Who do you believe in the telling of the Iraq story?

I have just finished watching interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress. He discussed his vision of a democratic Iraq, the upcoming January elections, and how he plans to defeat the insurgency in his country. Allawi’s comments brought rousing applause from congressional members. In fact, the only time the prime minister did not have all members of Congress standing and clapping was when he criticized the media for their coverage of events in Iraq. He believes, and so does President Bush, that things are much better in his country than broadcast news and newspaper coverage indicates. Moreover, Allawi suggested that this inaccurate reporting gives encouragement to the political and religious terrorists seeking to undermine the fledging Iraqi government.

Republican legislators, who have long argued that a liberal bias exists in the U.S. media, heartily cheered the PM’s comments. Conversely, the applause of Democrats to these comments was tepid (to put it mildly).

Innocently, Allawi jumped into a controversy that has raged since 1969 when Vice President Spiro Agnew stated in a speech to Midwestern Republicans that “A small group of men, numbering perhaps no more than a dozen anchormen, commentators, and executive producers decide what 50 million Americans will learn of the day’s events in the nation and in the world. The upshot of this control is that a narrow and distorted picture of America often emerges from televised news.” The thesis of Agnew’s speech was that the television news media was controlled by a small group of liberals who imposed their political and social opinions on viewers under the guise of “news.”

In many substantive ways, Allawi’s speech on Thursday echoed Agnew’s comments 35 years ago.

Conservatives stake their claim that a liberal bias exists in the media on a series of surveys that consistently show that reporters and other media elites vote for Democratic candidates 80 percent of the time. This research also shows that while media professionals accept the essential free-market basis of the U.S. economy, most believe in social “welfarism” and that government policies should reduce the income gap between rich and poor. On socio-cultural issues, 90 percent of reporters believe in a woman’s right to abortion and 53 percent do not think that adultery is wrong.

Liberals like MIT Professor Norm Chomsky take a totally different position. They contend that the media is actually a tool for government propaganda campaigns. A focus on the victims of Saddam Hussein, for instance, helps persuade the public that the enemy is evil while setting the stage for military intervention, support for anti-democratic regimes, endless arms build-ups, and military conflict -- all in a noble cause. Simultaneously, the devotion of leaders and media elites to these causes raises public patriotism and national self-esteem, thus demonstrating the humanity of the American nation and people.

More than 20 years ago, Chomsky wrote that media propaganda campaigns have always been useful to elite interests. Earlier “Red Scares” helped stymie post-WW I union organizing in the steel industry. The Truman-McCarthy “Red Scare” helped inaugurate the Cold War and permanent war economy. For liberals, these “scares” have been used to justify increased military spending, a more aggressive foreign policy, and divert attention from tax policies that facilitate an upward distribution of income.

Garrison Keillor’s recent article, “Here’s What Happened to the Republican Party,” provides a contemporary presentation of Chomsky’s views: “Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for re-election on a platform of tragedy -- the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9-11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin. ... We engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president’s personal satisfaction but was sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation. A war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully. ... Our beloved land has been fogged with fear -- the greatest political strategy ever. And in true vague fear form, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off of the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, and lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich.”

Thus, the conservative and liberal positions about Iraqi media coverage are clearly drawn in the sand. Either the press is liberal because it hates the president’s conservative social values and his doctrine of unilateral military intervention or it is a propaganda mill for elites to instill irrational fear in the population while diminishing civil liberties and allowing upward transfers of wealth to take place.

Depending on the situation, I believe the media plays both roles. Liberal members of the press sincerely believe that President Bush “stole” the 2000 election and have been gunning for him every since. The Iraq war has given them plenty of ammunition.

PM Allawi stated that elections could be held tomorrow in 15 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. Looking at television accounts and newspaper reports, his statement seems far-fetched. Yet, the Kurdish north of the country is safe and prosperous. So is the Shite south in Iraq. The trouble zones of the nation are in the “Sunni Triangle” -- less than one-third of the country. Given that mathematical formulation, the PM’s statement is not only feasible but also probably very accurate.

The prison scandal at Abu Gharib is also instructive. Psychological coercion was used against Iraqi prisoners to get information. Many of the techniques used were emotionally humiliating and a violation of the Geneva Accords.

Yet, there is no prisoner who was subjected to this treatment by American soldiers who would have traded places with his peers incarcerated in Abu Gharib three years ago when Saddam ran the prison. The place was well known throughout the Middle East as an institution where torture, rape, amputation and summary executions took place daily. These gross human rights violations were never reported in the Western media. Conservatives are right to point out that liberal reporters have not juxtaposed the actions of American soldiers and Saddam’s thugs in Abu Gharib to put the “scandal” in its proper historical and political context.

I hope PM Allawi is correct in his assessment about the future of Iraq. Osama bin Laden cannot be captured soon enough for me, either. Moreover, I strongly disagree with Keillor’s assertion that the 9-11 attacks were some kind of aberration and that the president is hyping the war on terrorism. As former U.S. senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman concluded in a study published just before 9-11, it was just a question of when, not if, Middle Eastern terrorism would be imported to the United States. Democratic members of the Congressional intelligence committees acknowledge that “sleeper” terrorist cells exist in the country.

Hopefully, one day this will all be behind us. We can then question the upward shifts of wealth and the widening gap between rich and poor in the United States. We can question why 40 million Americans have no health coverage. We can ask why the “No Child Left Behind” educational policy actually leaves some children behind. We can demand that our congressmen and senators not extend the USA Patriot Act.

At that time, Chomsky and Keillor’s ideas will percolate to the top of the public policy agenda. The press will have to then defend the indefensible -- military build-ups when there is no real enemy. The “media” shoe will then be on the other foot.

However, today’s terrorists are real, not imaginary, enemies who seek to kill Americans in America and elsewhere. The president is right on this issue and even though liberals intensely dislike the man, they should not let ideology blind them to this reality. After all, even the devil is due his credit.