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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:31 am
Watch journalist of the year Paul McGeough reel as George Negus pummels him with pillow after pillow of downy soft marshmallow-level questions and brutal fluffy kitten retorts:
GEORGE NEGUS: So it’s fair to say that having an election doesn’t necessarily bring you democracy and freedom?
PAUL McGEOUGH: No, elections are very important as a measure of the thirst, of the hunger of the people, for something, but whether the community around them and whether their community leaders or those such as the Americans who are trying to drive their community leaders can make them deliver is another thing. I mean, it’s striking that the election was on January 30 and we saw such a huge and courageous turnout by the Iraqi people, but look at the performance of their leader since then.
GEORGE NEGUS: And no government.
PAUL McGEOUGH: We still don’t have a government.
GEORGE NEGUS: No government. So-called democracy, I guess you could call it.
Paul and George can’t imagine anything worse than “no government”. There must be government, immediately and perpetually, or we may as well all kill ourselves. Who will organise a system of arts grants? Where is funding for Iraqi jugglers?
GEORGE NEGUS: All the talk at the moment is about this thing called – it’s a term that you’ve used – the Arab spring. Do you think there is an Arab spring or is it possibly even a false dawn?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Well, one of the big problems that I have with affairs as they’re covered these days is that everything has to be given a label – the Rose Revolution, the Purple Revolution, the Cedar Revolution, the Arab spring and the false dawn. It’s too early to be using any of these terms.
Says the man who predicted civil war more than two years ago.
PAUL McGEOUGH: We’re dealing with people’s lives, we’re dealing with the circumstances in which they live and the reality in the Middle East and in Iraq in particular, is that there still hasn’t been enough of an advance to say that life is better. I mean Westerners are shocked when Iraqis, ordinary Iraqis will say to you, “God, I wish we had Saddam back.”
GEORGE NEGUS: Really? How often do you hear that?
PAUL McGEOUGH: You can hear it several times a week.
During story conferences at the Sydney Morning Herald.
GEORGE NEGUS: What do they mean when they say it?
PAUL McGEOUGH: They mean that, for all his faults, there was law and order, there was security.
GEORGE NEGUS: There was some form of normal life.
PAUL McGEOUGH: Their lives … People live in very small circles. We do it ourselves here. We live in a space that we carve out for ourselves. If you can’t get electricity at the rate you used to get, if you can’t get petrol at the price you used to get it, if you can’t walk down the street with a sense of safety and confidence that you used to do it, you get worried, you get anxious.
There was no worry or anxiety under Saddam. Abu Ghraib was a petting zoo; Uday and Qusay hosted If You Say So, a four-hour reality program celebrating the Hussein brothers’ acts of kindness (“What’s that, young lady? You want to be raped and killed? Well, if you say so!”); and Kurds laughed and frolicked in the afterlife.
GEORGE NEGUS: Picking up that point most people are saying now to the anti-war sceptics that you’ve got to give credit where credit’s due. That you say it was a fluke of timing that things are happening the way they are in the Middle East at the moment but all the pro-Bush people are saying let’s be real about this, back off, the sceptics, let’s give credit where credit’s due. Maybe George Bush was right by invading Iraq.
PAUL McGEOUGH: For which reasons? The reasons he gave at the time he did it or the reasons he’s giving now?
GEORGE NEGUS: It depends what day of the week you ask, that’s for sure. But is it the case that the fact that the election occurred in Iraq and the fact that these other things have been occurring in other parts of the Middle East, how much do you attribute that – as other people do – to the fact that Bush may have been right in the first place by invading?
PAUL McGEOUGH: There’s two ways to look at it, one is if you look at it as the package of events that have happened in the last few weeks, and say this coincides with Bush’s rhetoric, therefore Bush was right, you could get away with that argument if you want to. But if you take the package of events as they’ve unfolded – in Lebanon the unrest started and the street demonstrations started because of a murder. Bush didn’t commit the murder, nobody’s suggesting that.
Maybe Iyad Allawi did it. Speaking of Allawi, will George mention McGeough’s famous scoop?
GEORGE NEGUS: So you don’t buy the line that this is all the end result of the invasion?
