Left hook

Nearly three years ago, the Toronto Sun's Eric Margolis, one of the finest and most prescient writers on foreign affairs anywhere, walked away from his regular gig on TVO's Diplomatic Immunity because, as he told me at the time, producer "(Dan) Dunsky et. al. tried to censor my views on Iraq and the Mideast, and kept packing the guest list with far-right neocons from Washington. I have never in my (then) 21 year media career accepted anyone trying to tell me what to say. Events have, of course, proven the TVO party line dead wrong."

Indeed. Iraq is a quagmire. The Bush regime a disaster. They lied. Tens of thousands died. Etc. Etc. Margolis sums it up well in his latest effort about ''the war president'' not being able to war. (H/t to Jiminy C.)

Defeat I: Five years after Bush ordered Afghanistan invaded and proclaimed `total victory’ there, US and allied forces are struggling to defend their bases and supply lines against rising attacks from a growing number of Afghan resistance groups. The war costs $1.5 billion monthly. US-ruled Afghan now produces over 80% of the world’s heroin. The US just quietly deployed thousands more troops to Afghanistan to hunt al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in a desperate attempt to save Republicans from heavy losses in November mid-term elections.

Defeat II: Remember `Mission accomplished!’ in Iraq? President Bush’s war in Iraq is clearly lost, but few dare admit it. The US has spent $300 billion on Afghanistan and Iraq, with nothing to show there but chaos, civil war, body bags, and growing Iranian influence in Iraq and western Afghanistan. The Bush/Cheney `liberation’ of Iraq has now cost more than the Vietnam War. So much for the `cakewalk.’ Iraq is likely the biggest American foreign policy disaster in living memory – even worse, in many ways, than Vietnam.

Defeat III: Off in the strategic Horn of Africa, another dangerous fiasco is unfolding. The White House had CIA and Pentagon spend tens of millions bribing Somali warlords to fight Islamist reformers trying to bring law and order to their strife-ravaged nation. The Islamists whipped CIA-backed warlords and ran them out of Somalia. Following this defeat, the US has encouraged and financed ally Ethiopia – shades of Lebanon - to invade Somalia, thus raising the threat of a wider war between Somalia, Ethiopia, and its old foe, Eritrea. Meanwhile, growing numbers of US Special Forces and CIA teams are getting drawn into obscure tribal melees in the Horn of Africa and the Saharan regions.

Defeat IV: Lebanon is, of course, the fourth major American military disaster. Bush and Cheney encouraged Israel to launch the hugely destructive but militarily fruitless war in Lebanon as the first part of their long nurtured plan to militarily crush Hezbullah, Syria and Iran. The Bush Administration brazenly thwarted world efforts to halt the conflict while giving Israel the green light to tear apart Lebanon. Now, just over a month later, Bush announces he will send $230 million to `help rebuild’ Lebanon – the same Lebanon blasted apart by US smart bombs rushed by air to Israel.

Anyway, after Margolis' departure, I got complaints from dozens of fans of the show who abandoned it because they missed Margolis and disliked the political turn it took.

No kidding. Did TVO really need to give Richard Perle a forum when he was already on all the Amnets? They even put out a news release announcing this ''get." The show lost a chunk of its constituency and ratings, I hear, dropped  with Margolis' departure.

Well guess what?

Looks like Dunsky, and host Steve Paikin, want Margolis back this fall when they launch their new program The Agenda. It's the program that will replace the suddenly-cancelled Studio 2.

Looks like ratings trump politics.

UPPITY DATE: One of the biggest idiots on the right is David Horowitz, a ''former Marxist" who conducts witch hunts on campus of liberal-leaning academics. The reason he's relevant is because, in Googling Margolis, I tripped over this screed by Horowitz on Horowitz's website against him, where author Eugene Girin calls the Sun -- hee-hee -- ''the leftist tabloid" and Margolis "an apologist for terror." What an ... er ... goof. (H/t to DEnnis Earl for catch my mistake here.)

OVERDUE DATE: Speaking of foreign affairs writers, Robert Parry takes hammer and tong to the New York Times' over-rated and over-exposed Thomas Friedman, the man who never gets it right and attacks those who do.

