The Awful Sound of a Bad Journalist

A lot has happened since I last updated this blog, so I’ll just jump right in rather than trying to post backdated entries for everything.

Today is September 11 – the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. It’s an emotionally potent time - a time for ordinary people to revisit their collective sympathises for the victims of the attack, and renew their shared commitment to oppose terrorism.

Unfortunately the nature of 9/11, and its memorialisation, also invites right-wingers to reopen the old psychological wounds and wave their flags around in another round of mindless jingoism, desperate to not only justify the failed project in Iraq, but perhaps also to support military action against Iran and Syria. In Australia, our very own poster child for faux-centrist journalism, Michael Gawenda, has taken the opportunity for a caricature rant against ‘The Awful Silence of the Left’ whatever that is meant to mean. It is difficult to know what he means too, because his article is so riddled with errors.

Where do I start? Right off the bat Gawenda misrepresents Fukayama’s claim about the end of ideology. It’s not an end to de facto contestation, which Gawenda ridicules, but rather a putative normative victory, for liberal democracy, which Fukayama is arguing - a point which Gawenda's article assumes. Colour me unsurprised that someone of his limited intellect doesn't understand the difference.

Gawenda goes on to embarrass himself further, by asserting that the few crass pot-shots that existed at the time, against America's foreign policy, constituted a monolithic body of partisanship, on the progressive side of politics. Even more bizarrely, he suggests that there was, in fact, no real world unity after 9/11 for the war in Iraq to have divided and squandered. What can one really say to such ridiculous and histrionic revisionism? Support for the war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, in liberal democracies, neighbouring states, and the world at large, was unprecedented. The domestic support was, indeed, higher than at any time since WWII! If Gawenda had bothered to do his research he would know this. He would also know that the Pell Global Attitudes survey from 2002 – 2005 directly contradicts his assertions. I’ve provided a sample below of the precipitous drop in America’s ‘favourabilities’ across the world:

UK: 75% -> 55%

Canada: 72% -> 59%

France: 63% -> 43%

Germany: 61% -> 41%

Russia: 61% -> 52%

Indonesia: 61% -> 38%

Turkey: 30% -> 23%

These figures obviously contradict Gawenda's thesis . Given the period we're dealing with, and the fact we're looking at OECD and liberal democracies as well, it's clear that unileralism in Iraq is the main thing responsible for the decline. Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and the failure of the Bush administration to be credible in the 'War on Terror' generally would also be relevant. One thing you couldn't possibility draw from the figures, however, is that America's currently low preception in the world mirrored a pre-existing anti-Americanism in 2001.

If I thought he might actually read it, and stop attacking convenient strawman arguments and caricatures of 'the left', I'd be happy to provide him with a a long list of prominent progressive intellectuals who supported the war against the Taliban regime, and who've been very active in articulating a superior approach to fighting terrorism. Of course, he wouldn't as this would mean he would have to abandon his tradition of faux-centrism.

Gawenda lambasts the supposed silence of the Bush critics, but how can you be in a position to identify and judge silence if you've got your eyes closed and your hands over your ears?