Declan Walsh’s piece
on Ethiopian elections in The New York Times reminded me so much of Times’
reporting (especially Judith Miller’s) about
the Iraq war. For those of you too young, The New York Times parroted much
of the Bush administration’s line about WMDs in Iraq and beat the drums of war.
The main source Miller used to churn out story after story was Ahmed Challabi, a
slimy self-serving Iraqi diaspora who ended up “…an indicted fraudster and one
of the leading figures in the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the group keen to
militarily overthrow Saddam.”
This piece
in the Sydney Morning Dispatch, The New York Times' Role in Promoting War on
Iraq, has a detailed play-by-play.
Let's start with a truism the article quotes:
One
of the most entrenched and disturbing features of American journalism [is] its
pack mentality. Editors and journalists don’t like to diverge too sharply from
what everyone else is writing.” Michael Massing, The New York Review of
Books, February 26, 2004
Judith Miller was no novice. She was a seasoned, Pulitzer
Prize-winning reporter. And yet, “Miller relied on untested defectors’
testimonies (usually provided by Chalabi) to write several front-page stories
on this information. Michael Massing from Columbia Journalism Review suggests her
stories were “far too reliant on sources sympathetic to the (Bush)
administration". This included Cheney, it later turned out, who fed
her stories she didn’t really vet, and then farcically Cheney would go onto
Sunday morning news shows to say things like, “According to The New York Times…”
Fun days.
And so, under the respectable banner of The Gray Lady,
a war was manufactured, hundreds of thousands of lives were destroyed, billions
of dollars squandered and… let’s look at Iraq now.
Something similar is happening to Ethiopia these days.
Most of the coverage of Ethiopia follows a familiar formula. The Biden Administration
has a big beef with Abiy Ahmed—the shiny African who is not doing what it wants
him to do. More on this later. Abiy Ahmed, mid-40s and has the kind of
confidence that the West is not really used to, managed to decimate TPLF, a truly
odious group led by plutocrats and ethnic mongers.
And then it was on.
The Chalabis in this case are TPLF dissidents in the diaspora
who have not managed to reconcile that they are truly out of power after 27
years. And like Chalabi, they want regime change. And also like Chalabi, they have
a deep connection to well-heeled lobbyists. The first order of business was to
protest the presence of Eritrean forces in Northern Ethiopia, and like clockwork
screamed bloody murder about genocide. Genocide? The same thing that happened in Rwanda? Did the definition of
genocide change since I went to law school?
Then of course if the matter of obfuscating the fact
that the TPLF actually massacred Ethiopian Defense Forces stationed in Northern
Ethiopia which started the war. You can go through a thousand articles and not even
find a couple of paragraphs, heck sentences, on this. A Chalabiesque move. Guess
who was defending the Tigray region from Eritrea? Ethiopian National Defense
forces. And guess who the TPLF attacked-- not just attacked but distinguished non-Tigrayans and then slaughtered them, some while they were sleeping? Ethiopian Defense Forces. Where in this
world, anywhere, would a government not be expected to defend itself?
Soon after, it was an avalanche of sorts. Raping, starvation,
then even chemical
weapons. (Even the TPLF knew it had gone too far with that one.) Jeff
Pearce has an excellent article on this here.
The "outrage" from the Biden administration has been a complete farce. It resembles the pre-emptive kabash former Attorney Bill Barr threw on the Muller Report before it came out and all of a sudden Trump had to learn how to pronounce quid pro quo.
Let's not please kid a kidder. The US has not given a rat's ass about ethnic cleansing or human rights violations when the TPLF was doing it with magnificent aplomb. The US had a high tolerance
for that—the TPLF had been mowing down Ethiopians for a while with impunity. But
I am more interested in how easily our journalists fall in line when it comes
to stories about people of color; how easily they are willing to believe that Africans
are killing each other in the wilderness, so sayeth the State Department; and none of it merits deep analysis
or thoughtful reporting.
