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hasbara+propaganda
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A reader responds to, "A Case Against Cheney".
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Tricky Dicky Transfer
You can tell Richard Cohen is educated in hasbara techniques.
One is called "transfer", this is where you take prestige and authority from one concept and apply it to another.
In this case, Cohen knows that if he comes out guns blazing in opposition, he'll damage his credibility. Instead, he takes the idea of impeachment and transfers it to "unforgivable".
Another very telling sign, is how he saves the "transfer" for the very end of his propaganda, so it's the last thought the reader is left with, knowing that that is the one that counts, along with the beginning.
Again, in the beginning, Cohen sets us up, another tactic found in the hasbara handbook, where capturing the readers attention is most important. He does this by trying to minimize the alledged crimes of Cheney by comparing them to simple "lies". He reveals why he suggests this in the first paragraph by, "transferring" his argument to Clinton rhetoric in the second.
Cohen is pretty good, looks like we have more then one tricky dicky in the neocon house of Cheney.
In a similar fashion, two can play this game, because we have now transferred Richard's propaganda, to the tactics used by militant zionist propagandists.
The only difference, unlike Richard Cohen, I am being honest about the technique I'm using and telling you the truth.
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The Hasbara Playbook
Showing posts with label propaganda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label propaganda. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
A Media Role in Selling the War? No Question.
By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 25, 2007; C01
Perhaps the truth shall eventually set you free, but first it might make you very, very depressed. Tonight's edition of "Bill Moyers Journal" on PBS is one of the most gripping and important pieces of broadcast journalism so far this year, but it's as disheartening as it is compelling.
It's always depressing to learn that you've been had, but incalculably more so when the deception has resulted in thousands of Americans dying in the Iraq war effort.
In this 90-minute report, called "Buying the War," Moyers and producer Kathleen Hughes use alarming evidence and an array of respected journalists to make the case that, in the rage that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the media abandoned their role as watchdog and became a lapdog instead.
Exhibit A -- the first event recalled in this report -- is a news conference by President Bush on March 6, 2003, which Moyers says is two weeks before Bush "will order America to war." The press conference was a sham, with Bush calling only on "friendly" reporters who'd ask friendly questions. The corker was this scorching investigative query: "Mr. President, how is your faith guiding you?"
"At least a dozen times during this press conference," Moyers says, Bush would "invoke 9/11 and al-Qaeda to justify a preemptive attack on a country that has not attacked America." The link between al-Qaeda and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was never proved and had to be taken on faith, Moyers recalls, as did the administration claim that Hussein had developed, was developing, or might soon develop weapons of mass destruction.
Moyers does not set out to attack anyone himself; instead he tries to find out why journalists -- electronic and print -- behaved in ways that are supposed to be anathema to a free press in a free nation. The show asks: Did the Bush administration benefit from having an effective collection of accomplished dupers -- a contingent that Washington Post investigative reporter Walter Pincus calls "the marketing group" -- or did the outrage of 9/11 made the press more vulnerable to being duped?
Pressures subtle and blatant were brought to bear. Phil Donahue's nightly MSNBC talk show was virtually the only program of its type that gave antiwar voices a chance to be heard. Donahue was canceled 22 days before the invasion of Iraq, Moyers says. The reason was supposedly low ratings, but the New York Times intercepted an in-house memo in which a network executive complained: "Donahue represents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time, our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
Dissent was deemed not only unpatriotic, Donahue recalls, but -- perhaps even worse -- "not good for business." Most of Moyers's report involves serious, respected journalists who let themselves be swept up in war fever and who were manipulated by the administration sources who had cozied up to them. Instead of investigating administration claims about al-Qaeda and WMDs and such, cable news offered up hours and hours of talking-head television.
Former CNN president Walter Isaacson tells Moyers: "One of the great pressures we're facing in journalism now is, it's a lot cheaper to hire thumb-suckers and pundits and have talk shows on the air than actually have bureaus and reporters."
Dan Rather -- who has left his CBS anchor chair but continues with solid and superior reports on the high-definition cable and satellite channel HDNet -- tells Moyers: "The substitute for reporting far too often has become 'Let's just ring up an expert.' . . . This is journalism on the cheap, if it's journalism at all."
Rather is among a select group of working journalists who agreed to be interviewed for the Moyers report. Others include media critic and Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz, Bob Simon of "60 Minutes" and, formerly from Knight Ridder Newspapers, John Walcott, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel.
Moyers credits them with breaking from the pack and printing stories that looked deeply into administration claims. Because the Knight Ridder chain had no paper in Washington or New York, however, its stories didn't get the national exposure they deserved, and networks were skittish about following up on them.
Tim Russert, of NBC's "Meet the Press," looks intimidated by Moyers and somewhat unnerved by his questions, but at least he agreed to be interviewed. Among those who declined -- and thus became a part of the story more than they already were -- are Judith Miller of the New York Times, a reporter who became a relentless drumbeater for war; Times pundit William Safire, who'd predicted that Iraqis would welcome Americans as liberators when they marched into Baghdad; columnist Charles Krauthammer, another hawkish columnist who's usually anything but camera-shy; and Fox boss Roger Ailes.
William Kristol, a conservative columnist who, Moyers says, "led the march to Baghdad behind a battery of Washington microphones . . . has not responded to any of our requests for an interview, but he still shows up on TV as an expert, most often on Fox News."
Even if this Moyers report tells you some things you already knew, it puts the whole story of the media's role in the war into one convenient package -- a story of historical value that is also frighteningly rife with portents for the future and for what will pass as journalism in months and years to come.
Moyers's last words on the broadcast, at least according to a preliminary script, will be: "The country is in chaos," but the syntax is such that one can't be sure if by "the country" Moyers means Iraq or the United States. Maybe he meant both.
Bill Moyers Journal: Buying the War airs tonight at 9 on Channels 22 and 26.
‘AL QAEDA’: A FIGMENT OF THE FEAR- AND WAR-MONGERING PROPAGANDISTS IMAGINATION
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Yesterday the Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his band of fearmongering lunatics warned Australians gathering at Gallipoli for ANZAC Day to be aware of a ‘terrorist threat’. In the UK Guardian today it is reported that the ‘head of Scotland Yard's counterterrorism command said yesterday that al-Qaida had survived the six-year long "war on terror" launched by President George Bush and Tony Blair, and its central leadership had retained the ability to order devastating attacks on Britain.’ As well as Gallipoli that is. And in Iraq, where it seems the Iraqi franchise of ‘al Qaeda’ has claimed responsibility for the deaths yesterday of nine US troops.
So good is the ‘al Qaeda’ franchise business that even the Israelis have tried to set up an ‘al Qaeda’ shop in Palestine. Unfortunately the locals soon discovered that the business wasn’t genuine (apparently Mossad hadn’t paid bin Laden the franchise fee) so the business was quickly shut down.
Of course al Qaeda exists, or at least existed, (indeed, it was set up with the assistance of the CIA as part of their covert war against the Soviets in Afghanistan before the Taliban took over there) but it doesn’t exist in the way that the western neocon-dominated press would have us believe. Despite the continued references to ‘al Qaeda’ everyday as we are told that they are responsible for every conceivable atrocity that occurs on our planet, there has not been any evidence whatsoever that ‘al Qaeda’ per se has ever been responsible for anything beyond the borders of Afghanistan and the remoter parts of Pakistan.
The western propagandists have presented to the world a picture of an ‘al Qaeda’ as being a massive and extremely well disciplined international organisation that has branches everywhere. Yet nowhere is there any prima facie evidence to suggest that they even exist, let alone in such an organised and disciplined way. As the piece in today’s UK Guardian demonstrates, we are expected to simply believe what we are told with the total lack of evidence being conveniently explained away as; ‘for security reasons we can’t divulge the source’.
In Iraq the US and their allies are currently busy trying to wedge the Sunni and Shi’ite factions by blaming ‘al Qaeda’ for the friction between the two groupings. This is nothing new; they’ve tried it before, but now they are putting more effort into their blame game because they see it as away of polarising the rest of Islam in the Middle East and beyond thus diverting attention away from the Israelis and their efforts to subdue Palestine, Hamas and Hizbollah but, at the same time, demonising further an Iran that has a predominately Shiite population (as against the rest of the Islamic world which is around 80% Sunni).
The problem for the US, Israel, and their western allies, is that all this propaganda is for consumption in the west only. The Middle Eastern peoples, Sunni or Shia, are very much aware that their relationships with each other are quite secure and have been for decades. For them the myth of ‘al Qaeda’ remains just that – a myth, and that the struggles that exist between various Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq are mainly a combination of political and criminal secular differences in a post-Saddam lawless era and that such violence, as bloody as it often is, is contained within Iraq and has nothing to do with the battles that Islamic peoples and Arabs generally are fighting against Israeli right-wing Zionism in Palestine and US hegemonic colonialism in the Middle East and Central Asia.
‘Al Qaeda’ remains, as it has since the US decided that they were to blame for the events of 9/11, a myth that exists solely to perpetuate fear and the illusion that there is always an enemy to justify the continued ‘Global War on Terrorism’.
So good is the ‘al Qaeda’ franchise business that even the Israelis have tried to set up an ‘al Qaeda’ shop in Palestine. Unfortunately the locals soon discovered that the business wasn’t genuine (apparently Mossad hadn’t paid bin Laden the franchise fee) so the business was quickly shut down.
Of course al Qaeda exists, or at least existed, (indeed, it was set up with the assistance of the CIA as part of their covert war against the Soviets in Afghanistan before the Taliban took over there) but it doesn’t exist in the way that the western neocon-dominated press would have us believe. Despite the continued references to ‘al Qaeda’ everyday as we are told that they are responsible for every conceivable atrocity that occurs on our planet, there has not been any evidence whatsoever that ‘al Qaeda’ per se has ever been responsible for anything beyond the borders of Afghanistan and the remoter parts of Pakistan.
The western propagandists have presented to the world a picture of an ‘al Qaeda’ as being a massive and extremely well disciplined international organisation that has branches everywhere. Yet nowhere is there any prima facie evidence to suggest that they even exist, let alone in such an organised and disciplined way. As the piece in today’s UK Guardian demonstrates, we are expected to simply believe what we are told with the total lack of evidence being conveniently explained away as; ‘for security reasons we can’t divulge the source’.
In Iraq the US and their allies are currently busy trying to wedge the Sunni and Shi’ite factions by blaming ‘al Qaeda’ for the friction between the two groupings. This is nothing new; they’ve tried it before, but now they are putting more effort into their blame game because they see it as away of polarising the rest of Islam in the Middle East and beyond thus diverting attention away from the Israelis and their efforts to subdue Palestine, Hamas and Hizbollah but, at the same time, demonising further an Iran that has a predominately Shiite population (as against the rest of the Islamic world which is around 80% Sunni).
The problem for the US, Israel, and their western allies, is that all this propaganda is for consumption in the west only. The Middle Eastern peoples, Sunni or Shia, are very much aware that their relationships with each other are quite secure and have been for decades. For them the myth of ‘al Qaeda’ remains just that – a myth, and that the struggles that exist between various Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq are mainly a combination of political and criminal secular differences in a post-Saddam lawless era and that such violence, as bloody as it often is, is contained within Iraq and has nothing to do with the battles that Islamic peoples and Arabs generally are fighting against Israeli right-wing Zionism in Palestine and US hegemonic colonialism in the Middle East and Central Asia.
‘Al Qaeda’ remains, as it has since the US decided that they were to blame for the events of 9/11, a myth that exists solely to perpetuate fear and the illusion that there is always an enemy to justify the continued ‘Global War on Terrorism’.
Jessica Lynch decries US 'lies': Deliberate acts of deceit
Related
'Little girl Rambo' decries US propaganda
Initial reports also suggested that Ms Lynch had been abused after she came round in the hospital. She said the reports were lies: she had been treated well and the Iraqis had tried to return her to US forces.
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'Little girl Rambo' decries US propaganda
Initial reports also suggested that Ms Lynch had been abused after she came round in the hospital. She said the reports were lies: she had been treated well and the Iraqis had tried to return her to US forces.
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 | Deliberate acts of deceit Pat Tillman's brother on the manipulation of his death. Jessica Lynch decries US 'lies' |
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Billionaire Boychiks Battle for Media Empire
‘Committed Zionist’ To Buy Papers With Troubled Ties to Community
Nathaniel Popper | Fri. Apr 13, 2007
When Sam Zell, a Chicago real estate mogul and soon-to-be media magnate, was a junior counselor at a Jewish summer camp, he regularly transfixed his campers with tales of his family’s escape from Nazi-occupied Poland.
The Zell family traveled through Russia and Japan, pretending to be tourists at the Bolshoi Ballet so as not to stand out. Fred Margulies, a camper in Zell’s bunk, said that the tale — told after lights out — was the most memorable part of the summer, and a prototypical display of Zell’s preternaturally magnetic personality.
