rare in political discussion these days. What is also interesting is that while many of the calls for “unbiased” reporting are generally calls for reporting biased towards the critic’s point of view and not other peoples’, Edwards seems to honestlybelieve in an ideal of journalism as a service in the creation of an informed public, not merely a tool for the advancement of a point of view. Refreshing, to say the least. This isn’t to say that reporters should be “neutral” or “unbiased”–they’re people, after all. But good reporters recognize their own biases, and work harder to cover the spots they would ordinarily be blind to. Good reporters treat “fair and balanced reporting” as a working ideal, not just a slogan.

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Personal Milestones

Yesterday marked the 7th Anniversary of the night my partner and I first kissed outside a London tube station, the night we “officially” started going out together. We couldn’t know on that fateful April Fool’s Day where this all would take us, or how hard it would be at times. We had met at work, in the cafe at the National Gallery, where I was training her in food prep and hygiene, customer service, etc. She’s German, raised in France, and at the time spoke hardly any English, but as we got to know each other over the next few months, we clicked, somehow. Unfortunately, I planned to apply to graduate schools in the States that fall; she planned to start university in Germany. We spent most of the next three years separated and missing each other, until she got a fellowship to come to America and study, eventually earning her Master’s from CUNY with a thesis (in English, of course) on the impact of the German unification on East German women. For three years we lived together in Brooklyn, the longest I’ve ever lived at one address since I was 13. Eventually, though, I had to begin researching my dissertation, which meant time in Washington, DC, and the Midwest, and she had to start her career in international work, which meant time in Paris, Vienna, Rome, London, Brussels, Geneva, or The Hague.

We’ve had some good times and some bad times. We can both be demanding, self-conscious, aggressive, defensive, anxious, depressive, petulant, and spiteful. There’s a lot of presure being apart, but it doesn’t go away when you’re together. Having my family here and her’s in Germany means one of us is always a long way from home–a situation made worse by the events of 9/11 and their aftermath.

Living in New York City isn’t easy on a relationship either. Friends are rarely near at hand, the pressure of just daily life gets to you, commute times are long. Neither of us dealt with 9/11 well (whatever that means)–she was supposed to start a job a couple of blocks from the WTC on Wednesday, 9/12. Knowing that an arbitrary decision, the matter of a day, is all that stood between her and a front-row seat to disaster (if not worse) gave us both quite a scare, the kind of deep fear that doesn’t go away when your heart stops pounding.

Then there’s our families. Both have been supportive above and beyond their call, but still. I don’t speak German well, nor French (they lived in France for many years), so it is difficult for me to communicate with them, and vice versa. My father has the profound distrust of Germans that is common among Jews of his generation, raised in the shadow of WWII and news of the Holocaust. He loves her, but the thought of me living in Germany, or overseas at all, scares him deeply. Again, this is made worse by the events of 9/11, the anger directed at Americans and Jews overseas, the use of Germany as a base for many of the bombers.

And there’s little things–my American lack of formality makes me come off as rude in Germany, my rather picky tastes in food does the same. She’s very outdoorsy, while I’m very bookish. And so on. Big things too–there’s a lot of unsettled issues that lie between us, things that are scary and strenuous and painful to face.

But it’s her body I imagine next to mine when I sleep alone, her warmth I wish for when I’m cold, her laughter I want to hear when I’m sad (and when I’m happy). Her’s is the advice I need when I’m unsure, and the kick in the ass I need when I’m lazy. Her problems are my problems, and her successes are my pride. She has this way with people that I never stop wondering over, an outwardness, a pleasantness, that I envy. (Yeah, I know–I’m supposed to be the anthropologist, and I can barely talk to people. Go figure!) She constantly challenges me to live up to my best ethical and intellectual standards, to speak clearly and directly to people instead of burying my thoughts in an academic’s language. She has a faith in me that she lacks in herself (and vice versa). I am absolutely thrilled by the pleasure she takes in small things–the taste of fine food, the play of light in leaves, the feel of sunlight.

It’s sad and scary to be separated again now, when the world is in chaos and when both of us are unsure of our futures. Neither of us has a lot of money–I’m the typical broke grad student, she’s just getting started in her career–and travel prices are rising. Americans aren’t too well liked in Germany and France, and Franco-Germans doubly unliked here.

But so far we’ve managed, somehow. I don’t think, in the broad strokes if not the details, that our situation is much different from any other relationship. It’s hard work, sometimes, but it’s work worth doing. Of course I talked to her yesterday, sent her my love and congratulated us both for staying together this long, when so much was against us. I told her all that, but even after 7 years, I still want to tell the world, so here it is.

I love you, Nat. I hope the next 7 years are as good as the last 7.

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According to Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke, Saddam Hussein is the worst dictator in world history”, including Stalin and Hitler (and Pol Pot, and Mao, and Milosevic, and…). The erstwhile Reuters reporter comes through for once, giving us a glimpse of a world in which the media really worked, with what might just be the understatement of the year: “Saddam has been condemned for his exceptional brutality against his own people but historians generally agree that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and Soviet leader Josef Stalin were responsible for killing more people than any other dictators in world history.”

Prediction: Ms. Clarke’s days as Pentagon spokesperson are numbered.

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