Lee Smith’s outstanding article about American journalists, producers, and “distinguished citizens” who groveled at the bloody feet of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad shows once again the ease with which citizens of democracies become “accomplices to evil.”
It’s an old story, and we should not be surprised to see the likes of former Ambassador Martin Indyk cozying up to the Damascus regime’s equivalent of Saddam Hussein’s “Baghdad Bob” in an effort to drag a crowd of donors — and Bill Clinton — to the throne of the great man. It is even less surprising, but no less depressing, to see producers for the major networks’ “stars” (Brian Williams, Scott Pelley, Bob Simon) wooing the Assad regime in a scramble for an interview with the great man (Barbara Walters famously won the blue ribbon), or to find an admiring reference to Charlie Rose, who was apparently generous in his remarks about the recent unpleasantness in the streets of Syria.
It’s not only about Americans. Mr. Smith quotes extensively from the fawning emails from a reporter for Rome’s La Repubblica, a left-wing newspaper that recently paid me a hefty fine, having been found guilty of criminal libel at my expense. Assad had no such complaint.
Why does this happen? First of all, because of the cult of celebrity. The news business has an insatiable need for “famous people” with which to stuff its pages and broadcasts, and this acts as a multiplier for our instinctive curiosity about other people, whoever and wherever they are. The great anthropologist Lionel Tiger neatly called Facebook’s entrepreneur, Mark Zuckerberg, “the world’s richest primatologist,” and explained the great success of Facebook by our lust to know ever more about our fellow humans.
The need to fill blank pages and empty broadcast hours is at least partially satisfied by information about all sorts of people, from the rich and famous to the murderously insane. Inevitably, everyone wanted to become part of this, and, thanks to social media, we can now all become celebrities, posting and tweeting around the clock, telling anyone who’s interested — and there are plenty of folks out there who ARE interested — just what we’re up to. Even the little things most of us do most of the time.
We’re even more interested in the powerful. Sometimes really, really interested. Henry Kissinger was undoubtedly right when he said that power was the ultimate aphrodisiac, so that even ugly men and women became sexually attractive when they got a suitable title. His own experience seems to have provided the raw data for that theorem.
So it’s quite understandable that the reporters and their producers would scramble to get next to a Middle Eastern potentate, regardless of his murderous activities. Indeed, the mass murder going on in Syria today makes Assad even more interesting to the bigtime celebrity hunters. Just think back to the glory days of Saddam Hussein, or the enthusiasm with which interviewers and college students and faculty pursued Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Considering that I can feel how angry you are, this is beautifully restrained. I feel nearly as ill as when I first read GBS’ whitewash of Stalin’s terror famine; this is a very good, even powerful, short piece.
tks very much. greatly appreciated.
– the fine: Congratulations! But now go back and spend it in Florence. A few months ago I made a pilgrimage to Oriana Fallaci’s residence there. You know what she’d say about Assad; pretty much like Hitch. Didn’t know all that much about her until starting reading VDH; as a teen she was in the Resistance against the Fascists.
wow, been in Florence twice but never thought of visiting Oriana’s place. I’ll have to go back and visit her. She (her books) was pretty much one of the best influences in my life.
We all admit that Assad is bad. But with “Saudi written Sharia Law” in the Syrian constitution, we can expect much worse than Assad. Look at Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Kenya and Yemen. They are all worse off now that the Saudi Dictators have control.
The bloody, genocidal, Hitler-Like, Saudi Dictators are much worse than Assad. This is especially true, and even gruesome, when the Saudis are paying Saudi Muslim Brotherhood terrorists and Saudi Al Qaeda terrorists to overthrow Assad. These are the same blackshirts that Hitler and Mussolini used. Blackshirts are paid to terrorize the citizens, kill innocent civilians, bomb buildings and make it look like it was the Syrian Government. That’s why the Saudi Muslim Brotherhood were outlawed in Syria.
The Saudi Dictators now demand both Syria and Iran be given to them for their NEW WORLD ORDER. The Saudi Dictators are the 21st century Hitlers, hell bent on world conquest. IMHO, the bloody, genocidal, Hitler-Like, Saudi Dictators owning all of the Middle East, are much worse for Israel, the US and the world than Assad ever was.