Which brings us back to Walsh’s piece—which I hope will
be taught in journalism schools everywhere in the near future.
The title screams in part, “From Nobel Hero to Driver
of War…” That again. A familiar trope in lazy journalism. I wonder if Abiy had fallen
in line it would have read something like, “How a Nobel Peace Price Winner is
Grappling with a War he was Forced Into.”
…a
senior American envoy flew to the Ethiopian capital last month in the hope of persuading Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to pull his country out of a
destructive spiral that many fear is tearing it apart.
In an era where we are hyper-vigilant about White Savior
Complex, how un-self-aware do you have to be to sit in front of your computer, crack
your knuckles and type those words without meaning them ironically?
So Declan Walsh’s story starts. Area man concerned that
African guy is destroying his own country makes trip to the continent to say, “Young
man, do you even know you are on a destructive spiral? And now I have to come
all this way and miss a private Beach Boys Zoom concert to tell you, stop this malarkey!”
And instead of showing any sign of contrition, Abiy Ahmed
cued up Kendrick Lamar, rolled his Zilli sunglasses and packed the envoy into an SUV. What followed is not in any way satirized. Here is the scene: American envoy flies to Addis, has some stern words for the country's leader, annnnnd go:
Mr.
Abiy, though, wanted to go for a drive.
Taking
the wheel, the Ethiopian leader took his American guest, the Biden
administration’s Horn of Africa envoy, Jeffrey D. Feltman, on an impromptu
four-hour tour of Addis Ababa, American officials said. The prime minister
drove him past smart new city parks and a refurbished central plaza and even
crashed a wedding where the two men posed for photos with the bride and groom.
Can we all sit with this for a moment?
Do you know what just happened? Abiy took Jeffrey D. Feltman,
newly appointed to a position called U.S. special envoy for Horn of Africa, for
a ride. Literally and figuratively. He then said to him, "Jeffrey, you ever seen an Ethiopian wedding? Come with me." And then, like a goddamed scene in Wedding Crashers, he has Jeffrey D-Hell Is Going On Feltman take selfies with the bride and groom. The savagery of that burn clearly was an
affront not just to Mr. Feltman, but to bros like Mr. Declan Walsh everywhere.
Moving on-- but only because I need to. (And $1 million dollars to whoever makes that photo public.)
Mr. Abiy’s attempt to change the
channel, showcasing economic progress while parts of his country burned…
Firstly, aww. Good old infantilizing. When patronizing just
doesn’t do it for you anymore; and b) *Don Corleone voice* “I come to your stinkin’
country to save you… to extend my hand in friendship… to help you ged-rid of these fires burning in this shithole, see if our families
can come to an agreement and you… you treat me like a fuckin’ tourist who’s
never seen a building? Wazzamadderwitchyoo?”
Mr. Feltman, it should be known, spoke at the funeral of one
of Ethiopia’s most brutal leaders, Meles Zenawi, who came into power as
leader of the TPLF. (Mr. Feltman for some reason called him “Zeless Menawi.” (1:44) At
his funeral, Jeffrey?! The man is not in the ground yet and you fumble his name at his
funeral??)
Mr. Feltman went on to call… Zeless an impressive statesman and, wait for
it, a skilled mediator. This is the same statesman who when he lost elections
in 2005 reigned terror on the country and then said ‘neverrrrrmind’ and
went on to win subsequent elections by a margin of 100 and 99%? That guy? And
all of a sudden Mr. Feltman is too good to be dragged around Addis and crash weddings?
I don’t want to live in this world.
Declan, wow us some more.
The West, eager for a glittering
success story in Africa, was wowed, and within 18 months Mr. Abiy, a
one-time intelligence officer, had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
If grandiose writing were avocado toast, it would not get
any more avocado-toastier than this. It’s not all about you, people. And joking
aside, this is actually a loaded phrase and very telling of the West’s co-dependency
problem about its God-given right to have and anoint leaders who they can point
to at cocktail parties and say, “Look what we made in African Leader-Making
Camp. Nice, uh? Bonus: he’s also articulate.” (Looking at you Bill Clinton. Tony
Blair.)
