IN THIS ISSUE:
-- EGYPT IN CRISIS
--TGG OLD SCHOOL JAM OF THE WEEK
-- AMERICAN JOURNALISM UNDER FIRE
(LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY)--JERRY'S SUPER BOWL: "THAT'S COLD-BLOODED"
-- WORLD SOCCER REPORT: THE KID RIDES AGAIN
"WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A FAILURE OF COMMUNICATION"
As the streets of Cairo burned, Egyptians had an unmistakable message last week for
Hosni Mubarak, their embattled
President for Life:
Meanwhile, in Washington,
Mubarak's staunchest ally was trying to walk
a diplomatic tightrope:
President Obama, who many (OK, "we") had compared to young Kwai Chaing Caine ("Grasshopper")
of Kung Fu fame, had recently been through tumultuous times of his own
and felt he had wisdom to share with Mubarak:
By midweek, however, young Grasshopper's message did not seem to be getting through to the Old Master, as thuggish regime supporters on camels attacked the peaceful anti-Mubarak protesters in Tahrir Square....
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| Meet The New Dynasty --- Same as The Old Dynasty |
Back at the White House, Grasshopper's
wise men met in the Situation Room...
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| "We Need A New Script, Gentlemen..." |
While Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued a series of carefully modulated --- yet increasingly direct --- public pronouncements aimed at Egypt
and the world....
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| "The People of Egypt Must Determine Their Own Fate" |
The only problem with that approach
was that back in Cairo,
was that back in Cairo,
Hosni Mubarak, after enjoying virtually unchecked power for three decades, was,
in the words of
TGG's Old School Jam of the Week,
clearly finding it.....
Nevertheless, the hopes of freedom-loving people all over the world spiked when reports like this one in Matt Drudge's tip sheet surfaced early in the week:
However, as day after day passed with Mubarak still in power, it became clear that either the report was erroneous or that any U.S. backing for the uprising was very secret indeed.
It soon emerged that the Obama administration, hewing to a Weltanshauung that could perhaps best be described as
"Cold War Realpolitik," was worried "what message would it send to other authoritarian [aka "dictator"] leaders who are allies of the U.S. if the U.S. at this point backs the protestors and abandons Mubarak?"
While The Global Game is no trained specialist in diplomacy, we humbly suggest that the message that the U.S. would have sent by backing the protestors would have been something basically like this:
"If you are a corrupt dictator who has suppressed your people for 30 years, don't count on the United States of America to pull your fat out of the fire when they finally summon the will and the courage to
rise up against you."
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| "And Maybe That's A Message I Should Have Given Him A Long Time Ago" |
Meanwhile, the crisis in Egypt was also exposing some fault lines at the highest levels of American journalism. The networks, as is their wont, had hastily dispatched their prize anchors to "report" from the chaos of Cairo's Tahrir Square.
The premise seems to be that news is not happening anywhere in the globe unless Katie Couric, Brian Williams, or Anderson Cooper is there live to tell us about it.
So there was Katie Couric,
earnest-yet-measured in her best
Intrepid Foreign Correspondent getup,
broadcasting live from
the epicenter of the uprising!
Well, at least for 24 hours...
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| (Wednesday) Dateline: The Streets of Cairo -- "The Revolution Will Be Televised" |
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| (Thursday) Dateline: CBS Anchor Desk, New York -- "As Long As Things Don't Get, Um, You Know... Too Revolutionary" |
TGG is not going to pick just on Couric, however. Also making cameos in
Tahrir Square were
NBC's Brian Williams....
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| The Peacock Network, In Da House |
and TGG's perennial favorite,
CNN's "AC360s" own
Anderson Cooper.
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| "No, No -- It Was Keith Olbermann Who Said That" |
As the situation deteriorated, the networks pulled their marquee names out of Cairo as fast as they could. For its part, The Global Game has never claimed to be the moral conscience of journalism (our own press credential request was denied at the last minute by the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior, so we had no choice but to report on the crisis from a "safe undisclosed location" somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area).
That being said, however, TGG is firmly of the belief, to paraphrase the words of the old U.S. Army recruiting slogan, that if you are going to sign up to be a war correspondent, then
"Be The Best Little War Correspondent
You Can Be"
Was this in the tradition of Edwin R. Murrow, who reported from London during The Blitz?
Was this in the tradition of Walter Cronkite, who reported from Allied bombing missions over Germany in World War II?
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| More Than Half of All Bomber Crews Were Lost |
Finally, if there were any doubt, today's anchors should have asked themselves one simple question:
"WWDRD?"
("What Would Dan Rather Do?")
So, simply put, if Cairo was too dangerous for Brian Williams and Katie Couric,
Then what about NBC's Richard Engel?
and what about CBS' Elizabeth Palmer?
Ultimately, these issues came down to the age-old question: How much is any given human life worth?
and they underlay the inherent failings and contradictions in US foreign policy
If the tides of history are inevitable, why does the United States always have to be behind the curve?
Hadn't we spent the 1980s and 1990s reaping the bitter fruit of American foreign policy's support for authoritarian regimes instead of the people in three strategic global hot spots?
Nicaragua....
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| Strongman Anastasio Somoza |
The Phillippines.....
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| Strongman Ferdinand Marcos and Mrs. Marcos |
and Iran?
