French Cries of Media Bias Engenders No Sympathy at AIM

It is time once again to shed crocodile tears as senior French officials complain of being treated unfairly by the U.S. media. Former diplomat Ken Adelman notes that a general antipathy toward France is being attributed to a Bush administration-orchestrated disinformation campaign rather than “Paris’s deeds,” such as:

The following are messages that AIM readers sent. My replies follow:

heather&mary -

The French Spin a Different War Story
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
http://www.insightmag.com/news/415948.html

- Reply: Thanks for the link.

THOMAS BERTRAN -

Your whole article is a precise definition of the word "bia"s [sic]. As a reminder, the French ambassador in Washington complained about false information being revealed in the US medias by some "unnamed sources". He is certainly not complaining about the way the American people and the US
administration is treating France and French products. So far, the US administration has not commented on the complaints...hinting they were justified?

What do you know about France and French anyway? Does reading a couple of headlines (translated with Google!!) and browsing some extremist's web sites give you a good knowledge of a country?
If so, watching Fox News TV and Bill O'Reilly and reading the New York post would give me a very sad opinion of the American people. But I think I more open minded than that. Are you?

TB.

http://search.msn.fr/worldwide.asp

- Reply: [What’s the deal with the link to a French-language search engine that you sent?]
I invite you to look at my list of references above. Also take a look at the Ken Timmerman article for which a reader sent a link. There are more. Just because I have not joined in the Anti-American chorus doesn’t mean that I just read ‘a couple of headlines’ and called it a day. It is my contention that French journalists have allowed their jealousy and hatred of the US to blind them to reality and have done their audience a great disservice. If you care about the French people, you should make the effort to know what is happening to their country and do something about it. A shell of its former self, it is slipping from being irrelevant to being a part of the Third World. It gives me no pleasure in pointing this out.

There is no way that you can honestly say that the French media has been fairer, more objective or more independent than that of the United States. You do your own comparison.

In case you get bored, see these articles and the discussions thereof:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/880693/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/880713/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/885743/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/917394/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/891698/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/894636/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/893988/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/902228/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/893258/posts

John B. Wilson -

Dear French Media:
Your slanted news on the United States is infuriating the American people even more than Chirac’s Lie about supporting the US at first. Keep up the slanted News and France will find that it is extremely hard to ever get back to the way it was. France has been doing a Two Bit Job on the U. S. for a good number of years with their subsidization of trade while declaiming they don’t do anything like that. So "Get A Life France," you got it coming to you.

Dear French Media: Your slanted news on the United States is infuriating the American people even more than Chirac’s Lie about supporting the US at first. Keep up the slanted News and France will find that it is extremely hard to ever get back to the way it was.

Amen. Thank you, William.

Would you please take on the British and the American mainstream press now? (^;

The Coalition has always been welcomed by a vast majority of the Iraqi people. The press stresses isolated attacks and protests by the small percentage of remaining bad guys (Saddam loyalists, terrorist-wannabes and other assorted motley extremists still roaming about Iraq w/out a future); they seek out and sow dissent; they misinform the world. Those with loved ones serving will confirm this, as do the daily www.centcom.mil logs - the PRIMARY source of info on Iraq: COALITION AND IRAQI POLICE WORK TO MAKE IRAQ SECURE, and COALITION EFFORTS AID IRAQ'S RECOVERY .

Check the CENTCOM logs (posted daily at the OIF thread, too). Read the logs for the entire month of May. It's shocking what the press didn't report to the world: the far greater number of bad guys our troops took out for every Coalition casualty, the numerous daily good works by the Coalition to rebuild, secure and bring humanitarian aid to people across Iraq - with daily support and help from the Iraqi people. Check CENTCOM's record for accuracy against the mainstream press. These military leaders are careful, deliberate and trustworthy. If anything they don't brag enough about their accomplishments.

Did you know that our military did the engineering work to bring water back to the Iraqi marshlands in the South? The UN reports, but neglects to credit the Coalition: Iraq's dried-out marshlands reviving, UN says.

The press mocked CENTCOM, while repeating Saddam's lies before the war. The press mocked CENTCOM while pushing Iraqi Info Ministry lies during the war. The press mocks CENTCOM today - choosing, instead, to quote our enemies, search for isolated angry voices, parrot the latest NY Times front page. They're spinning 24/7 to save their hides, imho.

The war exposed the left as frauds to a watching world. The "Capitalist Military Industrial Complex" - AMERICA, right-wing America - 'liberated the oppressed people'.

This Republican President named the evil, pledged our nation and $$$ and troops. American and allied military men and women risked their lives for strangers. They were the GOOD guys.

The left pushed for 'peace at any price' - covering-up years of Saddam's atrocities, overlooking mass graves and imprisoned children, while accusing those who freed the children of abusing those who murdered children.

The watching world saw our military leaders and troops interact on the ground, compared their own governments and saw that we are not a "racist", "sexist", "bully" nation. NOW and Jesse Jackson lied. OUR military men and women are honorable and brave. They freed a people oppressed for decades. The Communist Party, UN, Bill Clinton lied.

The Coalition military worked in sand, heat, bugs, under fire and far from home, paid with blood and tears, facing potential attacks from chem and bio weapons - volunteering for little pay, for a nation they love and a cause greater than themselves.

