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| Iraq |
| Lileks bitch-slaps ABC and Salam Pax |
| 2003-11-21 |
| EFL & EFGnat -- but itâs hard to trim Lileks... You know what? Michael Moore is right. There are many Americans who are ignorant of the world around them. And theyâre all TV news producers. Two big bombs in Istanbul, and whatâs the big story of the day? Following around a pervy slab of albino Play-Doh as he turns himself into the police. I was stunned to discover last night that Nightline not only covered the Jackson case in detail, but bumped coverage of the Whitehall speech, which was the most important speech since the Iraq campaign began and arguably the most important speech of the war, period. Hereâs the email Nightline sent if you signed up for daily alerts: This is a day in which the Nightline staff is pretty evenly divided. We have a meeting each morning when we talk out what we are going to do each night. Usually the plan is pretty well set, but not always. Todayâs meeting was pretty interesting. Our plan is to look at the Presidentâs visit to England, and at the plan his administration is putting forward to try to speed up the political process in Iraq that would allow for the withdrawal of at least some American troops. The approaching presidential election is clearly making this more urgent. This is a broadcast we have been planning for a while, and correspondent Deborah Amos will report on the plan for Iraq, and the Iraqi reaction, and Richard Gizbert will report from London.Heâs serious. Yes, yes, Iraq, Britain, nice speech, hear-hear and all that, but what about Michael Jackson? Thatâs the problem in a nutshell: the war and Michael Jackson are items of equal weight. The only question is which will get better ratings. The email concludes: So if he is arrested, should we cover that tonight on Nightline? The staff is about evenly split. Some think itâs a big story that we would have to do, others donât want any part of it. So what will happen? I guess weâll have to wait and see.The staff was split. Nightline, supposedly the Thinking Personâs Late Night Show, was split about whether a repudiation of 50 years of foreign policy was slightly more important than the arrest of a washed-up, crotch-grabbing yee-hee! squeaking nutball who was probably the horrid pedophile everyone already thought he was. The question is whether this reflects the mood of the country, or whether it reflects the mood of our Olympian betters who hand down the news from their lofty aeries. I think itâs the latter. I hope itâs the latter. Of course Jackson is an item of interest, but itâs a below-the-fold story. Itâs an artifact of the noisy empty 90s, the Jerry Springer era, the time when the networks sought out the people pasted to their sofas shoveling in Doritos and watching hapless fools throw folding chairs at their ex-lovers. Watching the nets fall over themselves covering Jackson makes you suspect that they yearn for those days, because they are profoundly ambivalent about the conflict in which we are engaged. They fear Islamic terrorism, but itâs an abstract fear now. Their distaste of Bush is much more tangible and immediate; itâs part of the atmosphere in the newsroom. This is his war, not theirs. If it is a war at all. Itâs going to take another attack to convince the fence-sitters: I hear this all the time. I donât think thatâs the case. I think the next attack on American soil will jolt whose whoâve moved on, whoâve forgotten the aching, clammy dread we all felt after 9/11. But others will believe that we brought it on ourselves. You already read it around the web â the bombings in Turkey were a response to Britainâs assistance for toppling Saddam; what did we expect? In other words: if we fight back, we get what we deserve. If we do not fight back, and we are attacked again, you can blame it on the crimes for which we have not yet sufficiently atoned. The only proper posture for the West is supine. Curl up and let them kick until theyâre spent. Give them Israel and New York and perhaps theyâll go away. This is either going to end on their terms, or ours. Which would you prefer? Oh, there you go again with the us vs. them, the good vs. evil, the with-us-or-with-the-terrorists. But these arenât my definitions; these are the definitions of the enemy. (Eyes roll; âenemy.â How dramatic.) They certainly believe itâs a matter of us vs. them; theyâve been acting that way for years before we caught on. They certainly believe itâs a matter of good vs. evil, although they believe they are Good. No - correction. They believe they are righteous. They obviously believe that sides have been drawn, allegiances chosen; why else kill Turks, for heavenâs sake? Yes, the attacks in Turkey were aimed at Jews and Crusaders, but they obviously knew there would be massive numbers of wounded Turks, and they didnât care. (The ones who are truly callous about the fate of other Muslims are the Muslim extremists. But, well, Muslims donât kill Muslims, so the Mossad must have bombed the synagogues. QED.) I repeat: their terms or our terms. Iâm watching the news â RPGs hit the hotel where journalists are staying. The film looks like any big-city hotel â an atrium, subdued lighting, comfy modern chairs on the ground floor. The very existence of the Baghdad Sheraton is an example of the old order: who cares about the nature of your government, how many people groan in your jails, how many bodies are shoved into the desert graves? We can make money building a hotel. We can make money running it. We can all pretend that this city is a city like any other, like Paris or Des Moines or Singapore; same atrium, same muzak, same cigarette-smell in the rooms, same wrapped soaps and calcified showerheads, same portfolio of hotel services in the top drawer. (No Gideon Bible, obviously.) You could fly to Baghdad, stay at the Sheraton, have a meeting in the lobby bar, smoke cigars with an urbane minder in a nice suit, and leave with happy memories and a souvenir. It was like a visit to a parallel universe that looked like your own, but was founded on tribe and blood and death and fear. Itâs the opposite of the Hotel California - you