Watch for the FALSE FLAGS in Iran. Like bombing and killing Iranian citizens and blaming it on Israel. Or like bombing Israeli citizens and blaming it on the Iranians. Or the Saudi written, UN reports, of human rights violations by Assad. Or the Saudi written, UN reports on nuclear weapons in Iran. Or the FALSE FLAG bombing of an American Ship by the Saudi Dictators to blame it on the Iranian Dictators.
No this is about a much worse Dictator replacing a bad dictator and using FALSE FLAGS and terrorists to do it. This is about getting “Saudi Puppet Obama” to sacrifice thousands more American soldier’s lives and $Trillions more American Dollars to kill almost a million innocent middle eastern citizens to overthrow bad governments for the bloody, genocidal, Hitler-Like, Saudi Dictators.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH – STOP REPLACING BAD DICTATORS WITH WORSE DICTATORS AT THE EXPENSE OF AMERICAN LIVES AND $TRILLIONS OF BORROWED AMERICAN DOLLARS.
Man, I surely wish that i could articulate FACTS as accurate as you have just done….You have Laid it out to where we all can grasp it…Mr Ledeen, i also thank you, sir, for laying the foundation for great commentators…..Wouldn`t trade PJM for any media in town….Thank you both
“Just think back to the glory days of Saddam Hussein”
Thanks to YouTube, you don’t have to think back to those wondrous days, you can relive them. Your article prompted me to play the video of the insidious George Galloway extolling the virtues of Saddam Hussein for old times’ sake.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzWNXEtwHUc
I think it’s a little more complicated.
My grandfather, Eudocio Ravines, was a minor historical figure in the Communist International. He saw the light after the Spanish Civil War, where he’d been posted by the Party. What he saw was that there were no ideals, that the Communists cared only for power. Why did people buy the lie that the Communists were anything but murderous thugs for so long? Simply because of the power of the Soviet Union. If they’d lost the war to the Nazis, we’d have heard all about the gulags and how evil the Soviet regime was. As it was, they were on the winning side. Their victory in the war gave them a legitimacy that allowed them to brush off the millions who died not in war but in peacetime mass murder. It took until the 1970s, decades later, for the gulags to become common knowledge.
Their military power could credibly oppose the West, and for the first time the intellectuals had a champion against Western civilization.
It is about power, no doubt. However, it’s just as much about opposing American power as it is about worship of power. Anyone who can credibly resist American imperialism will garner support. Anyone, no matter how vile, no matter what atrocities they commit, as long as it’s not too obvious. The frankly defeatist tone of press coverage emanating from the Western Left during the war in Iraq wasn’t hard-bitten realism, but hope that America would finally get what was coming to it. Never mind the nature of our enemy.
So, we have the spectacle of supposedly freedom-loving proponents of international law making pilgrimages to Havana and writing apologia for Iranian leaders. When I was growing up the 1980s I was amazed and appalled that anyone could compare the US and the USSR as moral equals. It seemed obvious to me then that there was no comparison. I never had to fundamentally reevaluate that position- growing older has made me more cynical, but it’s only convinced me that people are good at lying. It’s not about truth, it’s about the power to reshape the world.
The only thing that stops this nonsense is the truth about these regimes. When something like the Syrian and Libyan revolts happen it’s no longer possible to hide the true nature of anti-American “resistance.” Everyone is so shocked! Shocked! Nothing has changed! Syria under the Assads has always been like this. It’s simply become impossible to ignore.
If Iran gets the bomb, be ready for their legitimacy to be accepted in all the right places.
I wonder if a lot of the anti-americanism is not fostered by Americas alliance with Israel?
Reply to heweeps: Arabs can’t be united unless they find some foe, if Isrel didn’t exist, they will invent an ennemy, american’s wealth is harming their leaders and their behaviour, so don’t blame americans or israely, we have to combat such evils and not find some excuses for them.
“It’s not about truth, it’s about the power to reshape the world.”