“He was a great storyteller, and he captivated us,” said Margulies, today a rabbi and businessman in Chicago.
Zell’s storytelling skills may be put to a new use when he becomes the owner and CEO of one of America’s most powerful media companies, Tribune Company, which owns 23 televisions stations, a baseball team and many major newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. His winning bid for the $8.2 billion company comes after a career in which he has made himself rich — to the tune of $4.5 billion — by turning around flailing companies with his brash, unconventional style. His skill at reviving the near-dead has given him the nickname in which he’s said to revel: “the grave-dancer.”
The irony of Zell’s latest success is that it will likely make him the owner of a company that has been the very antithesis of the Jewish summer camp culture in which Zell was molded. The Chicago Tribune, the company’s flagship publication, has had a famously antagonistic relationship with the Jewish community in Chicago — historically because of its right-wing, isolationist stance during World War II, and more recently because of its critical coverage of Israel. Newspaper watchers say that Zell and the Tribune will be an interesting mix.
“The paper has a reputation for having a thick glass ceiling for Jews,” said Michael Siegel, who for 25 years has been the rabbi at Chicago’s Anshe Emet Synagogue, where Zell is a member. “For someone like Sam Zell, who is noted as a grave dancer, here is he is more of a grave spinner. There are probably some past owners and executives who are spinning in their graves right now.”
Even before the Tribune went with Zell’s bid to take the company private, it was clear that the white, Anglo-Saxon culture of the Tribune would be challenged by a Jewish businessman. The major bidder besides Zell was Los Angeles Jewish businessman Eli Broad and his business partner, Ronald Burkle, (who has widely but wrongly been described as Jewish). The deal for the Tribune is not closed, and Broad and Burkle still could be able to best Zell’s offer of $34 a share.
Another Jewish businessman, Hollywood supermogul David Geffen, is said to be in talks now with Zell to buy control of the Los Angeles Times. The Times is the largest single property owned by the Tribune and has a contentious history with the Los Angeles Jewish community, strikingly similar to the Tribune’s in Chicago.
Despite being co-religionists, the bidders for the Tribune properties represent a wide spectrum of American Jewish experiences, and their ownership would mean very different things for the papers. Both Broad and Geffen give generously to Jewish causes in Los Angeles and in Israel, but Broad, a Detroit native, is best known for his work as a civic booster in Los Angeles. Geffen fits more into the classic mold of the liberal New Yorker who has dedicated much of his wealth to gay rights, liberal causes and national Democratic politics. Zell, by contrast, has a reputation for conservative politics and a more intimate involvement with Jewish and Israeli causes.
Given that Zell appears to be close to closing the deal for the Tribune, much media scrutiny has shifted toward how his background might shape the papers. One question that is asked frequently is whether Zell will follow the model of Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, who has pressed his political views on his media properties, or whether he will concentrate only on the business side.
In an interview with the Tribune last week, Zell suggested that he would not be involved editorially. “Do I look naive enough to think I have any influence about what people write?” Zell asked in his blunt fashion.
Still, Zell has made it clear that he does have an interest in the things his new media properties cover. In the interview last week, he said that his favorite newspaper columnists are Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Friedman and David Brooks, all of whom are Jewish and two of whom write frequently and sympathetically about Israel.
Zell himself is a major donor to causes in the Middle East. His donations include a $3.1 million donation to the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center in Israel and separate donations to the Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress, a right-wing Israeli think tank. In the United States, he has given major gifts to such Jewish causes as the American Jewish Committee and a Chicago Jewish day school named after his father. All this is on top of his political donations, which have gone mostly to Republican candidates.
Siegel, the rabbi at Zell’s synagogue, said that Zell is a “committed Zionist” and a “generous supporter of Israel,” along with “a member in good standing” of the synagogue who “comes on the holidays often.”
Among media watchers, this has been fodder for conversation. Ken Reich, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who operates a blog about the paper, said he assumes that Zell will shape the policy of his papers to some degree.
“If he cares about the State of Israel, he won’t want his newspaper to be out there chipping away at Israeli interests,” said Reich, who reported mostly on politics during his 39 years at the Times.
Reich said that at the Times, shifting the editorial policy would require only that Zell be consulted in the hiring of the new editorial page editor — a position that was recently vacated.
“It would not take very much tweaking by him to sharply alter the Times editorial policy on the Middle East,” Reich said. “I tend to expect this to happen.”
Other media critics have taken Zell at his word that he will stick to the business side. Siegel said he was interested to see which direction Zell would take, but he does know that Zell is a “very astute reader of world affairs — an avid newspaper reader — so you’re going to have to keep his interest.”
Siegel himself has been one of the leading critics of the Chicago Tribune’s Middle East coverage. He has organized multiple protest rallies outside the Tribune, most recently in 2003, when the Tribune published a cartoon showing a hook-nosed caricature of the Israeli prime minister following a trail of money laid down by President Bush.
The Tribune eventually apologized to the Jewish community, and Siegel said that the paper has been responsive to the concerns of the Jewish community since then.
Media watchers in Chicago say that Zell’s more immediate effect at the Tribune will likely be on the corporate culture.
“It’s a traditionally corporate environment,” said Abe Peck, a journalism professor at Northwestern University. “They’re the dominant paper in town, and they act like it and dress like it. Here comes this guy who never wears a tie — who comes on his motorcycle — and who brings a whole different style.”
The Tribune’s button-down culture today is an extension of the paper’s historical ownership by Colonel Robert McCormick, who earned the ire of Chicago Jews with his isolationist, right-wing posture during the Nazi era. A similar family of owners, the Chandlers, prevailed at the Los Angeles Times until the 1960s, when Dorothy Chandler began reaching out to the Jewish community to fundraise for local civic causes.
Since the Tribune purchased the Times from the Chandlers, the company has instituted a series of cost-cutting measures that have not gone down well in Los Angeles. Many civic leaders in the city were eagerly hoping that either Geffen or Broad and Burkle would buy the paper from the Tribune, not least because Los Angeles is a liberal city and Geffen and Broad are known for their liberal leanings, both in their secular and Jewish giving. Both men, for instance, are donors to Bet Tzedek, a Jewish legal aid organization. But both men have also tended to put non-Jewish civic causes ahead of their Jewish giving.
“They are both Jewish and very proud of it, but for both of them their primary involvement is not the Jewish community,” said Donna Bojarsky, a consultant in the Los Angeles political and Jewish worlds. “There are not many places to have influence in this city, and the paper would really be it.”
Zell’s arrival at the Tribune has been met with some disappointment in Los Angeles. That has included newspaper staffers who have expressed anxiety over the financial deal structured by Zell whereby he uses employee pensions to finance most of the deal, putting in only $315 million himself and pushing much of the risk onto the employees.
It may yet turn out that Geffen will take control of the Los Angeles property. Zell flew into Los Angeles for dinner with Geffen last Friday night in Malibu, where both men own beachfront houses. Despite their differences, the two men have spoken respectfully about each other, referencing the straight-shooting, unconventional style that inevitably comes from being an outsider.
As Siegel put it about Zell, “He has a great sense of humor — a real love of life — and no patience for baloney or arrogance.”
Fri. Apr 13, 2007
Nathaniel Popper | Fri. Apr 13, 2007
When Sam Zell, a Chicago real estate mogul and soon-to-be media magnate, was a junior counselor at a Jewish summer camp, he regularly transfixed his campers with tales of his family’s escape from Nazi-occupied Poland.
The Zell family traveled through Russia and Japan, pretending to be tourists at the Bolshoi Ballet so as not to stand out. Fred Margulies, a camper in Zell’s bunk, said that the tale — told after lights out — was the most memorable part of the summer, and a prototypical display of Zell’s preternaturally magnetic personality.
“He was a great storyteller, and he captivated us,” said Margulies, today a rabbi and businessman in Chicago.
Zell’s storytelling skills may be put to a new use when he becomes the owner and CEO of one of America’s most powerful media companies, Tribune Company, which owns 23 televisions stations, a baseball team and many major newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. His winning bid for the $8.2 billion company comes after a career in which he has made himself rich — to the tune of $4.5 billion — by turning around flailing companies with his brash, unconventional style. His skill at reviving the near-dead has given him the nickname in which he’s said to revel: “the grave-dancer.”
The irony of Zell’s latest success is that it will likely make him the owner of a company that has been the very antithesis of the Jewish summer camp culture in which Zell was molded. The Chicago Tribune, the company’s flagship publication, has had a famously antagonistic relationship with the Jewish community in Chicago — historically because of its right-wing, isolationist stance during World War II, and more recently because of its critical coverage of Israel. Newspaper watchers say that Zell and the Tribune will be an interesting mix.
“The paper has a reputation for having a thick glass ceiling for Jews,” said Michael Siegel, who for 25 years has been the rabbi at Chicago’s Anshe Emet Synagogue, where Zell is a member. “For someone like Sam Zell, who is noted as a grave dancer, here is he is more of a grave spinner. There are probably some past owners and executives who are spinning in their graves right now.”
Even before the Tribune went with Zell’s bid to take the company private, it was clear that the white, Anglo-Saxon culture of the Tribune would be challenged by a Jewish businessman. The major bidder besides Zell was Los Angeles Jewish businessman Eli Broad and his business partner, Ronald Burkle, (who has widely but wrongly been described as Jewish). The deal for the Tribune is not closed, and Broad and Burkle still could be able to best Zell’s offer of $34 a share.
Another Jewish businessman, Hollywood supermogul David Geffen, is said to be in talks now with Zell to buy control of the Los Angeles Times. The Times is the largest single property owned by the Tribune and has a contentious history with the Los Angeles Jewish community, strikingly similar to the Tribune’s in Chicago.
Despite being co-religionists, the bidders for the Tribune properties represent a wide spectrum of American Jewish experiences, and their ownership would mean very different things for the papers. Both Broad and Geffen give generously to Jewish causes in Los Angeles and in Israel, but Broad, a Detroit native, is best known for his work as a civic booster in Los Angeles. Geffen fits more into the classic mold of the liberal New Yorker who has dedicated much of his wealth to gay rights, liberal causes and national Democratic politics. Zell, by contrast, has a reputation for conservative politics and a more intimate involvement with Jewish and Israeli causes.
Given that Zell appears to be close to closing the deal for the Tribune, much media scrutiny has shifted toward how his background might shape the papers. One question that is asked frequently is whether Zell will follow the model of Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, who has pressed his political views on his media properties, or whether he will concentrate only on the business side.
In an interview with the Tribune last week, Zell suggested that he would not be involved editorially. “Do I look naive enough to think I have any influence about what people write?” Zell asked in his blunt fashion.
Still, Zell has made it clear that he does have an interest in the things his new media properties cover. In the interview last week, he said that his favorite newspaper columnists are Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Friedman and David Brooks, all of whom are Jewish and two of whom write frequently and sympathetically about Israel.
Zell himself is a major donor to causes in the Middle East. His donations include a $3.1 million donation to the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center in Israel and separate donations to the Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress, a right-wing Israeli think tank. In the United States, he has given major gifts to such Jewish causes as the American Jewish Committee and a Chicago Jewish day school named after his father. All this is on top of his political donations, which have gone mostly to Republican candidates.
Siegel, the rabbi at Zell’s synagogue, said that Zell is a “committed Zionist” and a “generous supporter of Israel,” along with “a member in good standing” of the synagogue who “comes on the holidays often.”
Among media watchers, this has been fodder for conversation. Ken Reich, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who operates a blog about the paper, said he assumes that Zell will shape the policy of his papers to some degree.
“If he cares about the State of Israel, he won’t want his newspaper to be out there chipping away at Israeli interests,” said Reich, who reported mostly on politics during his 39 years at the Times.
Reich said that at the Times, shifting the editorial policy would require only that Zell be consulted in the hiring of the new editorial page editor — a position that was recently vacated.
“It would not take very much tweaking by him to sharply alter the Times editorial policy on the Middle East,” Reich said. “I tend to expect this to happen.”
Other media critics have taken Zell at his word that he will stick to the business side. Siegel said he was interested to see which direction Zell would take, but he does know that Zell is a “very astute reader of world affairs — an avid newspaper reader — so you’re going to have to keep his interest.”
Siegel himself has been one of the leading critics of the Chicago Tribune’s Middle East coverage. He has organized multiple protest rallies outside the Tribune, most recently in 2003, when the Tribune published a cartoon showing a hook-nosed caricature of the Israeli prime minister following a trail of money laid down by President Bush.
The Tribune eventually apologized to the Jewish community, and Siegel said that the paper has been responsive to the concerns of the Jewish community since then.
Media watchers in Chicago say that Zell’s more immediate effect at the Tribune will likely be on the corporate culture.
“It’s a traditionally corporate environment,” said Abe Peck, a journalism professor at Northwestern University. “They’re the dominant paper in town, and they act like it and dress like it. Here comes this guy who never wears a tie — who comes on his motorcycle — and who brings a whole different style.”