New York Times foreign policy analyst Thomas L. Friedman finally has come to the conclusion that George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq – which Friedman enthusiastically supported with the clever slogan “give war a chance” – wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Noting that “it is now obvious that we are not midwifing democracy in Iraq. We are babysitting a civil war,” Friedman wrote, “that means ‘staying the course’ is pointless, and it’s time to start thinking about Plan B – how we might disengage with the least damage possible.” [NYT, Aug. 4, 2006]

Yet, despite this implicit admission that the war has unnecessarily killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and more than 2,600 U.S. soldiers, Friedman continues to slight Americans who resisted the rush to war in the first place.

Twelve days after his shift in position, Friedman demeaned Americans who opposed the Iraq War as “antiwar activists who haven’t thought a whit about the larger struggle we’re in,” presumably a reference to the threat from Islamic extremism. [NYT, Aug. 16, 2006]

In other words, according to Friedman, Americans who were right about the ill-fated invasion of Iraq are still airheads when it comes to the bigger picture, while the pundits and politicians who were dead wrong on Iraq deserve pats on the back for their wise analyses of the larger problem.

Great piece on the go-Bush-go punditry elite. Read it.

Comments

[jiminy C at the other daughters]

Great news AZ!
I suspect that will bring you a few visitors from under the skirting board tho'

Now if they REALLY wanted to make it a entertaining show - they could throw you on that panel too - along with Perle - Rove - Marsden(?) and maybe a pinch of Kinsella for a bit of drama!

[Maz]

It was Winston Churchill who famously said diplomacy and dialogue trumped death and destruction caused by war: "Better jaw, jaw than war, war." As for George W. Bush the self-ascribed '''war president' not being able to war," there are Internet sites rife with clips showing W in trouble struggling to articulate even the simplest ideas. Bush can neither "war, war" nor "jaw, jaw." If we think of such eloquent orators as Churchill, Kennedy, and Trudeau as great Impressionist painters, George W. Bush is the equivalent of a doodler drawing a crude stickman in the margins of a phonebook. I get a migraine each time I think of the criminal lunacy at the heart of Bush's ass-backwards U.S. foreign policy.

(The good news is, Antonia, thoughts of you make the
headache instantaneously disappear!)

[Dennis Earl]

That's great news about Margolis. I see him pop up on Canoe Live now and again and try to make a point of catching his appearances. He's the only foreign affairs columnist I like in The Sun these days.

Unfortunately, Antonia, he didn't get dissed by David Horowitz. That old opinion piece you linked to was posted by a then-20-year-old named Eugene Girin. One wonders where the fact checkers were on this one. I remember seeing that link during a Google search a while back. I'm amazed it's still posted. I don't respect or like Horowitz either but he didn't diss Margolis. Please re-direct your "goof" comment to Girin even though I would've used something stronger.

[Reality Check]

Of David Horowitz you say: "One of the biggest idiots on the right is David Horowitz,..." And of Tom Friedman, he is "the man who never gets it right..."

I don't know anything about Horowitz, but Friedman clearly has a highly scholared background as well as a wealth of experience similar to that of your hero Fisk.

I thought you abhored character assassination.

[Antonia Z.]

Friedman may be scholarly but he still never gets it right, is over-rated and over-exposed. How is that character assassination?

[Bill-Muskoka]

All the diatribe boils down to this 'Nam vet!

Bush stating 'This will NOT be another Viet Nam!' BULLSHIT!

[Dennis Earl]

Thanks for the hat tip, Antonia. And you're welcome.

[JK]

"Great piece on the American punditry. Read it."

Or don't, and save yourself the trouble of reading something that will make you the hit of your drum circle, but get you laughed out of your international politics seminar. I'm no fan of Bush or the Iraq war, but even I can see that this article is straw-man-filled crap. Here is the context of Friedman's Aug. 16 point about antiwar activists:

"The defeat of Senator Joe Lieberman by the upstart antiwar Democrat Ned Lamont has sparked a firestorm of debate about the direction of the Democratic Party.... What should really worry the country is not whether the Democrats are being dragged to the left by antiwar activists who haven't thought a whit about the larger struggle we're in. What should worry the country is that the Bush team and the Republican Party, which control all the levers of power and claim to have thought only about this larger struggle, are in total denial about where their strategy has led."

