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The Press and US Administration Foreign InterventionIs There Anything Wrong in the World that Washington and the Media Cannot Fix?The murder of Jon-Benet Ramsey captured the hearts of Americans across the nation, but Ramsey was just one of about six children murdered every day in the United States. The news media largely writes their own news every day with this selective approach to reporting. It is somewhat of a mystery as to what causes the press to walk in lock-step, sometimes as with Ramsey, focusing intently on a single story and ignoring the numerous similar ones. It is a fair guess to say the press likes simplicity and exaggeration, because it sell news. A most precious commodity for a news organization is access in Washington, particularly to White House aides that can give them early information on where the administration is headed, and presidents have used this lever to try and win a friendly press, so that their policies will be presented favorably to the American people. Furthermore, the press has an inherent bias of their own, being more friendly to liberal Democrats and desirous of a strong central government in Washington focused on national social programs. This may be due to their education in large population centers which tend to be liberal, whereas Republicans and more rural areas are more desirous of local control. Taking all this together; desire for simplicity and exaggeration, an inherent Liberal bias, and a need for White House access; a clear picture can be had of media presentations of US foreign policy. In comes Bill ClintonBill Clinton coming to Washington in 1993, rode in with a mass of closet skeletons that would have quickly knocked out any typical candidate. He had problems on every front, from allegations of serious personal womanizing scandals to massive political corruption, and plenty of his own former aides, allies and girlfriends documenting it carefully. He also had a mindset of toughing it out, which might be good if he's bent on putting the Nation first, but Bill Clinton's interest was in putting himself first and keeping himself there. The women and the corruption were only a means for that perpetual lifetime goal. Clinton had one other important quality that would play into the media's interests and work to shape his Administration policies; he knew how to reward and punish to get his own way. This aspect of Bill Clinton would ensure him a far more friendly press than he would have otherwise had. Clinton's willingness to penalize the media with White House or denial of White House access, and by pubic scolding, brought the media down to Bill Clinton's level. Reporters would dig into a Clinton problem, prepare a headline article, and contact the White House for comment. Having tipped off the White House by professional convention, Clinton would have someone contact the editor and get the story stopped. This occurred repeatedly and sometimes became a story on it's own, with Washington Post journalist Michael Isikoff's Paula Jones story stopped until her lawsuit was about to hit the fan, a huge Sunday magazine on Mena Arkansas drug smuggling stopped and blocked permanently by the same newspaper as it was going to press, and reporter Christopher Ruddy of the New York Post fired for refusing to get off what may have been the most earthshaking scandal of the century; a high level cover-up of the apparent murder of the most important government official to die violently since John Kennedy. The press dutifully obeyed the White House line in each of these cases, important media pundits calling the better qualified reporters the "Clinton crazies", as though these documented scandals were the work of lunatics, and exaggerating complaints of Clinton's critics with false claims that they had accused the President of personally murdering his political enemies. Enter Foreign Policy..With this media background, it was no surprise that the media would take little interest in facts and embrace Bill Clinton's assertions regarding key foreign conflicts. Remarkable black v. white displays of rhetoric were demonstrated in Somalia, Haiti, and later Kosovo, areas where United States troops took on offensive roles at Bill Clinton's direction. What isn't known is that in each of these the United States had a mission failure from day one. Bill Clinton needs a bad guy because he is the "good guy". His bad guys, necessary for taking military action against Somalia, Haiti and Kosovo, were respectively Mohamed Aidid, General Raul Cedras, and President Slobodan Milosevic. Each of these political leaders had earlier worked with and had been friends of the United States, but a change in events or US policies warranted that they become enemies to the Clinton administration, and Clinton, holding the mass of world's military power in his hands, turned each into a personal vendetta. Aidid, a popular Somalia politician who had spent time in jail for opposing the former dictator, was accused of ordering an attack by ordinary Somali citizens that killed twenty-five Pakistani UN troops. The White House failed to supply any proof that Aidid had ordered the attack, and Aidid denied that he had. There would seem to be no explanation as to why the cooperating Aidid would have suddenly ordered the suicidal attack