"We need to have a post on the Disney movie for discussion purposes.
The Disney movie, in my opinion, is very, very big news.
It strongly implies, to my mind, that this particular administration intends to keep a very large contingent of troops in Iraq forever_____________. In fact, as a kind of tripwire, like our troops in South Korea, against an attack from just about any Arab nation.
Now, that’s obviously a little fuzzy. But this movie is not just a mosquito buzzing at the edges of the national debate. It’s at the center." Arbogast
———————————————–
Arbogast.
I have removed the words "to protect Israel" because I think the argument is unsupported that this is true.
On the other hand, I do think that a mistaken belief that revolutionary change in the ME would protect Israel figured prominently among the motives of the Bush Administration in invading Iraq.
Pat Lang
This is one of those oh so neat coincidences. Bush Co needs an election-season steroid shot to get them over the hump for the last time. At least until 2008. Disney et al need, desperately, Intellectual Property protection, provided by the govt. There have been, are now going on, a ton of IP ‘reforms’ that the IP owners think are vital to their survival. What do I mean when I say things like IP reforms? Think about the printer that slows itself down, and delivers less clear resolution, when you put generic ink cartridges in. Let’s make it a felony for owner of the printer to try and rectify something like that problem. Think of the Ford engine that decides it will only reveal the access codes to the diagnostic computer in the hood to a Ford licensed mechanic. The list could on and on and on. It is called digital rights management (DRM) dynamics. Get use to it. Its spreading; and here to stay. They were looking for someway to help Bush.
Thank goodness Sunday night, is the opening of the football season. And thank goodness the Texas-Ohio St game is on Sat night.
On another note mentioned in PL’s post, the Israeli connection, interesting take on it for those interested.
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/41075/
The movie blame the Clinton’s administration for the attacks, right?
Pat, the administration may intend this and use the South Korea analogy, however we have not been taking 10,000 casualties a year in South Korea since the armistice.
i agree it’s huge news. and i would add, it’s a very insidious event, esp with the cooptation of scholastic to provide the ‘teaching’ materials to classrooms across the country. fortunately, scholastic has now backed away from their original role and done something quite commendable — use this as an opportunity to teach students critical thinking (!) and how to distinguish between different forms of moviemaking.
but directly to the point, i find what abc has engaged in very disturbing. this is not a one-time teevee event; it’s something that will be played and replayed for years and those ‘facts’ as abc portrays them will become the new ‘truth’.
for my own self, i’m curious how many times the phrase ‘wag the dog’ is uttered in this schlockumentary. is there a corresponding storyline about how obsessed the washington media mavens were with a certain blue dress.
“. . .this particular administration intends to keep a very large contingent of troops in Iraq forever. . .”
This administration only has two more years in its tenure, therefore there is no “forever” in its policy plans and designs.
J, Carlos,
The answer to your question is yes, big time. Its all their fault.
Relevant WaPo articles can be found at:
Clinton Officials Protest ABC 9/11 Film
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090700582.html
ABC to Alter Show on Pre-9/11 Run-Up
Democrats ratcheted up the pressure yesterday. Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and four Democratic colleagues wrote to Robert Iger, chief executive of the Walt Disney Co., ABC’s corporate parent, urging him to cancel the movie. The Democratic National Committee obtained more than 100,000 signatures on a petition demanding cancellation. Jay Carson, a spokesman for former president Bill Clinton, called ABC’s plan to air the movie “despicable.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090701454.html
A cynical view is that even bad publicity is good for ratings.
This is the same Disney that did not want to release Fahrenheit 9/11 too close to the 2004 election lest they were viewed as partisan.
But a $40 million project to be broadcast commercial-free??? I can remember the Reaganites getting into a tizzy over the Reagan TV biopic. I guess corporations like Disney don’t fear the Democrats. Lesson for them.
“. . .this particular administration intends to keep a very large contingent of troops in Iraq forever. . .”
