28 March 2005

His spirit and his moral sense are something that will draw young journalists in... [Hunter S.] Thompson knew what was right and wrong in a way that is almost gone from journalism today, he knew who got the sharp end of the stick and who didn't. [1]


The brilliance of gonzo journalism is how the intervention of the writer into his or her story reveals an essential truth. But whatever fuels the writer's verve, how this truth is revealed depends on a much more basic quality. Moral sense and ethics.

If we look at intervention, there is a parallel between gonzo journalism and the new brand of neocon opinion. It too describes a drastically reshaped reality. But rather than the Duke's "fear and loathing", the new drugs of liberation are called power and empire.

Ron Suskind of The New York Times describes his meeting with a Bush official who craves this power hit:

"That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he [said]. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." [2]

While Suskind found his lesson disturbing, other writers are only too willing to embrace "history's actors". In return they gain access denied to the mainstream press. This gives rise to what we can call "neoconzo" journalism. It stands aloof over the cold contracting of language. Beyond Orwell, "newspeak" now enters a cybernetic zone. This is the standardization of sensations and emotions. Cliches such as "trust" and "good vs. evil" create the Media of Fear. [3]

Italy, Holland, Ukraine and Poland are all set to withdraw troops from Iraq this year. But one nation has marched out of step with them. In this respect we shall look at one headline. In February Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced that he will double his "boots on the ground" in Iraq. News updates at the time saw a disjointed story emerge. By limiting policy to a few "bullets points" there was no chance of public debate.

It is now common for leaders to clam up, bunker down and be evasive so not to endure public debate. Rather than risk exposure, they let columnists in the press play a decoy role.

The edge enjoyed by neoconzo scribes is that they work so easily within an Orwellian flow. This contracting of our language fits into the age of the "sound bite". Such reliance on cliche was sussed out by the website New Matilda in response to Australia's Iraq escalation:

'Iraq is at a tilting point', said PM Howard on Tuesday announcing a doubling of Australian troop numbers in al-Muthana Province to secure Japanese workers. At first he seemed to say 'tipping point' which suggests something different, though what is not entirely clear. Perhaps he misheard Tony Blair when Tony asked him. Perhaps it was George who first misspoke but we are supposed to believe that George had nothing to do with this. [4]

The knack of the neoconzo columnist is to anticipate news from the Bush or Howard camps. Gerard Henderson's "Terrorism as seen though public eyes and by cynical media" [5] appeared on the morning of Howard's Iraq "bullet points". The piece proved to be a colorful segue from Howard's flat tone. Henderson kept the "war on terror" and the Iraq war linked in the same frame. Using this "big lie" with emotive words such as "trust" and "Islamism" may have been enough to capture readers who don't bother to continue past the first six lines.

He asserts that since 9/11, "Americans, Britons and Australians have come to believe their nations are at war." He defines this war - and this enemy - as "Islamism". The public, he says, will trust its leaders "unless criminal or grossly unprofessional conduct" can be shown. Fallujah, Abu Ghraib, or the false trail of WMD, do not in his book represent such conduct. But nor are Australians off the hook in cases of US misconduct. One officer, Major George O'Kane, was aware of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib in October 2003 while working with the senior US legal officer in Iraq. He then helped to write a rebuttal of a Red Cross report on Abu Ghraib. When the scandal broke, the Australian government denied all knowledge of it; they simply stated that none of its staff had ever witnessed abuse. [6]

Henderson then weighs in on the side of the Army in trying to draw a line between the "interview" and "interrogation" of inmates at Camp Cropper. It was here that Australian officials were on the trail of suspected WMD. On of them was Rod Barton, a top WMD analyst who worked for the Iraq Survey Group but resigned in disgust when the CIA censored his reports. On his return home he turned whistleblower and spoke to the ABC's Four Corners program. Barton concluded that there were no weapons of mass destruction; there had not been no weapons of mass destruction since 1991; and there were no programs to produce such weapons. And yet a number of "high value" Iraqi officials were still at Camp Cropper, held there in the belief that they were the ones who were producing the weapons. One of them was Mohammed Hamdi Azmirli, a senior Iraqi scientist later beaten to death in the prison. This is the setting in which Henderson wants to deny complicity in abuse. But Barton tells it otherwise:

"Someone was brought to me in an orange jumpsuit with a guard with a gun standing behind him ... of course I didn't pull any fingernails out ... but I think it's misleading to say no Australians were involved. I was involved." [7]

Henderson ends with lines that come across as homage to the Orwellian.

At times of war, he says, the state may overreact; yet it retains public support. This is because what he calls "the cynicism of the media" is countered by the broad base of citizens who "recognise a threat when they see one."

To Henderson, the threat level must remain high. Never mind that the reasons for war have all collapsed in a passing parade of false claims. Led by "history's actors" the parade creates its own reality. And remote from the people it is. Thus we see how George W. Bush moves abroad in his security bubble; the cordoned off roads remind us of the atomized streets of 1950s sci-fi films. [8]

Sydney-based Miranda Devine also boosts the neoconzo cause in her columns. She hits out at critics of the war for their "flailing obsession to find a smoking gun". But it was the pro-war Murdoch press that found a "SMOKING GUN".