and there seems no reason to disbelieve that it was spontaneous, likely caused by Somali resistance to the heavy handed policies of the occupying Pakistanis. Once US attacks on Aidid's civilian organization bagan, Aidid's people began fighting back. This gave Washington "additional" reason to kill or capture Aidid, but it was Washington that had fired the first shot. George Bush Sr's humanitarian mission in Somalia came to a failure as the new Clinton administration rushed US troops out of the country after being badly wounded by Aidid's forces, and the news media could hardly report otherwise, but did find it easy to omit news coverage of a father of a slain Army Ranger, who refused to shake Bill Clinton's hand in a ceremony honoring his son. Haiti's "Boat People"Haiti's military ruler Raul Cedras was a close friend of Jimmy Carter and had been instrumental in creating the elections that installed Jean Bertrand-Aristide as Haiti's elected president. Cedras did not partake in the military coup that ousted Aristide just short years later, but he had accepted the job of taking Aristide's place temporarily as the nation adjusted to the displacement. It was former President Bush Sr. that orchestrated the international embargo to punish Haiti for disposing of her new elected president, and the eventual effect of the policy was a swarm of "boat people" leaving the impoverished island in hope of escaping starvation. This became an embarrassment to the new Clinton Administration, but the problem became manageable with a Coast Guard interception and relocating of Haitians outside of the United States into refugee camps with a promise that they could not relocate in our land. Clinton never sat easy with being made to look bad by others, and he sat his sights on General Raul Cedras, an easy target being he wore a military uniform and was Haiti's unelected acting president. Violence in Haiti was happening on a daily basis, and Clinton blamed Cedras for "all of the violence", declaring him a dictator and a despot. The media had themselves a simple easy to understand story and a clear good guy and bad guy. But was this the reality? Cedras was a patriot, prone to seeing his nation achieve stability, and having no apparent strong personal desire for power. Speaking fluent French and well educated, he appeared twice on CNN's Evans and Novak for rare interviews. He demonstrated a good grasp of the facts and repeatedly spoke of his desire to see a new round of free internationally supervised elections take place in Haiti, but a US State Department spokesperson interviewed by Novak rejected Cedras idea outright, stating that "Cedras must go", similarly to the Clinton-Gore 1992 election chants that "it's time for [Bush] to go". Early here, we viewed Bill Clinton's mindset of good guy and bad guy. Cedras had to be bad for Clinton to fulfill his policy of punishing those people who were causing him embarrassment, and even CNN News found no reason for repeating the generous offer made by Cedras on their own network show. It is not known but is probable that the Clinton Administration had frowned hard on the network for airing the bad guy's message on a panel talk show Clinton's desire was to make war on a country that publicly desired the same general policy as did the US; a restoring of democracy to Haiti. The only contention was over whether Aristide would return to fulfill the brief term that he had left by law and whether Cedras must be banished to another country. Cedras had not been a political figure in Haiti, he was an educated military general, and highly respected by the military for his integrity and willingness to serve. It is here where US policy was wrong. Cedras, who commanded obedience by a military who's cooperation was necessary for a peaceful solution in Haiti, had to flee Haiti under any US agreement and be replaced with a figure that had been ousted because he was perceived to have publicly advocated violence against his political opponents. Even though Cedras was unelected and Aristide had been elected, the reality was more that Cedras favored democracy than did Aristide. Recent events in Haiti are bearing this out, with a new embargo in place on international aid to Haiti after a flawed election followed new protests and violence over Aristide's recent return to the presidency, Unlike Cedras, Aristide does not appear to be requesting new internationally supervised elections for lifting the aid embargo now in place against him. The 1994 Clinton Administration made one last effort for "Cedras to go" before launching an invasion of the island, sending a Democratic congressman there to again give Cedras his only option. Cedras had complained on the CNN interview that Washington only told Haiti what to do, and did not listen or try to understand the real problems of Haiti. Clinton's messenger came back to Washington with his own message "We can work with Cedras". This was of course the wrong message because it negated Clintons needed "good guy/bad guy" policy, and the press, sensing greater stories with continued White House access and blessings, and because "General" and "dictator" are stronger headline grabbers than are "He's ok", found the controversy of no reporting worth. Cedras was the unelected strongman dictator of Haiti, and Clinton was going to topple