PAUL McGEOUGH: No, I think it’s far too early to say that.
But it’s evidently not too early to give Al-Jazzera credit.
GEORGE NEGUS: Let me put a few things to you. I just did a bit of a search myself before we came in. “Three cheers for the Bush doctrine.” Bush himself, “The thaw has begun.” “Give credit where credit is due.” And this one, this very, very delicious one, I think, from an American journalist, “The most difficult sentence in the English language to utter right now is that George Bush was right.” But this is the one that intrigued me and, because you’ve worked there so long, I thought you might want to respond to this. Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader in Lebanon, right? “It is strange for me to say it but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq.” Now, this is coming from a local.
PAUL McGEOUGH: Sure. A Lebanese local, as opposed to an Iraqi local.
GEORGE NEGUS: True.
PAUL McGEOUGH: Yes, some people will say things like that but it’s – you know, you need what I’ve described as the 10-year test. Others have talked about the 10-year test too in terms of whether democracy will be delivered. So it’s about the ability of the process that some people believe is already in play to deliver a democracy.
“It’s about the ability of the process that some people believe is already in play to deliver a democracy.” Don’t you hate it when journalists speak like politicians? And for the same weaselly reasons?
GEORGE NEGUS: But it’s astounding that a guy like Jumblatt, who was very, very sceptical about the whole idea of the invasion of Iraq by the Americans, is now saying this thing is flowing on from that. Everything that’s going on is flowing on from that. So there are people on the ground saying maybe it was. They have to swallow their pride and say maybe Bush was right.
PAUL McGEOUGH: Sure, and it will be debated for a long time. It will be debated forever because we won’t know the answer.
Jumblatt seems to know.
GEORGE NEGUS: Is it time, though, to sort of give credit where credit’s due? Maybe at the very least the sceptics could be saying maybe the acceleration process is there. Maybe this thing will start to occur a lot quicker than we thought.
PAUL McGEOUGH: Yes, definitely something is happening in terms of how people perceive their rights and, in a sense this is the biggest difficulty for me as I watch events unfold.
I bet it is.
PAUL McGEOUGH: People are being told that they have rights and are responding accordingly, but the point of anxiety for me is you still don’t have any proof that their leaders – this is the monarchies, the autocrats, the dictators and the systems that they’ve put in place – will allow them to realise those rights and to live by them and to act according to them.
GEORGE NEGUS: So much so that you’ve even suggested recently in one of your pieces that you think there’s still a real possibility of civil war in Iraq.
PAUL McGEOUGH: Yes, my inclination on Iraq at this stage still is a gut feel that things will get better in Iraq but they may not get better this side of a civil war.
“Gut feel” is the standard of proof for something to run in the SMH, over and over and over again.
GEORGE NEGUS: And if the Americans were to pull out?
PAUL McGEOUGH: The biggest problem in Iraq is Iraq has become two debates. I’ve almost lost interest now in debating whether or not the Americans should have invaded. That messes up trying to get to the answers of what to do about Iraq. Now, you can’t… When you look at Iraq now and say what shall we do about Iraq now, you can’t start with oh, well, the Americans shouldn’t have invaded. They did. Facts on the ground are facts on the ground, you’ve got to deal with them. But trying to find a way through that maze at the moment is still a nightmare. And you know who it’s a nightmare for most? The Iraqi people.
Keep talking things down, Paul. Austin Bay has a few thoughts on this.
GEORGE NEGUS: Point taken. Paul, good to talk to you. You’re probably mad enough to go back there, so all the best when you do.
PAUL McGEOUGH: Thank you. Thank you, George.
Thank you, Bastards Inc.
- Hey I was prepared for a hell of a lot worse when I tuned in last night, given Dateline’s truly appalling track record when it comes to all things American.
You guys should’ve seen this week’s Tuesday night line-up on SBS. They were “commemorating” the beginning of the Iraq war for about the 100th time. Viewers were treated to another two and a half hours of North Korean style anti-American propaganda. All incredibly negative, without any dissention at all! This is how much faith they have in their position, diatribe poses as debate! PATHETIC! GUTLESS!
