Journalists in lycra tights - say it isn’t so

Bob Higgs says:

09:40am | 02/06/10

I do not know what the standard of Journalism was back then.  I hope they were better than they are now. Scared, for their own careers sake, to ask awkward questions outside of the agreed scripts.  Eager to become part of the mates clubs that secure an easy and lazy career, as long as you play the game and happy to distribute press releases as authenticated news.  I hope there were better days years ago.

Eric says:

10:38am | 02/06/10

Now Mr T, you ought to know that the politics of the owners of a paper don’t count as much as the politics of the journalists and editors. And about 90% of the journalists in any company are left-of-centre compared to the general community.

Just look at the opinions expressed by journalists on The Punch, for example. Almost all are pro-gay marriage, pro-boatpeople, anti-TeaParty, pro-feminist, and so on with a typical swag of left-leaning social issues.

At Fairfax, the leanings are even further left. A few token righties among the swarm of lefties on the opinion pages don’t mean much. It’s the choice of stories, and the slant in reporting the “straight” news that’s significant.

Chris Oliver says:

02:56pm | 02/06/10

What a great, thought-provoking piece.
“I ask you to name any newspaper anywhere in the world that ever became famous by doing nothing other than cutting costs.” - Les Carlyon.
That’s an odd sort of non-challenge, isn’t it, since what paper wouldn’t do all manner of other things to meet advertisers’ and readers’ expectations?
I assume readers no longer expect newspapers to break news that they haven’t already heard and seen on TV, radio and the internet, so one of the most expensive aspects of newspaper production - the need to have teams of reporters hanging about in the hope something might happen - has gone.  Old newspapermen, wedded to the idea of the scoop, men who got their start as copyboys and may not have the skill to write comment and analysis may not be what a fading industry needs.
Clive Mathieson and others with a business reporting background, not the police rounds, social affairs and defence correspondents, will be the powerful figures at papers like The Australian in the future, because the business section is one of the few parts of the paper that has great practical value to the same high-earning readers that are of interest to advertisers. It’s one of the few sections where print does things better than TV or radio.
All IMHO.

Popeye says:

02:59pm | 02/06/10

Les Carlyon’s description of the timidity and risk aversion of today’s editors is a story unfolding in many many workplaces., including my own.  I have worked with some fabulous managers and leaders in previous years but they seem to have disappeared. Its all about cutting costs, glossing over, avoiding mistakes. Its really quite depressing.

Chris Oliver says:

04:39pm | 04/06/10

Dan: Saying it had NOTHING to do with liberation and despotism is simply wrong. US Security Council resolution 1441, unanimously endorsed, gave Iraq its final opportunity to comply with the humanitarian and disarmament conditions of previous declarations. Colin Powell’s February 5, 2003, speech to the UN likewise put the emphasis on WMD and Iraq’s support for international terrorism, but referred to the humanitarian cost of Saddam remaining in power.
Resolution 1441:  “Deploring also that the Government of Iraq has failed to comply with its commitments pursuant to resolution 687 (1991) with regard to terrorism, pursuant to resolution 688 (1991) to end repression of its civilian population and to provide access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in Iraq, and pursuant to resolutions 686 (1991), 687 (1991), and 1284 (1999) to return or cooperate in accounting for Kuwaiti and third country nationals wrongfully detained by Iraq, or to return Kuwaiti property wrongfully seized by Iraq,
“Recalling that in its resolution 687 (1991) the Council declared that a ceasefire would be based on acceptance by Iraq of the provisions of that resolution, including the obligations on Iraq contained therein,”
“13.Recalls, in that context, that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations;
“14.Decides to remain seized of the matter.”