him; this was the "reality" given to America. Bill Clinton, most likely intentionally, had given Cedras no option except war. If Cedras had set up new elections without US approval and Western supervision, Washington would have called the elections a sham. Cedras and the other military rulers instead appointed a popular civilian politician to head the government, replacing Cedras with an elderly civilian known as the "father of democracy" to many Haitians. Washington called him a puppet. This "puppet" signed the last minute agreement to avoid war, because he hated war in his words, as US planes and ships were already heading in to attack, that would restore Aristide to the Presidency and banish Cedras from Haiti, as Cedras, who had rejected it, watched. Cedras dutifully obeyed the Haiti "puppet" President and ordered the Haiti military to cooperate with the occupying invaders. Haiti's problems would suddenly end for Americans who would now be subjected to a cutoff of internal Haiti problems by their national news media, but the new US government occupation would become just another round of continuing violence, assassinations, and poverty for the Haitians that lived there. Kosovo's evil MilosevicClinton's final military action came about when Serbia's elected parliament rejected by unanimous vote, the Ramboullet treaty that would have brought self-rule to Kosovo. Although all members of the strongly divided parliament had turned down the treaty, Clinton blamed "Milosevic and solely Milosevic" for "all of the violence in Kosovo" and for the Serbian rejection of the treaty. US policy had been to bomb Serbia if the Kososo Albanians signed the treaty but do nothing if both refused, and both were refusing, so the Clinton administration sweetened the pot for the Albanians, promising them verbally and with an added vaguely worded phrase that they could eventually vote for independence from Serbia and not remain as a Serbian state. This technically was against stated US policy of keeping Kosovo under Serbian authority and contrary to the intentions of the Ramboullet treaty. The Serbian Parliament rejected the treaty on the narrow ground of foreign troop occupation, and they provided an opening to the outside world with a statement of interest in "some kind of international presence". Clinton and Tony Blair quickly moved to begin the promised bombing campaign, declaring Milosevic to be a dictator and tyrant, even though he had become President through entirely democratic means.. Milosevic was a nationalist and a former communist, that latter of which was probably Washington and London's primary but unspoken target. Milosevic was not a racist. As a communist he was an internationalist, but Clinton found considerable mileage available to him with a "good guy v. bad guy" presentation where he could proclaim Milosevic a dictator bent on exterminating Albanians because of their race. Doing this though, required cooperation by the press and an ignoring of the revolt for independence and of their own former news stories that painted a different picture of Milosevic. Milosevic, unlike General Cedras, was not so desirous of a free system. He was not keen on a free press and hadn't a problem exaggerating and lying when necessary to achieve his goal of keeping Serbia united, but Clinton's portrayal of Milosevic singularly as the "bad guy" did not correlate with that fact the treaty had been rejected by all of the Serbian Parliament, including Milosevic's strongest enemies such as the present President that has replaced Milosevic. The US press knew this, but ignored it entirely, even though the vote was just two weeks old at the start of the US and England led NATO war when rhetoric was highest. Milosevic, as Aidid earlier had done by fighting back when he had been attacked, played into White House hands by expelling many thousands of Albanians from the resistance areas; a good military move in preparation for a ground attack, but live ammunition to an opposing US press looking to display visual images of Milosevic's "racism". A 10 year back look at the archives of major US newspapers showed balanced reporting of the war of independence fought by Albanians against the Serbians, and Milosevic's rising as a national figure to install pride back into the Serbians that were being badly handled by Albanians seeking both independence and a pure Muslim ethnicity rid of their Christian neighbors. Milosevic's insistence that a forced removal of well disciplined Serbian troops from Kosovo would be met by a bloodbath against the Serbian civilian minority by Albanians proved itself entirely true when NATO troops took over the region and found themselves unable to stop the violence of the 90% majority Albanians, and nearly all Serbians had to flee Kosovo. Milosevic's argument that separatist Albanians, not Serbians, held the racist attitudes also proved true as Albanians began attacking the other ethnic groups in Kosovo, including Turks, Jews, Gypsies, and others, who had been protected under Serbian authority. The US press dutifully parroted Clinton rhetoric, accepting it as truth over their own history of reporting that can be easily recalled by anyone from their own newspaper archives. A change in US administrations has brought about a change on both sides. George W. Bush has no policy of rewarding