The Tribune’s button-down culture today is an extension of the paper’s historical ownership by Colonel Robert McCormick, who earned the ire of Chicago Jews with his isolationist, right-wing posture during the Nazi era. A similar family of owners, the Chandlers, prevailed at the Los Angeles Times until the 1960s, when Dorothy Chandler began reaching out to the Jewish community to fundraise for local civic causes.
Since the Tribune purchased the Times from the Chandlers, the company has instituted a series of cost-cutting measures that have not gone down well in Los Angeles. Many civic leaders in the city were eagerly hoping that either Geffen or Broad and Burkle would buy the paper from the Tribune, not least because Los Angeles is a liberal city and Geffen and Broad are known for their liberal leanings, both in their secular and Jewish giving. Both men, for instance, are donors to Bet Tzedek, a Jewish legal aid organization. But both men have also tended to put non-Jewish civic causes ahead of their Jewish giving.
“They are both Jewish and very proud of it, but for both of them their primary involvement is not the Jewish community,” said Donna Bojarsky, a consultant in the Los Angeles political and Jewish worlds. “There are not many places to have influence in this city, and the paper would really be it.”
Zell’s arrival at the Tribune has been met with some disappointment in Los Angeles. That has included newspaper staffers who have expressed anxiety over the financial deal structured by Zell whereby he uses employee pensions to finance most of the deal, putting in only $315 million himself and pushing much of the risk onto the employees.
It may yet turn out that Geffen will take control of the Los Angeles property. Zell flew into Los Angeles for dinner with Geffen last Friday night in Malibu, where both men own beachfront houses. Despite their differences, the two men have spoken respectfully about each other, referencing the straight-shooting, unconventional style that inevitably comes from being an outsider.
As Siegel put it about Zell, “He has a great sense of humor — a real love of life — and no patience for baloney or arrogance.”
Fri. Apr 13, 2007
Twilight Zone: Pass through the portal to the alternate reality of the War Party’s propagandists
April 9, 2007 Issue
Copyright © 2007 The American Conservative
by Gregory Cochran
I think almost everybody has wondered what would have happened if they had made a different choice in life, taken a different path. If you didn’t think of it by yourself, seeing “It’s a Wonderful Life” a few hundred times has probably driven the point home by now.
Many authors have applied this idea to big turning points, writing about alternative histories in which Hitler won World War II (Fatherland) or the South won the Civil War (Bring the Jubilee). The notion may not be pure fantasy: the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics suggests that these Worlds-of-If may really exist, although forever unreachable.
Or maybe not so unreachable. A very odd pattern of statements by prominent supporters and members of the Bush administration suggests that we may have some truly unusual visitors—literally out-of-this-world.
You see, the president and his associates keep referring to historical events that never happened, at least not as they did in the fields we know. And they keep referring to the same ahistorical events. Over and over, the secretary of state and the (now former) secretary of defense have referred to guerrilla warfare in Germany after the Nazi surrender. But there just wasn’t any. You can’t find it in the history books or in the memories of people who were there at the time. My uncle was in Bavaria in the summer of 1945: no trouble. Secretary Rumsfeld repeatedly talked about the similarities between today’s Iraq and America after the Revolutionary War, but again, I’m pretty sure that there aren’t any. I don’t believe we found tortured corpses in the streets of Philadelphia every morning back in 1784. And why does President Bush keep saying that Saddam refused to admit those UN arms inspectors back in 2002 and early 2003? Why did Condoleezza Rice, in 2000, say that Iran was probably backing the Taliban, when in fact the two had almost gone to war in 1998?
Now some might say that these statements were just talking points—that is, lies—but I sure wouldn’t want to accuse anyone of lying. More to the point, there have been many ahistorical statements that are just strange and don’t seem to advance any particular political agenda. For example, when President Bush said that the Japanese lost two carriers sunk and one damaged at the Battle of Midway (instead of losing all four, which is what actually happened), who gained? When POTUS said that Sweden has no army (it does), what political argument was advanced?
We’re talking about the rulers of the most powerful nation on earth. It can’t be that they’re just pig-ignorant—of their own history, yet. There has to be a deeper, more subtle explanation.
We can learn more by examining these statements in detail, including those of the administration’s close supporters. They too keep diverging from the history we know. Recently, Rep. Don Young of Alaska quoted Lincoln as saying, “Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged.” Lincoln never said that, of course. Cliff May, at National Review, said “President Roosevelt waited until after World War II to put in place a commission to investigate what mistakes led to Pearl Harbor.” Pretty fly for a dead guy: FDR passed on just before Germany surrendered, well before the Japanese quit. And anyhow, the first of many Pearl Harbor investigations—the Roberts Commission—started only 11 days after the sneak attack.
More and more, I get the feeling that Bush and his friends come from one of the Worlds-of-If—a sad place, even worse than the one we actually live in, a world in which their odd statements are true.
When tired or stressed, they refer to the history that they lived and learned in school. But their briefing books recount an alternate history in which Iraq in 2002 was not a poor and backward country but the coming threat, as our Germany was in 1938. A history in which America, after the Revolution, was a flaming cesspool like Iraq today, a world in which Lincoln executed unruly legislators. One in which World War II dragged on long after the indecisive Battle of Midway. One in which our occupation of Germany was plagued by guerrilla warfare. One in which we’ve been fighting World War IV with Iran and Syria for 25 years, as Jim Woolsey has repeatedly said. One in which a hostile Islamic Caliphate has bothered to go through the formality of coming into existence.
Close study of such statements might eventually give a rough sketch of that other world’s history. This would be of immense value, for it would allow us to learn much about the inner workings of the historical process, just as the discovery of a different kind of life on Mars would be an epochal event in biology. The fact that a history that diverged from ours at least 200 years ago, judging from the differences in the Revolution, still bears some resemblance to ours—still had a battle of Midway, just not the same battle—suggests that unknown overarching forces constrain the course of events. But the story is never the same in detail.
The casual mention of World War IV strongly implies that these interlopers also had a World War III. They must have suffered greatly—maybe bombed out, likely short on resources such as oil. I would guess that those disasters irretrievably darkened their political perspective, just as our World War I left an entire generation embittered and disaffected. Certainly some kind of civilizational blight is needed to explain Vice President Cheney’s “Dark Lord” shtick.
Somehow they came here, so there must be a gate or portal. Judging from the spatial clustering of identifiable visitors, it’s somewhere in Washington, probably very close to the AEI building. Possibly inside. It may be an accident of nature, or it might be a scientific wonder used for judicial exile, just as bad Kryptonians were sent to the Phantom Zone. You have to wonder about that when you consider the kind of guys they’re sending.
If two-way transfer is possible, there could be vast business opportunities. There are reasons to suspect that science and engineering took a very different path over there: their limited understanding of nuclear weapons—they seem to think that nukes are roughly as easy to build as bottle rockets—suggests that nuclear fission may never have been developed on their timeline. But even if they’re behind us in some areas, they’re likely to be ahead in others. I’d guess that they know far more about torture than we do. Practice makes perfect.
Even if they’ve never split the atom, they have much to offer. The very existence of such a portal is the most significant new scientific result in a century, far more important than any result expected from the most advanced accelerator. The sheer physical presence of Condoleezza Rice on this plane suggests, indeed demands, new physics that may lead to the long-desired marriage of quantum mechanics and general relativity. It’s either this or string theory.
Of course this means that we need to corral some or all of these visitors for study and experimentation. Such experiments would, I suppose, interfere with their civil liberties, if they had any, but they’re obviously not citizens of these United States. Technically they’re illegal aliens. Gitmo’s a-waitin’.
And perhaps we can do more. Obviously this other world is in a sorry state and could stand some saving. They’re our closer-than-brothers—our other selves living in a world gone bad, a world in which the toast always falls butter-side down, a world where Mr. Potter owns the Building and Loan. Undoubtedly an irrepressible desire for freedom burns in every heart there. As soon as possible, we should begin preparing for their liberation.
It will be a cakewalk. .
___________________________________
Gregory Cochran is a physicist and evolutionary biologist.
Copyright © 2007 The American Conservative
by Gregory Cochran
I think almost everybody has wondered what would have happened if they had made a different choice in life, taken a different path. If you didn’t think of it by yourself, seeing “It’s a Wonderful Life” a few hundred times has probably driven the point home by now.
Many authors have applied this idea to big turning points, writing about alternative histories in which Hitler won World War II (Fatherland) or the South won the Civil War (Bring the Jubilee). The notion may not be pure fantasy: the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics suggests that these Worlds-of-If may really exist, although forever unreachable.
Or maybe not so unreachable. A very odd pattern of statements by prominent supporters and members of the Bush administration suggests that we may have some truly unusual visitors—literally out-of-this-world.
You see, the president and his associates keep referring to historical events that never happened, at least not as they did in the fields we know. And they keep referring to the same ahistorical events. Over and over, the secretary of state and the (now former) secretary of defense have referred to guerrilla warfare in Germany after the Nazi surrender. But there just wasn’t any. You can’t find it in the history books or in the memories of people who were there at the time. My uncle was in Bavaria in the summer of 1945: no trouble. Secretary Rumsfeld repeatedly talked about the similarities between today’s Iraq and America after the Revolutionary War, but again, I’m pretty sure that there aren’t any. I don’t believe we found tortured corpses in the streets of Philadelphia every morning back in 1784. And why does President Bush keep saying that Saddam refused to admit those UN arms inspectors back in 2002 and early 2003? Why did Condoleezza Rice, in 2000, say that Iran was probably backing the Taliban, when in fact the two had almost gone to war in 1998?
Now some might say that these statements were just talking points—that is, lies—but I sure wouldn’t want to accuse anyone of lying. More to the point, there have been many ahistorical statements that are just strange and don’t seem to advance any particular political agenda. For example, when President Bush said that the Japanese lost two carriers sunk and one damaged at the Battle of Midway (instead of losing all four, which is what actually happened), who gained? When POTUS said that Sweden has no army (it does), what political argument was advanced?
We’re talking about the rulers of the most powerful nation on earth. It can’t be that they’re just pig-ignorant—of their own history, yet. There has to be a deeper, more subtle explanation.
We can learn more by examining these statements in detail, including those of the administration’s close supporters. They too keep diverging from the history we know. Recently, Rep. Don Young of Alaska quoted Lincoln as saying, “Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged.” Lincoln never said that, of course. Cliff May, at National Review, said “President Roosevelt waited until after World War II to put in place a commission to investigate what mistakes led to Pearl Harbor.” Pretty fly for a dead guy: FDR passed on just before Germany surrendered, well before the Japanese quit. And anyhow, the first of many Pearl Harbor investigations—the Roberts Commission—started only 11 days after the sneak attack.
More and more, I get the feeling that Bush and his friends come from one of the Worlds-of-If—a sad place, even worse than the one we actually live in, a world in which their odd statements are true.
When tired or stressed, they refer to the history that they lived and learned in school. But their briefing books recount an alternate history in which Iraq in 2002 was not a poor and backward country but the coming threat, as our Germany was in 1938. A history in which America, after the Revolution, was a flaming cesspool like Iraq today, a world in which Lincoln executed unruly legislators. One in which World War II dragged on long after the indecisive Battle of Midway. One in which our occupation of Germany was plagued by guerrilla warfare. One in which we’ve been fighting World War IV with Iran and Syria for 25 years, as Jim Woolsey has repeatedly said. One in which a hostile Islamic Caliphate has bothered to go through the formality of coming into existence.
Close study of such statements might eventually give a rough sketch of that other world’s history. This would be of immense value, for it would allow us to learn much about the inner workings of the historical process, just as the discovery of a different kind of life on Mars would be an epochal event in biology. The fact that a history that diverged from ours at least 200 years ago, judging from the differences in the Revolution, still bears some resemblance to ours—still had a battle of Midway, just not the same battle—suggests that unknown overarching forces constrain the course of events. But the story is never the same in detail.
The casual mention of World War IV strongly implies that these interlopers also had a World War III. They must have suffered greatly—maybe bombed out, likely short on resources such as oil. I would guess that those disasters irretrievably darkened their political perspective, just as our World War I left an entire generation embittered and disaffected. Certainly some kind of civilizational blight is needed to explain Vice President Cheney’s “Dark Lord” shtick.
Somehow they came here, so there must be a gate or portal. Judging from the spatial clustering of identifiable visitors, it’s somewhere in Washington, probably very close to the AEI building. Possibly inside. It may be an accident of nature, or it might be a scientific wonder used for judicial exile, just as bad Kryptonians were sent to the Phantom Zone. You have to wonder about that when you consider the kind of guys they’re sending.
If two-way transfer is possible, there could be vast business opportunities. There are reasons to suspect that science and engineering took a very different path over there: their limited understanding of nuclear weapons—they seem to think that nukes are roughly as easy to build as bottle rockets—suggests that nuclear fission may never have been developed on their timeline. But even if they’re behind us in some areas, they’re likely to be ahead in others. I’d guess that they know far more about torture than we do. Practice makes perfect.
