UPDATED - ColdType

described it as a dual ultimatum. Yesterday, none
of the U.S. media outlets I watched described it
that way. (Today the New York Post does. When
CNN rebroadcast the press conference in the
afternoon, they called it a “replay” as if was just
a game which many columnists believe it was.)
Washington talks about “disarmament,” a
code word for its real intentions. The closest
France’s President Chirac can get to talking with
the U.S. is through 60 Minutes. And what’s
worse, the U.S. government seems to welcome
its isolation, wrapping it in the rhetoric of righteousness
and unflinching resolve. The Wall
Street Journal carries documents that show
Washington is planning to bypass the U.N. on
reconstruction plans, giving the work to U.S. corporations.
There’s gold in them thar deserts.
Protests downplayed
EMBEDDED: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION
I STOPPED by one of the vigils last night, one
more protest in a week that saw more demonstrations
around the world, with more than
700,000 marching in Spain alone. You would
think that the emergence of this global movement
would be big news. And yes, there was TV
coverage in the form of collages of images. But to
the top-down worldview of The New York Times,
they are a treated as a nuisance. The lead story
on Sunday devoted one line in the 13th paragraph
on the jump page, page 14, to the demonstrations:
“Around the world, including in Washington, protesters
assembled to demonstrate against the
impending war.” A story about the demos
appeared on page 15 under a large photo of Iraqis
marching with a photo of Saddam Hussein. The
headline refers to the marchers as “throngs.”
The Times, predictably, was more worried
78
about the warnings that Al Qaeda is using the
war on Iraq to step up its recruiting. One of the
more bizarre media moments occurred during a
Los Angeles Times- sponsored debate aired live
on CSPAN Saturday night. Just as columnist
Robert Scheer was speaking, CSPAN reported
they were having technical difficulties. The
screen went black, and within seconds we were
being treated to a prerecorded urgent warfare
exercise from Fort Polk hosted by a soldier. A
rebroadcast of the ANSWER anti-war rally
promised for midnight was never shown, at least
not in the East. Huh ???????
The threat to journalists
WHAT happens now? U.S. dependents and personnel
are being withdrawn throughout the
region, including Israel. There’s a heightened
police presence in the streets of our cities.
National Guardsmen carry M16s in the subways.
And there are new difficulties for members of
the press who are being counseled to get out of
Baghdad.
A Gulf region website is reporting that independent
reporting may be impossible. “Should
war in the Gulf commence, the Pentagon proposes
to take radical new steps in media relations
– ‘unauthorized’ journalists will be shot at.
Speaking on The Sunday Show on Ireland’s RTE1
last Sunday, veteran BBC war reporter Kate Adie
said a senior Pentagon official had warned her
that uplinks, i.e. TV broadcasts or satellite
phones, that are detected by U.S. aircraft are
likely to be fired on.
Bush Sr.’s Iraq war featured tight control of the
media, but the current administration intends to
go further. According to BBC superstar Adie