- What a whinging poor sad bastard you are, McGeough. Always a spectator, never a player, sitting in the stands complaining about every bloody thing that happens on the field. The world is full of complainers like you, cynical and resigned dumb f–cks who can criticise but have never quite seen the point of taking to the field yourself. Of course there are Iraqis whinging – Jesus, Kerry Packer complains too and he’s hardly doing it tough in the Middle East. Tell us something we don’t know. Complicate the picture a bit for us – you know, different people have different views. Just get off your smarmy know it all arse and shut your mouth your useless piece of shit.
There, now I feel better.
- Listening to the Negus-McGeough interview last night, I had planned to provide any open-minded viewers of the program with an alternative explanation of the ‘Arab Spring’ by posting Jumblatt’s recent comments on the Dateline website. You can imagine how absolutely astonished I was when Negus himself beat me to it at the end of the interview. As a result, poor old George is probably being ‘counselled’ by SBS management as we speak.
- Isn’t it amazing that the parties that can’t actually win elections suddenly feel elections don’t really matter?Posted by richard mcenroe on 03/24 at 01:32 AM • permalink
…when Iraqis, ordinary Iraqis will say to you, “God, I wish we had Saddam back.”
I’ll bet those “ordinary Iraqis” were actually Ba’athists looking back at the good ol’ days when they could rape, murder, and loot with official sanction, instead of being shot at for the criminals that they are.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 03/24 at 01:38 AM • permalink
- McGoo is very like Robert Fisk. He does actually get off his butt and go out in the field. The problem is that he could be described in terms used by Hitchens about Fisk – to the effect that he’s very good at gathering information on the ground, but lousy at interpreting the overall situation.
It may even go further, and his mindset might lead him to find things which support that very pessimistic view.
If Vietnam and Korea teach us anything it is not to allow those thoughts to undermine our will to win, and thereby precipitate defeat or stalemate. There have been many battles won by sheer determination, and many lost by lack of it.
It is not just the Iraqis who would be the losers but the whole of the middle east, and, in turn, the rest of us.
George Negus is running on empty. It seems that only blogs can bring such people to account.
Watch journalist of the year Paul McGeough reel as George Negus pummels him with pillow after pillow of downy soft marshmallow-level questions and brutal fluffy kitten retorts
Australia has it’s very own Larry King! I’m duly impressed.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 03/24 at 02:25 AM • permalink
- Hey, be thankful, this is as close to balance your likely to find on the SBS.
Kinda reminds me of that line in The Blues Brothers. “What kind of music do you have? Oh we got both kinds; Country and Western.”
SBS’s got balance; anti-war and anti-American
Posted by Dean McAskil on 03/24 at 02:39 AM • permalink
- It was fairly predictable that Dateline would become Datelame under George “beads and mung beans, man” Fungus– it was bad enough with Marxist Mark, who spent a sizeable amount of time with his tongue firmly ensconsed in McGeogh’s trousers.
The ABC is awful, but SBS seems to have been taken over by a collective of Green Left Weekly vendors. If it wasn’t for foreign porno it wouldn’t be worth a fart in a hurricane.
- What’s worried me since January is that Grand Ayatollah SSSSisssstani has called the tune without paying the piper. I mean if Iran is any indication at all we do not want these heathens to be running Iraq – particularly if they’re democratic in name only, and in practise adopt Sharia law.
At least Hussein and the Ba’ath were secular.
Maybe Bush ought go further and put some Lebanese Christians in charge in Iraq until the whole region stabilises. They’ve shown in Sabraa and Chantilly that they have what it takes for a rigorous programme of social control.
Is the third millennium going to be Christian or what?
- PAUL McGEOUGH: I mean Westerners are shocked when Iraqis, ordinary Iraqis will say to you, “God, I wish we had Saddam back.”
GEORGE NEGUS: Really? How often do you hear that?
PAUL McGEOUGH: You can hear it several times a week.
What a fucking liar.