Even if they’ve never split the atom, they have much to offer. The very existence of such a portal is the most significant new scientific result in a century, far more important than any result expected from the most advanced accelerator. The sheer physical presence of Condoleezza Rice on this plane suggests, indeed demands, new physics that may lead to the long-desired marriage of quantum mechanics and general relativity. It’s either this or string theory.
Of course this means that we need to corral some or all of these visitors for study and experimentation. Such experiments would, I suppose, interfere with their civil liberties, if they had any, but they’re obviously not citizens of these United States. Technically they’re illegal aliens. Gitmo’s a-waitin’.
And perhaps we can do more. Obviously this other world is in a sorry state and could stand some saving. They’re our closer-than-brothers—our other selves living in a world gone bad, a world in which the toast always falls butter-side down, a world where Mr. Potter owns the Building and Loan. Undoubtedly an irrepressible desire for freedom burns in every heart there. As soon as possible, we should begin preparing for their liberation.
It will be a cakewalk. .
___________________________________
Gregory Cochran is a physicist and evolutionary biologist.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Des Browne and the Iran Captives: The media at war
Published April 9th, 2007
Beau Bo D’Or
By Neil
neil@b b d o . co . uk
Beau Bo D’Or
By Neil
neil@b b d o . co . uk
A bit of a departure for me - excuse the two repeated pictures, needed for the complete article.
Des Browne Confronted by Max Clifford
Today Defence Secretary Des Browne categorically denied he and the MOD had totally lost their bearings and strayed into Max Clifford’s territory by promoting the Iran ‘hostage’ story to the media.
Followed closely by a pack of journalists, perma tanned Max Clifford, sporting his trademark wireframe spectacles and wearing an open-necked white linen shirt and chinos confronted a suddenly tanned Des Browne as he left Specsavers, sporting new designer wireframe spectacles and wearing chinos and an open-necked white linen shirt.
The newly brown Browne’s efforts to avoid the press were foiled as he sought sanctuary, first in the local Primark (overrun due to false sale rumours), Topshop as Kate Moss was promoting her new line and then H&M as Madonna launched her new fashion range.
Accepting the inevitable, Browne agreed to discuss the events of the last two weeks.
Fortunately, a nearby cinema, showing a Guy Ritchie retrospective, provided a suitable venue, although the echo sometimes made it hard to hear clearly.
Browne insisted that he and his colleagues had done no wrong and were operating well within Government mandated boundaries.
“It is well known“, he added, “that Clifford regularly ignored accepted conventions in his dealings with the media, manufacturing stories and resisting full independent inspection of his self enrichment programme.”
Exclusive TV Deal for Former Captive
Clifford refuted all allegations and another made later that he was jealous of the MOD’s success in securing an exclusive TV appearance for one of the former captives.
Brown, addressing the recent ban on servicemen talking to the media, denied Clifford’s assertion that this was a pre-planned move to allow the reporting of only those items the Government deemed fit for their own political purposes.
Tehran Insists All Military Equipment Returned
Meanwhile, in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad added to the controversy by claiming that Iran had not only released their captives but also all their boats and equipment.
Claiming deceit on the part of the British, he stated that the equipment, delivered to Tehran Airport with the servicemen, had been lost by British Airways.
The claims, he says, are supported by lost luggage data recently released by the UK’s Air Transport Users Council and an extract from the current BA London Eye brochure.
Cuddly Toys
Continuing his PR offensive, Ahmadinejad produced more footage of the captors selecting items to augment their goody bags which had been donated by the benevolent Iranian people, adding that there had been some infighting amongst the hostages as an incredible memory lapse by two contestants resulted in the loss of their ‘cuddly toy’ gifts.
Davina McCall Permitted to Honour Advertising Contract
Displaying a tolerance unseen before in Iran, Ahmadinejad graciously allowed Davina McCall to meet the evictees, minus headscarf. This move, he stated, was both an acknowledgment of Western values and a generous gesture to Garnier whose Nutrisse hair-colouring product Mccall advertises.
He did, however refuse McCall’s other request to bring with her a representative sample of a Big Brother eviction audience on the grounds that they would strike mortal fear into the hearts of his otherwise unflappable Revolutionary Guard.
PM’s Personal Sacrifice, Cherie’s Grief
Back in Britain, PM Tony Blair was fêted by his party for the key role he played in repatriating the servicemen.
Having had similar negotiations (albeit on a smaller, more personal scale) Blair made painful sacrifices to ensure the safe and comfortable return of the famous fifteen to British soil.
The effects of these sacrifices on Blair’s family remain to be seen, but medical experts believe they may include deep vein thrombosis and cramps in the facial muscles as noses are turned up at economy-class food.
BA cabin attendants will in future be issued with protection to prevent inner-ear damage caused by dontyouknowwhoiam-itis and an anticipated, new, more dangerous condition, provisionally named dontyouknowwhomy-
husbandwas-itis..
Downgraded Businessmen Received ‘Gifts’ from British Airways
President Ahmadinejad has suggested that a group of businessmen, downgraded to economy to make room for the servicemen, had been compensated by BA and can now be seen regularly commuting to work on London’s Thames river in two inflatable boats.
Questions Remain
Now this so-called “storm in a teacup” has passed, what questions remain to be answered?
In whose teacup did the storm occur, Iran or Iraq’s?
What were foreign bodies doing, floating about in the teacup in the first place?
And, when others normally lose their personal belongings in a storm, how did those involved come out with more?
in Lilbittapolitix, Pix and Current Events.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Baghdad in the Midwest cornfields
What an outing to a market in Indiana would look like if a congressman's observations were correct.
By John KenneyJOHN KENNEY is a writer in Brooklyn, N.Y.
April 7, 2007
The delegation arrived at the market [in Baghdad], which is called Shorja, on Sunday with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees … and attack helicopters…. Sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests…. At a news conference shortly after their outing, Mr. McCain … and his three congressional colleagues described Shorja as a safe, bustling place full of hopeful and warmly welcoming Iraqis — "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime," offered Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican. — New York Times
---
MY WIFE came into the living room wearing a Kevlar vest, helmet and night-vision goggles.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Have you completely forgotten, silly head? We're going to the market."
I placed my hand at my head. I'd been so caught up in stitching a minor wound I'd received earlier in the day after going to an outdoor fruit stand that I had completely forgotten.
"I'm a dope, aren't I?" I said, chuckling, slowly shaking my head back and forth. She chuckled too, also shaking her head. We both chuckled. Then I winced from where a stitch popped.
Carol helped the boys get ready, putting on their sneakers and body armor. I phoned the Indiana National Guard so that they could radio the 434th Special Air Wing at Grissom Air Force Base, which in turn scrambled two F-14 Tomcats. Then we hopped in the wagon.
Carol and I moved to Muncie from Detroit. Frankly, we were tired of the noise, the dirt and the crime. Here, you feel so safe, as long as you move very quickly through the market, keep your head down and have appropriate air cover.
Carol handed each of the boys — 8 and 5, and a handful, let me tell you — a juice box, a Xanax and personalized Navy SEAL-issue GPS systems.
"Dad?" said Kevin, our 8-year-old, from the back seat.
"Yes, Kev," I said.
"Can we go to that cotton candy stand again?"
The F-14s flew by low. Each of us activated our earpieces and hand-held mini walkie-talkies, agreed on a frequency, and I slowed the car to 15 mph as Carol and the boys opened the doors and rolled out, taking cover under shrubbery near the Bibb lettuce stand (the boys love salad!).
So far, so good.
I hit the gas and spun the car and parked in a ditch that had once been a Tasty Donut before a tactical nuclear weapon had decimated it. Great parking space, though.
I saw my neighbor, Larry, under his car, from the looks of it a spanking-new Bradley fighting vehicle. "Snipers today," Larry said with a smile.
"Nice ride, Larry," I said as I dove under the car, a sniper's bullet exploding inches away from my foot. "Looks solid."
"The hull is constructed of welded aluminum and spaced laminate armor," he said, burying his head in the dirt as another round came in. "The Israelis use them. I had an Explorer, but it was blown to bits last time I went out for garbage bags."
"Roomy?"
"Ton of room. Carries three crew, commander, gunner and driver, plus six fully equipped infantrymen. Mileage is awful, but with all the space in the back, it's great for the market."
I borrowed his high-power binoculars to check on the family's progress.
Kevin and his little brother had successfully bought lettuce, fruit and homemade jams before a particularly well-placed rocket-propelled grenade destroyed the stand (the owner managed to avoid the hit and began rebuilding immediately, as weekends are, obviously, his busiest time).
Carol, I noticed, had found cover behind the wall of a largely destroyed warehouse. A sniper had a bead on the glint from her eyeglasses, which the afternoon sunshine had caught (Indiana is known for its beautiful summers).
Larry asked me to cover him, and he rolled out from under the BFV and hopped in. I activated heavy smoke bombs, and his car tore out of the field. I made it back to my car as Larry's choppers came in low over the market, taking heavy fire and destroying the sniper's den (about time, thank you very much) as well as a Toys R Us that was closed for renovation.
I could see the smoke in the rear-view mirror when Carol dove onto the hood, managing to hold onto the bundles (that woman never ceases to amaze me). I hit the brakes and she got in quickly.
"You put on face paint," I said, giving her a quick kiss.
"You wouldn't believe how crowded it was," she said, panting. "I saw Margie Hynes. Boy, has she put on weight."
A CBU-52B cluster bomb exploded to our left, and I hit the gas. We could see the boys ahead, waving flares in the dense smoke. I didn't stop the car completely. Kevin threw Chip in first, then jumped in himself.
Both immediately vomited from the smoke.
"You kids have fun?" Carol asked.
"Yeah!" said Chip.
"He was holding a loaf of bread and it got blown out of his hand!"
"It was so awesome, Mum."
We all laughed. Really hard. That's how shopping is in Indiana in the summer. It's just fun. It's fun and safe and hopeful and full of warm and welcoming Indianans and insurgents and snipers and bombs.
"Oh darn," Carol said.
"What is it, honey?"
"We forgot milk."
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Blunder: McCain Trip B Roll For "60 Minutes" Profile?
MediaWatch:TV
McCain: "The American People Are Not Getting the Full Picture Here"
John McCain has given exclusive rights to the video of his trip to CBS's 60 Minutes, Slogger has learned. Although the presidential candidate has provided interviews and a press conferences while in Baghdad, McCain is apparently saving the good stuff for this Sunday. 
ONE MONTH AGO:
The delegation has engendered a hostile and bitter reception from the foreign and U.S. media. The general tone of the U.S.-based coverage has been dismissive to insulted. Video tape of the press conference shows an incredulous and perhaps even insulted press corp. After visiting Tikrit and Ramadi, McCain met with press and came under intense scrutiny by Baghdad-based media. Sounding weary and tired McCain and his entourage tried to paint a picture of Baghdad being safer than "before". The charade could only last so long. The American military decided to cut off transmission of a press conference when it appeared that McCain's "good news" nemesis Michael Ware raised his hand to ask a question.
TWO MONTHS AGO:
)
,Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images
Shorja Market, February 13, 2007
ONE MONTH AGO:
)
Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Shorja Market, March 3, 2007
YESTERDAY:
Sorry, you will have to watch 60 Minutes) this Sunday.
It was clear to all assembled that the trip to Thieves Market in Shorja yesterday was a carefully orchestrated event by the U.S. military and Senator John McCain but many did not know it was specifically for CBS's 60 Minutes. Kirk Semple of the The New York Times went back a day later to discover that it was all a sham.
“They paralyzed the market when they came,” Mr. Faiyad said during an interview in his shop on Monday. “This was only for the media.”
Unlike the Utopian scene designed for the media, many of the merchants wanted to express their need for more security. As expected, the area the group visited was locked down, traffic diverted and access restricted. The NYTimes follow up correctly points out that the market has been bombed at least half a dozen times and residents do not feel the benefits of the surge.
"In recent weeks, snipers hidden in Shorja’s bazaar have killed several people, merchants and the police say, and gunfights have erupted between militants and the Iraqi security forces in the area."
The junket wore body armor and was surrounded by over 100 members of the armed forces. Sniper patrols bristled from surrounding rooftops, six helicopters flew overhead and the " diamond" instead of being 4 people was 30 deep. In a classic psyops move, the entrourage was told to take their helmets off and even General Petraeus put on a forage cap.
A very tired McCain stayed on message and other junket members were there to back him up. What the American public did not know is that McCain's primary purpose is to get location and interview footage for a 60 Minutes segment with Scott Pelley to be broadcast this Sunday.
Many reporters in Baghdad will admit that the surge is working...somewhat. There are fewer explosions, less shooting, but none have agreed with McCain's rosy assessment. Many like Ware, who were openly hostile to McCain's statements on CNN and other Baghdad based journos are writing scathing rebuttals to the Presidential candidate's optimistic viewpoint.