or punishing the press, but a natural non-policy will exist to a degree. A press in opposition to the President may not receive the same access, whether it is intentional or not. The Liberally slanted press will have mixed feelings about a conservative Republican president and will reflect this in their reporting. We see this in the mixed reporting of Saddam Hussein, some in the press following Liberal Democrat rhetoric and making him out as not really so bad of a guy. Saddam's treacherous behavior is well documented and need not be reproduced here, although it could be accurately said that his regime is the only secular state in that region, and presumably does not single out religion for persecution, just opposition to him. This particular quality gives him a kinship with Bill Clinton, who within limits of a pluralistic society, routinely and unlawfully punished those that may dim his shining star with the full force of the IRS, FBI, and with White House sponsored "attack dogs" and other Arkansas grown thugs. Clinton isn't the only US President to be accused of meddling in and distorting facts for justifying US military intervention, although he could easily win the prize for being the best and most consistent in doing it. Ronald Reagan was claimed to have done this by Democrats, but a study of facts produces a different conclusion. Reagan leaned hard on Central and South American countries, pressuring US friendly nations such as Haiti and El Salvador to move to democratic governments, and using political and military pressure to do the same to Left-leaning countries like Grenada and Nicaragua. Reagan's unmentioned legacy may be with what didn't happen; the introduction of communist Cuban style governments in that region. Manuel Noreiga of Panama may have lost his US blessings by a US effort to pass on the blame to others for the complicity of some US officials in illegal drug smuggling operations which helped fund the Nicaragua Contra effort that Noreiga became involved with in his strong efforts to aid his friends in Washington. George Bush Sr. put the icing on the cake by using false information regarding clashes between US and Panama troops in the Canal zone to justify an invasion which ousted Noriega. Noriega, having been abandoned by his US friends, had little option but to cling to power. It is unlikely he would have done this had his relations with the United States not soured. In this way, Bush Sr. had used a policy that would be replicated later by Clinton with Haiti, unnecessarily placing US troops in harms way, and creating additional havoc in countries that were already plagued with problems, and for purely self-interest, not a national interest. Reagan's Grenada invasion, contrary to Democrat rhetoric at the time, was a genuine rescue mission, the communist Maurice Bishop and many in his government having been brutally murdered in cold blood by a more radical communist faction, and George Bush Sr's other primary military endeavor in Kuwait was a genuine and necessary mission to rescue a United Nations member country from annihilation by it's aggressive neighbor. The US press seemed to have little regard for the facts and differences in these various military solutions, seemingly more concerned with ideology or with getting out a good story. What is Opinion and What is Fact?Readers having a differing view from this writer may ask what makes one so sure that he is not simply following the same wrong ideas and using his own prejudices for judging differing US policies and presidents. The answer to this can be found in the history books. It is not possible to judge the character of a national leader on visual information alone. For example, Haiti's Raul Cedras had the name "General" attached to his name and it is a popular notion to believe that a military officer cannot run a democratic government. But Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, the favorite foreign head of state of Liberals who so hate the term, had the same attached title and sometimes wore a military uniform. Being an officer on their side, his title was acceptable. A nation that is in havoc and is near civil war, as was Haiti and Nicaragua, cannot be judged by the same standards as is a nation like ours with a longstanding peaceful history. The term "General" in varying instances may be entirely the problem or in part the solution to a peoples desire for a democratic government. Had Bill Clinton listened to his own ambassador and not forced General Cedras from the country, he would have had a strong ally that was in good standing with the Haiti military in which to bring the warring factions together and restore democratic rule in Haiti. Had the Reagan/Bush administrations not used Manual Noriega as an apparent scapegoat to cover for illegal activity by rogue CIA informants and officers, democracy could have been restored there with less or without bloodshed. If the press had had a policy of studying their own newspaper archives and attempting to understand these problems, despots like Bill Clinton could not have used better quality foreign political leaders for his own self-interests, and the countries of Somalia, Haiti and Kosovo would in probability be experiencing less violence and division than they are today.
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