This administration only has two more years in its tenure, therefore there is no “forever” in its policy plans and designs…”
The implication for me that extends from these statements, when added to the fact of the 14, or 10, or 4 “enduring bases” is that this administration fully intends to remain in power if not forever, at least past the presently-scheduled Jan 2009 departure.
It’s time to ask whether supporting aged “MOUSE-ka-Teers” and fake Florida plastic Castlelands with Hooray!! “Mini Mouse” ((give her a cookbook)) represent baby boomer ageing angst which could be jettisoned in favour of a trip to Ireland where real castles abound.
So supporters of the current administration are attempting to alter the public’s perception of history in order that it better conforms with present political needs. Re-reading 1984 is kind of sobering these days.
Beyond annoying that marketing predators must scoff when they target aged “Mouse-ka-teer ” boosters with their flashback Pavlovian fears and memories of an unrealistic government suggested “Duck and Cover” response to an atomic blast. Human nature then magnifies the inbred fears of imminent peril and destruction of family as a boost to the “War on Terra”. Humiliating the ease with which we can be manipulated thus proving the human similarity to the the innate responses of the noble Pavlov’s dog.
As for Disney/ABC, I had them pegged in the ’90s as the propaganda organ for the robber-baron wing of the GOP, with John Stossel attacking any part of the government that stands against inequality, and movies supporting the general feel-good greed of the Clinton era. Then 9/11 happened and the rich realized globalization required a violent empire. Mental shift in progress. But Disney relies on the whole world loving America and its vacuousness, and on Americans believing the whole world to be a bunch of exotic settings for cartoons – it makes no product that people really need. It will not prosper in an American Reich that hates and is hated by the world.
“Birth Of A Nation”, anyone?
” Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Cyrus Nowrasteh, the writer/producer of the ABC 6-hour miniseries The Path to 9/11″
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23865
One of the Shah’s boys. Wanting Cheney to get him back his pleasure plalace. Now wonder he sings Bush-Cheney praises. another Chalabi type wanting his former regime back on the tips of American bayonets.
I just read another tall tale. That 9.11 was a Cheney-Israeli false flag operation. there’s a lot of nuts believe that too. that those building could not have been brought down by a kerosene (jet fuel) fire.
I don’t know about that anymore. Isn’t structural steel sprayed with insulating foam to protect if from fire?
” Subsequent examinations of the towers’ structure have sought to prove they were significantly weakened by the impact which tore off fire retardant materials and led the steel beams bending under heat and then collapsing.”
Steel is notoriously weak in a fire. Steel deforms when heated. Wood beams are actually safer. That’s why steel beams are sprayed with fire retardent materials. That’s the question. How plausible is it that the fire retardent material which sticks to the steel like glue was peeled off by the airplane crash?
I don’t see the theory going anywhere. I don’t think it has legs. The Pentagon airplane came too close to Rummy.
But then again there is that matter of the codes. Didn’t the hijackers punch in the codes to get in restricted DC airspace without setting off the alarms?????????????
How did they get those???????????
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=403757&in_page_id=1770
Best Wishes
The entertainment biz has (correctly) been identified by the NeoCons as a Democrat bloc.
So they are probing, trying to find ways to insinuate their views into popular entertainment.
You can see this, for example, in the loathesome, puke-inducing “patriotism” in country and western songs. CW songs used to be about trucks and girlfriends and etc., Now they are often big-hair celebrations of America, standing tall, being free etc.
This is why the Dixie Chicks have been so pilloried.
Expect more right wing FoxNews films and TV. The NeoCons have identified this as a “long war” — and my assumption is that entertainment conglomerates, per the earlier posts, want to curry favor with regulators and congress etc., so as to kill “new media”, internet-based communications etc. in its crib.
It won’t work, naturally. But it comes from the same source: the Military Industrial Complex needs a new Cold War; Big Media wants to kill new media; Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Nukes want to forestall the arrival of de-centralized, distributed energy generation; Legacy telcos want to tithe the internet; Israel wants to crush Arab nationalism in any form.
Large traditional interest groups will not give up their 20th century power easily.
