One frustrating failure of the Norwegian media leading up to the Iraq war was lack of curiosity about the American motivation for planning a war. Why now, what had changed, what were they hoping to achieve? Answers, or rather assumptions, fell between two poles: At one end, taking what the Americans said at the UN at complete face value, ie. that it was only about Iraq's nuclear threat; and at the other end seeing it all as a cover for more traditional and selfish interests bordering on imperialism, ie. that there must be a clear benefit to the US of controlling Iraq, or they wouldn't bother about it. This wasn't so much incorrect as incomplete. It implied that the wmd's were the only possible legitimate reason for war, so if there was no wmd threat from Iraq it followed that everything had been a lie, and the war was wrong. This is the line now being taken as wmd's keep failing to turn up, (which btw I'm still concerned about - the impression Bush and Blair gave of Saddam's threat clearly was inaccurate, the question is what part deception, exaggeration and ignorance respectively played in it.)

But anyone who followed debates in political mags and blogs would recognize other important factors - a combination of foreign policy idealism, and post-9/11 realism (the Middle East is in deep shit) and determination (their problems are now America's problems) that did not fall between those poles. Some have referred to this as neo-conservatism. I'm not sure that's a good label, but it's a common one. These views weren't hidden away in the back corridors of the White House, but out in the open, among regular pundits as well as influential thinkers, for anyone who bothered to look. And this did not happen. Only after the war does this line of reasoning, for instance the idea of introducing democracy in the Arab world as an antidote to radical Islam, seem to have reached Norway.

The word neo-conservative itself could be a good measurement of this. start.no's news search engine covers all the major Norwegian news outlets back to January 2002. I've done some counting of instances of the various conceivable translations of neo-conservative, before and after March 20th, 2003:

For comparison, I find 1670 instances of republican in various permutations, 18234 Bush's, and 39894 Iraq's. It's only to be expected that neo-conservative would be a rare word, but the jump after the war started is indicative of the ignorance and lack of curiosity the buildup to war was treated with. Whatever neo-conservative describes, it described it just as well in February as in May. It would have been a more interesting word back then, when should or should not invade was the hot topic. Now, the topic is what the American administration is doing right or wrong in Iraq. This is a practical issue that has more to do with how various lower level officials are carrying out Washingon's orders (build a stable Arab democracy) than why those orders were made in the first place. Neo-conservatism doesn't really enter into it. So the most likely explanation for the jump is not that neo-conservatism was uninteresting before the war, but that it was unknown as a factor in American foreign policy.

Even much-quoted experts like Henrik Thune at NUPI, who has now written a book about the role neo-conservatism played in the Iraq war, did not actually use the term himself until after the war, (or if he did, it was not quoted).

In other words, again assuming that neo-conservatism is a good label, the world's most powerful military force went to war this year, and our journalists, pundits and experts had no idea why. That's rather scary.

It doesn't surprise me at all that the Norwegian media were ignorant of this new force in American foreign policy thinking. I think that many Americans are working to educate themselves now. Personally since 911, I have subscribed to new magazines (Foreign Affairs and the Economist), read books about Islam and Al-Quaeda and the Middle East, and sought out books and articles by neoconservative spokesmen like Robert Kagan. At the moment, I am reading > by Kenneth Pollack -- a book that makes it very clear that American administrations (including the Clinton administration) were thinking for a very long time about invading Iraq. Anyone who wants to know what might have motivated the Bush administration's attack need only read that book. It's all laid out right there, quite clearly.

The problem for Norwegian pundits, I think, is that they assume that they know already what motivates American foreign policy. This is just my opinion, I should point out. But it seems to me that, sometime between about 1968 and the present, the Norwegian media were conquered by folks who decided that Chomsky is right -- that America, at its core, is a rapacious imperialist state that is beyond redemption. I think that the people who run the media in Norway have pretty much accepted this view of the country and interpret events in that light. They should be trying honestly to understand what is happening out their on the world stage. Instead, they appear to be trying to make events fit a model that they have grown comfortable with over the years.

I, too, am concerned about David Kay's failure, so far, to find WMD. But I have always believed that the Bush team exaggerated the threat of WMD. WMD were never, in my mind, an immediate threat. I had other reasons for thinking that the war was our best way out of the impasse. I do wonder, though, how flawed our intelligence might have been.

