European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 11, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday february 11,1991 the stars and . Rosenthal Page 13 commentary iraqi president expert at managing news Saddam Hussein will lose the War and May turn out to be the worlds most overrated commander. Meantime he is doing a pretty Good Job As an editor of. American television. No use getting mad at him for trying to manipulate the Media that comes naturally. And before everybody denounces Peter Arnett and other reporters in Baghdad lets put responsibility for one troubling distortion where it belongs on a few news managers in both american to and the . Government. The Way Iraq is covered or not covered involves the whole american press. But for most of the world now Baghdad is can so its newsworthy to focus on that network for the moment. Day and night Over and Over can is our vision of what is going on in Baghdad Are we watching can is can watching us we feel an intimacy with can now kind of As if we own it its around so much. Also Bernard Shaw makes us feel we can Trust him no matter what As Walter Cronkite still does when he is on the air. We like the fact that Arnett has All his wits but not All his hair and that other can hands sometimes seem a Little upset or sweaty just like people. Can is Good not Only for Ted Turners Bank account which i assume he is now lavishly spreading among news gatherers but for the major networks for whom it is an everlasting pain in the stimulus. But can in the United states can do better on handling the news from Baghdad with full professional skill. The Job is to get it on the air but prevent Saddam Hussein from using the network too often too blatantly. Arnett is admired by journalists wh6 know him. I tried to hire him for the new York times when he was with the associated press. A least i managed to scare the a into giving him a Nice but like the other reporters in Iraq Arnett has not been allowed by the iraqis to work in the country in order to get and give a full fair accounting of life in Baghdad a hardly. A \ they were allowed in and permitted to stay to cover exactly one Story civilian casualties and damage. That is the vision we get from Baghdad just journalistic question knowing that your Corry Sponden will be allowed to cover Only one Story under censorship would you Send him in depends. If the Story is a pingpong match with China As Cuba once proposed to the times a in your ear with the visa Fidel. But if it is War and if a Little behind the links information is better than none the answer is yes at least for a awhile a a a. A a a a a a. A a then editors newspaper or to Are supposed to earn their can t a a Kyoto in Nam amp a their pitiful salaries. The editor must decide Day by Day whether that one Story meets decent news values or is simply propaganda a petition it amp it Rcd on the reporter. Every Day Over and Over can puts its Baghdad reporters on the air talking about that one Corner of the one Story they Are allowed to discuss. On any Good newspaper after a while that Story would be Short and inside. _ to is primarily a front Page so that one Story is played out of relevance to new or balanced information. Constant repetition of old official and insufficient information is a definition of propaganda not news. It might be helpful if a can editor would Call Arnett More often off the. Air ask him if he had anything new and then make a Mutual decision on whether to go on the air. A Good a Man knows the difference Between news and a handout. \ in no a caveats badly need fleshing out. Tell the Reader always that Arnett is not just being a a monitored but prohibited from seeing or reporting the military damage c needed to put the civilian Story into any wartime perspective. A a a it second question How Long do you keep your reporter in place repeating the same censored one Story depends. Eventually the repetition of propaganda May become not Only valueless but journalistic ally immoral. Right now if can in the United states pays More attention to news judgments i would much rather have Arnett in. Bugh Adjian. Back Home Silling through the Job offers waiting for him. President Bush is fed up with civilian damage stories from the iraqis. Good a now he can order the . Information people in saudi Arabia and Wash Gynn to disclose More of the military damage in Baghdad already known to Saddam. V the reputation of the United states is involved around the world. There a no reason to leave that in. Tirely in Saddam s editorial hands. A a a a c the now York times William f. Buckley is a Leader without a conscience time Strobe Talbott writes thoughtfully and stylishly about the advantages of the Leader without a conscience. A. A a a a the . And its partners Are trying to limit casualties in their ranks and among civilians in Iraq while Saddam a Hussein a boasts of his willingness to lose tens of thousands of his own troops in a single engagement and deliberately targets cities. The moral equivalent of his dumping Oil into the persian Gulf would be poisoning thet Igrisan euphrates or tampering with the dams at their headwaters. Yet a both measures Are out of the question. By the same Token if Saddam had nuclear weapons he might very Well use them the United states does have nukes but it will never use them. That difference is the essence of Why this War had to be fought Why it must be won and w by winning it will not be easy.�?�. Talbott who wrote the time essay designating Mikhail Gorbachev As Man of the decade will be remembered for having doubted that the soviet Union Ever was a threat to the United states rather it was the Hobgoblin of Little minds. In the current essay he recognizes that just As there w As someone w to came to be called Pope Pius in the second so now we Are dealing with a different Gorbachev. From the Man who lore Down the Berlin Wall. A the could have been the hero of Baltic Independence and of Reform in its Triumph Over reaction. But that might have meant yielding to other democratically elected leaders. So now he is the villain. That is the tragedy of Gorbachev a a y a a a a a it is an Early lesson in comparative political science that a democratic nation faces problems not faced by its adversaries. George Bush runs into these All the time and has taken to hedging where necessary As for instance when through vice president Dan Quayle he gave out the word that the United states has no present a a intentions of using its nuclear Arsenal which statement stops just this Side of. Saying that he can envision no circumstances in which he would use such weapons. A at the diplomatic level Bush is having a wretched time. One should be grateful to Saddam if that formulation is possible for failing to live up to the Jan. 15 deadline. If one minute before Midnight he had signalled his intention of pulling out of Kuwait even at his own Speed he might just have aborted the entire coalition Enterprise against Iraq. The emancipation of Kuwait is a Noble Send but not More so than the emasculation of the Man who invaded Kuwait and who in the course of doing this revealed what it was that he was planning for the rest of the world. The occupation of Kuwait sad though it is is not As important in the final analysis As the mobilization of iraqi wealth and technology toward the a development of atomic biological chemical weapons with which to bestrides that,., much of the world As such an armory would dispose of. If Bush sticking by the narrowest interpretation of the Jun. Security Council Resolution had Becin Frozen in his tracks on Midnight Jan. 15, Kuwait might be on the Road to liberation Saddam a regrouping and the continuation of his work with his toxic Mills of ultimate warfare. 1 so Bush did move and now he tells us that he has set Back by 10 years any capacity of Iraq to wage nuclear or biological warfare. Having said As much he then announced last tuesday what were our minimum terms for ending the War and indeed we Are. Back to the Mere with or Tuvalu of the iraqi military from Kuwait. Bush May be reasoning As follows that having had 21 Days go with our bombers the strategic threat put cd by a nuclear Iraq is Over for the Short term and we Tan afford to let Saddam go Back to what is left of Baghdad provided he withdraws from Here is where Talbott a distinction becomes pointed if the United states were other than what it is we would add to the liberation of Kuwait the personal surrender of Saddam announcing our intention to try him for War crimes and hang him if guilty. But we know from the i Providence of Franklin Roosevelt Scall for unconditional surrender in Casablanca in 1943 that to Cut off the enemy a line of Retreat is to commit the unpardonable sin described As such by Machiavelli. If we were to say that Dur intentions were to try to hang Saddam Marty extra lives might this Cost us would we have been willing in 1943.10 guarantee the personal Security f Adolf Hitler and perhaps even his continued authority Over a Germany withdrawn from its foreign adventures the strategically prudent and the morally desirable paths become very nearly fungible and if requires a learn of Scholastic philosophers to do the unravelling. But the Point is As Talbott puts it that meanwhile Saddam is free to Man Euver. And we arc not. A i Universal Piess Synod site a
