Batting For The Winning Team

As expected, the sacking of Baghdad by victorious coalition forces - that is America, GreatBritain and a handful of Australian and Danish troops - has moved pro-war commentators to lyrical flights offancy not witnessed since, say, the liberation of Afghanistan. No more so in America, where internet websiteslike Media Research Center and TownHall  provide a welcoming home to some of America’s more radical conservative commentators andwriters. Like Ann Coulter, for example. Coulter is the poster girl of choice for America’s more discerningconservatives. Sometime lawyer and author of not one but two New York Times bestsellers (High Crimesand Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton and Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right),Ms. Coulter wages a semi-permanent war against the mores of American Liberalism and acts as a tirelesschampion of the war on terrorism from the rarified confines of anncoulter.org.

When not lamenting the shortage of available dates within her coterie of Washington policywonks, Ms. Coulter can be found directing her own particular brand of splatter-gun conservatism to the greatissues of the day. "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity"she wrote of alleged terrorist threat Muslim nations way back in 2001. She was subsequently sacked by theNational Review when editors spiked a follow-up piece which proposed tighter passport security checks for "suspiciousswarthy looking males."

Writing in Town Hall, Coulter’s regular syndicated column proudly boasts Shock and Awe CampaignRouts Liberals (April 10, 2003):

"Liberals are no longer a threat to the nation. The new media have defeated them withfree speech - the very freedom these fifth columnists hide behind whenever their speech gets them in hot waterwith the American people. Today, the truth is instantly available on the Internet, talk radio and Fox NewsChannel. No wonder liberals accuse Matt Drudge of absurd sodomic acts, call Rush Limbaugh a "big fatidiot," and say "really stupid people" watch Fox News Channel - as anti-war actressJaneane Garofalo said between assuring us that Saddam Hussein has no weapons of mass destruction. "

Yes, you heard it here: the truth is instantly available on the internet, talk radio and -yes, that’s right - Fox News Channel. And what exactly is the truth according to Coulter’spolitical and spiritual comrades in arms? Drunk on a cheap but potent mix of "told you so" sanctimony andpost-war chest-beating bravura, the darlings of America’s right wing media have been moved to pentriumphalist eulogies by the score. WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah reclaims and gives new meaning tothe "Shock and Awe" phrase in a gratuitous display of "aw, shucks!" hokum not normally seen out withthe gushy prose of Hallmark greetings cards. "Victory is so sweet" he crows in his Liberation!headlined column of April 10, before taking a swift and unexpected detour into rhetorical profundity (orshould that be profanity?): "Isn't it ironic that in courageously defending our own country from terroristattack we serve to liberate others. That's the way it always works."

A veritable cottage industry of right-wing punditry has sprung up in America post 9/11, ofwhich the likes of Coulter and Farah are but the tip of a very substantial iceberg. Moreover, anybody can jointhis club. The Media Research Centre ("America’s Media Watchdog" and "The Leader inDocumenting, Exposing and Neutralizing Liberal Media Bias") boasts a "Special Gloat and Quote Edition"(April 10, 2003) which highlights the erroneous war predictions made by the liberal - that is, by Americanstandards - media. 

Likewise, the National Review saw fit to engage in a little gloating with its own "Hallof Shame - Media Recriminations after VB Day" (April 10, 2003) opinion piece which pours scorn on thenay-saying efforts of Peter "The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance" Arnett, Maureen"Ideology should not shape facts when lives are at stake" of the New York Times and retired US ArmyGeneral Barry McCaffrey who rather unsportingly told the BBC’s Newsnight programme (March 24) thatDefence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had misjudged the nature of the conflict.

Issuing the equivalent of a republican fatwa on the not-so-great and good of media lah-lahland in the Washington Dispatch, Patrick Rooney (Director of Special Projects at the crazily titled "Brotherhood Organization of a NewDestiny" tree-hugging group dedicated to "rebuilding the family by rebuilding the man") writes:

"Some of these media people still don’t get it. The anti-Bush Katie Couric still thinkswe’re buying her phony "sweet as pie" persona. She’s going to be in for a rude awakening. Even theidiotic Michael Moore, he of Oscar’s speech infamy, will see his comeuppance. So will Madonna, who recentlyhad to pull back her video showing the aging entertainer tossing a grenade into the lap of a President Bushlook-alike. The negative blowback from this outrageous and desperate act will likely catch her unawares andunprepared."

Showing all of the absolutist fundamentalist symptoms so readily despised in peoples of anArab or swarthy tint, Rooney witheringly re-invents veteran Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Peter Arnett asthe "Goebbels of Baghdad"; but not before employing a few choice Bush cheerleading military similes insupport of the just cause. "George Bush" he writes, "has done something remarkable - his relentlessprosecution of the war on terrorism has had the effect of a hand grenade, tossed into the collective minds ofthe world’s doubters. A spiritual equation has been proven - good is stronger than evil, and will always winwhen it is fully employed."

