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<A HREF="aol://5863:126/alt.politics.org.cia:40399">Iraq and Suharto</A>
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Subject: Iraq and Suharto
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donald L Ferry)
Date: Fri, Nov 27, 1998 4:27 PM
Message-id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From "The Village Voice:
http://www.villagevoice.com/columns/9848/hsiao_vest.shtml
November 24 - 30, 1998
Press Clips
by
andrew hsiao & jason vest
Pundit Pattons
Like boxing cornermen disappointed that their fighter had to settle
for a draw, the U.S. commentariat exuded recriminations when American
air attacks on Iraq were called off 10 days ago. "Once those planes
were launched, they should have been allowed to strike!" bemoaned Sam
Donaldson on ABC's This Week. Across the dial, similar wails were
heard, as pundits lamented the outbreak of peace. The sudden turn of
events led to an outbreak of clich�s, wrote the Independent's Robert
Fisk�more "unadulterated rubbish about the Middle East from the
American media" than at any time since the Gulf War.
The comparison is apt, for just as in 1991, the U.S. media not only
acted as cheerleader for war, but couched conflict as a macho drama,
sidelining the actual combatants and victims of violence. "Clinton was
given an extraordinary opportunity to strike a massive blow against
Saddam. He flinched," complained realpolitikian Charles Kraut-hammer
in The Washington Post. So-called liberal Richard Cohen whined in the
same paper that "the Clinton administration waited too long to act. It
needed to punch out Iraq's lights, and it did not do so."
By reducing the prospect of the bombing to a mano a mano contest, the
media turned the crisis into a measure of Clinton's manhood. "Who
blinked?" asked the Times. The president, of course, responded a New
York Post editorial, because he "just couldn't...act like a man." On
Fox, Al Haig, as one might expect, had an even more hysterically macho
formulation: Clinton's response would be "limp-wristed."
The corollary to this metaphorical personalization of war�the Bill vs.
Saddam Desert Thriller�is, of course, the depersonalization of actual
victims. Despite a U.S. estimate that bombing Iraq would cause 10,000
civilian deaths, the media studiously avoided meditating on that fact.
Indeed, the last two weeks saw a reprise of Gulf War network ads for
"smart weapons," perhaps the ultimate symbol of guilt-free war-making.
An NBC report on the Tomahawk cruise missile, for example,
breathlessly repeated a Navy claim that the missile "can fly 1000
miles with a 1000-pound warhead and hit a 50-foot bullseye." Never
mind that in August's raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in
Afghanistan, at least one Tomahawk strayed wildly off course, landing
almost 400 miles away in Pakistan. In the October 12 New Yorker,
Seymour Hersh reported that two other missiles accidentally hit
Pakistani intelligence camps in Afghanistan, killing at least one
person. And when the U.S. bombed Iraqi intelligence headquarters in
Baghdad in 1993, three of 23 cruise missiles fired went astray,
killing eight civilians�including the well-known Iraqi artist Layla
al-Attar.
But, to revive another Gulf War term of art, that would be "collateral
damage," and besides, said George Will on ABC This Week this Sunday,
that 10,000 figure is obviously propaganda, "ginned up for a purpose."
The dark design, he suggested in inimitably stilted prose, "was to
give a momentum for restraint." Why the Pentagon, which issued the
death estimate, would be nefariously subverting U.S. war plans remains
unclear, but that was not about to stop Will, who seized on Iraq's
weekend document clampdown to call for a ground war. How much of a
troglodyte is Will? Consider this exchange from Sunday's program:
Will: "The only way to [topple the Iraqi regime] is with men on the
ground with rifles."
Cokie Roberts: "Men and women, George."
Will: "Men on the ground with rifles."
Armchair General Will was pumping for bloodshed all last week,
comparing, in a Tuesday column, "recidivist liar" Clinton to Scott
Ritter, the U.N. official who resigned this summer to protest U.N.
vacillation in Iraq. Will followed other major U.S. newspapers, which
cited Ritter 133 times in the two-week period surrounding the Iraq
stand-down and in the week following his resignation. Meanwhile, Denis
Halliday, another U.N. official who resigned in protest this summer,
got eight mentions in the equivalent periods. But then, Halliday
resigned to protest the sanctions against Iraq, which he said were
killing 6000 to 7000 Iraqis each month.
