Jack Yan on Vox

Idiot’s guide to how the Iraq war started

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:07:49 +1200

I say that my work at JY&A Consulting is developing plain-English strategies for our clients. So, I thought I’d give the Iraq war a shot and write my recollections in summary form. The Saddam Hussein voice should be read in a South Park style. Steve Bridges plays George W. Bush, with Rory Bremner as Tony Blair. Special guest appearance by Rupert Murdoch.

Saddam Hussein: I gotta gas those Kurds. Let’s let off some WMDs. Where did I put that invitation to those terrorists?
Saddam’s sons-in-law: Saddam has WMDs. A lot of them.
UN: Under the ceasefire, you can’t have them. We’re sending inspectors in.
Inspectors: We found some but there’s more based on what he had before, and we can’t figure out where they are.
UN: Say, Saddam, you need to tell us where some of this stuff has gone to.
Saddam Hussein: Here’s a big-ass report. Chew on that.
UN: Dude, this isn’t complete. In fact, it looks like you have pulled it out of your ass.

Security Council president: Let’s have a vote on a resolution. Who says that we should punish Saddam Hussein if he doesn’t front up on info about his potential for WMDs, where he’s disposed of some of the ones the inspectors can’t find any more, and sort out the money he owes Kuwait?
Security Council members: Yes, we should!
Security Council president: Cool, 15 to 0. Wow, that’s better than that time Saddam invaded Kuwait.

UN: Well, Saddam, here’s resolution 1441. You’ll be in serious trouble if you don’t comply.
Saddam Hussein: Hey, don’t worry about it.

Iraqi ambassador to UN: Here’s the new report.
UN: This is just as stupid as the earlier stuff you handed in. Didn’t you read the questions?
Iraqi ambassador to UN: Yeah, but what are you going to do? Dumbasses.

USA: Right, that means we have to punish this guy under resolution 1441.
France: You need to get one more resolution for military action before you do that.
USA: And if we do, what will do you?
France: We’d veto it.
USA: Basically you are saying that no matter what resolution the international community has voted on, you don’t think we should enforce it?
France: In a word, no. But it’s because of the UN Charter that we have to all agree on military action before we do anything.
USA: Screw you, peacenik.
France: Screw you, warmonger.

George W. Bush: Tony, the French are being assholes. If we don’t enforce this, we’ll look dumb, the UN will look impotent, and Saddam Hussein could continue building up an arsenal. Whatever the case, we don’t know what that smug sonofabitch is doing.
Tony Blair: I agree, George. We either enforce the law, or we say that laws don’t matter. I couldn’t run a country like that.
Gordon Brown: I don’t know if he can run a country. I would do a better job and I have the same initials as the American guy.
John Howard: Count me in.
Jacques Chirac: I hate Americans. But I did meet that Saddam in 1975. Nice guy. We had dinner together.
Jiang Zemin: I like Americans. When they are at war, their economy will be in trouble and they will have to buy more stuff from us!

George W. Bush: Ladies and Gentlemen of the Congress, we have to go to war to enforce international law. Who’s with me?
Majority of Congress: We are.
Minority of Congress: We like French food.

Saddam Hussein: Looks like I’m f***ed. Get me Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Information Minister!
France: Told you so, the Americans are warmongers.
Liberal media: Don’t worry, we’ll do what we can with slanted reporting to make the troops feel bad. And we’ll give that Information Minister dude a lot of air time.
Rupert Murdoch: Not on my watch. I can set Bill O’Reilly on you.

Now, I know I have missed out some facts to get it into summary format, and the Commander-in-Chief has been edited for fluency, but consider how long the last post was!

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Mike Huckabee is right to be proud of his Christian faith