Posted by Mike Jericho on 03/24 at 07:19 AM • permalink
- Hey, he just does whatever the voices tell him to do!Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 03/24 at 07:54 AM • permalink
- blogstrop — But what good does getting off your butt and going out in the field do when your intention, like Sgrena’s, is to tell the people you’re interviewing what the story really is?Posted by richard mcenroe on 03/24 at 10:43 AM • permalink
- PAUL McGEOUGH: I mean Westerners are shocked when Iraqis, ordinary Iraqis will say to you, “God, I wish we had Saddam back.”
GEORGE NEGUS: Really? How often do you hear that?
PAUL McGEOUGH: You can hear it several times a week.
…usually on the BBC World Service, and sometimes on CNN too. Not often from Iraqis though. They usually say “My God, I wish we had Saddam’s back so we could carve the names of those he slaughtered into it. With a blunt knife.”
Or doesn’t he read Iraqi blogs?
If you read the SBS Transcript in its entirety, McGeough mentions the Brookings Institution.
If you look at something like the Brookings Institution’s Iraq index, which is one of the best measures of a hundred different indicators of life in Baghdad these days, most of the key ones are still worse, have been worse in the last 12 months than they were in the preceding 12 months.
The full report is available in pdf format via The Command Post, and you can make up your own mind as to whether he’s telling the truth on this.
Let’s see, number of infants attending primary school has tripled, car ownership likewise, telephone ownership increased by a factor of 10, internet by over 100, hospital beds up, casualties down…
What’s no better is electricity supply, and…. and… electricity supply.
But I might have missed out something, so go look for yourself. SBS and McGeough are betting you won’t.
- Nwab, that’s in process right now, in spite of the problems with corruption and stupidity (natural human conditions, as I recall). I also recall reading that the income from sales goes to the interim Iraqi government. They are awarding their own contracts.
Here’s one source that is relatively unbiased.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 03/24 at 11:34 AM • permalink
- PS: When I say “relatively”, the site at least publishes reports from other than the UN. I don’t accept this as the ultimate authority. If nothing else, they do link to Reuters article.Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 03/24 at 11:59 AM • permalink
- “Civil war,” he said.
He said it every day now, sometimes many times a day. Various people on the news seemed to trigger the phrase, and she wished they didn’t get the ABC. “Civil war, Civil war!” It was trying, very trying, on her nerves, to hear him repeat the phrase, again and again, at dinner, during telly-watching, even at those less- and less-frequent attempts at clumsy intimacy.
Once she had replied, in exasperation, “Civil war? The same civil war as in the same Allawi-shoots-the-prisoners? How long will you wait?”
She’d never forget the look he gave her–not one of hatred, or anger. It was one of…sorrow. Et tu, Bruta? Et tu?
Sometimes she wished she were still able to cry.
- Paul McGeough has got to be the dickhead of the year. He reminds me of Baghdad Bob, Saddam Hussein’s press officer, who insisted that the Americans were being driven out of Iraq, even as the tanks were rolling into Baghdad.
“They mean that, for all his faults, there was law and order, there was security.” Yes, there was the law, order and security of the gulag and firing squad. Did Saddam make the trains run on time too?
McGeough’s greatest fear is that peace and democracy will come to Iraq. What a thoroughly dispicable fellow!
Posted by Mystery Meat on 03/24 at 12:33 PM • permalink
- Hmmm… And here we are, isolated from the mightiest power of our times for the past 225 years. Involved in wars of our own. I wonder if that whole American Revolution thing really worked out for us.
Geez laweez, listening to this guy is like watching that Simpsons episode where Homer goes into space; when he smashes the ant farm and they float out, the ants cry, “Freedom! Horrible freedom!” Do these people really want their own little mounds of dirt – well-ordered mills of endless drone toil at the behest of a supreme Queen, the State? Are we all just so many units in a sum to the Left?
- “PAUL McGEOUGH: You can hear it several times a week.”
Yeah, really, from who, name them? Oh sorry, twas same people who witnessed the shootings. I wonder at what stage we’ll get the false but accurate defence of that story.
BTW you should read the SBS viewers feedback at this interview. Some of them are convinced SBS has been taken over by Fox because of the moustache’s ‘pro US, pro war stance.”