So whose version of Baghdad will win? The pessimistic cynical view of a hardened Baghdad press corps, or the "real picture" presented by John McCain to the American public on Sunday?
Monday, April 2, 2007
Snipers back at Baghdad market after McCain visit
Have you thought of the US soldiers who had to sweep out the market area yesterday, endangering their lives just so that sumbitch McCain could get a photo op?
---
Mon Apr 2, 2007 12:18PM EDT
By Mussab Al-Khairalla
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The crack of shots fired by unseen snipers echoed on Monday through Baghdad's wholesale Shorja market, a day after U.S. Senator John McCain held up his visit there as one sign of improving security in Baghdad.
The Republican presidential hopeful said his hour-long tour of the sprawling market, where 71 people were killed by a huge car bomb in February, would have been unthinkable before the seven-week-old U.S.-Iraqi crackdown in the capital.
Shoppers and merchants agreed on Monday that security had improved since the start of the operation, when the market was blocked off to prevent further such bombings, but took issue with what they considered an overly upbeat assessment by McCain.
Many still do not dare venture into the northern half of the long street, beyond a overhead pedestrian bridge, and enter what is dubbed "The sniper zone", where people are picked off by gunmen on nearby rooftops.
Merchants said the snipers, whom they claim came from the neighboring Sunni Fadhl neighborhood, killed at least one person a day on average.
Despite the sniper threat, shoppers and merchants seemed unfazed when several shots rang out, as a Reuters reporter was interviewing them.
"Who said there was security?" asked carpet salesman Abu Ammar, 55, who said he sold McCain a $60 Turkish rug.
"I told him there were snipers who were really harming us," he said, sitting behind his large office desk. "I told him the plan had improved security but Shorja still wasn't fully safe."
McCain, a strong backer of the Baghdad crackdown, was part of a congressional delegation that was heavily protected by U.S. soldiers and helicopters during its visit to Shorja on Sunday. They drove in armored vehicles and wore body armor.
Afterwards McCain told reporters: "The American people are not getting the picture of all that is happening here. Things are better ... but I am not saying mission accomplished."
GREATER SAFETY
On Monday, the market was filled with young men pushing goods on wooden carts and merchants buying wholesale products. Near the exotic animal section of the market, Firas Mohammed, 27, was buying clothes for his nearby store.
"I feel more confident coming here now because I see a lot of people are still shopping here, but I only shop in the areas outside the sniper zone," he said, carrying a large plastic bag.
Another shopper, Najah Abdullah, said he had never been deterred from buying goods at the market despite the violence.
"I do feel a lot safer since the security plan was enforced but it's a shame these steps weren't taken earlier," he said as he loaded boxes of chocolate on to his moped.
The Baghdad security plan, dubbed Operation Imposing Law, has succeeded in reducing the murder rate, although car bombs continue to plague the capital and violence has surged in areas outside the city untouched by the crackdown.
McCain, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination for 2008, said on Sunday he believed the new U.S. strategy in Iraq was making progress. He has been a vocal critic of President George W. Bush's handling of the war in the past.
Shorja market merchant Abu Samir, 31, said McCain bought an Egyptian rug from him and told him through an interpreter: "I want to run for president. And, don't worry, because I'll handle the war better than Bush."
(Additional reporting by Wathiq Ibrahim)
---
Mon Apr 2, 2007 12:18PM EDT
By Mussab Al-Khairalla
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The crack of shots fired by unseen snipers echoed on Monday through Baghdad's wholesale Shorja market, a day after U.S. Senator John McCain held up his visit there as one sign of improving security in Baghdad.
The Republican presidential hopeful said his hour-long tour of the sprawling market, where 71 people were killed by a huge car bomb in February, would have been unthinkable before the seven-week-old U.S.-Iraqi crackdown in the capital.
Shoppers and merchants agreed on Monday that security had improved since the start of the operation, when the market was blocked off to prevent further such bombings, but took issue with what they considered an overly upbeat assessment by McCain.
Many still do not dare venture into the northern half of the long street, beyond a overhead pedestrian bridge, and enter what is dubbed "The sniper zone", where people are picked off by gunmen on nearby rooftops.
Merchants said the snipers, whom they claim came from the neighboring Sunni Fadhl neighborhood, killed at least one person a day on average.
Despite the sniper threat, shoppers and merchants seemed unfazed when several shots rang out, as a Reuters reporter was interviewing them.
"Who said there was security?" asked carpet salesman Abu Ammar, 55, who said he sold McCain a $60 Turkish rug.
"I told him there were snipers who were really harming us," he said, sitting behind his large office desk. "I told him the plan had improved security but Shorja still wasn't fully safe."
McCain, a strong backer of the Baghdad crackdown, was part of a congressional delegation that was heavily protected by U.S. soldiers and helicopters during its visit to Shorja on Sunday. They drove in armored vehicles and wore body armor.
Afterwards McCain told reporters: "The American people are not getting the picture of all that is happening here. Things are better ... but I am not saying mission accomplished."
GREATER SAFETY
On Monday, the market was filled with young men pushing goods on wooden carts and merchants buying wholesale products. Near the exotic animal section of the market, Firas Mohammed, 27, was buying clothes for his nearby store.
"I feel more confident coming here now because I see a lot of people are still shopping here, but I only shop in the areas outside the sniper zone," he said, carrying a large plastic bag.
Another shopper, Najah Abdullah, said he had never been deterred from buying goods at the market despite the violence.
"I do feel a lot safer since the security plan was enforced but it's a shame these steps weren't taken earlier," he said as he loaded boxes of chocolate on to his moped.
The Baghdad security plan, dubbed Operation Imposing Law, has succeeded in reducing the murder rate, although car bombs continue to plague the capital and violence has surged in areas outside the city untouched by the crackdown.
McCain, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination for 2008, said on Sunday he believed the new U.S. strategy in Iraq was making progress. He has been a vocal critic of President George W. Bush's handling of the war in the past.
Shorja market merchant Abu Samir, 31, said McCain bought an Egyptian rug from him and told him through an interpreter: "I want to run for president. And, don't worry, because I'll handle the war better than Bush."
(Additional reporting by Wathiq Ibrahim)
Israel Hires Maxim For National PR Campaign: Come See Our Tits!
Israel is number one in sex slavery. Coinkydink?
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Click on image to enlarge
Girls: Israel’s racy new PR strategy
Israel flirts with a racy new public-relations strategy.
By Kevin Peraino
Newsweek
April 9, 2007 issue - Jim Malucci has two tattoos, one on each bulging bicep. On the left one, the photographer for Maxim magazine has etched an image of a seductively dressed pinup; on the right, he has stenciled the words GO WITH GOD in Portuguese. He leans on his left arm and points his camera at a model in a bikini on the Tel Aviv beachfront. "That's hot, that's wicked," says Malucci, as the model shifts her hips and parts her lips. "I wanna see the curves. That's it, honey. On your knees, legs apart. Nice arch in your back—boom!" The flash flickers as the sun drops toward the Mediterranean. A Hassidic man in a black hat accidentally steps into the frame. "Love the guy with the hat!" Malucci says, chortling.
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Click on image to enlargeGirls: Israel’s racy new PR strategy
Israel flirts with a racy new public-relations strategy.
By Kevin Peraino
Newsweek
April 9, 2007 issue - Jim Malucci has two tattoos, one on each bulging bicep. On the left one, the photographer for Maxim magazine has etched an image of a seductively dressed pinup; on the right, he has stenciled the words GO WITH GOD in Portuguese. He leans on his left arm and points his camera at a model in a bikini on the Tel Aviv beachfront. "That's hot, that's wicked," says Malucci, as the model shifts her hips and parts her lips. "I wanna see the curves. That's it, honey. On your knees, legs apart. Nice arch in your back—boom!" The flash flickers as the sun drops toward the Mediterranean. A Hassidic man in a black hat accidentally steps into the frame. "Love the guy with the hat!" Malucci says, chortling.
Taking in the scene, David Saranga can't help but grin. The Israeli consular official based in New York approached Maxim six months ago. His proposal: the government and other pro-Israeli groups would fly a camera crew across the Atlantic in an effort to remake the Jewish state's public image. Israel's reputation had suffered after last summer's war with Lebanon; in a recent BBC poll taken in 27 countries, 56 percent of respondents considered Israel a "negative influence" in the world, higher than both Iran and the United States. But Israel's real PR problem, according to Saranga, is that Americans—particularly men aged 18 to 35—either associate the country with war or holy relics, or don't think of it at all. "We have to find the right hook," he says. "And what's relevant to men under 35? Good-looking women."
Saranga's effort is the latest volley in a long-running battle over how to sell Israel to the world. Tourism is a nearly $2 billion-a-year industry in Israel, and the art of public relations is something of a national obsession. In Hebrew it's called hasbarah, which means "explaining." For a country that's always craved international acceptance, hasbarah was "the first growth industry of Israel," the American author Richard Ben Cramer wrote. "We almost have a psychological disorder when it comes to public image," adds Eytan Schwartz, the first winner of Israel's top-rated reality TV show, "The Ambassador." Schwartz's prize is proof of that: the winner of "The Ambassador" gets to become a public-relations flack.
Still, by definition, hasbarah is open to interpretation. One of the central dilemmas is which aspects of Israel's wildly diverse society to emphasize. Israelis disagree about which is more likely to appeal to Americans—Tel Aviv's freewheeling, secular charms, or Jerusalem's holy sites. Settler leader Benny Elon, a former tourism minister, says he considers ads touting Israel's beaches a waste of money. For Elon, it isn't only a cultural issue; it's also bad business. Tourists in search of sunshine will always favor the French Riviera or the Caribbean. Israel's "unique selling proposition" is its religious heritage, says Elon. "It's the only state where you can take the Bible as your tourism guide." A recent study by the consulting firm Ernst & Young recommends that the Jewish state target American evangelical Christian tourists—one of Elon's pet projects.
Yet trying too hard to lure Christian tourists could end up alienating secular liberals. "Benny Elon is just dead wrong," says Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, author of "The Case for Israel." "It puts Israel in the camp of arch-conservative people." Already, a recent study by the New York marketing firm Wunderman has concluded that Israel's "brand" is perceived similarly to those of Philip Morris and the NRA. Ultimately evangelicals' support for Israeli tourism will evaporate, says Dershowitz; Christians will eventually become "disappointed" with the Jewish state as their interests diverge. But even Dershowitz thinks the idea of paying to fly a magazine crew across the Atlantic is a little over the top: "Completely not the way to go. I can see models anywhere."
Saranga insists his campaign is just smart niche marketing. "You have to match the message to the audience," the diplomat says. And his supporters argue that the Jewish state's diversity is one of its strongest selling points. Ultimately, says Dershowitz, "Israel is both countries ... a country where models pose at great holy sites." The tattoos on shooter Jim Malucci's biceps make the balance look easy to find. But marketing budgets are finite, and cultural rifts aren't so easily bridged. The reality of Israel is often having to choose: go with the girl, or go with God.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
War with Iran will destroy U.S. and the world
The Herald-Dispatch
OPINION
Peter Chamberlin
March 29, 2007
The neocon plan for world domination goes on. Even without former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and all the other key players, the violent plan to remake the Middle East in our image is now shifting into a higher gear. If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of a clock counting down. Bush is running out of time.
The majority of the American people think that the war in Iraq has been a series of "mistakes" that have destabilized the region and have given Iran a big boost. People such as Dick Cheney insist that all is going swimmingly. They deny that anyone can stop them from doing whatever they please; the will of the American people does not matter. The war will expand into Iran, regardless of the will of the people.
There are now so many lit fuses leading into Iran that an explosive confrontation in the very near future is almost certain. The crisis of the British sailors held -- in retaliation for the U.S. grabbing an Iranian general and arresting diplomats -- will be resolved in days, according to Tony Blair. American/Israeli-sponsored Sunni terrorist groups, operating out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan (Kurdish PPK, Saddam's MEK and Pakistani Balochs) have been staging bomb attacks in Iranian cities with significant civilian casualties.
UN sanctions against Iran might carry military penalties. Israeli reports dwell on the need to destroy Iranian reactors before they are fueled. Congress caved to the Israeli-American lobby and dropped efforts to block new unauthorized wars.
While Congress and the American people are distracted by the sleight of hand that the mainstream media calls "the surge," the real surge is set to take place in the Persian Gulf.
European sources report high-level governmental leaks that the war with Iran is set to commence in April. Middle Eastern sources report the same. Whenever it begins, the entire world will fall apart when it does, as the Middle East goes up in flames and the global economy is destroyed by $100-per-barrel oil.
Supporters of immediate military action to disarm Iran and to overthrow the mullahs have fully bought into the incendiary propaganda onslaught from the mainstream media.