So Hollywood studios, the AIPAC types and the Republican NeoCons have a transitory confluence of interest.
Will, the “Scholars for Truth” are hardly the top or leading scientists that the Daily Mail claims in the article- look at the list of members and half are liberal arts and those from a Scientific background are hardly qualified to comment on this situation (The Daily Mail has habit of thinking any one who is a Scientist is qualified to discuss ANY scientific matter).
That’s not to say they don’t have a right to question the events surrounding 911, it’s just they are no better at answering the question than most of us non-experts, and sadly, the lack of any scientific creditials in such technical matters does matter.
This often detracts from the policy issues that surrounds 911- and something that the ABC film seems to want to blur (sorry, misapprorpiate the blame to Clinton). That us the real issue here, and why such films that seek to blame the previous administration, is so repulsive. In this respect, conspiracy theories, no matter how well intentioned, are dangerous as they distact out attention from what we need to be questioning.
It is also a sad sign of our reverence for anyone with a PhD after their name. Here in the UK, we are bewildered at the number of US writers that put PhD after their name on popular (mostly self help books).
As a scientist (well, computer scientist) what counts is the respect a person’s original research is held in the academic community, not what they can write after their name. It’s a deep loss that Richard Feynman could not head a proper investigation into this affair and out the whole thing to rest. I notice he never had PhD after his name on any of his books (in fact he turned down many honourary doctorates as he said it devalued them for those that deserved the title)- he had no need, his reputation spoke for itself.
More about the physics 9.11 towers coming down. A view that doesn’t support conspiracy theories
“Let’s move on to Eager of MIT. “Demolition experts say, ‘Ohhh, it’s all science and timing.’ Bull!” Eager says. “What’s the technique? If 200,000 tons gives way, where do you think it’s going? Straight down.”
In the days after Sept. 11, experts claimed temperatures reached 2,000 degrees on the upper floors. Others claimed steel melted. Nope. What happened, Eager says, is that jet fuel sloshed around and beams got rubbery.
“It’s not too much to think that you could have some regions at 900 degrees and others at 1,200 degrees, and that will distort the beams.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090701669_pf.html
My distrust of Cheney and Co. goes back prior to Irak II- All the way to Irak I or the Gulf War. There was a Christian Science Monitor article that pretty well proved that Cheney presented doctored up photos to the Saudis to get that war going. The photos were satellilte prints purporting to show Irakis massing on the Saudi border.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p01s02-wosc.html
” In war, some facts less factual
Some US assertions from the last war on Iraq still appear dubious.
By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
MOSCOW – When George H. W. Bush ordered American forces to the Persian Gulf – to reverse Iraq’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait – part of the administration case was that an Iraqi juggernaut was also threatening to roll into Saudi Arabia.
Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid–September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.
But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border – just empty desert.
“It was a pretty serious fib,” says Jean Heller, the Times journalist who broke the story ”
I wouldn’t put anything past Cheney and Scooter rwin Libby.
Best Wishes
Yes, it’s all about controlling what’s on TV.
Putin has boiled it down to this and jettisoned all the other Soviet-era repressive claptrap — waste of money and effort. He just controls what appears on television. You can even print whatever you want there.
If you have any friends in the UK, thank them for paying their “telly tax.” BBC News is a tool of the British establishment for sure but one that works only by maintaining its credibility.
You’ve seen the bumper sticker: Kill Your Television!
That’s about right, I think.
Will
There were hundreds of pictures. Hundreds of people worked on them. There was no doubt about what we were looking at. I briefed the Kuwaiti government every day in the week before the invasion as we watched the build up continie. I briefed Cheney the morning he went to Saudi to persuade the king to let us in the country. It was no “fib.” pl
First, i’d like to say how much i enjoy reading this blog and some of the discussions that happen here, and voice hearty salutations to the finesse and honesty of our host.