- Gill

The book by Pollack that I referred to is called The Threatening Storm -- The Case for Invading Iraq. I am not saying that Norwegian pundits need to agree with Pollack's case. I am saying that the case is laid out there, for all to see. When I do a Google search on "amerikansk and Kenneth Pollack", I come up with just twelve references. Some of those are Danish and Swedish. Pollack worked at the CIA and advised both the Bush and Clinton administrations.

- Gill

-- Bush team exaggerated the threat of WMD. WMD were never, in my mind, an immediate threat.--

There's immediate and "immediate."

Where would it be used? We're basically everywhere.

A piece is under a rose bush, another in a house, programs that Blixie didn't even know about.

Larger missiles, once the sanctions lifted-voila-
immediate. And then not a damned thing we could do about it.

Sully links to a WP ed.

..."The apparent absence of existing weapons stocks, therefore, does not mean Hussein did not pose a WMD threat. In fact, fragments of evidence in Kay's report about ongoing biological weapons research suggest that Hussein may have had a quick "break-out" capacity to threaten his neighbors and, indeed, the United States with biological agents (possibly including infectious agents)....

Geez, the Chicoms recently found chem weapons buried by the Japanese during WWII.

Hello! It's very informative and splendid page! A lot of news could be
found here. I like it for it's streght apply to the problem! Thank you
very much

Hello! It's very informative and splendid page! A lot of news could be
found here. I like it for it's streght apply to the problem! Thank you
very much

Hello! It's very informative and splendid page! A lot of news could be
found here. I like it for it's streght apply to the problem! Thank you
very much

Sorry for posting it 3 times. It didn't want to post noway. Sorry

Yeah! I agree with Michael! All the best!

And why all the SCUD fuel if Saddam didn't have SCUDS????

The danish media has used a lot of differents approaches - all anti-american.

Danish Radio (DR) have just made a 'documentary' which conclude that the ONLY reason we entered the war - was wmd. That is a surely a lie, but the journalists like letting Robert Fisk and John Pilger think for themselves.

I wrote a long response - but it got too long for a comment, so I posted it over at my little blog.

See this entry, if interested in one American's comments:

http://tnor.org/blog/archives/000067.html

Hello! It's very informative and splendid page! A lot of ....

There, that's better.

To be truthful and possibly a tad banal, we get a lot of the same misunderstanding of neoconservatism over here in the States as well, which is compounded by the fact that noone can seem to pin down what it means, exactly. Some think it means "zionist right-wingers", others think it means ex-communist shits who ran rightward real quickly like me, others think it means pro-war folks, others think it means people who wish to suck the blood out of gentile babies to make motsah soup with, etc. There doesn't seem to be a real big agreement except on a core of people who actually call themselves neoconservative.

On the plus side, your media isn't substantively different than most West and Northern Europe is in being ignogant and silly and in-curious (different than uncurious) and generally throttled with a thumb up its ass. As far as I can figure, the Norgie press written in english I'm familiar with resembles a rather boring alternative to the more treacherous French press. This may be good- it means we'll come get you last*.

Jim

*- humor. Just kidding, literalist nordic types.

Jim: That may be partly because neo-conservatism is a poor label for these views. But misrepresentation is still better than no coverage at all.

I'm fully aware that the Norwegian media is no worse than most other European media. Norway is not the most anti-American country in Europe. Sweden, Germany and France are all worse. But they are out there, and I am here. Others may point out their faults, I will point out ours.

Bjorn: You speak the truth. I suppose it is a step up from complete, willful ignorance, but it is alarming nonetheless.

The central impression I get from the European intelligentsia as a whole (sans a bit of Britains) is a rather straightforward lack of appreciation for the labrynthine complexity of the American political scene. This contrasts to the Italian or British or French political scenes, which, while not what I'd characterise as simple, are at least comprehensible.

This situation is probably the result of the American image, helped generously along by our own movie industry. The result is a very interesting phenomenon: European politicians tend to speak discursively, thus hiding certain plain realities in obfuscatory language, while American politicians do the exact opposite and hide complexity with simple language. Both are meant to disguise and be deceitful, but it gives Europeans an almost reflexive impression that they understand an American scene that baffles even our own best and brightest.

This is alarming because it's going to lead to a further alienation of the two great Wests. I'm not averse to a certain alienation between European and American intelligentsia's, mostly because I'm against social democracy and its values, but I am afraid of the alienation going too far. Too much antipathy will be damaging.

A note- if I may be so bold, I am quite interested in more of your military situation and your flamboyant defense minster, which was discussed in a US paper called the New York Times recently. If you could see your way clear to discussing her in some detail, I would be much obliged.

