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Looks like a dog, smells like a rat
Journal of a Futurist - 22 August 2002
The cook, the wife, two dogs, the CIA, a mobile, a Massacre
Shame on the Sydney Morning Herald for headlining as fact that the CNN supplied Osama/dog tapes “REVEAL AL-QAEDA CHEMICAL EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS”. What they reveal is the hand of an editor. What they don’t reveal is the location of the unfortunate animal. Can we be certain this “chemical testing” took place in the labs of Tora Bora, rather than the propaganda studios of the Pentagon? In my time in Afghanistan I never saw a dog looking this healthy. The dog is suspiciously cute. It is as well groomed as the poodles of Paris. The footage of the canine experiment is of higher resolution than the footage of the dog’s symbolic master, Osama bin Laden. Then there is an admission that CNN had “shared portions of the videos with senior State Department and Pentagon officials”. Mmmmm.
The collusion of western media with the war aims can have deadly results. On Monday, the ABC’s Four Corners screened a revealing documentary on the fate of 400 Taliban prisoners who surrendered near Mazar-I-Sharif last November, after being promised lenient treatment by the Northern Alliance. Enter two agents of the CIA, Mike Spann and Dave Tyson, who were seen hectoring the bound prisoners, and threatening them with imminent death. Media onlookers later said they were appalled at these amateurish, heavy handed interrogations, which incited the subsequent uprising.
Killing Prisoners with the Media’s Mobile
A few shots were fired out of camera range and Dave Tyson was filmed running from the jail compound, pistol in hand. He said he had killed several of the bound prisoners, after they had attacked his colleague, Mike Spann. The next scene was extraordinary. Tyson borrows a mobile phone from a Western reporter. He uses it to call for an air strike. Over the next few days, the prison compound is repeatedly bombed, in the usual hit and miss American fashion. (A few Northern Alliance allies are mistakenly wiped out). No matter, by the end of a series of brutal attacks on the jail, 400 of the prisoners who had surrendered are dead.
So, what would have happened if the reporter had refused to lend his phone to the CIA? Who will hold the CIA to account for its role in this massacre? Later some of the survivors were herded into airless container trucks and driven West to Sheberghan, where hundreds more died – or most likely were murdered. This horror story is finally starting to break, despite repeated denials. (See Journal of a Futurist, ‘Pre-emptive strikes, bad acid & collective guilt’, June 26/02). “Pentagon spokesmen have obfuscated when faced with questions on the subject” admitted Newsweek, in its cautious Aug 26 issue, Convoy of Death. The magazine makes no mention of the Afghan truck drivers who claim to have seen between 30 to 40 US soldiers observing and/or participating in the elimination of up to 3000 prisoners. One witness filmed by Jamie Doran says he saw US soldiers “pouring acid” into the wounds of prisoners. Still, as far as newsworthiness goes, this crime is no match for a cute pooch supposedly poisoned by turban clad monsters.
And now, what many of you have been waiting for:
Oh No! The Wife’s Diary is Back!
FANG THE DOG IS DISRESPECTFUL TO RICHARD; JULIE BUYS ORCHIDS.
WIFE’S DIARY TWO: Richard came home after a few days of speaking engagements, staying in posh hotels, as usual finding the re-entry into normal family life a bit challenging, what with no valet service, doormen, chambermaids and so forth. Whenever he gets home, something ghastly has just happened; some housekeeping disaster that would be unthinkable at the Intercontinental. This time he strode into his dark cave-like office, and there is a puddle in the middle of the rug. We both realise what it is at the same time. “I go away for three days, and nobody walks the dog!” He thunders. “This…this is DISRESPECTFUL!!!”
I ponder his use of this adjective which seems old fashioned.
Fortunately he recovers quickly from a tantrum. We meet our friends Prunella and Bill for dinner at the pub, a recap of American foreign policy. Right beside us is a pot of orchids, cream and in full bloom. ”It’s funny”, I remark to Prunella, “how orchids used to be so deadly dull and out of fashion, and now, they’re so now.” “And they’re so cheap at Paddy’s Market’s. Big pots with six spears of flowers, for forty dollars.” “Don’t think I ‘ll be able to restrain myself” I am saying, imagining with avaricious delight a massed jungle of white orchids on the terrace outside the kitchen .I notice a look of confusion on my husband’s face. He says, “Is this chick talk, or what?” (Trying to emulate current usage.)
What I think is that when Prunella and I wish to conversationally stray from a leftist analysis of US foreign policy, we can subsitute the word Rumsfield and other trigger nouns, so that the menfolk don’t become confused and disconcerted, or be forced to consider the world not beyond the kitchen sink. We could talk in code that goes like this: “I think I’ve found a builder to renovate Iraq…”
“I’m trying a no-Rumsfield diet this week”,
“Have you checked the Rumsfield sale at Orson and Blake?”
I know, how can I be so heartless; we’re watching a gruesome and dark chapter of history rollout and it’s startling. That Clinton presidency gave so many of us shallow thinkers a false sense that everything except the environmental challenge was sorted at last. But no, we have to worry about the big political picture. Entering my husband’s office I catch a glimpse of the usual subject matter on the screen; “You’re writing about Afghanistan again” j’accuse. “No, no” he says nervously, “just tidying something up.”
The Monster in the Mask
RN has still been finishing his book. Can’t the drug companies develop a substance that could be administered whenever someone expresses a desire to write? Not that this book has been anything like the life-wrecking torture of some of his other biggies; he’s chosen a fresh young publishing house this time, Ocean Books in Melbourne, and we already feel vindicated after a phone call in which they expressed a desire that the launch of Amerikan Psycho should be co-ordinated with the availability of copies in the shops. This breakthrough marketing plan has never been emulated in our experience by any of the major publishers . You need the hide of a rhinoceros to be a writer. Richard has such a hide. His solidly intact ego was demonstrated at a Rainforest Action Network Council of All Beings mask-making workshop at which everyone had to choose to be a plant, animal or element so we could act out being the forces of nature and thus attempt to talk through the problems we were facing. . Richard chose to be the Sun .( I chose to be a fern.)
Richard is not the only one in the family writing; a glance at another laptop screen shows that in the junior-teen homework department , someone else is composing a bio of King Solomon, and his rumoured liaison with the Queen of Sheba . I said “I didn’t realise that King Solomon was a real person.” And everyone with a superior education in religion and ancient history laughed at me. Then Richard and I were talking about Saddam Hussein and a daughter said ” I didn’t realise Saddam Hussein was a real person, I thought he was just that character in South Park who went to hell and had an affair with the devil.”
But Richard has just shown me a headline from the NBC NEWS website, about the “depth of the US assistance to Saddam, despite chemical arsenal: Rumsfeld a key player”. Will it unfold that it was Rumsfield, not the devil, with whom Saddam Hussein was having an illicit relationship? This is all too big and too black. I am going out to buy those orchids.
JULIE CLARKE
Am I really this bad? Probably, the Donald Rumsfeld of suburbia. Now, check out the Futures Cafe. It’s got a new chef, Andrew Campion, who’s about to about to set out a feast, or so he keeps saying. Perhaps this mention will hurry him up. Seeya.
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