The left mostly protested the war from air conditioned desks or plush offices, far from danger, close to loved ones, free to speak and print and protest because of the troops and the nation they condemn. Risking nothing.

This war de-bunked decades of leftist lies. The press is spinning mightily to cover up the now-naked socialist Emporer.

24 million newly freed Iraqis, given mountains of weapons by our enemies, refused to use them against us. The Iraqi people chose not to fight. 24 million newly freed Iraqis - less than one Coalition casualty per day (mostly unexploded ordnance, some by dead-enders ambushing a convoy or checkpoint - bad guys and their pals rarely survive these rare attacks). 24 million newly freed Iraqis - less than one Coalition casualty a day. Think about that. Even the looting was selective. No honest reporter could call this 'chaos'. 24 million newly freed Iraqis and less than one Coalition casualty a day. Over 70 days in Iraq, 24 million newly freed Iraqis. No major conflicts. Fewer casualties in Baghdad - a city of 5 million - than in NY City daily. America 'unwelcome'? Hardly.

CENTCOM. Case closed.

VOICES OF FREEDOM
Quotes from the grateful Iraqi people. Y

...no complaints from my hubby or his men....he just wants more baby powder and foot cream....when he called Sunday night he told me that there hasn't been a day where a Kuwaiti or Iraqi hasn't thanked him and the US for what they are doing...he is proud to be a part of the liberation of Iraq.

61 posted on 06/03/2003 12:56 PM EDT by mystery-ak (The War is not over for me until my hubby's boots hit U.S. soil.)

Survey shows Iraqi people support US Presence
MEMRI ^ | May 28, 2003 | Al-Sharq Al-Awsat via Memri

SURVEY CONDUCTED BY THE IRAQI INSTITUTION FOR DEMOCRACY IN BAGHDAD SHOWED THAT MOST IRAQIS SUPPORT CONTINUED AMERICAN PRESENCE UNTIL DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS ARE HELD IN IRAQ. (AL-SHARQ AL-AWSAT, LONDON 5/28/03)

***Operation Infinite Freedom - Situation Room - 4 JUN 03/Day 77 - LIVE THREAD***

"Would you please take on the mainstream British and American press now?"

AIM concentrates on the domestic press. As a Government and International Politics student however, foreign relations is a special interest. It is important to know what the press abroad is saying. Earlier today, I posted a speech by Yasser Arafat that was ignored by our press. All I can say is WOW!

Right now I'm compiling a list of AIM's 'greatest hits' on the NY Times since our founding in 1969. Next I will take a look at what the Arab press is telling its audience while the 'roadmap' is being discussed. You won't believe the garbage and inflammatory lies that is being spread on the 'Arab street.'

I had to add this message sent to me by Ragtime Cowgirl, it is excellent.

Dear Mr. Alford,
Thank you for your efforts to expose the role of the less than ethical press
in our daily lives.

It's horrifying to realize that most of the world believes our entertainment
news media represents the American people. When we read a headling from a
French or German paper attacking America, we get angry not at the reporter
who wrote the story, but the nations we think they represent.

Somewhere in France, with libraries and internets and freedom, their must be
French people who understand the difference between right and wrong, between
terrorist nations and America, between Saddam Hussein and President Bush. We
need to bypass this press and find a way to communicate directly with the
people.

We did it here in Florida, through FR and the internet, through homeschool
groups, neighbors and friends - in 2000 and 2002. Out of sight of a press we
ignored. They still don't know what happened.

Some of the quotes I keep in mind these days when keeping track of the war
news for the FR OIF thread:

"You know the one thing that's wrong with this country? Everyone gets a
chance to have their fair say." - Bill Clinton

"The Internet is a frightful danger to all of us.'' - Walter Cronkite

"My husband and I find strength in the word of the Lord, and we realize the
power that prayer has in our own lives." "I'm truly blessed to be married to
a man who's strong enough to bear the burdens and humble enough to ask God
for help." - First Lady Laura Bush

"From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too
complex to be managed by self-rule. That government by an elite group is
superior than government of, by, and for the people. But if no one among us
is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to
govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear
the burden." --Ronald Reagan

"The press has become the greatest power within the western countries, more
powerful than the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary. One would
then ask: By what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?" -
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

One morning at the nub end of Bill Clinton's presidency, Clinton chief of
staff John Podesta walked into a senior staff meeting in the Roosevelt Room
waving a copy of USA Today. Holding the paper aloft, Podesta read the
headline out loud, "Clinton actions annoy Bush." The article detailed the
new rules and Executive Orders the outgoing President was issuing in his
final days, actions aimed in equal measure at locking in Clinton's legacy
(in areas like environmental protection) and bedeviling his successor.
"What's Bush so annoyed about?" Podesta asked with a devilish smile. "He's
got four years to try to undo all the stuff we've done."
(http:)//europe.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2001/01/29/rolling.html

(..."We laid a few traps," chirps a happy Clinton aide.....)
____________--

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people...
The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more
importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the
country.
There is but one element of government, and that is THE PEOPLE. From this
element spring all governments. "For a nation to be free, it is only
necessary
that she wills it. For a nation to be a slave, it is only necessary that
she wills it."
~ John
Adams

Thank you for AIM, for informing the people in spite of the press.

Sincerely,
"Ragtime Cowgirl" (shhh!)) (^;

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.