by Marsha B. Cohen
One of the more disconcerting developments in foreign policy discussions in the 21st century is that political satirists seem to be offering keener and more prescient assessments of the dilemmas involved than pundits and policy makers. Put somewhat less charitably, the cliches and conventions of foreign policy have [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
One of the more disconcerting developments in foreign policy discussions in the 21st century is that political satirists seem to be offering keener and more prescient assessments of the dilemmas involved than pundits and policy makers. Put somewhat less charitably, the cliches and conventions of foreign policy have become such a topic of mockery that it takes a comedy writer to get them right.
One classic case in point is from The Onion, published on Jan. 17, 2001, just before the first inauguration of George W. Bush as president. In the faux transcript of the soon-to-be-delivered speech, the incoming president assured the American people that “our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over.”
During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.
“You better believe we’re going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration,” said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. “Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?”
Written nine months before the events of 9/11/2001 and a year before Bush’s (in)famous “Axis of Evil” State of the Union address, it’s difficult to see where The Onion missed any of the real events that would transpire during Bush’s two terms in its hyperbolic prognostications, days before he took office.
“We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two,” Bush said. “Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, but there’s much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation’s hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it.”
About six weeks ago The Onion ran a piece on Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempt to bring Israeli and Palestinians together, headlined “Man Who Couldn’t Defeat George W. Bush Attempting to Resolve Israel Palestine Conflict”:
Arriving in the Middle East today for top-level negotiations with Palestinian and Israeli officials, a man who could not even devise a way to beat George W. Bush in a head-to-head vote will spend the next several days attempting to bring a peaceful resolution to the most intractable global conflict of the modern era, State Department sources confirmed. “We are confident that [this person who managed to win just 19 states against George W. Bush, even in the midst of two highly unpopular and costly foreign wars] will be able to establish a framework to bring about lasting peace in the Middle East…”
The Onion just posted a “commentary” in the form of an op-ed, purportedly by Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, titled So, What’s it Going to Be?
Well, here we are. It’s been two years of fighting, over 100,000 people are dead, there are no signs of this war ending, and a week ago I used chemical weapons on my own people. If you don’t do anything about it, thousands of Syrians are going to die. If you do something about it, thousands of Syrians are going to die. Morally speaking, you’re on the hook for those deaths no matter how you look at it.
So, it’s your move, America. What’s it going to be?
The amazingly astute commentaries on the paradoxes and perils of intervening in Syria presented on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart at the end of April were so far ahead of the mainstream media, that watching them now as military intervention is being debated by the punditocracy is both timely and terrifying. Segments such as Whose Line is It Anyway: Boots on the Ground? or “Assad but True” have retained their insight as well as their wit far better than the cliches and talking points on the nightly news. John McCain’s Syrian Photo Op, first broadcast on June 3, highlights the difficulties of figuring out and finding the Syrian rebels that the US ought to be arming in opposition to the Assad regime, a dilemma that still hasn’t been satisfactorily resolved.
Cartoonist Garry Trudeau, whose first Doonesbury comic strip was published in 1970, mocked the Orwellian doublespeak that accompanies the initiation and escalation of all wars since. One of my personal favorites was a comic strip just before or after the US invasion of Iraq (I’m not sure whether it was the first or second) that showed a spokesman at a news conference being asked how the US could be so certain Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The speaker held up a piece of paper: “We’ve got receipts!” In recent days, news headlines are finally revealing that the US not only knew that Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons and nerve gas against Iran in the 1980s, but actively assisted Iraq by providing detailed intelligence on Iranian troop movements.
“The Borowitz Report” in The New Yorker has just weighed in on Syria, with Andy Borowitz’s sardonic but all too convincing headline Obama Promises Syria Strike Will Have No Objective:
Attempting to quell criticism of his proposal for a limited military mission in Syria, President Obama floated a more modest strategy today, saying that any U.S. action in Syria would have “no objective whatsoever.”
“Let me be clear,” he said in an interview on CNN. “Our goal will not be to effect régime change, or alter the balance of power in Syria, or bring the civil war there to an end. We will simply do something random there for one or two days and then leave.”
“I want to reassure our allies and the people of Syria that what we are about to undertake, if we undertake it at all, will have no purpose or goal,” he said. “This is consistent with U.S. foreign policy of the past.”