It's safe to say that Friedman thinks these kinds of antiwar activists exist, but he's clearly not painting in broad strokes. If he'd written "by antiwar activists, who haven't thought a whit..." (with a comma indicating a non-restrictive clause that applies to all antiwar activists) that would be another matter.

Parry also clearly doesn't have a clue what Friedman's position on the war was originally. Friedman supported Bush's course only reluctantly, agreeing with the ideals behind it (i.e. spreading democracy) but asking hard questions about whether it would work out that way in practice. His position then was perfectly legitimate, and hardly inconsistent with his position now.

[rpaterso47]

Eric Margolis, and the Thursday music interludes, especially when they featured local jazz musicians) were the only reason we ever watched Studio 2. As I recall, (we moved to the west coast three years ago) Janice Stein (??) ALWAYS disagreed with everything Margolis said, and it seems to me, Paikin invariably gave her the last word. As well, she, and Patrick Martin, always came across as much more comfortable on camera. OTOH, Margolis, to me, was a man of action, always on the verge of bursting out of the camera frame.

[Dana]

If someone consistently get's it wrong there are three options Reality (huh?) Check.

One is ignore them completely. Hard to do when they occupy the kind of prime real estate Friedman does. Except that it's worse than hard to do - it's stoopid to ignore someone with a bullhorn whose advice is perpetually wrong and bad,

Second option might be to praise them, compliment them for being so wise, so perceptive. In other words - lie about them.

Or third, notice that they're wrong, shout it from the rooftops that they're wrong and alert people that might think they're not wrong that they oughtn't take them seriously.

Character assassination would be not mentioning anything at all about their work or opinions but rather trashing them for the Hussein likw moustache.

[Stephen Reeves]

When it came to Hitler, Churchhill did not jaw-jaw, he found war-war was the only way to deal with that man.

[Maz]

Reality Check, Dr Goebbels, the infamous Nazi propagandist, had graduated from Heidelberg University with a doctorate in literature and philosophy (hence the 'doktor' title), then pursued a career in journalism and media. Training and experience are no substitute for without-fear-or-favour reporting. Eric Margolis and Robert Fisk
trump Tom Friedman, not to mention the TV talking-heads on the
cable news shows (read but a few passages from Geraldo Rivera's autobiography aptly titled Exposing Myself and see what is meant
by the phrase 'male slut' - but, I digress...).

[Reality Check]

Maz, LOL-good one re: Geraldo.

Point taken re: education not meaning superiority.

I guess I think what we need now more than ever is a spirited debate. I think at times people (including me) are too harsh re: the people they are debating rather than targeting the ideas being debated.

I don't think labelling someone as being on "The Right" makes them wrong any more than in the case of Republicans at election time accusing Democrats of being "liberal."

Usually things are much more textured, as JK's comment reveals in this case.

[Maz]

In the summer of 1971, I was shown a wee booklet making the rounds in London's diplomatic circuit entitled The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro T. Agnew. It consisted of 80 blank pages. Here
is a spinkling of the wit and wisdom of George W. Bush, from today's press conference. For what it's worth, only octogenarian
Helen Thomas was moved to put a question to the US president
about the very recent destruction of Lebanon.

Bush: "We're helping reformers against those who dudn't believe in freedom...terrorists and radicals thwart democracy...lobbin' rockets...a pull-out would embolden terrorists...we stand with reformers across the region...If we leave Iraq before the job is done the terrorists will follow us here...only way to defeat this terrorist bunch is the spread of liberty and freedom...we owe it to our children and grandchildren to help spread liberty and support reformers...let me finish my question (?)...just gettin' into my peroration...Saddam Hussein had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction...he didn't have weapons of mass destruction but he had the capacity...Nobody in this administration has ever suggested that Sept. 11 attacks were ordered by Saddam Hussein."

Talk about stale warmed-up-100-times rhetorical left-overs!
Pardon me while I repair to the vomitorium down the hall...

[Bill-Muskoka]

Maz.

WHEW! When I read 'The Wit and Wisdom of Spiro T. Agnew.' I just about choked on my dinner!

Then, thank you Sir, you clarified it by stating 'It consisted of 80 blank pages.'

