Posted on 09/04/2004 1:17:51 AM PDT by propertius
From a dingy cubbyhole in an "undisclosed location", the official voice of US-style freedom whispers coquettishly across the airwaves to American troops wilting in the heat of an Iraqi summer.
It belongs to Mountain Momma, in real life Addie Collins, 28, the most popular disc jockey on US forces' Freedom Radio.
Good Morning, Vietnam - the Oscar-nominated film starring Robin Williams as a rebellious army DJ in Saigon - it is not. For the radio station's producers, plain speaking about the war, or even about politics generally, is not on the menu. Instead a more sugary diet is offered up, one they call "Bright Adult Contemporary".
Though the content is anodyne, the station has an enthusiastic following among American troops craving a taste of home and Mountain Momma, an all-American country girl, is only too happy to oblige.
As she juggles CDs, sliding her leather chair from shelf to shelf, she fields song requests from fans in uniform across the country.
News, especially about military operations, is limited at best, relying on official press releases from the Coalition Press Information Centre, often little more than uninformative propaganda.
The CPIC largely ignored three weeks of heavy fighting around the holy city of Najaf last month and instead churned out press releases about US soldiers distributing footballs to children or building playgrounds in villages.
Mention of Good Morning, Vietnam elicits wary glances between Mountain Momma and her fellow presenter Abbey Cayanan, both army reservists usually based in California.
"I think it was a good film but I don't think it applies here," said Miss Cayanan. "We are not here to talk about our opinions."
Mountain Momma added: "We simply couldn't get away with it. They would replace us. Our mission is not to be political but to entertain the troops. I wish I could mouth off about all the stupid stuff but it's not like radio stations back home."
Freedom is even curtailed when it comes to the music. The list of banned songs is long.
Many are excluded on grounds of religious sensitivity, or for being morally or racially dubious, such as Jennifer Lopez's I'm Real, which includes the line: "Hug me, love me, judge me, the only nigga that hovers above me, holla."
Others fail to make the cut for more pertinent reasons. Outkast's Bombs over Baghdad (Don't pull your thang out, unless you plan to bang/ Bombs over Baghdad/Yeah! Ha, ha, yeah!) is a strict no-no, while John Lennon's Give Peace a Chance is another.
The station's target audience is not just limited to American soldiers and there has been some success in wooing younger Iraqis.
Asked in May about the terror caused among Iraqi children by the roar of low-flying American helicopters, Gen Mark Kimmitt, the former deputy director of coalition operations, infamously replied: "Tell the children of Iraq the noise they hear is the sound of freedom."
That response may have raised a few quizzical eyebrows among Iraq's children, but some, at least, have responded to the more dulcet version of the American freedom provided by Mountain Momma and her colleagues.
"I am Iraqi girl from Mosul," reads one e-mail from a young fan, whose name has been stripped in a copy given to The Daily Telegraph to protect her from charges of collaboration from her friends.
"I want to request this song (My All - Mariah Carey) to my b/f (Pinkheart) cuz he is so mad of me - he always listen to ur radio station . . . so pleas say my request 5 tims at lest . . . thx."
But for many English-speaking Iraqis, teenage girls apart, Freedom Radio is symptomatic of the increasing alienation between locals and American forces.
"It is both funny and very disturbing to listen to," said Bashar Kassim, an engineer.
"We can see the truth about what is happening in our country. We see the bombs, the death, the chaos. All they hear is Freedom Radio telling them what a paradise Iraq is and how much we love them."
A colleague, Hussam Abbas, said: "America keeps using the word 'freedom'. Freedom this, freedom that and now Freedom Radio. Do they think by repeating 'freedom' over and over again, we will just accept that we are free?
"We know better. We call this McFreedom. And you know the biggest problem with McFreedom? It comes with a large portion of Bush on the side."
How awful!
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