And then Judith Miller takes over.
Mr. Abiy’s forces have been accused
of massacres, sexual assault and ethnic cleansing.
And there it is, the “Iraq has WMDs” of sentences, casually
written without any substantiation, repeated without even an attempt to qualify
that most of these accusations have come from TPLF sympathizers whose main goal
is to come back into power.
Mr. Walsh, I do believe you have been Chalabi-scized.
Elsewhere in Ethiopia, ethnic
violence has killed hundreds and forced two million people to flee their homes.
Perhaps a deeper understanding of this is warranted. Ethiopia
had never had this kind of ethnic division in her history. To the point that we
now have Internally Displaced People. And the number is much higher than
that. This, Mr. Walsh should know, is directly because of the TPLF, who under
the pretense of giving marginalized people a voice, spent the last 30 years
fostering hatred and division for purely self-serving reasons. It didn’t just happen on us in the three years
Abiy has been in power. But you spent two paragraphs setting the scene of a jilted
envoy who didn’t get to lecture an African in the manner he has been accustomed
to. This could have used a couple more sentences.
Even the election on Monday, once
billed as the country’s first free vote and a chance to turn the page on
decades of autocratic rule, has only highlighted its divisions and fueled grim
warnings that Ethiopia’s very future is in doubt.
“Once billed?” Remember, this went out before the elections.
Not even one vote was cast and it is already in the “once billed” gulag. Mr. Walsh, Trump style, does not feel obligated to ex[plain who has been fueling grim warnings? Who
benefits from a fractured Ethiopia? Who has the most at stake from doubting,
get this, Ethiopian’s very future. "Some say..". that there are people who are saying.." This is a dangerous fan to flame, and
Mr. Walsh regrettably comes off as a lightweight who is echoing talking points.
But if Judith Miller can do it, I guess anyone can.
Mr. Abiy has put a brave face on
his nation’s problems, repeatedly downplaying the Tigray conflict as a “law and
order operation” and pushing his vision for a modernized, economically vibrant
Ethiopia. The United States, which gave Ethiopia $1 billion in aid last year,
is pressuring him to shift focus immediately.
Actually, what Abiy is telling the United States is, “Look what
I made in ‘I don’t care’ camp.” Something else is happening here because few people
put $1 billion in jeopardy. And what is it that the US is pressuring him on? And
let’s not kid ourselves, it’s not human rights. Mr. Feltman venerated Meles the
Zeles, for Godssake. So what is the pressure towards because it is clear away
from modernization and economic vibrancy? Because one of the biggest talking
points of Mr. Feltman’s former boss and TPLF fangirl, Susan Rice, was basically
“human rights-schmuman rights—Ethiopia’s economy is on fire.” What is different
this time?
The G7, trailing China’s belt and road initiative by a few
decades, just announced a
pledge of $80 billion dollars. The West is realizing it is not the only
game in town, and Abiy might know this. Abandoning Ethiopia is against the US’
interests, and Abiy might also know that as well.
But we digress. There is more palace intrigue that shall
henceforth be known as “Abiy and Jeff’s Great Adventure.”
After being chauffeured around
Addis Ababa by Mr. Abiy in May, Mr. Feltman wrote a detailed analysis of his
trip for President Biden and other leaders in Washington, even mentioning a
sudden jolt by the vehicle that sent coffee spilling on the envoy’s shirt.
Okay. Now Mr. Feltman is just being bitchy. But in all
fairness, no other African chauffer Mr. Feltman has ever had has ever spilt
coffee on him.
