Pundita is still stewing because she is the only American and for all we know the only person on the planet outside banking circles to have noticed that World War V * had broken out. Thus, our spirits lifted at seeing the title of an email sent by one of our favorite war bloggers, Bill Roggio at the fourth rail : "A call to arms."
Upon opening the email Pundita was crestfallen to discover that Bill was only calling for battle against CNN. This is partly over the matter of CNN stonewalling in the face of requests to release a transcript and/or video of a panel discussion at the recent World Economic Forum (WEF). Specifically, the part of the discussion that features a CNN vice president, Eason Jordan, saying that the US military had "targeted" journalists in Iraq; i.e., deliberately killed them.
Mr. Jordan clarified, backtracked or stood by his words, depending on which account you read from those in attendance, but exactly what was said is in dispute and thus, the request for a transcript or video. **
At the end of this post I provide additional links for readers interested in following the controversy about Eason Jordan's remarks. Pundita will not write about the controversy, which is outside our purview. However, we were struck by the venue. How did a panel on news reporting show up at a forum dedicated to economic concerns?
And how did it happen that out of all the news media executives on the planet, the forum invited Eason Jordan, a confessed collaborator with Saddam Hussein's regime and already on record for making inflammatory statements against the US military?
The answer is that the forum organizers were hopping mad because President Bush ignored their meeting. According to the BBC :
As every year, Davos [site of the WEF] was packed with top politicians. Germany, [France,] Britain, Brazil, South Africa, Poland, Pakistan, and many others sent their heads of state or government. But there was one glaring absence: From the US government only the outgoing top trade official (and soon to be deputy foreign minister) Robert Zoellick had made it to the Swiss mountain village. Pity, if you want, Republican Senators Bill Frist and John McCain, who quickly became the designated punch bags for critics of US foreign policy. Mr McCain spelled it out: "There's a lot of Anti-Americanism out there", and promised that President Bush's forthcoming trip to Europe would be a "listening tour".Clearly, the WEF organizers were not content just to kick Republican senators in the shins. Thus, the panel discussion titled, "Will Democracy Survive the Media?"
The concept of truth, fairness, and balance in the news was weighed against corporate profit interest, the need for ratings, and how the media can affect democracy. The discussion was moderated by David R. Gergen, Director for Public Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. The panel included Richard Sambrook, the worldwide director of BBC radio, U.S. Congressman Barney Frank, Abdullah Abdullah, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, and Eason Jordan, Chief News Executive of CNN. The audience was a mix of journalists, WEF attendees (many from Arab countries), and a US Senator from Connecticut, Chris Dodd.Pundita hesitates to tell American readers too much about the World Economic Forum, lest they find themselves in the ungainly position of finding a point of agreement with America's Public Enemy #2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the mastermind of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Zawahiri did not pick that target out of a hat; the WTC, along with the World Bank and the IMF, symbolized for him the rampant mercantilism that characterizes the Globalist movement, and which forms the basis of the Chirac School of foreign policy. (See "The Central Debate" Pundita sidebar.)
Come to think of it, this is a good place to rename Chirac's school to the more descriptive "Mercantile School." Pundita hastens to add that Zawahiri is barking mad; indeed, he's on record as the first person driven certifiably insane by World Bank policies. (Don't reach for your copy of the Guinness Book of World Records; there are so many candidates for the title that Guinness is still reviewing challenges to Z's claim.)
The World Economic Forum is among a group of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that the Globalist movement spawned, and which attached themselves to the United Nations. The WEF's stated goal is "to make the world a better place." Translation:
World Economic Forum Co-chairs
William H. Gates, Co-Founder, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation, USA
N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman of the Board and Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies
Lubna S. Olayan, Chief Executive Officer, Olayan Financing Company
Charles O. Prince, Chief Executive Officer, Citigroup
John A. Thain, Chief Executive Officer, New York Stock Exchange
Daniel Vasella, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Novartis
In other words, the WEF is a bunch of businessmen who want to make a buck in developing countries and find Chirac's justifications for pandering to tyrannies a convenient gloss. Thus, nobody should be surprised that no ranking member of the Bush administration showed at this year's WEF meeting.