Colin Powell 5 February 2003:
“And, friends, this has been a long and a detailed presentation and I thank you for your patience, but there is one more subject that I would like to touch on briefly, and it should be a subject of deep and continuing concern to this Council: Saddam Hussein’s violations of human rights.
“Underlying all that I have said, underlying all the facts and the patterns of behavior that I have identified, is Saddam Hussein’s contempt for the will of this Council, his contempt for the truth, and, most damning of all, his utter contempt for human life. Saddam Hussein’s use of mustard and nerve gas against the Kurds in 1988 was one of the 20th century’s most horrible atrocities. Five thousand men, women and children died. His campaign against the Kurds from 1987 to ‘89 included mass summary executions, disappearances, arbitrary jailing and ethnic cleansing, and the destruction of some 2,000 villages.
“He has also conducted ethnic cleansing against the Shia Iraqis and the Marsh Arabs whose culture has flourished for more than a millennium. Saddam Hussein’s police state ruthlessly eliminates anyone who dares to dissent. Iraq has more forced disappearance cases than any other country—tens of thousands of people reported missing in the past decade.
“Nothing points more clearly to Saddam Hussein’s dangerous intentions and the threat he poses to all of us than his calculated cruelty to his own citizens and to his neighbors. Clearly, Saddam Hussein and his regime will stop at nothing until something stops him.
“For more than 20 years, by word and by deed, Saddam Hussein has pursued his ambition to dominate Iraq and the broader Middle East using the only means he knows: intimidation, coercion and annihilation of all those who might stand in his way. For Saddam Hussein, possession of the world’s most deadly weapons is the ultimate trump card, the one he must hold to fulfill his ambition.
“We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more. Given Saddam Hussein’s history of aggression, given what we know of his grandiose plans, given what we know of his terrorist associations, and given his determination to exact revenge on those who oppose him, should we take the risk that he will not someday use these weapons at a time and a place and in a manner of his choosing, at a time when the world is in a much weaker position to respond?”

Chris Oliver says:

05:44pm | 04/06/10

Dan, I tried to answer you fully but I think the Punch editors cut me. Too long, I guess. If you look at UN Security Council resolution 1441 and Colin Powell’s 5 February 2003 speech to the UN, you’ll see references to human rights issues. Similarly if you look at Tony Blair’s speech of September 24, 2002:
“Let me be plain about our purpose. Of course there is no doubt that Iraq, the region and the whole world would be better off without Saddam. They deserve to be led by someone who can abide by international law, not a murderous dictator. Someone who can bring Iraq back into the international community where it belongs, not languishing as a pariah. Someone who can make the country rich and successful, not impoverished by Saddam’s personal greed. Someone who can lead a government more representative of the country as a whole, while maintaining absolutely Iraq’s territorial integrity. We have no quarrel with the Iraqi people. Liberated from Saddam, they could make Iraq prosperous and a force for good in the Middle East.
So the ending of the regime would be the cause of regret for no-one other than Saddam.”

Dan says:

06:41pm | 04/06/10

Chris, there is one question you need to ask yourself. If human rights was the only issue, would they have gone in? The answer is clearly no, Human rights may have one reason among many, but it was not the decisive reason and it was not why they went in. Wolferitz even said himself that human rights was not enought to sacrifice American blood and treasure. As for Blair, why did he spread lies about WMD and not state the human rights argument as the overwhelming reason from the beginning? Why did they not go to war against Zimbarbwe or Burma?

Human rights was not why they went in.

Simone Lament says:

11:10am | 06/06/10

Dan, “Human rights may have [been] one reason among many”, “Human rights was not why they went in”? A contradiction, which one is it to be? Think about the last time you bought someone a birthday present. Was it because you loved them, or because everyone else was taking a gift? Perhaps it was in hope of reciprocation? There is rarely a simple answer to the most basic things we do, it couldn’t possibly be the case for major issues. Chris Oliver makes that point clearly in his examples.  I am enjoying the debate and the streams of information available on WMD and Iraq. It is allowing me to look at the issues with greater objectivity and challenges my earlier beliefs.

Dan says:

11:27pm | 06/06/10

Simone, of course it’s not that simple. However to suggest that human rights was a major reason, as Chris Oliver has, is a little naive to say the least.

The thing about it is that by saying that human rights was a major reason, one casts the war in a moral light. That is, it was moral because Saddam was a monster. Except the truth is that the US did not go into the war because he was a monster (and there is much evidence to support this BTW including work by Bob Woodward), and as such, I don’t think that the war can be morally justified.

