by Gloria R. Lalumia
World
Media Watch
by Gloria R. Lalumia
BUZZFLASH NOTE: Once again, these are the views and perspectives of the individual papers, not of BuzzFlash or Gloria. They offer BuzzFlash readers a way of reading what other nations are saying about the crisis, whether we like it or not. We repeat: This is not an endorsement of their viewpoints.
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1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--THIS WAR BROUGHT TO YOU BY RENDON GROUP (The firm is tight-lipped, however, about its current projects. A spokesperson refuses to say whether Rendon is doing any work in preparation for the potential upcoming invasion of Iraq. But a current Rendon Arabic translator commented, "All I can say is that nothing has changed - the work is still an expensive waste of time, mostly with taxpayer funds." However, Rendon may just prove to be one step ahead of the game. If Saddam is toppled, a Rendon creation is standing by to try to take his place…"Were it not for Rendon," a State Department official remarked, "the Chalabi group wouldn't even be on the map.")
2/The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--EDITORIAL: THE GUN AT SADDAM'S HEAD (The Prime Minister, John Howard, on ABC TV on Monday, said he would not "canvass a hypothetical situation in the event that Iraq does not fully comply or only partially complies" with the UN resolution. But he said that before any decision to commit Australia to war, "we will take that issue to Parliament and we will allow for a full debate". That is some acknowledgement of the profound unease in the community that Australia may be drawn into a US war which lacks wider international support and justification.)
3//TurkishPress.com, USA--CIA DEPUTY DIRECTOR MCLAUGHLIN ARRIVES IN TURKEY (Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Deputy Director John E. Mclaughin arrived in Turkey on Monday to hold a series of contacts. A 25-member delegation formed by officials from CIA's Middle East Department, and officials from Pentagon are accompanying Mclaughin.)
4//Arab
News, Saudi Arabia--SAUDIS SECURE $380M CONTRACTS FROM IRAQ (Saudi businessmen
who made a landmark visit to Baghdad earlier this month secured contracts
worth $380 million with the Iraqi government, a top Saudi businessman
told Al-Jazirah newspaper yesterday. The contracts will be signed as soon
as the United Nations endorses them under the oil-for-food program, Abdulrahman
Al-Zamil, chairman of the Saudi Export Development Center and head of
the trade team, told the paper.)
5//The News International, Pakistan--EU TO STOP AFGHAN AID IF DEMANDS
NOT MET (The European Union, the largest single donor of aid to Afghanistan,
warned on Tuesday it would withdraw support unless improvements were made
in upholding justice and human rights… talks with President Hamid Karzai
and Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani had focussed on the need to meet "verifiable
benchmarks" in rebuilding the country. These included the creation
of a multi-ethnic national army under civilian control and the establishment
of the rule of law.)
1//Asia
Times Online November 13, 2002
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DK13Ak01.html
THIS
WAR BROUGHT TO YOU BY RENDON GROUP
By Ian Urbina
(SNIP)
Despite the fumbling naivete of some of its operations, the Rendon Group is no novice in the field. For decades, when US bombs have dropped or foreign leaders have been felled, the public relations shop has been on the scene, just far enough to stay out of harm's way, but just close enough to keep the spin cycle going.
As Franklin Foer reported in the New Republic, during the campaign against Panama's Manuel Noriega in 1989, Rendon's command post sat downtown in a high-rise. In 1991, during the Gulf War, Rendon operatives hunkered down in Taif, Saudi Arabia, clocking billable hours on a Kuwaiti emir's dole. In Afghanistan, group founder John Rendon joined a 9:30am conference call every morning with top-level Pentagon officials to set the day's war message. Rendon operatives haven't missed a trip yet - Haiti, Kosovo, Zimbabwe, Colombia.
The firm is tight-lipped, however, about its current projects. A spokesperson refuses to say whether Rendon is doing any work in preparation for the potential upcoming invasion of Iraq. But a current Rendon Arabic translator commented, "All I can say is that nothing has changed - the work is still an expensive waste of time, mostly with taxpayer funds." However, Rendon may just prove to be one step ahead of the game. If Saddam is toppled, a Rendon creation is standing by to try to take his place. The Iraqi National Congress (INC), a disparate coalition of Iraqi dissidents touted by the US government as the best hope for an anti-Saddam coup, has gotten the go-ahead from US officials to arm and train a military force for invasion. The INC is one of the few names you'll hear if reporters bother to press government officials on what would come after Saddam.
At the helm of the INC is Ahmed Chalabi, a US-trained mathematician who fled from Jordan in 1989 in the trunk of a car after the collapse of a bank he owned. He was subsequently charged and sentenced in absentia to 22 years in prison for embezzlement. Back home in Iraq, he's referred to by some as the so-called limousine insurgent and is said to hold little actual standing with the Iraqi public. Shuttling between London and DC, Chalabi hasn't been in Iraq for over years, and draws "more support on the Potomac than the Euphrates," says Iraq specialist Andrew Parasiliti of the Middle East Institute in Washington DC.
"Were it not for Rendon," a State Department official remarked, "the Chalabi group wouldn't even be on the map."
With funding first from the CIA throughout the 1990s and more recently the Pentagon, Rendon managed the INC's every move, an INC spokesperson acknowledges, even choosing its name, coordinating its annual strategy conferences, and orchestrating its meetings with diplomatic heavy hitters, such as James Baker and Brent Scowcroft. Not that the Rendon Group was the first purveyor of psy-op tactics for promoting US foreign policy in the region. In fact, some of the most impressive spin maneuvers and disinformation campaigns occurred during the Gulf War in 1991, the lessons of which are particularly pertinent as the US again gears up.