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 16:03:31 +1300

What Really Matters

Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential nominee hopeful Mike Huckabee released a 30 sec ad in the US talking about Jesus Christ, which appears to have got some Americans upset.
   The Murdoch Press quotes from the commercial: ‘Are you about worn out by all the television commercials you’ve been seeing, mostly about politics? Well, I don’t blame you. At this time of year sometimes it’s nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ and being with our family and friends.’
   Sounds good to me.
   I like a planet where we saw Hanukkah a few weeks back. I enjoyed seeing Muslims make pilgrimages for Eid ul-Adha on al-Jazeera. And, by all means, Gov Huckabee, a Christian, should proudly invoke his faith and talk about Jesus Christ.
   I thought the true meaning of political correctness was accepting everyone’s beliefs, not undermining those of the majority in their nations. In fact, I didn’t imagine political correctness equated to godless communism. Or maybe it does?
   Gov Huckabee told a congregation in San Antonio, ‘Sometimes in the middle of Christmas, Jesus is the one person who’s tough to find. You notice that? I can find Santa at every mall, you can find discounts in every store but if you mention the name of Jesus, as I found out recently, it upsets the whole world. Forgive me but I thought that was the point of the whole day.’
   I agree.
   With so many people sending holiday greetings this December from the western world, have folks noticed that many have missed Hanukkah? The ‘Happy holidays’ greetings I received are largely timed for Christmas and were sent after the Jewish festival this year. A number of Muslim friends have sent Eid greetings.
   When I know the sender does not follow Islam or observes Kwanzaa, then saying ‘Happy holidays’ doesn’t diminish the fact that the greeting is for Christmas, a day during which I can bet they are not working.
   My point is that there are a lot of people celebrating specifically Christmas, whether they proclaim a belief in Jesus Christ or not. In Mike Huckabee’s case, he’s celebrating it his way by going back to basics.
   I think he has a right to do that—and if he is a Christian, I am glad he is proud to proclaim his faith, rather than hide it because he’s so scared about offending parts of the electorate.
   I’d write a similar post if another candidate proclaimed another faith: if this is what one believes, then why hide it?

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My second Listening Post

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 00:07:53 +1200

I caught it on a rebroadcast, rather than on the 31st, but here is yours truly, by invitation, for a second time on Listening Post on al-Jazeera’s English service.
The first segment goes after the Murdoch Press (Fox News) and contrasting it to non-US media. My little part is, as some of you know, was fleshed out in my blog post last week. Forward to me at 7'39": I think this is the strongest reason behind any particular angle on the Iran story, rather than saying that Fox is trying to do the White House’s bidding on creating a war with Iran.

Listening Post - US Media - Anti-Iran Msg - 31 Aug 07 - Pt 1

Respect to al-Jazeera’s editors who managed to get the best bit of my video and summarize the whole two minutes!

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Iraqi fans speak out

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:33:59 +1200

I’ve only seen a little about this in the MSM, but Anita McNaught’s report for the Murdoch Press on post-soccer win Iraq is significant. The comment toward the end of the segment from one Iraqi fan, that the soccer team has done more to unite the country than the Iraqi politicians, sounds right to me.

Iraqi Soccer winners

Like I said, unity is the will of the Iraqi people. Like all people, they want a chance to achieve their dreams. What a pity that certain institutions and terrorists prevent that.

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Glad to know they have their priorities right

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 00:23:19 +1300

Today’s lead news item on al-Jazeera: the Palestinian deal between Hamas and Fatah signed in Mecca, which means peace between the rival factions and a recognition of Israel. Today’s lead news item on Fox News: the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

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Clinton talks tough to energize the left—O’Reilly

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 21:10:46 +1200

I normally don’t like Bill O’Reilly, but I have to agree with him on a lot of points here:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,216031,00.html

However, the Democrats have threatened to leave Hillary Clinton’s head in my bed if I do not let up.

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Bill Clinton drops nice-guy act—we are all in trouble now

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 22:42:21 +1200

I don’t care which side of the political spectrum you are on, but I have to conclude that former president Bill Clinton has lost it after seeing the interview clips from Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. Finger-pointing is very undignified for anyone, least of all the 42nd president of the United States. Next week, he will be on The Late Show with David Letterman irate because the gap-toothed one called him ‘Tubby’ for most of the first term. And the second. He might be having a go at me next over a comment about his haircut made in 1993.

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Grey hats on the Hamas brand, as Fox News journalists freed