Oliver said “it might have something to say about the invasion/liberation of Iraq, since the founding fathers of leftist thought believed in human liberation and Saddam was a despot, but in Fairfaxland it doesn’t.”

Well, not only is this naive because the war was not a liberation, but it’s offensive because it suggests that those who oppose the war oppose a liberation from a despot. Well, I’m sorry, but it’s simply not true. While human rights may have been a reason, it was not a primary reason, and the US would not have gone to war on that basis only.

“t’s a pointless and frustrating exercise though isn’t it, eliminating every reason other than human rights and deciding whether the US would have gone to war on that basis only?” No, because the US did it for us. None of their private discussions mentioned human rights; when the US did mention it, it was either retrospectively or said in such a way to imply that it wasn’t worth going to war (such as the comment that it wasn’t worth sacrificing blood and treasure over). I don’t think it’s pointless or frustrating at all. It was never presented as a serious reason. I mean Blair himself spent most of the time pre-war talking about WMD.

People can be for the war. However I think that to suggest that human rights was a major reason is simply not true, and in this case, it is as simple as that.

Chris Oliver says:

04:01pm | 07/06/10

Dan: We’re in danger of repeating ourselves here.

Of course those who made the case against Saddam Hussein’s regime led with WMD and ending Saddam’s expansionist ambitions since international law - toothless tiger that it is - and just war theory says more about national self-defence and the stability of borders than it does about domestic human rights issues. Moreover, America is a constitutional democracy with finite resources and limited interest in improving distant lands so a president’s arguments for war have to be couched in terms of national defence or national self-interest.

I doubt that anything I say will make you change your mind one jot but let’s give it a go: Why do you think the Americans made that initial mistake of standing down the Iraqi military and the police force and starting a de-Baathification process if not because these were seen as corrupted, inhumane institutions that had to go? If there had been no moral dimension to this war, surely the US would have toppled Saddam (ordinary Iraqis seemed insufficiently worried about the violation of their sovereignty to put up much of a fight) and immediately signed a deal with one of his more amenable deputies to run the country autocratically while inspectors gave it the WMD all-clear?

Tell us how the anti-war movement was going to get rid of Saddam and the sanctions regime that had near universal support and whose effects, in lives lost, were like a low-level war. The anti-war movement, like all anti-reform movements in history, had the effect of favouring the status quo ante of, in this case, dictatorial rule by a ruthless, unelected, criminal elite belonging to the 35 per cent Sunni minority. Some within the anti-war movement wanted Washington or the UN to breach Iraqi sovereignty by providing covert backing for an officer coup or a Sunni rebellion, but why would such covert action, reminiscent of previous actions in Allende’s Chile, be thought morally superior? And why would an officer coup or civil war resolve Iraq’s long-term problems more satisfactorily, quicker and with less loss of life than the Bush, Blair, Howard way? Many more within the anti-war movement would have supported the war if it had had UN backing, but how would that have changed the war’s basic character?

Chris Oliver says:

04:12pm | 07/06/10

Sorry Dan, I meant Shi’a rebellion of course, not Sunni rebellion.

Chris Oliver says:

04:33pm | 07/06/10

“Anyway, you need to ask yourself the following question; if you eliminate every reason save for human rights, would the US have gone to war?”

Why do we have to ask that, Dan? When Britain went to war with Nazi Germany what were the reasons? Would Britain have gone to war if all that had been at stake was Hitler’s domestic human rights record?

War is morally justifiable if its benefits exceed its costs. In Iraq there wasn’t enough reliable evidence of current human rights abuses to justify war, in my view. The Anfal campaign and the crushing of 1991’s Shi’a uprising were in the past and it’s perfectly possible to believe Saddam’s was, by 2003, an efficient dictatorship in terms of the number of people needing to be killed in order to sustain it. The same could be said of Haiti under the Duvaliers, the Philippines under Marcos, Brezhnev’s Russia, South Africa under apartheid, Burma under the generals, and Ian Smith’s Rhodesia.

