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Politics : Stop the War! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Edscharp who wrote (11793)	4/10/2003 10:37:00 AM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 21614

an event can actually happen and still be cooked up. Few of the American news outlets emphasized how small the crowd of Iraqis around the statue really was. And while all emphasized the potential propaganda value of such images going out on Arab TV, they did not allow for the fact that, as University of Chicago professor Charles Lipson cautioned, symbols are in the eye of the beholder. Powerful TV image obscures details By Steve Johnson Tribune television critic Published April 10, 2003 TV loves a great visual, and a giant statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled in a Baghdad public square Wednesday, a major demolition job started by Iraqis but finished by Marines in an armored vehicle, was an irresistible symbol of the entire war. Transfixing those who watched as it played out across news channels worldwide and the major U.S. networks, it was replayed almost in tape loop Wednesday, destined in all probability to become the war's signature image. By the end of the day's TV coverage, the symbol's power had overtaken the hard facts. The tenor of American coverage proclaimed, as MSNBC's on-screen label had it, the "liberation of Baghdad," overwhelming more cautious reporters who pointed out that the U.S. forces did not yet control a majority of the capital and much more fighting was likely. Few of the American news outlets emphasized how small the crowd of Iraqis around the statue really was. And while all emphasized the potential propaganda value of such images going out on Arab TV, they did not allow for the fact that, as University of Chicago professor Charles Lipson cautioned, symbols are in the eye of the beholder. "Al Jazeera is showing these images and ultimately those images will have an effect," said Lipson, director of the university's Program on International Politics, Economics and Security. "But we shouldn't assume that images have only one meaning, or that people change the negative views of a lifetime in an instant of revelation, like Saul on the road to [Damascus]. The real question is, over the long run what's going to happen in Iraq?" The comparison that came all too easily and often was to the "tearing down of the Berlin Wall," as MSNBC anchor Lester Holt said, ignoring that this was merely one of scores of Hussein statues in Iraq rather than the defining symbol of a half-century geopolitical rift. Still, there was no denying the power of seeing the statue tumble shortly before 10 a.m. CDT and then get danced on and dragged in fragments through the streets. "These pictures are the purest gold that the administration could imagine," said Fox News Channel's Brit Hume. CNN's Octavia Nasr, who monitors Arab TV for the cable news channel, said the images were being presented there with "something like an apology" after the Arab channels had taken an anti-American invasion tone throughout the war. "You have all these anchors and reporters trying to explain to their viewers, telling them that, `although we're bringing you first images of this demise of the Iraqi regime . . . in no way are we in support of it,'" Nasr said. The American news channels and networks, the latter returning to blanket war coverage lasting into the afternoon for the first time since the end of March, did sound some notes of caution about the meaning of such a symbol. CNN in particular noted that its Martin Savidge had been reporting from amid a vicious firefight, also in Baghdad, not long before the statue fell in Firdos Square. And embedded Fox reporter Greg Kelly in Baghdad said that "we've seen pockets of resistance in the morning and now we're seeing pockets--pockets--of jubilation." But by the end of the day, NBC's Bob Arnot, also embedded with U.S. troops, had removed the veil of caution. "It feels like Paris 1944, if you've seen the movies, in terms of widespread jubilation," he said. As if to match such sentiment, MSNBC had by then transformed the statue collapse into myth. It was being edited into one seamless fall, rather than the herky-jerky, two-part process it had been, and the network had, on at least one occasion, told viewers that Iraqi citizens had pulled it down on their own. chicagotribune.com

To: Edscharp who wrote (11793)	4/11/2003 4:47:34 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 21614

Re: If you're going to make the claim that the Baghdad suburb of cheering Iraqis was recreated by hollywood you should at least supply some minimal evidence to support your view. Evidence, eh? You want "evidence"?? Here you're: the criminal pounding of Hotel Palestine in downtown Baghdad is all the evidence one needs to call the gleeful, liberated Baghdad a HOAX! Hotel Palestine was the HQ of all remaining independent reporters in Iraq and the Pentagon's decision to bomb it was a strong signal to these reporters... Well, I guess they got the message since they didn't spoil the "liberation of Baghdad" with conflicting newscasts. Besides, it doesn't take an expert in mass psychology to predict how things would play out in a third-world country when all the government brass is on the run and the capital city is in shambles.... What do you think would happen in, say, Brussels if US marines invaded Belgium? I can see the thousands of bums and unemployed, native Belgians and darkies alike, looting the stores and villas of the city's posh neighboroods... It's not a matter of a people unleashing its gratitude to "American liberators"... no, it's just the mundane, earthy reality of "rich and poor". Just cut off the main power plant of New York for, say, 48 hours and look what happens next --LOL. But then, you know damn well it could befall you too --in the land of the free, the home of the brave, the garden of the homeless-- as it did in 1992 during the LA riots: geocities.com Gus