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Of
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
or Why The New York Times is in Tow
by Angelo M. Codevilla,
Director, Division for Research in Strategy
On May 9, The New York Times
ran the story,
"China says it won't let US spy plane fly home,"
by Elisabeth Rosenthal. It says :"Days after
American officials expressed hope that the damaged
surveillance plane stranded on Hainan island could
be repaired and flown out of china, Chinese
officials rejected the plan, saying today that they
would not permit the plane to fly home....But China
did not rule out...dismantling it and sending it
home in pieces." Two days later the
Times explained why: Chinese
public opinion would not allow the government to let
America off so easily.
The actions of the Chinese government
explain themselves. But The
Times' analysis is understandable only in
terms of the US establishment's reflexive fondness for
totalitarianism.
By allowing the return of the aircraft
only in a way that humiliates America, the
Chinese government is continuing to drive home to
its own people and to the rest of Asia the point
it has made several times since the midair collision
of one of its fighters with the US surveillance plane,
namely that it can slap America in the face at will,
and that America will sell out not just its allies but
its own interests to please China.
Since it has profited from this course of action, it
would be remarkable if it were not persevering in it.
The Times' acceptance
at face value of official Chinese references to
Chinese public opinion, however,
is noteworthy. Since when has the Chinese
government bowed to public opinion? Public opinion
favored the Democracy demonstrators in 1989. The
politburo ran them over with tanks. Public opinion
supports Falun Gong and other spiritualist movements.
The politburo persecutes them with dungeon, fire and
sword. Public opinion is well nigh unanimous in hating
the "one child policy." But the politburo
enforces it with monitoring of menstrual periods, and
all the sanctions at its command. Public opinion in
totalitarian states is the object of the rulers'
relentless attempts to manufacture it to its own
specifications. The rulers conduct massive, violent
even murderous campaigns to destroy those parts
of which they disapprove and to create, ex nihilo if
they must, whatever they want. This is not news.
Nor, unfortunately, is it news
that the New
York Times and the Establishment for which it
speaks unquestioningly accepts the claims of
politburos that they represent public opinion. Thus it
did for three generations with regard to the Soviet
Union. As for East Germany, Cuba, etc. every
cleaning lady, every truck driver, knew that
governments do not represent people whom
they keep in their country by force. The
Times also notes the absence of
"moderate" Palestinian opinion. It never
mentions that Arafat et al. murder to create the
public opinion they want. But the New
York Times chooses not to know any of this.
What The Times
writes about the relationship between the Chinese
government and its people must be read in that light.
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