The starting point of this discussion, I remind you, was my argument that in Fairfaxland the “leftists” don’t have the emancipatory agenda of, say, Marx and Engels and their most famous, universalist quote “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains!” The Fairfaxland leftists are on the same side of history as those who once argued against the sporting boycotts of South Africa.

Chris Oliver says:

10:00am | 08/06/10

Dan, with the greatest possible respect, when you say “human rights was not why they went in” and “the war in Iraq had NOTHING to do with Saddam being a despot” Rachel is right; your argument is bollocks.
With the first one, no one in their right mind (and certainly not me) would say human rights was the total reason for the invasion/liberation, so to the extent you’re arguing against that 100 per cent human rights position you’re arguing against a straw man and, what’s worse from my point of view, you’re suggesting I actually follow the 100 per cent human rights line.
With the second one, that’s self-evidently wrong. You can’t simultaneously concede that human rights played a part, maybe a tiny part, in the decision-making, then say Saddam’s despotism had NOTHING (your emphasis) to do with it.
Would the Woodward quotes have mentioned human rights if that topic had come up in what I assume was a relatively limited amount of time? Maybe, I guess. Maybe they weren’t mentioned since the main focus, we all know, was on the legal, military case for war and the military obstacles to be overcome. Or maybe Woodward edited them out, along with all the side conversations such as Rumsfeld: “Thank you Marjorie. I’ll have white and two sugars, please.”

Rachel says:

10:58am | 08/06/10

“As for Powell, [human rights] probably [were] a consideration. But Powell sadly had limited power.”
US secretaries of state are famously powerless figures. Who, for instance, remembers Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s secretary of state, Henry Kissinger?
Why do the opponents of the war in Iraq want to dignify Powell in a way they don’t dignify Bush? This is Powell on Meet the Press, October 19, 2008, saying Woodward’s account, in The War Within, is wrong.
GEN. POWELL:  Well, let’s start at the beginning.  I said to the president in 2002, we should try to solve this diplomatically and avoid war.  The president accepted that recommendation, we took it to the U.N.  But the president, by the end of 2002, believed that the U.N. was not going to solve the problem, and he made a decision that we had to prepare for military action.  I fully supported that.  And I have never said anything to suggest I did not support going to war.  I thought the evidence was there.  And it is not just my closing of the whole deal with my U.N. speech.  I know the importance of that speech, and I regret a lot of the information that the intelligence community provided us was wrong.  But three months before my speech, with a heavy majority, the United States Congress expressed its support to use military force if it was necessary.  And so we went in and used military force.  My unhappiness was that we didn’t do it right.  It was easy to get to Baghdad, but then we forgot that there was a lot more that had to be done.  And we didn’t have enough force to impose our will in the country or to deal with the insurgency when it broke out, and that I regret. [Elsewhere, Powell has said he supported Gen. David Petraeus’s surge].
MR. BROKAW:  Removing the weapons of mass destruction from the equation, because we now know that they did not exist, was it then a war of necessity or just a war of choice?
GEN. POWELL:  Without the weapons of mass destruction present, as conveyed to us by the intelligence community in the most powerful way, I don’t think there would have been a war.  It was the reason we took it to the public, it was the reason we took it to the American people to the Congress, who supported it on that basis, and it’s the presentation I made to the United Nations.  Without those weapons of mass destruction then Iraq did not present to the world the kind of threat that it did if it had weapons of mass destruction.

Chris Oliver says:

11:19am | 08/06/10

Powell is very clear about this: Before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq he thought this was a war of necessity because of what the intelligence community saw as the ever-growing threat posed by Saddam. It doesn’t suddenly become a war of choice because the firm beliefs, masquerading as knowledge, that took the US and Australia turned out to be wrong, does it? And the fact that WMD and terror links formed the basis of the belief that war was necessary doesn’t mean human rights, energy security and a host of other things were irrelevant. After “Mission Accomplished” the situation fell apart for a time, and Powell has been heavily critical of the war planning. Then came Petraeus’s surge, which Powell supported and thinks should have happened sooner.

foupleteorori says:

08:52pm | 12/06/10

Stimulating lecture, althoug it can be argued both sides. A bit like talking<a > love spells</a> in the heart of a scientific paper.