Most notorious was the work of PR giant Hill & Knowlton (H&K) (for which current Pentagon spokesperson Torie Clarke worked after she was an aide to John McCain and Bush's dad). Subsidized by the Kuwaiti royal family, H&K dedicated 119 executives in 12 offices across the country to the job of drumming up support within the United States for the 1991 war. It was an all-out grassroots blitz: distributing tens of thousands of "Free Kuwait" T-shirts and bumper stickers at colleges across the US and setting up observances such as National Kuwait Day and National Student Information Day. H&K also mailed 200,000 copies of a book titled The Rape of Kuwait to American troops stationed in the Middle East. The firm also massaged reporters, arranging interviews with handpicked Kuwaiti emissaries and dispatching reams of footage of burning wells and oil-slicked birds washed ashore.
But nothing quite compared to H&K's now infamous "baby atrocities" campaign. After convening a number of focus groups to try to figure out which buttons to press to make the public respond, H&K determined that presentations involving the mistreatment of infants, a tactic drawn straight from W R Hearst's playbook of the Spanish-American War, received the best reaction.
(MORE)
2//The Sydney Morning Herald November 13 2002
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/12/1037080727820.html
EDITORIAL: THE GUN AT SADDAM'S HEAD
The great and general relief at the unanimous agreement in the UN Security Council on Iraq may be shortlived. Not only do the multiple triggers in Resolution 1441 make a breach, and so war, more likely than not. The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, says that no matter how the Security Council may judge a doubtful response by Baghdad, the United States will "go into Iraq" if it decides Iraq has not complied with the demand to declare its weapons of mass destruction and allow them to be destroyed.
Australia has welcomed the resolution, as it should. At the same time, and reassuringly, it has reserved its position on whether it would follow the US into a war against Iraq not sanctioned by the Security Council. The Prime Minister, John Howard, on ABC TV on Monday, said he would not "canvass a hypothetical situation in the event that Iraq does not fully comply or only partially complies" with the UN resolution. But he said that before any decision to commit Australia to war, "we will take that issue to Parliament and we will allow for a full debate". That is some acknowledgement of the profound unease in the community that Australia may be drawn into a US war which lacks wider international support and justification.
(SNIP)
That said, there is still no clear answer to the question why Iraq - among all the oppressive regimes in the world; among all those with weapons of mass destruction; and among those which have defied UN resolutions - should be singled out for unique and extreme international ostracism. The explanation, such as it exists, lies primarily in the US. The articulation by President George Bush and those closest to him of the reasons for cornering Iraq avoids America's real agenda in the Middle East - including the importance of securing future oil supplies. It stresses the awfulness of Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction, but does not explain why Iraq is more of a threat to peace than, say, North Korea with its nascent nuclear capacity, or politically unstable Pakistan with its nuclear capacity in conflict with its nuclear-armed neighbour India.
(SNIP)
Any satisfaction at seeing Saddam cornered - and given, in effect, the choice between war and peace - must be mixed with deep concern at the now greatly increased prospect of a new and terrible conflict in the Middle East.
3//TurkishPress.com Anadolu Agency 11/11/2002 11:37:30 PM (Full
Release)
http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=7734
CIA DEPUTY DIRECTOR MCLAUGHLIN ARRIVES IN TURKEY
ANKARA - Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Deputy Director John E. Mclaughin arrived in Turkey on Monday to hold a series of contacts.
A 25-member delegation formed by officials from CIA's Middle East Department, and officials from Pentagon are accompanying Mclaughin.
The issues of Iraq and fight against terrorism are expected to be high on agenda of Mclaughin's contacts in Turkey.
Mclaughin is scheduled to meet with General Staff, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Intelligence Agency (MIT) officials.
4//Arab News 13 November 2002 / 8 Ramadhan 1423
http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=20336
SAUDIS
SECURE $380M CONTRACTS FROM IRAQ
By a Staff Writer
RIYADH, 13 November 2002 - Saudi businessmen who made a landmark visit to Baghdad earlier this month secured contracts worth $380 million with the Iraqi government, a top Saudi businessman told Al-Jazirah newspaper yesterday.
The contracts will be signed as soon as the United Nations endorses them under the oil-for-food program, Abdulrahman Al-Zamil, chairman of the Saudi Export Development Center and head of the trade team, told the paper.
The 80-member delegation returned to the Kingdom on Nov. 4 after a five-day visit to Baghdad through Arar, the main Saudi-Iraqi border and customs post which was reopened on Friday after 12 years of closure.
(SNIP)
Al- Zamil said he expected the opening of the Arar border point to boost Saudi exports to Iraq, and urged other Gulf exporters to use the border crossing to save time and money.
Saudi exports to Iraq under the oil-for-food program have previously been sent through Jordan. According to official figures, Baghdad has imported nearly $1 billion worth of goods from Saudi Arabia under the program.
5//The News International Wednesday November 13, 2002-- Ramadan
07, 1423 A.H.
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/
EU TO STOP AFGHAN AID IF DEMANDS NOT MET
KABUL: The European Union, the largest single donor of aid to Afghanistan, warned on Tuesday it would withdraw support unless improvements were made in upholding justice and human rights.
(SNIP)
Staur said talks with President Hamid Karzai and Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani had focussed on the need to meet "verifiable benchmarks" in rebuilding the country. These included the creation of a multi-ethnic national army under civilian control and the establishment of the rule of law.
He said progress must also be made in human rights, particularly those of women, and the investigation of human rights abuses committed during Afghanistan's violent recent history. Staur said the EU was willing to assist Afghanistan in meeting its targets and stressed that any withdrawal of aid "would not come as a surprise".
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©
2002, Gloria R. Lalumia
insight@zianet.com
Updated listings of Radio for Progressives on the internet at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
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