They believe that Iran (like Iraq before it) really represents a credible threat to the U.S. They accept the idea of America fighting Israel's wars for it. Their blind loyalty causes them to strike out at anyone who dares to challenge the president's bloody losing strategy in the war. They want us to follow Bush, no matter what, even if he leads us over a cliff. They equate loyalty to a counterfeit hero, to patriotism.
Patriots would not allow any leader to destroy our democratic constitutional republic.
If the lost president cannot be reeled in by the American people or by his own dad, he will destroy everything that he has claimed to champion.
If either Israel or the United States is allowed to bomb Iran, then the little war that we call Iraq will be seen as the long-running "firefight" that it really is (not a real war between two military powers).
At that time, the political divisions that keep us Americans at each others' throats today will fall away as democracy falls to martial law, and freedom dies at our own hand.
Click here to add your view to this story
Copyright © 2005 The Herald-Dispatch
OPINION
Peter Chamberlin
March 29, 2007
The neocon plan for world domination goes on. Even without former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and all the other key players, the violent plan to remake the Middle East in our image is now shifting into a higher gear. If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of a clock counting down. Bush is running out of time.
The majority of the American people think that the war in Iraq has been a series of "mistakes" that have destabilized the region and have given Iran a big boost. People such as Dick Cheney insist that all is going swimmingly. They deny that anyone can stop them from doing whatever they please; the will of the American people does not matter. The war will expand into Iran, regardless of the will of the people.
There are now so many lit fuses leading into Iran that an explosive confrontation in the very near future is almost certain. The crisis of the British sailors held -- in retaliation for the U.S. grabbing an Iranian general and arresting diplomats -- will be resolved in days, according to Tony Blair. American/Israeli-sponsored Sunni terrorist groups, operating out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan (Kurdish PPK, Saddam's MEK and Pakistani Balochs) have been staging bomb attacks in Iranian cities with significant civilian casualties.
UN sanctions against Iran might carry military penalties. Israeli reports dwell on the need to destroy Iranian reactors before they are fueled. Congress caved to the Israeli-American lobby and dropped efforts to block new unauthorized wars.
While Congress and the American people are distracted by the sleight of hand that the mainstream media calls "the surge," the real surge is set to take place in the Persian Gulf.
European sources report high-level governmental leaks that the war with Iran is set to commence in April. Middle Eastern sources report the same. Whenever it begins, the entire world will fall apart when it does, as the Middle East goes up in flames and the global economy is destroyed by $100-per-barrel oil.
Supporters of immediate military action to disarm Iran and to overthrow the mullahs have fully bought into the incendiary propaganda onslaught from the mainstream media.
They believe that Iran (like Iraq before it) really represents a credible threat to the U.S. They accept the idea of America fighting Israel's wars for it. Their blind loyalty causes them to strike out at anyone who dares to challenge the president's bloody losing strategy in the war. They want us to follow Bush, no matter what, even if he leads us over a cliff. They equate loyalty to a counterfeit hero, to patriotism.
Patriots would not allow any leader to destroy our democratic constitutional republic.
If the lost president cannot be reeled in by the American people or by his own dad, he will destroy everything that he has claimed to champion.
If either Israel or the United States is allowed to bomb Iran, then the little war that we call Iraq will be seen as the long-running "firefight" that it really is (not a real war between two military powers).
At that time, the political divisions that keep us Americans at each others' throats today will fall away as democracy falls to martial law, and freedom dies at our own hand.
Click here to add your view to this story
Copyright © 2005 The Herald-Dispatch
Monday, March 26, 2007
Bush Reorients Rhetoric,Acknowledges Income Gap
By GREG IP and JOHN D. MCKINNON
March 26, 2007; Page A2
WASHINGTON -- Until January, President Bush seldom acknowledged the widening gap between the rich and the middle class. Then, in a speech, he declared: "I know some of our citizens worry about the fact that our dynamic economy is leaving working people behind. ...Income inequality is real." He has raised the subject several times since.
This isn't a sudden change in Mr. Bush's economic philosophy, but rather a change in tactics forced by the changing political environment, say current and former administration officials and outsiders in touch with the White House.
Top White House economic officials still don't consider today's inequality -- the growing share of income going to those at the top -- an inherently bad thing; they believe it simply reflects the rising rewards accruing to society's most skilled and productive members. Nor do they see merit in various Democratic proposals to reduce inequality, such as ending Mr. Bush's tax cuts on the highest-earners, raising the minimum wage, making it easier to form unions and including labor standards in trade agreements.
But Democrats' takeover of Congress makes avoiding the issue difficult, particularly if the president is to win congressional backing for free-trade pacts and for extending his authority to negotiate new ones.
Pushed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who raised the inequality issue in his first big speech after taking office, the administration is reorienting its rhetoric. Treasury has framed Mr. Bush's health-care proposal as a form of income redistribution, because it caps the tax break for employer-provided health insurance for more affluent workers in order to finance tax breaks for individuals who buy it on their own.
In his January speech, Mr. Bush cited several education initiatives he thinks are particularly important in addressing inequality -- making schools more accountable for their performance; improving math and science education; and making it easier for lower-income students to afford college.
To offset globalization's impact, the administration is pondering improvements in Trade Adjustment Assistance, a federal program to aid workers hurt by trade. That program is up for renewal this year.
But the administration hasn't yet offered any sweeping proposals to resist the market forces producing inequality -- and probably won't. Indeed, skeptics say the administration will address inequality only as much as needed to win votes in Congress, where the widespread public belief that globalization benefits only a small share of Americans has become an obstacle to Bush-backed efforts to liberalize trade and foreign investment.
The election wasn't "a wake-up call" in which the White House discovered " 'people are worried about wages and we have to get on board,' " says Howard Rosen of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who has a longstanding interest in programs to aid dislocated workers. Rather, he says, the White House realized: " 'We have a new Congress, and it will be harder to get our agenda through.' "
Top administration officials, however, play down the election result as a factor in their new rhetoric.
Income inequality by most measures has been growing since the 1970s, and is one reason the typical worker's pay has grown only 0.3%, adjusted for inflation, since the expansion began at the end of 2001 while the economy has grown 16%. The share of total income going to the richest 1% of Americans rose to a postwar record of 17.4% in 2005, according to economist Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley. And the premium employers paid to hire the most-educated workers has grown.
Until recently, talking about inequality was considered almost taboo among administration officials. Even raising the issue was seen as handing Democrats an advantage. When Bush advisers discussed inequality, it was often to play down negative connotations.
'The term 'income inequality' is a bit misleading because it suggests in a somewhat pejorative way that the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor," Edward Lazear, a Stanford University labor economist who is now chairman of Mr. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, said last May. While it's a concern that some people are being left behind, he said, "There is some good news...most of the inequality reflects an increase in returns to 'investing in skills.'"
Mr. Lazear has nurtured his relationship with Mr. Bush. His office is decorated with photos of the two mountain biking. When he gave Mr. Bush a copy of the Economic Report of the President this year, Mr. Bush gave him a bear hug and kissed the top of his bald head, according to people who were present.
Some economists question Mr. Lazear's assertion that, for instance, raising taxes on higher-wage earners will reduce individuals' incentive to acquire new skills. Lawrence Katz, a Harvard University labor economist who served in the Clinton Labor Department, says there's "not a shred of evidence" lower taxes boost educational attainment. "That's first-order goofball."
Even before Republicans' November defeat at the polls, some administration allies were warning that economic insecurity was eroding Republican support. A business coalition hired pollster David Winston to figure out why voters remained so dissatisfied with the economy. His focus groups of middle-income voters in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh found voters going deeper into debt to keep up with rising costs of health care and energy. Executive compensation "is getting to the point where it's obscene," said one focus-group participant.
The more politicians talked about how good the economy was, the worse these voters felt. "It's almost as if these folks are floating around in the ocean, watching the yachts and speedboats go by, thinking, 'Hey, I'm here, someone notice me,'" says Dirk Van Dongen, a co-chairman of the coalition and president of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors. Mr. Winston advised Republicans: "Our message should be that while the economy is getting back on track, we need to do more to help people with the cost of living."
But Republican strategists largely ignored the findings. Led by Karl Rove, they wanted to avoid blunting one of their few advantages in the 2006 campaign -- the economy's broad strength. One adviser adds that Iraq would have overshadowed any new economic proposals. Mr. Rove notes the president did talk about health care, college and other pocketbook issues during the campaign.
Over the past several months, debate inside the administration has shifted some. When he ran Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Mr. Paulson had invited former Clinton aides Gene Sperling and Princeton University labor economist Alan Krueger to brief him on the impact of globalization on wages and inequality. At a staff meeting soon after taking the Treasury post in July, he expressed puzzlement about the administration's opposition to raising the minimum wage, a person familiar with the meeting says. He has dispatched Undersecretary Robert Steel, another Goldman alumnus, to scout for ideas to boost the lower middle class.
Other officials -- including White House international-economics aide David McCormick and Matthew Slaughter, until recently a member of Mr. Lazear's council -- argued internally that addressing inequality was needed to damp protectionist sentiment fueled by voters who believe they are hurt, not helped, by globalization, insiders say.
Mr. Bush's acknowledgment that inequality is widening and the renewed focus on health care and revamping aid to dislocated workers suggest the administration appreciates the issue's political potency. "Voters' perceptions of economic health are very different than they used to be," said Mark McKinnon, Mr. Bush's former media adviser and now an adviser to Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican seeking to succeed Mr. Bush. "The old indicators that we reliably counted on -- unemployment, the stock market -- don't seem to matter much anymore. And other things do -- health care and pensions."
Adds former Treasury Secretary John Snow, now chairman of private-equity buyout firm Cerberus Capital Management: "The Democrats sense they have an issue here and are going to try to push it, and the Republicans are going to have to have an answer."
Write to Greg Ip at greg.ip@wsj.com and John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com
Mass Media: Propaganda Masquerades as News
Jo Swift
26 March 2007 It's not only the right-wing media
US-UK policy in the Middle East
26 March 2007
It's not only the right-wing media
who are the government's propagandists
The liberal media also run
the hate campaign against Iran
They are part of an establishment
that benefits from war-mongering,
militarism and the demonisation of enemies
US-UK policy in the Middle East
is driven by Western corporations’ desire
to control oil resources on their terms
That means mass violence, intimidation,
and punishment of ‘rogue states’
defying western imperial control
There are also huge profits
to be made from waging perpetual war
America has one strategic interest
in the Middle East: oil
Everything else is gravy, sentiment, or rhetoric
The US-UK governments and media have quickly managed to transform another defenceless Third World country into another apparently looming threat.
It is only five years since the media were rejecting the idea that Iran was a credible part of an “axis of evil”, emphasising its vibrant, modernising culture and increasingly close ties to Europe.
This was before the US-UK establishment needed a scapegoat to blame for the catastrophe in Iraq, and before it needed a new threat to maintain domestic discipline through fear in the standard manner.
Iran is now being presented as a sinister, irresponsible menace determined to wipe Israel off the map - a threat that must be countered. This propaganda closely matches the campaign against Iran: for Saddam Hussein read President Ahmadinejad.
For Iraqi links to al Qaida read Iranian links to Shia terrorists. For Saddam’s ’intent’ to develop weapons of mass destruction read Iran’s ‘intent’ to develop nuclear weapons. For the Iraqi Republican Guard read Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
It's not only the right-wing media who are the front men for government policy. The liberal media are fully participating in the hate campaign against Iran.
The media are part of an establishment that benefits from war-mongering, militarism and the demonisation of enemies.
US-UK policy in the Middle East is driven by Western corporations’ desire to control oil resources on their terms. That means mass violence, intimidation, punishment of ‘rogue states’ defying US-UK control, and so on.
There are also huge profits to be made from waging perpetual war. As has been observed the similarity between a factory manufacturing nappies and one manufacturing cruise missiles is that the manufacturer goes out of business if the product isn’t used.
In his first few months in office, Bush appointed 32 former arms company executives, board members and major shareholders to key policymaking positions in his administration.
So that’s a factor - war is good for a very powerful section of the business community whose influence is deeply entrenched in the political system.
It’s usually not that the corporate media consciously conspire to support this system.
Rather, ‘respectable’ comes to be defined as opinion which defers to the establishment’s “necessary illusions“.
To challenge those illusions is to be ‘irresponsible’, ridiculed, reviled as ’unpatriotic’.
Dissidents are deprived of political and financial support, and generally marginalised. What is left is what we read, watch and hear as mainstream output.
Is it really that significant what the journalists say? Surely people can make their own minds up?
Yes, it is very, very significant what journalists say. In many people’s minds now - despite the parallels with the lies over Iraq - there is surely a sense that maybe Iran does represent a threat and that something really does need to be done.
Maybe Iran would give the bomb to al Qaeda. Can we afford to take the risk? Maybe Iran would attack Israel with a nuclear weapon, if it got half a chance. The novelist and media commentator Martin Amis said on a leading BBC TV political review last October:
"Iran is our natural enemy.”
