By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
April 2, 2003
The real significance of the firing of Peter Arnett over his obviously false statements made to the world over Iraqi TV, is that it might lead some to reexamine not only their current pro-Saddam Hussein, anti-war views, but might even lead to a reexamination of their Vietnam era anti-war politically correct thinking developed in their youth by listening to Peter Arnett.
During World War II, the war of my teen-age years, Ernie Pyle wrote articles and drew cartoons depicting the war through the eyes of the soldiers at the front. The Ernie Pyle Foundation reflects the feelings of those who remembered Pyle: “He wrote about ordinary American soldiers; their hardships, sacrifices, and the families they left behind. His column was like a letter written home. Millions mourned when Ernie Was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima on April 18, 1945, while serving as a war correspondent with the 77th Infantry Division.”
I was sixteen when Ernie Pyle was killed and whenever I think about him, the sadness I felt when I heard the news in 1945 still returns. His reporting undoubtedly had a lasting impact on those of us at home.
For the first time since 1945, we are seeing a war again from the vantage point of the soldier, through some of the embedded reporters, especially those with military experience like Oliver North. This is in marked contrast with the reporting style of Peter Arnett, who in many ways is responsible for the mind-set of the Vietnam era generation. Arnett, who won a Pulitzer prize for his reports of the Vietnam War from Saigon wrote in 1972: “I am still not sure in my own mind whether what we did as reporters in Vietnam was enough or too much, whether we were neophytes or prophets, whether we performed the classic American press role of censuring government policy or whether we botched the whole job and aided and abetted the enemy. And it might be argued that we never really satisfactorily figured out who the enemy was.”
In 1966 Peter Arnett was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his reports from Vietnam. In fact, in many ways, America’s view of the Vietnam War to this day was gained through the prism of Peter Arnett reports, reports that were consistently hostile to the military and the government and sympathetic to the communists and Hanoi’s government. In a speech to a Jewish audience in San Diego in 1997 Arnett revealed his personal goal in reporting. Because of the "terrible assault on civilians," in modern war, he said, “the media can help restrain governments from unnecessary casualties."
An example of that philosophy took place in 1991 during Desert Storm, when Peter Arnett reported from Baghdad for CNN. As he himself said in a lecture April 8, 1991 at Stamford University in California: “We were taken by the Iraqi officials to this small plant in the outskirts of Baghdad on the highway to Jordan. It had been totally demolished by a series of bombs. It was a large one-story structure, about an acre in size and the bombs had twisted the supports, had twisted the whole framework of the structure, the iron structure…There were huge steel containers ripped open, and as I walked around it, I was up to my knees in a sort of powder. They told me it was baby milk powder. “I went back to the hotel and reported that this had been targeted by the U.S. military. It was a baby milk factory. It had been built, I was told, a year earlier, and it struck me that it seemed logical to hit it, because the electrical power generating stations had been hit, The Pentagon reacted very negatively to that report. They said that I was duped. It was actually a biological testing center for biological weapons.”
Now, what was wrong with Peter Arnett’s report on the “baby milk” factory, if he was, as he claims, a reporter? The problem was, he simply reported what an Iraqi government official TOLD HIM as “truth.” He didn’t reach down and taste the powder he was wading through to find out if it really WAS “baby milk.” His bias showed in not questioning the Iraqi government explanation.
In a CNN report in 1998 Peter Arnett claimed the US army had used Sarin gas in Vietnam on a village killing many women and children and even on American soldiers who didn’t want to fight. That story was thoroughly disproved by Accuracy in Media. Later the World Socialist Web Site, long a fierce admirer and supporter of Peter Arnett scolded him for saving his own job by blaming CNN’s female producer for the misinformation.
However, in this war, technology has finally caught up with Peter Arnett’s propaganda for the enemy, undetected entirely in the Vietnam War and only slightly disturbed over the years of his reporting in wars that, oddly enough, show him distrustful ONLY of American Government, never of socialist or communist governments in Vietnam, the Middle East, or South America.
This time the American people are seeing the war almost literally through the eyes of pilots and ground troops, with the commentary coming from those in the media who, like Peter Arnett, have used their position for propaganda purposes.
As an NBC reporter, Arnett told the world on Iraqi TV: “It is clear that within the United States there is a growing challenge to President Bush about the conduct of the war and also opposition to the war," he said. "So our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments."
While this is in keeping with Arnett’s own philosophy of reporting – it is contrary to the personal experiences of the American people and what they are seeing through the eyes of embedded reporters at the front. With 72% of the American people solidly behind the President, they are not seeing a “growing challenge to President Bush.”
To Peter Arnett, Jacques Chirac of France, and to a number of people who send me e-mail when I write an article like this, Bush is the evil one. It reminds me of what Isaiah the prophet said: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.”
It appears that even NBC will occasionally fire people who can't get that straight.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com