The movement toward an attack on Syria — a precursor to, or stand-in for a war with Iran — seems to be increasingly regarded as inevitable — “not whether, but when” — gives a new and poignant meaning to “laughing till it hurts.”
- Comic Credit: The Oatmeal
]]>Then, on New Year’s Eve Day, the Post came [...]]]>
Then, on New Year’s Eve Day, the Post came out with a long feature article on “Parazit,” the news satire show on Voice of America‘s Farsi-language network. “Parazit” is a comedy show like “The Daily Show,” where real news items are used to poke fun at Iranian politics. It’s beamed by satellite into Iran, where many Iranians watch it with illegal dishes affixed to their roofs. At the Post, Tara Bahrampour writes:
Operating out of Voice of America’s Persian News Network, Kambiz Hosseini and Saman Arbabi have started a weekly program, “Parazit,” that has drawn comparisons to Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” for its satiric take on Iran’s news of the day.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a favorite target.
The name of the show means “static,” which is what happens when the Iranian government tries to jam the VOA signal. The fact that the piece neglects to explore the impetus for this signal blocking is indicative of a minor shortcoming in the Post article.
VOA is not looked upon kindly by the Iranian government. That’s because the group is funded by the U.S. government. But the Post goes on for more than twenty paragraphs before mentioning this — and the phrasing is limited to merely that VOA “is funded by the U.S. government.”
This makes it sound a bit like the outlet is just like NPR or PBS. Really, VOA has a very different past, and a very different present. For one, it was formed by the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), a propaganda outfit run by the executive branch. According to a preserved website of the now-defunct agency, “USIA explains and supports American foreign policy and promotes U.S. national interests through a wide range of overseas information programs.”
When the USIA closed its doors in 1999, VOA moved under the control of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). VOA, so far as I can tell, is fully funded by the U.S. government. (I queried VOA, and will update if I hear anything.)
Though VOA seems to me to be a decent news source, one can’t deny that it carries a special bent not shared by more independent outlets. Although USIA’s mission statement stopped being relevant over a decade ago, VOA‘s charter from 1960 is still in place:
The long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio.
The Post article, though, acknowledges that “Parazit” is unlike anything else on VOA‘s Farsi service:
Most Persian News Network programming is made up of straight news and commentary. The hosts are older than Hosseini and Arbabi and generally don’t go on camera in Sex Pistols T-shirts, nose rings, and green-and-black-painted fingernails. “I don’t know if VOA has ever done anything like this,” said [VOA executive editor Steve] Redisch, who has been thrilled with the results.
I’m not sure why the Post overlooks the essential nature of VOA and its history. For example, the domestic distribution of VOA content is prohibited by anti-propaganda laws. In the kicker of the piece, an Iranian official says that the hosts are “spies.” Though it’s dismissed as a laughable quote (I assume rightfully), it would have been a good opportunity to better explain VOA to the Post audience. Let’s not pretend that there aren’t some issues with the outlet’s government funding in pursuit of its own interests, especially in a tense relationship like the one between the U.S. and Iran.
In a video that appears with the story on the Post‘s website, one of the show’s hosts comments that the show is non-partisan, and that if Mir Hossein Moussavi “was in charge, we’d go after him.” But he’s not, and I don’t know if they do.
While freedom of expression should by no means be stifled, a U.S. government-funded partisan political show being illegally broadcast into Iran raises some questions in my mind. In the U.S., even overt foreign campaign donations are frowned upon and frequently returned or rejected.
Seemingly, none of these concerns should overshadow the talent behind the show or, more importantly, the apparent popularity of the show in Iran: the Post reports that the hosts are overjoyed that “paraziti” has become something of a catchphrase in the Islamic Republic. If you say something stupid, your friends might comment that it’s “paraziti,” as in worthy of a mention on the satire show.
The questions raised by the involvement of VOA in “Parazit” might be cast aside in favor of pragmatism: How else would Iranians living in Iran get to see it? The Center for American Progress blogger and Middle East analyst Matt Duss put it concisely when I raised the issue in a conversation with him:
“Ideally, it would be independently supported,” he told me. “But if the choice is ‘Parazit’ on VOA or no Parazit, I’ll take the former.”
]]>