.. in their image. Power to rule the collective and anyone who does not submit is the enemy. This gets played out every couple of generations, changes shape and comes back reborn as “fresh and righteous” without the constraining morality of religion. The devil knows whose in his camp.
they should have been better Oh so true Michael.
An interesting timely piece. What you are describing is part of a broader phenomenon, admiration of the strongman. The more fearsome and brutal, the more he is admired. Entire nations get caught up in the ecstasy – think Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union or Mao’s China. On the smaller, more pathological level, think about the women groupies who swooned over Charles Manson or the ladies who proposed to Ted Bundy while he waited to be executed. Barbara Walters and her ilk feed on that dark side of human nature because it always sells.
“hitting the nail on its head” inspiration must have come after reading an article like this.
Assad using resistance or the Muslim Brotherhood using religion or communists using the people or diplomats appeasing tyrants or journalists in pursuit of higher ratings at the expense of freedom all share one common denominator: hunger for power at any cost. Maybe Syrians would not be suffering today had Indyk and others like him worked as hard to promote freedom and liberties, powers granted to others and not to one’s self.
Bashar Assad was wise to marry a Western woman who publicly appears to be modern and forward looking. How can this man be evil if he is the husband of such an seemingly enlightened female? He obviously can’t be too bad.
Muggeridge said it so well: “What they really admired was the regime’s sheer power; the fact that there were no votes to be taken, no motions referred back, no tedious bone-headed trade unionists to be coaxed and cajoled. This emerged when Mrs. Webb said: ‘It’s true that in the Soviet Union people disappear.’ She accentuated this last word, ‘disappear,’ and I realised, even in my somewhat euphoric condition, how happy she would have been if similar arrangements prevailed in the LCC (Londonn County Council) and recalcitrant councillors and aldermen could be likewise made to disappear.”
Indeed, the mass murder going on in Syria today makes Assad even more interesting to the big-time celebrity hunters.
-
Fox News is one of the few media outlets mentioning the death toll,
almost 4,000,
many are women and children being shot dead in their homes..
Where is the frigging outrage!
Even sweet, little legs Hillary Clinton said;
We can’t overthrow them all.
We need diplomacy, not drones.
i think the death toll is actually more than three times that number, sad to say.
“That sort of intellectual finds modern democratic politics unbearably messy and masses of voters insufficiently admiring of intellectuals”. That short simple statement is profound. I believe it to be the root of most of the animus in domestic politics today. There’s a group of people out there making things happen, and a group of people who sit around yapping about making things happen. The latter can’t stand the fact that the former has neither the time nor the inclination to kiss the ring.
Need we mention Vogue magazines fawning article about Asma al Assad.
Can we get a re-take of that photo with some bloodshed as the background. (see link)
Small minds think and talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas!
Don’t know who said that but as I read Ledeen’s piece it came to mind.
These lovers of thugs know nothing of history which is to say very little about human nature.
http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2011/04/17/vogues-reprehensible-fawning-profile-of-mme-assad/
“Indeed, the mass murder going on in Syria today makes Assad even more interesting to the bigtime celebrity hunters.”
Well, in television, if it bleeds, it leads. Television networks can’t seem to get enough of “radicals” being gunned down in the streets, especially if it’s video handed to them by the Assad regime. Funny how those rough videos you see from tiny hand-held phone cameras the people in the streets have always seem to differ dramatically from what the Assad regime puts out. Seems like the networks are always fascinated by men who take power and keep it, no matter what the cost. Perhaps that is why the networks adore Obama. He has taken power and is making a mockery of our Constitution. What’s not to love about that? I’m just surprised the network news people don’t have interviews with Obama on every night. But I’m sure they would if they could.
Just think back to the glory days of Saddam Hussein…
CNN deliberately not reporting on Saddam’s atrocities so the news organization wouldn’t get kicked out of the country.
or the enthusiasm with which interviewers and college students and faculty pursued Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Diane Sawyer all dolled up in a headscarf, interviewing A’jad (a big “get”), an interview through which the little creep just smirked.