What's surprising is that Richard Gere was in attendance. America's film stars are generally so naive about foreign affairs that one doesn't expect them to understand what the WEF is about. But of all the film stars, Richard Gere should be aware that it's NGOs such as WEF that help Red China maintain Face in the world community, which helps the Chinese maintain a tyranny over the Tibetan people and support the tyrannies in Burma and North Korea.
Charles Krauthammer has observed that one shouldn't expect capitalism to have a conscience and that's why we have the judicial system. He meant that business is not the place to expect support for democracy and the freedoms that go with it, but the businessplace can be kept within ethical bounds by application of laws.
However, the transnationalization of capitalism means that global corporations based in democratic countries are free to ignore the dictates in their own societies when they do business in other lands. They take full advantage of their freedom. They cozy up to tyrants who can give foreign corporations the okay for doing business in their countries. They avert their eyes to barbaric tribal customs and government atrocities carried out in the name of maintaining stability. They use organizations such as the WEF to put a pretty face on their utter lack of conscience.
When called out on their evil, they write million dollar checks to the World Wildlife Fund and NGOs fighting AIDS in Africa, and prattle that good business leads inevitably to humane government.
They are the engine that makes the Axis of Weasels turn, which in turn keeps the Axis of Terror spinning. And when it all falls down, when mad mad men such as Ayman al Zawahiri rage to God to wreak vengeance, when their bodyguards and armed enclaves are no longer sufficient to protect them, they run to their own government--the one that protects their freedoms--and scream, "Do something!"
Then men and women of good conscience and stout character have to shed blood and lose their lives to rescue them from their own doing.
And in the still of the night, when their spouses ask, "What did you do at the office today?" they answer, "I made the world a better place, my dear."
CNN and CNN International rose on the back of the Globalist movement and fed on it. Americans who have never seen CNN International--continue not seeing it, if you're watching your blood pressure. If you think CNN is down on America, you should see the international version. The executives defend the content and slant by saying that they have to appeal to audiences outside the USA. Translation: If you want to sell widgets in Saudi Arabia and China, don't report on anything that makes tyrants and barbarians lose Face.
Eason Jordan is a poster child for the Globalist movement. He admitted his corroboration with Saddam's regime only after the US military invaded Iraq. Jordan's heart-wrenching defense of his actions neglected to explain why he didn't move the CNN bureau to safety behind Kurdish lines. That would have allowed the bureau to report to the world about the atrocities that Jordan and others in his bureau knew about, but chose not to report to the world.
The furor over Jordan's admissions died down, or was lost in the shuffle of news about the post-invasion phase of the Iraq campaign. That left unanswered troubling questions raised by Hugh Hewett ; among them:
Has Jordan failed to reveal other non-disclosures [about his knowledge of a murder plot and atrocities] that reasonable people would consider material?Mr. Jordan's actions in Iraq are the best answer to the question raised by the Davos panel. Of course democracy won't survive the media, if the media continues to give tyrants "fair and balanced" coverage.
Did Jordan previously disclose any or all of these revelations to any official from the United States government?
Are there any similar non-disclosure deals at work in Cuba, Syria, the Palestinian territories, Burma, or any other country in which CNN maintains a presence?
The grimmest irony of the war on terror is that if not for the 9/11 attack, the American people would have continued to follow blindfolded the lead set by the Mercantile School. Now it's a new day, but George W. Bush is just one American. Unless the American Establishment media (and the American wing of the blogosphere) work harder to explain the Bush Democracy Doctrine to the rest of the world, Bush will indeed make his upcoming European tour a "listening" one.
Yet if ever there was a time Europe needed to listen to an American president, now is the time.
* World War V
http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-2-2/26225.html"
* * Sisyphean Musings reports that WEF is making a copy of the video available. http://sisypheanmusings.blogspot.com/2005/02/eason-jordon-wef-video_110754253214888238.html
Check Hugh Hewett and Captain Ed for latest roundup on the fast-moving Eason Jordan/CNN story.
http://www.hughhewitt.com/
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/003730.php
And see Carol Platt Liebau for a statement by Eason Jordan
http://carolliebau.blogspot.com/2005/02/response-from-
eason-jordan.html
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