I will not suffer from indigestion, nor reflux. thanks to your most timely retort! Thank you!

And now a moment of reflective silence for Hunter S. Thompson who said 'It just ain't weird enough yet!'

Yes, Hunter, it is! It is beyond your wildest imagination actually! Where is the shaving, or was it whipped, cream?

[arthurdecco]

I took your advice and read the whole article, Antonia. Here's my favourite bit:

"Under principles of international law applied from Nuremberg to Rwanda, propagandists who contribute to war crimes or encourage crimes against humanity can be put in the dock alongside the actual killers.

Though such a fate may not await America’s pro-war pundits, Friedman and other commentators who helped ease the way to Bush’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq and thus contributed to the ongoing slaughters in the Middle East might at least have the decency to admit their incompetence and resign." by Robert Parry

I fevently hope that such a fate does await these dispicable lying neo-con enablers like Freidman et al. They are as criminally responsible as any Bush cabal member for what has transpired on their watch.

Eric Margolis continues to impress me with his balance and sanity - two qualities missing completely from the writings of the right wing pundit class. I'm flabbergasted that he continues to be published by that font of reactionary small-minded thinking, the Toronto Sun. That must be some contract he has with them! LOL

[sooey]

good grief. eric margolis - drama queen at large. and here i thought he was fired, at least. but there must be a handful of american patriots who stayed consistent through bush the idiot, bush the war president, back to bush the idiot. if only fox, the "every man's an idiot, er, can be president" network, would do a "real american patriots" awards show so americans could see what a real patriot is.

[Maz]

While Eric Margolis usually gets it right, it doesn't follow that EM always gets it right.

During the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia and Kosovo, for example, EM insisted Slobodan Milosevic must be denied the means to air propaganda messages. Margolis thus urged that Yugoslav media outlets, including radio and TV stations, be bombed. Shortly after, a skyscraper complex housing various media outlets in downtown Belgrade was demolished with, of course, the typical "collateral damage" (the make-up girl, custodial staff, night watchmen, etc.).

[rob]

I used to watch Diplomatic Immunity occasionally back before 9-11. Then I started to read from many sources and got up to speed fairly quickly on how the world works.

This of course ruined D.I. for me, as I realized the commentators were simply making up most of the analysis. On the other hand, I do understand that it would be a boring show if every week they came out and simply did a re-cap on how many US troops are on how many bases in how many countries supporting how many despotic regimes around the world.

I used to read Margolis more often and I he is a good writer, although I don’t always agree with some of his historical baggage (he still thinks 300,000 died in Bosnia). However if he was back on TVO they could have D.I. with Eric Margolis and get rid of the rest of the folks.

[rob]

The "Campus Watch" site is of certainly deranged. But the "Quote of the Month" section is worth checking out. This is where the Campus Watch fellows post comments they consider evidence of evil educators filling young minds up with jihad, but there are actually great links to some very interesting analysis.

Plus, if you have a sense of houmour, they have a "Keep Us Informed" section, so you can post fictional "reports" on evil-doers.

[Tom Gray]

An intersting counterpoint to this is the lengthy article in the current issue of the "Atlantic Monthly" which indicates that the US is winning the war on terror. The article specifically points out the success of the effort in Afghanistan which has eliminated the safe haven and training base of al Quaeda. It additionally points out that this success has meant that Bin Laden has lost his command strucutre and can only issue rare recordings instead of actively directing operations. The closing of the world financial network to al Quaeda is also noted in the article.

This is in complete contrast to Margolis' view.

[anonymous coward]

Thomas Friedman's take on Iraq will forever remind me of Homer Simpson chasing after his runaway cooked pig, yelling "It's still good! It's still good!"

The Vegetarian episode should be required viewing.

[Elvid]

Why the quotation marks for Horowitz's former political status. As former Marxist as you can get, "red diaper" baby, active in the New Left and the Panthers, editor at Ramparts and his early books on American power seemed to be on the reading list of every left wing poli sci prof that I had back in the 70's.
Horowitz, ived the life that most lefties here would aspire to, for his first 40 years.

[20/20]

Remember, the US once sold opium tp China.

[Big G]

Margolis is the man!

Well, TVO just got a new viewer for its "Agenda" show.