Once a Doubting Thomas, who felt that "victory on a worldwide scale for the forces ofgood seemed impossible", the proud and patriotic "crisis of masculinity" pundit’s faith in theoverwhelming power of good over evil has been re-affirmed by Saddam’s capitulation to American militarymight. Moved almost to song, Rooney’s column reads as a love letter to God’s own country:

"For the greatest force for good in the world is embodied in the United States ofAmerica. We have the wisest leader; and the strongest, best equipped military in the world. Most important ofall, we have the American people, much more resilient and powerful than their enemies - or even theythemselves - may have previously realized."

David Horowitz, editor-in-chief of FrontPageMagazine.com and lapsed libertarian (theprogeny of two lifelong communists and one-time radical left trailblazer best known for "his lifelongintellectual and political journey"), also steps up to bat for the winning team. A 1990 recipient of theTeach Freedom Award from Ronald Reagan, Horowitz eschews originality in deference to the triumphalist spiritof the times. Using the Liberation!headline to similarly dazzling if hyperbolic effect as Farah, Horowitz comes, not to bury Caesar, but topraise him:

"Baghdad is liberated. In the days to come let us not forget that if it was not for oneman, and one man alone - George Bush - the people of Iraq would not be celebrating in the streets and pullingdown Saddam's statues today. Instead the jails would still be full and the torture chambers still operatingand the weapons mills still turning out the instruments of future destruction."

Messrs Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz might just want to take issue with Horowitz on thatparticular assertion. Like Coulter and Farah before him, Horowitz pooh-poohs the idea of a recalcitrant leftwaking up to the error of its ant-war protesting ways. "Should we now get ready for apologies?" he asks."Don’t hold your breath. In The Nation today, Medea Benjamin, head of Global Exchange, pro-Castrocommunist and leader of the anti-American anti-war left [that’s a truckload of antis], calls for a worldwideeffort to send human shields to North Korea, Syria and Iran, the pillars of terrorist power, to give aid andcomfort to the enemy" he concludes. Employing sections of the George W Bush Speechwriters' Handbook todizzying effect, Horowitz gleefully looks forward to the battle ahead:

"We have come to a post-Cold War historic turning point. We have entered the era of a newcivil war between the forces of freedom and the powers of Islamo-fascist and communist darkness, and onceagain the left is clearly detemined to take its stand on the other side. The good news is that America isback. Our military has performed superlatively. Our leadership has stood tall. We ourselves can celebrate overthis and look confidently towards what lies ahead."

What lies ahead indeed. The Thursday, April 10 Fox News (you know, where the truthis instantly available) broadcast Hannity and Colmes show - co-hosted by "Let Freedom Ring: Winning the Warof Liberty over Liberalism" author Sean Hannity and liberal counterpoint Alan Colmes - provides whatmight well be a glimpse of things to come. "Should Germany and France be punished for their actions in themonths leading up to the war in Iraq?" (answers on a postcard please to "The Commander in Chief, The WhiteHouse…"). Writing two days prior to what will be remembered in the history books as VB Day, Dennis Pragerasks, Dear Germany:Have You Learned Anything? Germany’s refusal to become involved in military operations in Iraq istastelessly posited as a timely reminder of the national stain that won’t go away:

"How could you have produced a Hitler and not recognize another one just one generationlater? How could you know firsthand about torture chambers and children's screams and not ache to end them inanother country? How could you side with amoral France against your friend America? There is, it would seem,only one answer. Nazism taught you nothing. Instead of learning that evil must be fought, you learned thatfighting is evil."

To think, this is how a nation thanks a man who tirelessly argued that Jews should notboycott German products because Volkswagen and Mercedes did business with Israel. Prager glibly signs off his J’Accuseby facetiously thanking Germany for at least giving the world the music of Bach. Prominent radio talk showhost Rush Limbaugh is similarly intrigued by the fall-out and wider ramifications of Operation Iraqi Freedom(why, it even sounds like a sequel). "Folks", he begins his "The Battle to Interpret the War Begins" TruthDetector opinion piece of April 9, "the battle to interpret the war is going to be a big deal. Thingsare already being said by people out there who want to cast aspersions on the achievement that has takenplace. And while it's going to be frustrating, and you might even get a little bit mad at it, I would urge youto put it in the same context as all of the other whining that the left has been engaging in for the last yearand five months."