Amis went so far as to claim that Iran would be willing to pay the price of nuclear retaliation in order to annihilate Israel:
“They feel they can absorb this hit and destroy Israel.”
These are really extraordinary claims - more extreme even than most claims made against Iraq 2002-2003 - and of course they have an effect on people‘s perceptions.
This propaganda is crucial because it means the groundwork is being laid for a military attack.
If and when that attack comes, the public may well not be as outraged and opposed as they ought to be. Their response may be one of shock and concern, but they may feel it was in some sense necessary.
This means the kind of public horror and revulsion that could lead to genuine rejection of killers like Blair, Straw, Bush and co, and a genuine demand for real alternatives (ie not Brown and Cameron), will once again have been pacified and neutralised, and the killing will continue into the future as it always has in the past.
All it needs is for a critical mass of journalists to “normalise the unthinkable” to use Edward Herman’s phrase - to create a sufficient level of fear, doubt and deference to those proclaiming the urgent need for mass violence. Herman has written:
“There are almost no holds barred, and almost nothing in the way of subversion and military attack that the mainstream media won’t normalize.
"After all we are WE, the good and necessary policeman in service to global interests.”
When we take a step back from the propaganda we can see that this constant emphasis on mass violence as the solution of choice to the world’s problems is really strange.
Why in the 21st century, with all our wealth, sophisticated communisations, technology and interconnected economies, would we believe that employing essentially medieval methods such as firing cruise missiles and dropping bombs is the best or only way to solve these problems?
It really is a form of feigned social insanity in our view.
What would a more honest media be telling us about Iran?
That Iran offers no threat to a West bristling with doomsday nuclear weapons.
That any Iranian use of nuclear weapons would result in instant national annihilation - it would be history’s first known act of national suicide.
That Iran is of course completely aware of this, as was Saddam Hussein (one reason why the latter did not deploy his biological and chemical weapons during the 1991 Gulf War).
That high-tech surveillance equipment can detect any attempts to manufacture the components required to produce weapons of mass destruction.
That, motivated by greed for oil, Britain and America organised a military coup in Iran in 1952 which toppled the democratically elected government of Mussadiq.
That the same Western powers then sent hundreds of tanks and thousands of guns to prop up the terroristic dictatorship of the Shah.
The United States has one strategic interest in the Middle East: oil. Everything else is gravy, sentiment, or rhetoric. David Edwards & David Cromwell @ UK Indymedia
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Beware the Ides of March
William Bowles • Sunday, 25 March, 2007
“Inspired” “Engineered” “Involvement” “Intelligence” “Circumstantial” “Link” — The BBC hedging its bets on alleged Iranian involvement in the ‘insurgency’ in Iraq
“There is intelligence about this [Iranian involvement], but no hard proof” BBC 6pm News, 23/3/07
Well we all know what ‘intelligence’ means but this didn’t stop the same ‘news’ broadcast leading with the misleading statement of “Iranian involvement in the insurgency”, quoting a British army officer in Basra. It went even further—but again without offering a shred of proof—that the Iranians were up to their necks in the ‘insurgency’ in Basra.
“‘Iran link’ to violence in Basra”, BBC News Website 7 March, 2007
The story leads with
“Most of the violence against UK forces in Basra is being engineered by Iranian elements, a British Army colonel based in the southern Iraqi city says.”
The story goes on to quote a certain Col Justin Masherevski who told the BBC that
“local information” indicated that “the vast majority of the violence against us is inspired from outside Iraq”.
“Inspired”? “Engineered”? “Involvement?” “Intelligence”? “Circumstantial”? “Link?”? But not one iota of actual proof. What does this mean? By any definition inspired is a loaded word, for it could apply to almost anything, including the fact that the American Constitution could have been an inspiration. Unless one carefully notes the choice of words, the impression is that the violence in Iraq has an external source (not the occupation mark you!).
But this is how sophisticated propaganda works, utilising words and phrases that are both emotive and yet vague enough not to be an outright lie. Thus Col. Masherevski’s use of the word “inspired” avoids being directly challenged, let the BBC take any heat instead as we learn that rather than being an “inspiration”, the violence is due to “Iranian involvement” and of “engineering” the violence.
What’s it to be BBC, it is after all, the most respected ‘news’ organisation on the planet? Write your letters of protest for sure, but be assured that you’ll get the usual anodyne response that says nothing of import, let alone an acknowledgement of spreading fear and loathing of all things Iranian.
“All the circumstantial evidence points to Iranian involvement in the violence here in Basra which is disrupting the city to a great extent.”
“The people here very much believe that is [sic] Iran,” [Col Justin Masherevski] said.”
Now what people believe is neither here nor there, let alone the basis for a ‘news’ story and as to the “circumstantial evidence”, well what is it based on? Nothing other than the assertion that Iraqis are incapable of building sophisticated weapons thus they must be getting ‘outside help’. Oh, and a photo of an RPG and some scraps left over after weapons have exploded. It’s all pure supposition and supposition based upon unnamed US government sources.
 |
It’s a pity that the BBC didn’t bother to research the story for if that had been done they would have learnt that a workshop making these “sophisticated devices” was discovered very recently in Baghdad.
“Michael Knights, chief of analysis for the Olive Group, a private security consulting firm, presented evidence in Jane’s Intelligence Review that Iraqi Shiites have manufactured both the components for EFPs [explosively formed penetrators] and the complete EFPs.” Media Lens
I often wonder what goes on in the editorial offices of the BBC. How does the ‘instruction’ get delivered by the Editor to his minions, for clearly there won’t be an explicit instruction but if there were it might read something like ‘Iraq is an absolute fucking disaster so let’s make it appear to be all Iran’s fault’, but the end product is the same.
One imagines the daily editorial meeting sitting and ‘deciding’ that this week Iraq is ‘news’ as is Iran, time to haul out those well paid journos ‘embedded’ with British troops in southern Iraq, so we’ve had long, daily reports with BBC reporters positively gushing over the weapons being used against the Iraqi people.
For the past two weeks not only the BBC but also Channel 4 and ITV news programmes have been carrying endless accounts on ‘our boys over there’ and how difficult their job is in ‘reconstructing Iraq’.
And inbetween the relentless propaganda on the good job ‘our boys’ are doing in Iraq, we’ve had the relentless propaganda campaign building against Iran, softening us up for the ‘coming war’.
And as a Medialens piece reveals, the ‘coming war’ has its inevitable cheerleaders, urging on the imperium to take out the “mad Mullahs of Iran.”
“Now the mad mullahs of Iran will soon have nuclear bombs, are we all doomed?… Do something, someone! But what and who?” (Polly Toynbee, ‘No more fantasy diplomacy: cut a deal with the mullahs,’ The Guardian, February 7, 2006)
How about a selfless gesture for the Empire Polly? Perhaps a suicide mission to Tehran as you’re so gung ho on the idea of “do[ing] something”? What is really scary about people like Polly Toynbee is firstly that they get such prime coverage in the media and secondly, that her hysterical rantings reveal the fundamental racism that pervades virtually all coverage of anywhere west of Bucharest (or thereabouts). Would Ms Toynbee consider that the ‘mad managers of US capitalism’ development of so-called tactical nuclear weapons or their stated threat of actually using them is doom-laden? Do something Polly, anything!
So perhaps the alleged intrusion of 15 British navy personnel into Iranian territory is the first step in “doing something” and isn’t the timing is just ‘perfect’ coming as it did just before the UNSEC meeting on sanctions? After all, the evidence (and we’re not talking here about what people think) points to a collusion between the British and US governments prior to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq and the need for some kind of provocation as both governments knew that Iraq didn’t possess any WMD.
“[T]he president is cited as saying he is concerned that there may not be weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, and that there must be some consideration given to finding a different basis for undertaking the action.… I’ll just read you what this memo allegedly says, according to the New York Times: ‘The memo states that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation.” — ‘Ex-national security adviser warns that Bush is seeking a pretext to attack Iran’, By Barry Grey, 2 February 2007. World Socialist WebSite
“The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach” — ‘The White House memo’ By Gary Gibbon, 02/02/06, Channel 4 News
Can anyone with an ounce of good sense deny the clearly provocative nature of mainstream media coverage of the situation? And although it’s pissing in the wind, the BBC and other mainstream media outlets still need to be called to task for their central role in whipping up war hysteria around the ‘mad Mullahs’.
THE CHENEYBUSH WAR POLICY: CONNECTING THE DOTS
Mar 23, 2007
By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
The CheneyBush War Policy is becoming curiouser and curiouser. "Things are getting better in Iraq," they say, when they are clearly getting worse. "We must fight on to 'victory' " they say, without ever defining what they mean by "victory." A leading member of the Privatized Ministry of Propaganda, Sean Hannity is particularly fond of this one. Of course, virtually all military authorities other than those in the CheneyBush hip pocket for one reason or another say that no matter how you define it, "victory" is impossible. Virtually all political authorities (which given their track records excludes any pro-war Republicans, neocons, or other Rightists, who cannot be characterized as “authorities” on the Iraq matter) agree. CheneyBush and their surrogates in the Congress and the Privatized Ministry of Propaganda label any critics of their policies as traitors. Yes, "aiding and abetting the enemy" is one of the components of "treason." Some such surrogates, like Mark Levin, an attorney and President of the far-Right Wing Landmark Legal Foundation, who has a talk show on New York City’s WABC-AM (Disney Corp.) radio call liberal opponents of the Georgites “cockroaches, who need to be squashed underfoot.”
But the reality of Iraq is for most observers such that, traitors, cockroaches, left-wing, right-wing (like Paul Craig Roberts) or no, they have come to the conclusion that the Georgites and their followers are in la-la land, that they are totally delusional, that they are getting wrong intelligence, that they are Green Zone-centric, that when they talk about “achieving victory” they cannot actually believe what they are saying. Well, there is another possible explanation: things in Iraq are going exactly the way the Georgites planned them to go. I have written about this possibility before, briefly, and am revisiting the topic here in a bit more detail. Since no other explanation for their behavior and their policy makes any possible sense, by a process of elimination, it seems to me, there is only one left: what’s happening in Iraq is exactly what they have planned for all along. Let's connect the dots.
As is very well known, they lied the U.S. into war. There were no WMD and they knew it. Hans Blix was inspecting the heck out of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and finding no evidence of WMD. He was sharing his findings with the US and asked the US to share any contradictory intelligence that they had with him. No, niente, nada.
There was no Hussein/al-Qaeda link, and they knew it. The famous "Prague meeting" between representatives of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden might well have taken place. However, if it did, it is most likely that Hussein's man told bin Laden's man "no" very firmly (and likely in not quite so polite language). For a variety of reasons, ranging from Hussein's secularism to his strong desire not to give the Georgites any excuse for real to invade his country that they eventually made up, Hussein would have rejected any bin Laden overtures.
There was no post-war planning, as is also well known. The U.S. State Department had a very detailed plan for Iraqi re-construction. All 2,200 pages of it were just ignored. There is the much-traveled story that Rumsfeld threatened to fire anyone on his staff who even talked about post-war planning.
The museums looting that could easily have been prevented could have been part of a plan (well a different kind of plan) to develop permanent chaos: delete to the extent possible 5000 years of history which gave at least parts of Iraq an historical identity. A purposeful enterprise to destroy the civil infrastructure to the extent possible would explain the staffing of Bremer's pro-consulate by totally unqualified, very young, Republican political operatives. Maybe it was indeed not accidental or careless, but rather “let's do whatever we can to gum up the infrastructure even further than it is already gummed up by Saddam and our invasion.”
There have been numerous missed opportunities for declaring victory and leaving, from the holding of elections, to the forming of a government, to the swearing in of the Parliament. All opportunities were ignored.
The Iraq Study Group Report provided a perfect cover for withdrawal to begin now. CheneyBush attempted to dispose of it before the ink was dry. Bush famously did not ask one question during the 45 minutes (!) that he met with the Group, although when he went on to his next meeting, with military commanders at the Pentagon, he was full of questions, about the details of military strategy and tactics for Iraq.
Most of us on the Left thought the true goals of the invasion were oil and bases. If that were true, they were achieved, as confirmed last month with the news that the Iraqi cabinet has come to an agreement over the distribution of oil exploration and operational rights and revenues, which will most likely be approved by the Parliament. And Bush is escalating. (It happens that since the original version of this column was written; see below, parts of the ISG Report are making a comeback. For comments on that occurrence, see next week’s TPJ column.)
At various times, the major Muslim countries have offered to provide cover for an American departure, especially if it were attached to a real settlement of the Palestine/Israel problem. They were not taken up on those offers.