That sort of intellectual finds modern democratic politics unbearably messy and the masses of voters insufficiently admiring of intellectuals. How much better it would be, many of them believe in their dark hearts, if people like themselves could simply make decisions. The right decisions, mind you, the sort that only a brilliant intellectual like themselves can make.
Oh gosh, that brings to mind a certain president of the US. Who can it be ? Lemmee think…
(Then there’s Assad’s wife, Asma, a darling of the international chic set. Haven’t heard anything from her since the ophthalmologist started slaughtering citizens in the street, except she & family may have skipped the country.)
What Tom Wolfe described as radical chic is relevant here, where wrapped in cotton self-anointed “…celebrities, socialites, and high society…adopt and promote radical political causes.”
Charlie Rose (way too much make-up these days Charlie) is something of the quintessential ass kisser.
Michael, I recently finished reading “Liar’s Poker” by Michael Lewis, and one detail, amongst others, was very interesting.
He mentioned a company that was blacklisted by the Egyptians, if my memory serves me correct.
Is there such silence coming from the accomplices to evil, regarding black lists
partially attributable to the blood money which helps support the lifestyle they’ve grown accustomed to?
For, I would think that companies, and not just from Russia and China, which do business with Syria and Iran, would be blacklisted.
Which results in another conclusion: There will come a time when they no longer ignore the judgment that the credibility they have earned is miniscule when compared to the credibility they desire.
I found your article amusing but I think you let them off lightly.
I have invariably found Martin Indyk to be one of the best sources of data to be analyzed: There is an amazing correlation between what he concludes (an d sometimes says) and either the exact opposite being true or his conclusions/recommendations being: the exact opposite of reality/or the exact opposite of the correct course of action.
The press in the USA appear to be “KGBesque” trained disinformation specialist and the best example is NPR; the perfect place to go when I want to hear radical liberals debate ultra liberals…or CNN: terrorists ministry of propaganda et al..
I think every member of the current congress who has been there since before the 2010 election should be voted out.
I think it should be illegal for former officials of the USA to represent a foreign government ever!
Great piece, with a dash of Kissinger wit at Kissinger’s expense.
“Henry Kissinger was undoubtedly right when he said that power was the ultimate aphrodisiac, so that even ugly men and women became sexually attractive when they got a suitable title. His own experience seems to have provided the raw data for that theorem.”
islam is the problem that’s setting the whole world on fire…and there’s no
faith in the faith of death….love it or die.
Mr Lynch,your right. Communism is a punishment to mankind a product from Hell to an indifferent and passive mankind.
Power does not make a women attractive.
Have you looked at a portrait of Catherine the Great recently?
we should not be surprised to see the likes of former Ambassador Martin Indyk cozying up to the Damascus regime’s equivalent of Saddam Hussein’s “Baghdad Bob” and neither should we when asked to accept this duplicitous fool’s advice on Israel.
Dear Michael, yes, most of the American media and the the international media unfortunately have largely become deception-based institutions. In general, most of Journalists, politicians, diplomats and pundits have made of themselves the favored instruments of tyrants…the American journalist who has made himself shamefully a good tool advocating the jittery tyrannical regimes and others of that ilk, spreading their lies and lies of their media. For example today you can find a lot of the sanctimonious intellectuals who have made themselves as a great experts on Iran, and those wimps who have made themselves a great authors on High-Risk Issues. Of course they are JUST A GREAT in selling of lies and scandals and trumped-up charges in the right of the true great experts. They were pretty eager to get close to Saddam and Al-Gaddafi…and today they behave on the same way with the two bloody regimes in Syria and in Iran!? The freedom and the will of peoples are stronger than all…in the end will prevail.
“Indeed, the mass murder going on in Syria…”
Yes, today Assad regime is acting against its own people on the same pattern of Saddam, and even more heinousest and enormity..every single day a lot of “massacres, atrocities and perhaps use chemical weapons as well!?”
I hope your next piece will be entitled: “BUSH & CHANEY KISSED MUSHARRAF’S ASS WHILE HE (Msharraf) KEPT, PROTECTED and ENTERTAINED Osama bin Laden IN Islamabad”.
it’s cheney btw. i was not kind to W and Cheney.