Secondly, i must object. I’m Sorry, Col. Lang — i just can’t accept that Saddam Hussein would have dared to invade Saudi Arabia. That’s the land of the Qaabaa, Mecca, and has been decreed no-blood-spilt-here in the Qu’ran. An invasion at that time, under those circumstances, would have been an open invitation to every Muslim nut seeking Paradise to leave wherever they might be and move to Saudi Arabia to fight the godless communism of the Baath.
We are seeing what that sort of campaign can do now, and while Hussein was a brutal, ignorant martinette, he wasn’t outright stupid. The USSR – falling apart at the time – was in no position to help him. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that every second goatherd in S.A. is the member of some tribe that owns some 20 Kalashnikovs and 10 RPG’s per capita.
I would believe it far more if the U.S. government had claimed Hussein was building fortifications on the border, but the Iraqi army — large as it may have been — was in no state to both hold Kuwait *and* expand their war. It would have been all they could do to hold on to the territory they had just acquired.
So while it may not have been an open and barefaced lie, it was certainly a “fib”.
sft
The Iraqis invaded Kuwait with something like a dozen divisions. The Guard went in first. They halted when they reached the Saudi border except for an armored brigade in the SW who evidently got lost and crossed the border, then withdrew into Kuwait.
Nobody knew if the Iraqis were going to continue into SA. The presumption was that they well might after refitting in Kuwait. At that point there were about eight divisions in southern Kuwait including the three divisions of the Republican Guards Armored Corps and half a dozen more occupying the rest of Kuwait. Analytic judgments are made on the basis of capabilities, not intentions. Only Saddam knows why he did not advance into Saudi Arabia, but the capability was certainly there.
It is a commonplace of Islamic history for people to fight in the peninsula including the Saudis in the process of creating the country.
I would dispute your contention that the Iraqi army could not have advanced down the massive highway system to the Ghawar oilfield anytime in the first month or so after their occupation of Kuwait. The Saudi forces were not a serious problem and there was nothing in the other Gulf states that would have stopped them except a battalion of Pakistanis in Qatari uniform. Initial US deployments were very light. There was a small force from the 82nd Airborne Division, and an air deployable Air Force package that would have run out of ammunition and bombs very quickly. Saudis are not Iraqis. There would have been resistance to an occupation, but I think it is doubtful that it would have been as effective as what we are seeing in Iraq.
You are just wrong about this. For cheney to tell the Saudis that the Iraqis were in a position to invade Saudi Arabia was in no way a lie. pl
When discussing Saddam with Iraqis who defended him, I would tell them that he was reckless in invading Kuwait, but not bold enough, in that he did not go all the way to Dhahran to put himself in a strong position to deal.
The Iraqis usually agreed with me.
Birnbaum
I deleted your comment becasue you sent me a dummy e-mail address. pl
“Analytic judgments are made on the basis of capabilities, not intentions.”
In which case, the analytic judgment has to be that nothing changed with 9/11 – analytically speaking – because no capability changed. Only changed were public perception of intentions, and what those capabilities implied.
9-11-01 — the day our government declared war on its own citizens.
I think we can safely say this Disney/ABC event has brought us to the tipping point of fascism, the merging of corporate and state power. And to think, tonight we get to watch as we go over to the other side! Historic indeed.
Col,
You said:
“Analytic judgments are made on the basis of capabilities, not intentions.”
That’s not the way the WH sees things.
David Brooks, the conservative columnists for for the Times, has repeatedly written about how conservatives have lost patience with this method.
The new way of doing intel is that the WH understands good intelligence is that which supports policy.
Conservatives believe that intentions are the key.
For example – it mattters not so much that Saddam had wmd. For conservative in the WH house, the key was that Saddam was part of the axis of evil.
The irony is that this approach, which Brooks celebrated for being cut loose from empricist shackels, seems pretty un-conservative.
Your definition is what he said they were trying to get away from –
If your method had been adhered to, Colin Powell never would have had enough Intel to give that UN speech because most of it would have been rejected. Since they wanted war – (the policy), Bush admin conservatives insisted that good intel is what supports selling the war.