Just so we are clear, Mr. Walsh, is it possible to find out
if President Biden read this report? And was his reaction anything close to… “These
young hippity-hoppity people with their galivanting … and the things with the
cups and the lids that never fit. Get Jeff-y on the phone. I want to know if he
was able to get the coffee stain out… It’s anarchy, I tell ya. Anarchy.”
No? Not even close. Okay. But I believe you have more to say…
Weeks later, Secretary of State
Antony J. Blinken imposed visa bans on unnamed Ethiopian officials.
Can someone wake me up when the pissing contest is over—as riveting
as it is, of course. But in fairness, no one puts Feltman in a corner. Whoever
you are who got banned better be sending out many Brooks Brothers shirts as an
apology.
Other foreigners have left Ethiopia
concerned that ethnic cleansing was underway. Pekka Haavisto, a European
Union envoy who visited in February, told the European Parliament last week
that Ethiopian leaders had told him “they are going to destroy the Tigrayans,
that they are going to wipe out the Tigrayans for 100 years.”
And there it is again. I dunno. Did Mr. Haavisto somehow…
forget that Ethiopian officials said this to him… in February? A week
before elections he remembered a loud confession, said to his face about… what?
The way TPLF activists are putting it, and happily and very irresponsibly repeated here by Mr. Walsh, is the imminent presence of an all out war on Ethiopians of Tigray decent. The war is with TPLF-- the same entity that introduced the notion that your ethnicity has to be on your ID. Think about that. Think about if on our driver's licenses in the US we would have to have our ethnicity added as a marker. Who would stand for that?
Ethiopia is also the the only country in the world who has provinces marked by ethnicity. This is what the West thought was a capitol idea. It is ludicrous to say no Tigrayan has been displaced or killed during this war. What we are saying is, TPLF is the granddaddy of ethnic hatred. You lullaby this for 27 years, and some of will come back to you. The difference is, many of us have been crying about this for years. The media is only listening now. Why is that?
Global condemnation of Mr. Abiy,
44, most recently at last week’s Group of 7 summit, represents a dizzying fall
for a young leader who until recently was globally celebrated.
By “global condemnation” it's more likely that Mr. Walsh is referring
to Western condemnation. It’s like the World Championships. It is the West that
is clutching its pearls on a fainting couch. Falling out of favor with Western
governments does not represent a “dizzying fall,” Mr. Walsh. I know in your
world it is all equal. But a longer lens and perhaps a little research would
have been helpful here. You know who the West had vaunted? Issayas Aferwerki and
Meles Zenawi—I believe the phrase used was “Renaissance Men.” That has not aged
well. We might disagree on that.
The whirl of reforms he instituted
after being appointed prime minister in 2018 were a sharp rebuke to the Tigray
People’s Liberation Front, a party of rebels turned rulers who had dominated
Ethiopia since 1991 in an authoritarian system that achieved impressive
economic growth at the cost of basic civil rights.
Which the US had no problem with, is what that paragraph
needed to end with. And notice how TPLF’s atrocities is couched- cost of basic
civil rights. Hmmm. How is what TPLF did (for 27 years!) not ethnic cleansing
and this kind of sanitizing is just la-dee-daa “perhaps some liddel-beedy
basic civil rights” were violated?
But in moving swiftly, Mr. Abiy
also unleashed pent-up frustrations among ethnic groups that had been
marginalized from power for decades — most notably his own group, the
Oromo, who account for one-third of Ethiopia’s 110 million people.
So, he should have slowed his roll on reform? He moved too
quickly to reform? And he did not please the hardline part of Oromoists whose
stance was basically, “You are one of us; it’s our turn; give us everything.” And
we can say this a million times in many ways, but it will never be heard
because of the vernacular established and then parroted: the lumping of Oromo as
one neat group is incorrect. There are very few Ethiopians who fall neatly in
one ethnic group. The TPLF’s policy forced people to choose a side and now all
of us are part of a subset first. A modernized version of the one-drop rule.
We have to do this in two parts, boys and girls. It gets
better.