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| Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, His Imperial Majesty and King of Kings |
One striking feature about the regimes the US supported was the intent of the rulers to install family dynasties in the countries they
ruled over.
It is true that political dynasties are also a feature of American government.
After all, we have
The Cuomos....
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| Andrew and Mario |
The Clintons.....
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| The Big Dog and Hillary "1.0" |
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| The Big Dog and Hillary "2.0" |
The Daleys.......
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| Richard and Richie |
The Bushes....
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| 41 and 43 |
and of course, The Kennedys
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| Joe and Rosemary's Kids |
of course, the difference was the scale of the family ambition.
In many of the corrupt authoritarian regimes propped up or condoned by the U.S., from Suharto's Indonesia
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| Strongman Suharto |
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| Son Hutomo "Tommy" Suharto, Reported to Be Worth $800 Million U.S.D. Sentenced in 1982 to 15 years in Prison for Paying a Hitman to Assassinate an Indonesian Supreme Court Justice Who Had Convicted Him of Graft |
to the Haiti of "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier
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| "For Your 21st Birthday, I Give You Haiti" |
A form of what might be called
"Zero-Sum State Enterprise Capitalism"
was being practiced.
In other words, instead of just increased political influence and economic gain
(think Joseph P. Kennedy), the ruling clans or families in U.S.- supported client regimes
operated under the ground rules that the entire resources of the state and nation
were available to enrich their own family dynasties
President Mubarak was clearly on the same path with his son, Gamal.
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| The Sins of The Father? |
Mubarak has been in power since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. To put things in context,
his plan to pass power on to his son was basically as if Jimmy Carter
had never left office,
and now wanted Amy to succeed him...
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| "Not That There Would Be Anything Wrong With That, Jimmy" |
When America supports regimes and families that loot entire national economies for their own personal fortunes, it simply ensures that the symbol of American values and foreign policy around the world becomes this:
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Imelda Marcos' 3000 Shoes |
Instead of this:
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| The Allies Liberate Paris |
Once again, it comes down to whose life is worth how much.
Every American schoolchild is taught that early American colonists revolted over
"No Taxation Without Representation"
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| "Tea Party" Had A Different Meaning Back Then |
So why do we expect people around the world to put up with much more (see below) than high taxes
with no representation?
Was the only justified and legitimate revolution since 1776 the American Revolution?
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| The Father of Our Nation |
Of course, the worst example of the United States' failure to live up to its democratic (and revolutionary) ideals had come in its relationship with South Africa,
where the brutal apartheid policies
implemented by the National Party in 1948 (and directly inspired by the Nazi Party's racial and ethnic policies)
Were being enforced during the 1980s by Prime Minister P.W. Botha, known in Afrikaans by his nickname
"Die Groot Krokodil" ("The Big Crocodile")
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| "We Don't Like To Give The Full Salute In Public" |
Botha's hardline tactics had led to what a 1985 Time Magazine cover called
"A Challenge to U.S. Policy"
But here is the other contradiction in U.S. Foreign policy: the United States' authoritarian allies, whether P.W. Botha in 1981 or Hosni Mubarak in 2011, typically do not have anywhere else to turn. The U.S. props them up and supports them in the name of "stability," and declines to put meaningful pressure on them because of the fear of "instability" or the "loss of a strategic ally in a region of vital importance."
Who were Botha and the apartheid regime going to ally themselves with in the 1980s? The Communist Soviet Union?
And who is Mubarak going to turn to in 2011? Hezbollah? Hamas? Al-Qaeda? Syria?
Fortunately, in South Africa, the results of a worldwide anti-apartheid campaign
and the bold leadership of a heroic Afrikaaner, F.W. de Klerk,
led to the outcome which we still celebrate all over the world.
Take a look at these brief --- yet moving --- videos to remember what that moment was like:
and allowed Nelson Mandela and South Africans to once again enjoy their sports as people and nations all over the world did --- whatever their form of "football" might be.....
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| "We Are All Springboks Today" |
Super Sunday?
Jerry Jones' big coming out party was supposed to be something like this....
and definitely not this:
You have to wonder if it didn't have Jones yearning for simpler times....
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| "There is no "I" in "Cowboys"!" |
Meanwhile, across, The Pond, there was major football news of another sort as Liverpool sold ace striker Fernando ("El Nino") Torres to sometime rival Chelsea in a $75 million transaction that shook the Premier League to its core. Was Liverpool abandoning ambitions to remain one of the Big Four (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United)?
Could "The Kid" find happiness as a Blue, and no longer a Red?
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| "At $75 Million, I'm Guessing The Answer is "Yes!"" |
At Chelsea, Torres would be paired with ace striker and penalty area "dangerman"
Didier Drogba, which some were billing as potentially the most dangerous 1-2 combination in world soccer.
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| The Magic Touch |
The only question seemed to be if there would be enough mirrors in the
Stamford Bridge locker room for the two prima donna pretty boys,
whose modeling careers drew almost as much attention as their football exploits:
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| "You Should See Me Pout When They Don't Pass Me The Ball" |
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| "And Americans Think T.O. and Ochocinco Are Head Cases!" |
Stay tuned next Weekend for Volume 1, Issue 3 of TGG,
and be on the lookout for periodic updates
"as events warrant"