A front page photo splash saw Government senator Ross Lightfoot holding an AK-47 as he posed with Kurd fighters. It is alleged that while on a "study tour" of Iraq, he smuggled in $25,000 on behalf of oil giant Woodside. All this while arming himself with high-powered pistols. [9] It was weird blend of The Quiet American and Austin Powers. Send lawyers, guns and money!



We can now turn to Devine's "Critics are willing Iraq to fail" [10]. Here she snipes at the scale of Iraqi civilian casualties, as published in The Lancet. She sees their survey as intent to show the war in the worst possible light. But she might better ask why the US, as the occupying power, fails to keep any records of civilian loss of life in the fighting. Juan Cole's award winning blog (If America were Iraq) might also apply to her own patch of real estate. What, then, if Sydney Harbour was the banks of the Tigris?

Devine then quotes from Kurt Andersen's column in New York Magazine. She repeats his line that war cynics may have to eat humble pie after the election in Iraq. But Naomi's Klein's "Getting the Purple Finger" may prove to be the best metaphor. For Devine falls victim to 'friendly fire' by picking up these misfiring lines from Andersen:

"Each of us has a Hobbesian choice concerning Iraq; either we hope for the vindication of Bush's risky, very possibly reckless policy, or we are in a de facto alliance with the killers of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians."

As Andersen's readers were quick to point out, he almost certainly meant a "Hobson's choice"; it means the option of taking the one thing offered or nothing. "Hobbesian" can only be a reference to Thomas Hobbes. (The 17th century philosopher who argued that the way to make society more secure is to obey those in power.) Blog sites soon had Andersen ducking for cover:

"The key linguistic point is that Hobson's blocks Hobbesian here. Even if there is a valid and coherent reason for Andersen to see his choice as a 'Hobbesian choice', he can't use that phrase without taking literate readers aback, and leading some of them to make fun of him". [11]

But Andersen's quote also has a twist in its tale. How can Hobbes be the reference here? In Leviathan and other works, he warned of the pitfalls of democracy. Absolute power does not sit well with social justice. Not least because the "judgment" of those in power can be used to exclude "the other". Cultures that do not share our values are seen to hate us because of "who we are", not because of our actions. But the focus on "who we are" also serves to divide the West. Judge not the elite by how they act, as their claim of "who we are" is all that counts. Instead they impose the burden of action on others in time of war. And to whom does this burden fall? On the social class from which most young soldiers are recruited.

Hobbes still holds sway in modern political theory. Leo Strauss (who died in 1973) is one such disciple. In turn, Strauss acts as a major influence on the neocons. To the extent that the legions of neoconzo scribes are fans of Strauss, they would see a necessity to deceive their own public. As Shadia Drury points out in a comment on her book Leo Strauss and the American Right:

"Perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical [in Strauss's view] because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them". [12]

Thus the rank and file should know better than to question the wisdom of "history's actors". The ends justify the means -- even lies. Those in control will only ever be a tiny faction with no obligation to those outside the cabal. To them, world public opinion (eg. against the war in Iraq) is itself under suspicion; such dissent, to use a phrase from Lenin, is like an "infantile disorder".

How ironic to see the gonzo journalist's lone fight against the abuse of power be so mangled. What we call neoconzo journalism acts to reverse this code. Their words have become a tool of war. The "endless war", of which Iraq is seen to be a part, cloaks an abuse of power. It sees the lone figure of the citizen ever more cut off from collective action.


Stephen Smith is a freelance writer who lives in Canberra. He has contributed pieces to Electronic Iraq, ZNet and Melbourne Indymedia. He can be contacted
at: goalside@cyberone.com.au


Endnotes


[1] "Hunter S. Thompson 1937-2005", Steve Gilliard's News Blog, 21 February 2005:
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2005/02/hunter-s-thompson-
1937-2005.html

[2] Ron Suskind, "Without a Doubt", The New York Times, 17 October 2004:
http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com
/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html&OQ=exQ3D1099300825Q26eiQ3D1 ...


[3] Paul Virilio, Art and Fear, translated by Julie Rose, Continuum, London, 2003, p 96.

[4] "This Week", 23 February 2005, New Matilda:
http://www.newmatilda.com/admin/preview/home/articledetail.a
sp?ArticleID=500%20

[5] Gerard Henderson, "Terrorism as seen through public eyes and by cynical media", The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 February 2005:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Gerard-Henderson/Terrorism-as-see
n-through-public-eyes-and-by-cynical-media/2005/02/21/110883 ...

[6] Tom Allard, "Iraq abuses: Army knew months ago", The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 May 2004:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/26/1085461838353.html

[7] "Secrets and Lies", Four Corners, reporter: Liz Jackson, ABC Television, 14 February 2005:
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1302767.htm


[8] "Potemkin World... or the President in the Zone", TomDispatch, 27 February 2005:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml

[9] Miranda Devine, "Obsessions overshadow vital lessons", The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 February 2005:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml
Nick Butterly, "Smoking Gun", The Daily Telegraph, 17 March 2005, p 1; online report:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,574
4,12582606%255E601,00.html

[10} Miranda Devine, "Critics are willing Iraq to fail", The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 February 2005:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Miranda-Devine/Critics-are-willin
g-Iraq-to-fail/2005/02/23/1109046990700.html ...

[11] "Language Log: A Hobbesian choice", Language Log, 19 February 2005:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001909.h
tml


[12] Jim Lobe, "Neocons dance in a Strauss waltz", Asia Times Online, 9 May 2003:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EE09Ak01.html