can check out and you can leave, which is why no one ever cared whether the chambermaids had a girlfriend who vanished when her father said the wrong thing to a BBC reporter. Snipping a good discussion about the WTC Memorial proposals Finally: the Guardian ran letters welcoming Bush to Britain. Everyone piled on stupid old Harry Pinter, but I didnât see anyone note this contribution from blogosphere star Salam Pax: I hate to wake you up from that dream you are having, the one in which you are a superhero bringing democracy and freedom to underdeveloped, oppressed countries. But you really need to check things out in one of the countries you have recently bombed to freedom. Georgie, I am kind of worried that things are going a bit bad in Iraq and you donât seem to care that much. You might want it to appear as if things are going well and sign Iraq off as a job well done, but I am afraid this is not the case.Hey, Salam? Fuck you. I know youâre the famous giggly blogger who gave us all a riveting view of the inner circle before the war, and thus know more about the situation than I do. Granted. But thereâs a picture on the front page of my local paper today: third Minnesotan killed in Iraq. He died doing what you never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face the Baâathists. You owe him. Smack! Let me explain this in simple terms, habibi. You would have spent the rest of your life under Baâathist rule. You might have gotten some nice architectural commissions to do a house for someone whose aroma was temporarily acceptable to the Tikriti mob. You might have worked your international connections, made it back to Vienna, lived a comfy exileâs life. Whatâs certain is that none of your pals would ever have gotten rid of that âscary guy without the hideous moustacheâ (as if his greatest sin was somehow a fashion faux pas) and the Saddam regime would have prospered into the next generation precisely because of people like you. People who would rather have lived their life in low-level fear than change your situation. I understand; I would have done the same. Iâm not brave enough to start a revolution. I wouldnât have grabbed a gun and charged a palace. I would lived like you. Head down, eyes wary. When the manâs too strong, the manâs too strong. But let me quote from a Guardian story on your life: "Like all Iraqis, Salam was familiar with the dangers. At least four of his relatives had gone missing. In the past year, for no apparent reason, one of his friends was summarily executed, shot in the head as he sat in his car, and two others were arrested; one was later freed and another, a close friend, has never returned."The rug was soaked before we got there, friend. Cut the clever café pose; drop the sneer. That âRamboâ crap is old. Iraq needs grown-ups. Be one. QED. Game, Set, & Match to the Man from Minnesota... |
| Posted by:snellenr |
| #8 Salam Pax is an Arab. Demanding, yet never reciprocating - perfectly normal. He ignores the incredible number of shoulders required for him to stand at such a great height and be a celebrated and feted moron -- and heard by anyone except his nearest neighbor. America is responsible of almost everything in his world that he enjoys: freedom, internet, fame, et al. His countrymen and co-believers are responsible for almost all of the things in his world that he decrys and fears: violence, chaos, destruction, et al. Salam Pax is an Arab. That is the actual point to be taken from this - and the problem. Lileks Rocks. |
| Posted by: tool of the jooos 2003-11-21 9:30:39 PM |
| #7 Instapundit linked to this and a number of reactions to it, including one by Dan Drezner that is a bit out of left field. Check out the comments on Drezner's site. Lots of support for Lileks, a bit for Drezner, and a few moonbat trolls to boot. It's a regular "Let the expletives fly!" over there. |
| Posted by: Tibor 2003-11-21 3:36:22 PM |
| #6 Salam needs simply to get up from his keyboard, roll up his sleevies, walk out the door, and help our armies clean up, be it with a broom, information, or a gun. He should spend no more than fifteen minutes per day blogging, and his subject should be what heâs done to make his country better that day. |
| Posted by: The Kid 2003-11-21 3:27:36 PM |
| #5 I'd also like to point out that Salam's been living the good life lately in LONDON. He hasn't been in Baghdad for many weeks, perhaps months. What exactly are his contributions to the reconstruction of his country? He's also been posting more since Zeyad, Alaa, and the newer Iraqi bloggers have been stealing his thunder. Pathetic. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2003-11-21 12:18:51 PM |
| #4 And his pimp hand is strong, God help the LLL if he ever gets a national forum |
| Posted by: Brainiac 2003-11-21 11:47:50 AM |
| #3 Lileks is the greatest writer in the English language today . . . until Peggy Noonan comes back from hiatus, anyway. |
| Posted by: Mike 2003-11-21 11:45:53 AM |
| #2 The man is genius. |
| Posted by: Brainiac 2003-11-21 11:36:48 AM |
| #1 "Listen, habibi, it is not over yet. Let me explain this in simple terms. You have spilled a glass full of tomato juice on an already dirty carpet and now you have to clean up the whole room. Not all of the mess is your fault but you volunteered to clean it up. I bet if someone had explained it to you like that you would have been less hasty going on our Rambo-in-Baghdad trip. To tell you the truth, I am glad that someone is doing the cleaning up, and thank you for getting rid of that scary guy with the hideous moustache that we had for president. But I have to say that the advertisements you were dropping from your B52s before the bombs fell promised a much more efficient and speedy service." Given how many idiots keep saying "the US broke it" salaam's admission that it was terrible before and that its good we're there is very important, and im glad of it, especially as his opposition to the war gives him more credibility on the left. I suspect Salaams perspective is shared by a large part of Sunni Arab opinion in Iraq,and as such its worth listening to. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-11-21 10:51:01 AM |