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:07:06 +1200

If radio had headlines, then the overall message today would be ‘Fox News journalists freed; Hamas takes credit’, as New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark thanked the Palestinian National Authority for its help freeing Fox News reporter Steve Centanni and Kiwi-born cameraman Olaf Wiig. I don’t profess to know that much about the situation there, but I do know (admittedly via the mainstream media) that the New Zealand Government has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists, and that Hamas has said it knew the kidnappers and that it did not know the kidnappers. I began to wonder what was really happening.
The journalists’ release was covered as a front-page news item in The Dominion Post—for a small country like New Zealand, it was Wiig’s welfare, not Centanni’s, that kept the kidnapping on Kiwis’ consciences. Fox News’s connection was downplayed, but Wiig’s wife’s attempts to negotiate with various politicians were covered reasonably heavily—English-born Anita McNaught was a ﬁxture on New Zealand network news programmes for years.
Missing from the National Radio broadcast this evening was the fact that Wiig and Centanni had been forced to convert to Islam, at gunpoint.
I’m delighted these two gentlemen have been freed. I can’t comment too much about the media coverage, other than to point out what I see as contradictions.
I am a simple man when it comes to the Palestinian militants’ situation. I had read that a Hamas faction (the Holy Jihad Brigades) was behind the kidnappings, which suggests to me that Hamas did, in fact, know of the kidnappers’ identity. I also understand them to be part of the Fatah movement, according to Time, but when I watched the Palestinian elections, Hamas and Fatah were rival parties. Were these kidnappers members of both?
Meanwhile, Hamas is split into both a political and terrorist wing—at least that is the impression I get living in the west, much like Sinn Fein and the IRA. If Prime Minister Clark says that her position is never to negotiate with terrorists, does Hamas count, with all its terror acts since 1987? And did Israel have any part in the release—a country which New Zealand actually recognizes?
Maybe I am an overly trusting coot, but it’s likely that everyone who has commented on the situation was telling the truth. Maybe the Palestinian Interior Minister, Saeed Seyam, had no knowledge of the kidnappers, or inside connections with Fatah. But that other ofﬁcials inside Hamas did. Having met the Prime Minister here, I can see her biases, but that she would not thank the Palestinian Authority if there were not a legitimate reason for doing so.
Which brings me to my point. Even in the media, it is so very convenient to brand one side the good guys and the other side the bad guys. The truth is usually way too complex, and till one corresponds with people from the region—on both sides of the conﬂict—we can only claim to know the situation in a cursory way.
Would I be on my high horse branding one bunch ‘terrorists’ if my country were occupied, and my people denied basic rights of citizenship? I am bringing an occidental viewpoint that I got through studying international law at university—but I also grew up with stories of how Chinese guerrillas fought the Japanese using tactics that were unconventional at best. So if these Hamas militants were of my own race, would I go and call them freedom-ﬁghters?
Maybe, maybe not. Japanese civilians never got into China during the Sino–Japanese war—we only had to ﬁght the military. Had they advanced that far, would we have succumbed to killing civilians? For I do not believe we are any better as people—Mao Tse-tung managed to kill 70 million of us through his sicko policies. Who needs the Japanese army to commit mass murder?
To keep things simple, the media—the MSM and other outlets—will give one side the black hats and the other side the white ones. Israel has been portrayed as overreacting militants in the New Zealand media over the 32-day conﬂict with Hezbollah; and Amnesty International statements against the Israeli army have managed to make the network news headlines here in prime-time. It is a different story in the United States.
Here, anchorman Mike McRoberts interviewed a Hezbollah leader, while John Campbell—fairly liberal in his Campbell Live show—took strong issue with the Israeli position on TV3 in the earlier days of the conﬂict.
We never really heard a position where the Israelis had white hats, or one where both sides wore grey.
I was little the wiser till I asked a new Lebanese acquaintance of the situation—he is still there, incidentally—and the real story of the different groups has yet to be told by our media. But it is not as simple as black hats and white hats.
And when we come to the capture of Centanni and Wiig, in another part of the Middle East, it is too easy to put a black hat on Hamas, branding all of them terrorists.
But it remains tempting to do so with occidental eyes, and even oriental ones, because we haven’t been occupied to this degree. I realize Hamas has set up extensive welfare programmes in its neck of the woods, but on the other hand, it hasn’t dropped its anti-Semitic rhetoric. And if this year is indeed part of a period of tahdia, then these kidnappings serve to remind us that the situation is far from calm.
Since I am a simple man, with little real understanding of these issues, the news has left me dissatisﬁed. Surely there is more? Maybe the TV news tonight will reveal more. But the black hat–white hat model is hard to break away from, and that is what the media will serve up.
Throw away the hats. I think we are smart enough to take the complexity. On television today, we see not McCloud or The Streets of San Francisco, where we know who the bad guys and the good guys are. On TV are dramas like 24. It is no longer clear who the heroes are. The news media need to understand that if we can follow Jack Bauer and his exploits, then we can follow the different sides in these conﬂicts.
News should not be about branding people and creating sides. News can distil the issues into easy-to-comprehend chunks, which is just what the likes of 60 Minutes and Campbell Live are meant to do with their longer running times. Sadly, even there, as Rathergate showed, some journalists still want to make the news, and not report it.

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