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Democracy for the Middle East

 December 25, 2004

The Messenger

The AP's tacit admission to collaborating with the enemy brings to mind Robert D. Kaplan's recent essay about the media and medievalism in Policy Review. It also brings into question similar actions on the part of other mainstream news organizations whose journalists increasingly identify transnationally.

During world war II American soldiers and journalists belonged to the same crowd-pack, so news coverage was more empathetic. It made heroes of American troops when the facts so demanded, which was often. American troops have changed less than American journalists have. The crowd-pack to which the latter now belong is that of the global media — an upper-income, transnational human herd. This is not a manifestation of character — good or bad — or even of personal proclivity. This is a mark of profound world-wide social and economic transformations that are eroding the nation-state, with refugee migrations at the bottom of the ladder of human activity and a prosperous class of global cosmopolitans at the top.

BBC reporters, for example, whose salaries are paid by the British government, evince signs of both national and transnational identification as they both propagandize on behalf of the thug regimes that the British Foreign Office wishes to protect (e.g. Jordan) or increase trade with (e.g. Iran), and collaborate openly with terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

Thankfully, today's democratic troops can do more than fight national enemies. Faced with the betrayal of the transmational media, these citizen soldiers are becoming citizen advocates for the national perspective. Daniel Gordan's account of an encounter between a democratic freedom-fighter and a transnational reporter at Jenin is illustrative:

"One [Israeli] reservist sensed MacVicar's hostility. He was a soft-spoken man who approached her and introduced himself as the reserve unit's medical officer, Dr. David Zangen. He told her that when the fighting was over, they found photograph albums of children from roughly 6 years of age up through early and mid-teens. It was an album of photos of children who would be the next crop of suicide killers, with notations indicating when each of the children would be ripe. The reporter had no time for the doctor, however.

"'Perhaps you should ask yourself why,'" she said, dismissing him.

"'I do, madam,' he said, 'I ask myself why. I can't imagine it. I can't imagine sending one's child out to be a mass murderer who commits suicide to kill women and children.'

"'Well, I can explain it,' said the reporter. 'For me it all comes down to one word, "occupation."'

"'But madam,' the doctor said, 'Jenin hasn't been occupied for nine years.'"

Robert D. Kaplan sees a world emerging where democratic soldiers, laptops in hand, blog their way past the transnational media gatekeepers to deliver the national perspective:

Therefore, in the next war, while the media provide the global cosmopolitan perspective, the troops themselves may well provide the American one. The fact is that most grunts can’t stand to be portrayed as victims. The quietly mounting trend of American soldiers and Marines writing about their experiences and posting them on weblogs rather than having their experiences interpreted by transnational journalists is proof enough. AndrewSullivan.com, among others, has periodically posted such accounts. I recall one from a Marine chaplain in the Sunni Triangle pleading that the grunts’ morale was fine and suggesting that their principal fear was the home front going belly-up on them. The parts are all in place for an explosion of this type of commentary. Almost all the troops have their own laptops and access to cybercafes at their bases.

In refusing to release the name of their photographer-collaborator, AP Chairman Burl Osborne (pictured on left) and AP President and CEO Tom Curly are being prescient. It behooves the senior management of the BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times and other global cosmopolitans to be similarly circumspect about the growing outrage of the average Joe, James and Yossi.

Home . Posted by Editor at December 25, 2004 11:27 PM . DFME's new internet address is www.dfme.org

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