Posted by Dean McAskil on 03/24 at 01:51 PM • permalink
“PAUL McGEOUGH: You can hear it several times a week.�?
Well, yeah, if you keep making those conjugal visits to Saddam’s cell…
Man, I hope Negus gargled after that. Monica always did…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 03/24 at 11:25 PM • permalink
- PAUL McGEOUGH: I mean, it’s striking that the election was on January 30 and we saw such a huge and courageous turnout by the Iraqi people, but look at the performance of their leader since then.
GEORGE NEGUS: And no government.
PAUL McGEOUGH: We still don’t have a government.
OK, so McGeough says 60 days should be enough time to form a government.
PAUL McGEOUGH: …you know, you need what I’ve described as the 10-year test. Others have talked about the 10-year test too in terms of whether democracy will be delivered.
Umm, wait, so it should take 10 years? Can someone ask Paul which it is: “less than 2 months” or “at least 10 years”?
Posted by joeythelemur on 03/25 at 12:24 AM • permalink
GEORGE NEGUS: Is it time, though, to sort of give credit where credit’s due? Maybe at the very least the sceptics could be saying maybe the acceleration process is there. Maybe this thing will start to occur a lot quicker than we thought.
This is a fair-minded comment by Negus and is not at all soft-ball pitch at McGeogh.
Geoge Bush’s revival of the Gulf War is analagous to Ronald Reagan’s revival of the Cold War. Both leaders took a big risk and spent alot of money using military force to accelerate liberal and national changes that were already in the pipeline. (eg Prague Spring & Charter 77 in Slavic Europe; Al Jazeer, Turkish & Iranian democracy & Israeli pull-out from Lebanon in Semitic Asia.)
Reagan achieved his goals without spilling a drop of blood, mainly by working with local leaders and movements. Bush…well Bush has spilled alot of blood to get where he has got, with brittle successes so far.
Geoge Bush’s revival of the Gulf War is analagous to Ronald Reagan’s revival of the Cold War. Both leaders took a big risk and spent alot of money using military force to accelerate liberal and national changes that were already in the pipeline. (eg Prague Spring & Charter 77 in Slavic Europe; Al Jazeer, Turkish & Iranian democracy & Israeli pull-out from Lebanon in Semitic Asia.)
Jack, just what are you on?
Ronald Reagan never “revived” the Cold War; it was in full swing when he was elected. Reagan revived the US military. There’s a difference.
Iranian democracy? With the theocrats calling the shots? Well, if you say so. But there’s a bunch of Iranians who vehemently disagree with you. Not that facts have ever stopped you before.
And just how do you define “Al Jazeer” as a success? It’s a friggin’ news service!
…Israeli pull-out from Lebanon in Semitic Asia….
Say what?
Bush…well Bush has spilled alot of blood to get where he has got, with brittle successes so far.
Not as much blood as Hussein did. Or the Taliban. Of course, the terrorists on 9/11 killed fewer people than have died in Afghanistan and Iraq combined….but gee, why would you worry about an unprovoked attack on American soil.
Nice, Jack. Just more pulling facts out of your ass. Go back to your bottle, would you?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 03/25 at 05:07 AM • permalink
Nice, Jack. Just more pulling facts out of your ass. Go back to your bottle, would you?
This is splitting hairs. Reagan ramped up the Arms Race, a crucial part of the Cold War. Satisfied?
Iran has more democracy now than it did under the monarcy or ecclesiastic theocracy. The “bunch of Iranians who [are now free to] vehemently disagree” with me or any one else are an existence proof pre-Bush trends in Iranian populism.
I define Al Jazeer as a success, for all its faults, because it is an authentic voice of Arabic populism. Everyone has a beef with it – a sure sign that it is part of a genuine pre-Bush trend in liberty of expression.
The Israelis have pulled out of Southern Lebanon and are pulling out of Gaza and West Bank. These are Semitic-populated areas, Asia-located areas. Clear enough?
Hussein caused to be killed less people whilst he was contained in the box from 1993-2003 than Bush has caused to be killed since he broke the box 2003-.