Bjorn: You speak the truth. I suppose it is a step up from complete, willful ignorance, but it is alarming nonetheless.

The central impression I get from the European intelligentsia as a whole (sans a bit of Britains) is a rather straightforward lack of appreciation for the labrynthine complexity of the American political scene. This contrasts to the Italian or British or French political scenes, which, while not what I'd characterise as simple, are at least comprehensible.

This situation is probably the result of the American image, helped generously along by our own movie industry. The result is a very interesting phenomenon: European politicians tend to speak discursively, thus hiding certain plain realities in obfuscatory language, while American politicians do the exact opposite and hide complexity with simple language. Both are meant to disguise and be deceitful, but it gives Europeans an almost reflexive impression that they understand an American scene that baffles even our own best and brightest.

This is alarming because it's going to lead to a further alienation of the two great Wests. I'm not averse to a certain alienation between European and American intelligentsia's, mostly because I'm against social democracy and its values, but I am afraid of the alienation going too far. Too much antipathy will be damaging.

A note- if I may be so bold, I am quite interested in more of your military situation and your flamboyant defense minster, which was discussed in a US paper called the New York Times recently. If you could see your way clear to discussing her in some detail, I would be much obliged.

My apologies about posting twice.

Neoconservatism is a term which was put on those Cold War liberalists from the sixties, who organized themselves in the seventies and peaked in influence under the Reaganadministration. They were anticommunists and mostly with jewish backgrounds and did not see themselves as conservative at all since they originally voted democratic. Irving Kristol was the father of neoconservatism and talks about the neoconservative 'persuasion' rather than 'organization'. When the communist threat was over in 1989 they found themselves without a core 'persuasion', but above all neoconservatives think of domestic values rather than foreign politics. They seek the moral values of the fifties and it is a coincidence that people relate them to the 9/11. The only reason why they are so keen on the warfare in the Middle East is for the sake of Israel but that is not a new thought (after 9/11). They have been discussed these issues for decades, but noone carried their thoughts out in life before George W. If you wnat to read more about the issue I can recommend Sara Diamonds "Road to dominion" or Michael Linds (Swedish immigrant parents) "Made in Texas".

Ben Gordon is the man!

Bjørn,

re, our previous discussion on the heart and soul of the GOP. I came across this article today that speaks in support of my view.

A Christian Republican speaks to other Christians

Beware: the GOP has become a fascist cult

By Karl W. B. Schwarz

http://tinyurl.com/5c2xv

Bjørn,

In other words, again assuming that neo-conservatism is a good label, the world's most powerful military force went to war this year, and our journalists, pundits and experts had no idea why. That's rather scary.

I think you'll find a great many pundits and experts were well aware of the neo-conservative "revolution" -- its just that they weren't being taken all that seriously in the more popular press.

With the drive to war in Iraq they had to be taken seriously because the evidence was now totally compelling -- the neo-conservatives were doing what they said they wanted to do.

I refer you to PNAC (Project for a New American Century) and their document "Rebuilding America's Defences": if you download the pdf version of it from PNAC's site and do a search on "Pearl Harbor" the results make interesting reading.

Of course we know that PNAC in itself is not really that important -- there are several "front" organisations for the neo-conservatives like the AEI (American Enterprise Institute) for example.

Here's an interesting article on how these people were at work deliberately and calculatedly manipulating intelligence to further their agends (Douglas Feith -- as you no doubt know is a leading neo-con.)

Iraq Evidence 'Manipulated,' Inquiry Finds
    By Greg Miller
    The Los Angeles Times

    Friday 22 October 2004
Defense officials slanted intelligence to support the White House's claim of a Hussein-Al Qaeda connection, Democrats on a Senate panel say.

    Washington - A controversial intelligence unit set up in the Pentagon provided skewed prewar analysis to support Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein was an ally of Al Qaeda, an investigation by Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee has found.

    The intelligence unit, run by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, shaded analytic judgments, ignored contrary evidence and sidestepped the CIA to present dubious findings to senior officials at the White House, the investigation concluded.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/102304B.shtml

Parler vouz francais?

Thanks for that insightful comment! It makes interesting reading, especially when I need a payday loans.

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the True Nature of Reality: What the war in Iraq is really about, October 13, 2003 02:09 AM

I found a good Norwegian blog today, the Bjørn Stærk blog. In the entry Discovering neo-conservatism, he has this to say: One frustrating failure of the Norwegian media leading up to the Iraq war was lack of curiosity about the...