Drones, Shoes, and Modern Art

There may be a new administration in the U.S., but tell that to Iraqis, Afghans, or Pakistanis.

Even China’s Prime Minister Wen Jaibao is paying for Bush’s eight years of failure.

Less than three days after taking office, President Obama has continued the failed U.S. policy of dropping bombs from unmanned drones to fight the so-called “war on terror.” He ordered two airstrikes in Pakistan that killed 22 – only 8 of which were militants. Neither Obama nor his press secretary would even acknowledge the strikes, much less the collateral damage it caused or future militants it recruited.

And last weekend, Obama praised elections in Iraq as “millions of Iraqi citizens from every ethnic and religious group went peacefully to the polls across the country.”

I guess the three Sunni candidates assassinated on Thursday don’t count as marring the peace because that wasn’t actually on Election Day.

But if the president of the United States said it, it must be true – and should be repeated verbatim, without any context, background, or substance. And if he refuses to say anything, so will the media.

Not having learned their lesson, mainstream news outlets continue reporting with the same ignorance of democratic responsibility that they did during the 2002 Iraqi WMD hype or the 18-month-long Israeli “defensive” embargo of Gaza’s freely-elected government.

When Muntadhir al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist-turned-shoe-hurler, assaulted President Bush in December, the media and pundits jumped in. We were placated by the notion that had such an event taken place in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the perpetrator would have faced certain torture and death.

But we liberated Iraq and this was a sign of democracy. According to Bush, “that’s what people do in a free society, draw attention to themselves.”

Apparently, in a free society people are also hauled off to prison without a hearing, much less a trial. Since he was beaten and dragged from the room on December 12, al-Zaidi has been in Iraqi custody inside the Green Zone. He was last visited by a family member on December 21 (who made allegations that al-Zaidi was tortured), and has not been seen or heard from since.

It leaves one wondering just exactly how different this treatment is compared to what Saddam Hussein’s regime would have meted out.

To be sure, throwing footwear at a presiding head of state goes beyond freedom of speech and warrants a stiff penalty. But I had assumed that a free and democratic Iraq would have used the rule of law to implement punishment – not simply attempt to “disappear” dissent.

Unfortunately, it seems notions of freedom and democracy only apply to those who don’t question the existing regime. Which doesn’t sound much different from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Last week, an orphanage in Tikrit erected a huge copper-plated shoe sculpture in honor of al-Zaidi’s protest. But this isn’t guaranteed under freedom of speech, either. Within one day, Iraq’s central government forcibly removed the monument.

Too bad, because the U.S. architects of the Iraq invasion have been dreaming about a day when a Iraq could express their feelings openly and publicly. But freedom has limits dictated by those with power.

Former Pentagon official Richard Pearle spent much of 2002 spreading misinformation in the media about Iraq’s alleged WMDs and link to 9/11. In September 2003, with the occupation of Iraq just getting underway and the smell of all that oil percolating into the noses of Washington D.C. elites, Pearle spoke to the American Enterprise Institute, a prominent think tank:

“And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.”

I guess those Iraqi orphans just erected the wrong kind of monument.

There may be a new president, but U.S. foreign policy hasn’t changed. The government still thinks it can create its own reality by merely repeating what it wishes were true.

And our nation continues to contradict its grandiose ideals when it comes to freedom or democracy for non-white, non-Christian people.

Wil Robinson
International Political Will