Exercising a fondness for militaristic metaphor and simile that has become something of adefining characteristic of his conservative cohorts, Limbaugh asserts:

"The next battle is to interpret this war, to define it. The anti-American crowd, theblame-America-first crowd is not going to go away. They're going to be louder than ever before. They're goingto be busy as little bees trying to turn this victory into defeat. They're going to turn this liberation intoconquest. They are going to turn what is obviously vindication into failure. They're going to try to do allthis particularly as it relates to the president." 

Administering the last rites to the anti-war lobby, he concurs that the left are 

"so enraged and embittered because our vision of the world is being vindicated, and theirvision, fortunately, is nowhere to be seen. So the intellectual battle will go on, and just as we won thebattle to liberate Iraq, so will we win the battle to liberate America from the hearts and the minds of theblame-America-first crowd."

There are so many lessons to be learned from the Iraqi experience according to Farah,uppermost among these being the loosening of bothersome UN shackles and the tedious search for internationalpolitical consensus . "We don’t need the United Nations to act decisively in our national interest and inthe others of others desperate for liberation" he boasts, before questionably asserting that "We [America]don’t need to beg and bribe other nations to join our coalitions." So, let’s hear it for the triumph ofgood over evil. Farah proposes a toast to the greatest force in the world for freedom today:

 "Congratulations, America. You have done it again. Your hard work your sacrifice,your determination has won the day…Celebrate! Praise God! This is a great day in our history and a great dayin the history of the Middle East and the people of the world. It’s a day reminiscent of the fall of theBerlin Wall. It’s a day reminiscent of the liberation of Paris. It’s a day reminiscent of the toppling ofthe Taliban."

Substitute Allah for God and you’ve got yourself a Jihad. Whipping himself up into analmighty fervour, Farah continues to plough his barren furrow:

"God bless those brave fighting men who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom in Iraq.God bless them for having courage and faith. God bless them for carrying out this righteous mission. Today,there is fear and trepidation in Damascus and Tehran. Today, the enemies of freedom from Pyongyang to Beiruthave something to think about."

Perhaps he means brave fighting men like the American soldier who, asked to explain whymarines shot up a bus killing a whole family at a US checkpoint just outside Baghdad, replied: "'We didn'tknow what was in that bus. It may sound bad, but I'd rather see more of them dead than any of my friends.Everyone understands the word 'stop', right?" Or perhaps he’s thinking about the US marine sergeant whoboasted "We had a great day - We killed a lot of people. We dropped a few civillians, but what do you do?"

That, as veteran Australian journalist John Pilger ruefully points out (CrimesAgainst Humanity), is the cost of liberation accepted by the mainstream media in both London andWashington: "The Moment Young Omar Discovered the Price of War" ran The Observer page three of Sunday 6thApril, accompanying a picture of an orphaned 15 year old Iraqi boy being comforted by an American marine whosepresence in Iraq cost Omar the greatest price payable.

Writing in The Independent (April 12, 2003), Robert Fisk notes that "Wars have a habit ofturning normally sane people into cheerleaders, of transforming rational journalists into nasty littlepuffed-up fantasy colonels." Certainly, the rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights look of wonderment of so manyembedded journalists would suggest Fisk is onto something.

Be that as it may be, but how to explain therighteous evangelical rantings of right wing talking heads whose version of events in Iraq has more to do withstaged photo opportunities afforded by toppled Saddam statues than it does with the plights of children like12 year old Ali Ismaeel Abbas - the subject of a Daily Mirror campaign to raise funds to treat his potentiallylife threatening burns - who lost both his family and his arms when his home was bombed. But no, the mostevocative image of the liberation of Baghdad, according to the Washington Times’ Diana West (Free atLast, April 11, 2003), is of "the young man, dressed in a denim jacket, holding a homemade poster celebrating the ‘Heroof the Peace’ - George W. Bush - and kissing the president’s faintly smiling photo."

Displaying what would be considered a faintly disturbing penchant for fairytale endings ineven the most weak-kneed of romantics, West muses, "Maybe it’s the kiss itself, reminiscent of all thefairytale kisses that break evil spells, or maybe it’s the expressive face of Iraqi gratitude towards anAmerican president who has awakened a nation from a nightmare of brutality and repression." 

Convicted Iran-Contralscandal liar OliverNorth, now earning a crust as an internet radio host ("Bringing common sense to the…internet")and Fox News embedded reporter, chimes in with a vivid description of the US Marines march into Baghdad whichbodes well for his fledgling thriller writing career:

"I was with the 5th and 7th Marines as they entered Baghdad and were greeted by littlekids walking up to them and handing them flowers. It is one of the most moving things I've seen so far in thiswar - children greeting their liberators with flowers and homemade American flags. We've seen it severaltimes, and it's the kind of thing that gets you choked up because the people are so thrilled to get rid ofthis brutal regime."