As Madeleine Albright said on 60 Minutes in 1996, when Lesley Stahl
noted that as many as half a million children had died in Iraq since
sanctions were imposed: "We think the price is worth it." Far be it
for the press to question that judgment.
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Suhartless
Though hardly a maverick act of moral courage, The New York Times did
manage to editorialize on Saturday in favor of a faster path to civil
rights in post-Suharto Indonesia. "[President B.J.] Habibie and his
political allies want the army to retain its hand in selecting
presidents for 5 to 10 more years," said the paper. "A quicker,
cleaner transition to full civilian democracy is needed, and
Washington should not be shy about saying so."
This was a refreshing sentiment from the Times, considering a previous
Nicolas Kristof dispatch, in which the erstwhile Tokyo bureau chief
characterized the Indonesian Army as "the institution that used to
keep the passengers in the back seat and maintain order"�rather than
as the genocidal legion of murderous thugs they are.
Nonetheless, the Times didn't inquire as to the likelihood of
Washington putting the screws to Habibie. Maybe that's because the
chances are slim, in part because of the extraordinary and baleful
influence of an American multinational: New Orleans mining behemoth
and Suharto ally Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold. Not unlike Chiquita
in Honduras, Freeport�through a combination of lobbying and campaign
donations over the past two decades�has helped ensure that U.S. policy
supported the corrupt Indonesian status quo. Now, Freeport has an
apparent friend in Robert Livingston, the new Speaker of the House.
And yet Freeport has been given a free ride in much of our elite
press, even as riots have propelled Indonsesia to the front pages.
Since Suharto's fall in May, both the Times and the Washington Post
have devoted only a single passing reference to the company.
Indonesia briefly captured the media's imagination in 1996, amid
allegations that the country's oligarchy had sought to curry favor
with the White House�via massive illicit contributions from the
wealthy Riady family's Lippo Group to the DNC. But in an excellent
November 1996 two-part series, the Journal of Commerce's Tim Shorrock
showed that Freeport and other U.S. corporations with Indonesian
interests were far more able agents of political influence than their
Indonesian counterparts. Freeport was the first U.S. company to set up
shop in Indonesia and, with the government, it now runs the world's
largest gold mine and third largest copper mine, both located in
army-occupied Irian Jaya.
Freeport's CEO, James "Jim Bob" Moffett, was a golfing partner of
Suharto's, while one of the men who gave Suharto the green light to
embark on the murderous conquest of East Timor�Henry Kissinger�sits on
Freeport's board. So, too, does J. Bennett Johnston, who, while a
Louisiana senator, made sure Congress did little to impede the flow of
arms to Jim Bob's despotic putting-green partner. The company has also
doled out well over $1 million in campaign contributions to both
parties since 1980.
Despite Jim Bob's long public affiliation with Suharto, the Singapore
Business Times reported earlier this year that Freeport McMoRan
"categorically denied any association with former president Suharto,"
and that reports "accusing the company of links through collusion and
nepotism to the former first family were untrue." Last month, however,
the Wall Street Journal's Peter Waldman described Freeport's
Indonesian operations as "a study in how multinational companies
adapted to the crony capitalism" that was a hallmark of the Suharto
era. And in the September 7/14 issue of The Nation, Robert Bryce
reported on two unique loan arrangements between Freeport and
Indonesian companies�one belonging to Suharto's labor minister, the
other involving Suharto and longtime crony Bob Hasan.
The Jakarta Post and other regional papers have been carrying regular
news about recent Habibie government investigations, however modest,
into the Freeport-Suharto connection. The Indonesian Observer, for
example, reported on November 18 that "the wealth of Suharto's cronies
in Irian Jaya is believed to be mostly invested in enterprises serving
as contractors to... Freeport." Cited as exhibit A: Bob Hasan, who
"apparently held a virtual monopoly on the supply of food" to
Freeport's 28�-an-hour workers.
Meanwhile, Livingston has taken thousands of dollars from Freeport in
recent years. In 1995, Freeport used its Washington juice�Kissinger,
ex�CIA director James Woolsey, and others�to get its political risk
insurance policy reinstated, after the policy had been axed because of
the company's "substantial adverse environmental impacts" in Irian
Jaya. Now Indonesian activists are asking what Freeport will get from
Livingston�even if U.S. media aren't.
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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