That is a fact, pulled out of reality. The Real Jeff S might try investigating it for a change, instead of spending his time in the exploring the arses of the Confederacy of Dunces.
- McAskil: “I wonder at what stage we’ll get the false but accurate defence of that story.”
Hey, that’s “fake but accurate”. Get with the program.
Posted by zeppenwolf on 03/25 at 05:49 AM • permalink
- I agree, Jack, Reagan ramped up the arms race. A good thing, too! But I don’t see it as splitting hairs. I view it as returning to the fight, after 4 years of Jimmuh Cartuh surrender to the forces of evil.
These are Semitic-populated areas, Asia-located areas. Clear enough?
Er, Jack, not clear enought. At best, they are Isreali occupied areas. Unless you are conceding that the Isrealis are giving up territory that rightly belongs to Isreal?
I define Al Jazeer as a success, for all its faults, because it is an authentic voice of Arabic populism. Everyone has a beef with it – a sure sign that it is part of a genuine pre-Bush trend in liberty of expression.
By that definition, Jack, Iraq is a success, because everyone has a beef with it. Or, being less pedantic, President Bush is a success; God knows everyone has a beef with him. Your comments alone justify my conclusion.
Iran has more democracy now than it did under the monarcy or ecclesiastic theocracy. The “bunch of Iranians who [are now free to] vehemently disagree�? with me or any one else are an existence proof pre-Bush trends in Iranian populism.
Click here. And then say that again.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 03/25 at 06:10 AM • permalink
- Jack :
Iran has more democracy now than it did under the monarcy or ecclesiastic theocracy
I’ll be sure to tell that to my Ba’hai friends there.Oh wait, I can’t, they’ve all been executed as Apostates and Heretics.
The “ecclesiastic theocracy” is still calling the shots. And I do mean shots, though they often use hanging instead.
Reagan achieved his goals without spilling a drop of blood, mainly by working with local leaders and movements.
Counterexample: Grenada.And (RWDB though I am) I don’t think “Contragate” is a shining example of US policy at its finest. As Realpolitik, yes, wonderful. But morally dubious.
Reagan’s sins were mainly ones of omission: it’s not that he didn’t support peaceful change within the Evil Empire, it was that he didn’t always support change when the Dictatorship in question was Anti- rather than Pro- Communist. At the time, this may have been reasonable (though I for one thought it would come back to bite us in the long term, and was unhappy about the situation). I didn’t begin to suspect “the long term” would be as soon as 11th September 2001, I was thinking 2040.
In 100 years time, we’ll be able to judge whether Reagan and his advisors were right under the circumstances at the time. Although I had misgivings, I wasn’t confident enough to say he was wrong, and still am not. I do think that the Bush doctrine is appropriate now though, and with hindsight may have been in the past too. But maybe not.
- “Hey, that’s “fake but accurate�?. Get with the program.”
My bad. I get so confused by these types of semantics. I prefer the old fashion interpretation: it’s either true or false.
I think that story (the alleged Iyad Allawi shootings) had the potential to be an Australian Rather. But it looks like he’s going to get away with it and actually got a prize.
Posted by Dean McAskil on 03/25 at 08:35 AM • permalink
Hussein caused to be killed less people whilst he was contained in the box from 1993-2003 than Bush has caused to be killed since he broke the box 2003-.
That is a fact, pulled out of reality.Another adherent to the Lancet study and its debunked methodology. As for deaths caused by Saddam, it takes a tremendous leap of faith to believe that he didn’t cause hundreds of thousands of deaths due to his refusal to disarm (at the UN’s behest, in case you forgot).
It’s always amazing to me to watch those who hate Bush so much contort themselves into having to say “Saddam wasn’t such a bad guy”. As has been said before, he probably made the trains run on time too.
Posted by joeythelemur on 03/25 at 09:52 AM • permalink
- Thanks, joeythelemur. I missed that one.Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 03/25 at 10:00 AM • permalink
- Saddam caused many deaths directly & through his agents, and indirectly, through his behaviour. He was able to take everyone to the brink and did not care who got hurt in the process. He is answerable for both the direct and indirect casualties. And they are many.
Those who defend him or attack the west are complicit.
Fool.