Then comes the bombshell report by Seymour Hersh in the Feb. 28, 2007 issue of The New Yorker. As summarized by our European Editor, Michael Carmichael, on The Planetary Movement (Blog) of March 4, 2007:
“The New Yorker’s ace investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, ha[s] done it again with his latest earth-shattering exposé. Hersh revealed Dick Cheney and his henchmen had deliberately set about inciting chain reactions of sectarian violence and civil wars across the Middle East via a massive covert operation disguised as a shift of geopolitical strategy. . . . Now, instead of launching a war against Iran, Cheney with Bush’s complicity, has pulled the trigger on a covert war of global proportions pitting Sunnis against Shias.
“According to Hersh, Cheney’s covert plan involves massive US financial backing for militant Sunni groups that are known to be inimical to the Shia militias of the Badr Brigades, the Mahdi Army, Hamas, and Hezbollah, all of whom support the revolutionary government of Iran. The US-backed Sunnis include the Muslim Brotherhood, a vast and powerful multinational organization, who are definitely on friendly terms with Al-Qaeda and its allies, including the Taliban. . . . Hersh reveals presidential involvement in the massive covert operation to ignite a religious war in the Middle East . . . [I]nstead of rebuilding the damaged cities and broken infrastructure of Iraq, the mega-billions in US cash are now being subverted to the bank accounts of radical Sunni groups known to be in league with Al Qaeda and their patrons – the Taliban.
“Hersh quotes well-known regional authorities who are confidently predicting a US and Israel-backed confrontation between Shia and Sunni forces. The covert American-Israeli plan to expand the Iraq Civil War to engulf the entire region in a blazing arc of atrocities and ultra-violence that will extend from Lebanon to Afghanistan is the brainchild of the neoconservative cell remaining in power in the Bush White House.”
Sure sounds like a recipe for Permanent War, don’t it?
And finally there is the constant sabre-rattling on Iran. As my readers already know, I think that the "Iran thing" is all about sabre-rattling and scaring the American people and nothing else. I do not think that CheneyBush are about to invade and/or bomb. They have very limited military resources, and as noted in The Sunday Times of London (a Murdoch [!] newspaper) of February 25, 2007, might even face a revolt of the generals over it. The "evidence of Iranian intervention in Iraq" consists primarily of some very sophisticated roadside bombs. They might be supplied by the Iranian military with full government knowledge. On the other hand, they might be forgeries. Or they might be stolen from Iranian munitions dumps and then sold on the black market. But even for CheneyBush, it is hardly likely (never say never when dealing with these guys) that they would/could use them for a justification for carpet bombing Iran, perhaps with nuclear weapons. Both options would go down very well with O'RHannibaugh and their most brain-washed acolytes, but with nobody else in the world. However, CheneyBush are saber-rattling, although Cheney does most of the rattling while Bush, Gates, and Snow say "nothing to worry about." Thus it would appear that all the Sturm und Drang is primarily for domestic political consumption.
And why do they want this? In brief, especially with a conveniently occurring terrorist attack in mid-October 2008, that is how, indeed the only way, they could achieve their ultimate goal: imposing theocratic fascism on the U.S. And just how would they do this, you might ask? As I have said before and will likely say again, by declaring a National Emergency following the “attack,” suspending the 2008 elections, putting the Congressional leadership into “protective custody, and, using Blackwater troops, a Christian militia and certain like-minded military units, and members of the very large Aryan Brotherhood currently occupying major space in US prisons, criminals true, but absolutely far-rightist, establishing martial law. Could it happen? Yes. Will it happen? Not necessarily. The chances of its happening will be significantly reduced if the restoration of Constitutional Democracy becomes Issue One for the election of 2008.
_________
Author’s note: This column is based in part on one published on BuzzFlash on Tue, 02/27/2007 http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/jonas/051
Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a TPJ contributing author. He is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) and author/co-author of over twenty-five books. Dr. Jonas is one of America's most perceptive Democratic political analysts.
Dr. Jonas has his own website for short pieces entitled “Dr. J.’s Short Shots, II” (http://drjsshortshots.wordpress.com/).
In his book The New Americanism, Dr. Jonas presents his proposal for that “new vision and mission” for the Democratic Party that so many, for so many years, have been urging it to find. A new vision and mission are obviously needed with increasing urgency as with increasing speed and determination the Georgites drive our nation towards frank theocratic fascism. Dr. Jonas finds the needed vision and mission in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. "The New Americanism: How the Democratic Party Can Win the Presidency is available from Amazon.com (go to "Books;" enter the full title) and BarnesandNoble.com (same).
He is also the author of The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022. Under the pseudonym "Jonathan Westminster" this book was originally published in 1996. It was republished with a New Introduction in 2004. Under Georgite rule, the “fictional non-fiction” scenario of this work of “future history” is, most unfortunately, becoming all too real, now almost day-by-day. Both versions are available at http://www.amazon.com/ and http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ (go to "Books;" enter the title). The 2004 edition is also available at http://www.xlibris.com/ (click on “Bookstore,” then “Search” with the title).
By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
The CheneyBush War Policy is becoming curiouser and curiouser. "Things are getting better in Iraq," they say, when they are clearly getting worse. "We must fight on to 'victory' " they say, without ever defining what they mean by "victory." A leading member of the Privatized Ministry of Propaganda, Sean Hannity is particularly fond of this one. Of course, virtually all military authorities other than those in the CheneyBush hip pocket for one reason or another say that no matter how you define it, "victory" is impossible. Virtually all political authorities (which given their track records excludes any pro-war Republicans, neocons, or other Rightists, who cannot be characterized as “authorities” on the Iraq matter) agree. CheneyBush and their surrogates in the Congress and the Privatized Ministry of Propaganda label any critics of their policies as traitors. Yes, "aiding and abetting the enemy" is one of the components of "treason." Some such surrogates, like Mark Levin, an attorney and President of the far-Right Wing Landmark Legal Foundation, who has a talk show on New York City’s WABC-AM (Disney Corp.) radio call liberal opponents of the Georgites “cockroaches, who need to be squashed underfoot.”
But the reality of Iraq is for most observers such that, traitors, cockroaches, left-wing, right-wing (like Paul Craig Roberts) or no, they have come to the conclusion that the Georgites and their followers are in la-la land, that they are totally delusional, that they are getting wrong intelligence, that they are Green Zone-centric, that when they talk about “achieving victory” they cannot actually believe what they are saying. Well, there is another possible explanation: things in Iraq are going exactly the way the Georgites planned them to go. I have written about this possibility before, briefly, and am revisiting the topic here in a bit more detail. Since no other explanation for their behavior and their policy makes any possible sense, by a process of elimination, it seems to me, there is only one left: what’s happening in Iraq is exactly what they have planned for all along. Let's connect the dots.
As is very well known, they lied the U.S. into war. There were no WMD and they knew it. Hans Blix was inspecting the heck out of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and finding no evidence of WMD. He was sharing his findings with the US and asked the US to share any contradictory intelligence that they had with him. No, niente, nada.
There was no Hussein/al-Qaeda link, and they knew it. The famous "Prague meeting" between representatives of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden might well have taken place. However, if it did, it is most likely that Hussein's man told bin Laden's man "no" very firmly (and likely in not quite so polite language). For a variety of reasons, ranging from Hussein's secularism to his strong desire not to give the Georgites any excuse for real to invade his country that they eventually made up, Hussein would have rejected any bin Laden overtures.
There was no post-war planning, as is also well known. The U.S. State Department had a very detailed plan for Iraqi re-construction. All 2,200 pages of it were just ignored. There is the much-traveled story that Rumsfeld threatened to fire anyone on his staff who even talked about post-war planning.
The museums looting that could easily have been prevented could have been part of a plan (well a different kind of plan) to develop permanent chaos: delete to the extent possible 5000 years of history which gave at least parts of Iraq an historical identity. A purposeful enterprise to destroy the civil infrastructure to the extent possible would explain the staffing of Bremer's pro-consulate by totally unqualified, very young, Republican political operatives. Maybe it was indeed not accidental or careless, but rather “let's do whatever we can to gum up the infrastructure even further than it is already gummed up by Saddam and our invasion.”
There have been numerous missed opportunities for declaring victory and leaving, from the holding of elections, to the forming of a government, to the swearing in of the Parliament. All opportunities were ignored.
The Iraq Study Group Report provided a perfect cover for withdrawal to begin now. CheneyBush attempted to dispose of it before the ink was dry. Bush famously did not ask one question during the 45 minutes (!) that he met with the Group, although when he went on to his next meeting, with military commanders at the Pentagon, he was full of questions, about the details of military strategy and tactics for Iraq.
Most of us on the Left thought the true goals of the invasion were oil and bases. If that were true, they were achieved, as confirmed last month with the news that the Iraqi cabinet has come to an agreement over the distribution of oil exploration and operational rights and revenues, which will most likely be approved by the Parliament. And Bush is escalating. (It happens that since the original version of this column was written; see below, parts of the ISG Report are making a comeback. For comments on that occurrence, see next week’s TPJ column.)
At various times, the major Muslim countries have offered to provide cover for an American departure, especially if it were attached to a real settlement of the Palestine/Israel problem. They were not taken up on those offers.
Then comes the bombshell report by Seymour Hersh in the Feb. 28, 2007 issue of The New Yorker. As summarized by our European Editor, Michael Carmichael, on The Planetary Movement (Blog) of March 4, 2007:
“The New Yorker’s ace investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, ha[s] done it again with his latest earth-shattering exposé. Hersh revealed Dick Cheney and his henchmen had deliberately set about inciting chain reactions of sectarian violence and civil wars across the Middle East via a massive covert operation disguised as a shift of geopolitical strategy. . . . Now, instead of launching a war against Iran, Cheney with Bush’s complicity, has pulled the trigger on a covert war of global proportions pitting Sunnis against Shias.
“According to Hersh, Cheney’s covert plan involves massive US financial backing for militant Sunni groups that are known to be inimical to the Shia militias of the Badr Brigades, the Mahdi Army, Hamas, and Hezbollah, all of whom support the revolutionary government of Iran. The US-backed Sunnis include the Muslim Brotherhood, a vast and powerful multinational organization, who are definitely on friendly terms with Al-Qaeda and its allies, including the Taliban. . . . Hersh reveals presidential involvement in the massive covert operation to ignite a religious war in the Middle East . . . [I]nstead of rebuilding the damaged cities and broken infrastructure of Iraq, the mega-billions in US cash are now being subverted to the bank accounts of radical Sunni groups known to be in league with Al Qaeda and their patrons – the Taliban.
“Hersh quotes well-known regional authorities who are confidently predicting a US and Israel-backed confrontation between Shia and Sunni forces. The covert American-Israeli plan to expand the Iraq Civil War to engulf the entire region in a blazing arc of atrocities and ultra-violence that will extend from Lebanon to Afghanistan is the brainchild of the neoconservative cell remaining in power in the Bush White House.”
Sure sounds like a recipe for Permanent War, don’t it?
And finally there is the constant sabre-rattling on Iran. As my readers already know, I think that the "Iran thing" is all about sabre-rattling and scaring the American people and nothing else. I do not think that CheneyBush are about to invade and/or bomb. They have very limited military resources, and as noted in The Sunday Times of London (a Murdoch [!] newspaper) of February 25, 2007, might even face a revolt of the generals over it. The "evidence of Iranian intervention in Iraq" consists primarily of some very sophisticated roadside bombs. They might be supplied by the Iranian military with full government knowledge. On the other hand, they might be forgeries. Or they might be stolen from Iranian munitions dumps and then sold on the black market. But even for CheneyBush, it is hardly likely (never say never when dealing with these guys) that they would/could use them for a justification for carpet bombing Iran, perhaps with nuclear weapons. Both options would go down very well with O'RHannibaugh and their most brain-washed acolytes, but with nobody else in the world. However, CheneyBush are saber-rattling, although Cheney does most of the rattling while Bush, Gates, and Snow say "nothing to worry about." Thus it would appear that all the Sturm und Drang is primarily for domestic political consumption.
And why do they want this? In brief, especially with a conveniently occurring terrorist attack in mid-October 2008, that is how, indeed the only way, they could achieve their ultimate goal: imposing theocratic fascism on the U.S. And just how would they do this, you might ask? As I have said before and will likely say again, by declaring a National Emergency following the “attack,” suspending the 2008 elections, putting the Congressional leadership into “protective custody, and, using Blackwater troops, a Christian militia and certain like-minded military units, and members of the very large Aryan Brotherhood currently occupying major space in US prisons, criminals true, but absolutely far-rightist, establishing martial law. Could it happen? Yes. Will it happen? Not necessarily. The chances of its happening will be significantly reduced if the restoration of Constitutional Democracy becomes Issue One for the election of 2008.
_________
Author’s note: This column is based in part on one published on BuzzFlash on Tue, 02/27/2007 http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/jonas/051
Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a TPJ contributing author. He is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) and author/co-author of over twenty-five books. Dr. Jonas is one of America's most perceptive Democratic political analysts.
Dr. Jonas has his own website for short pieces entitled “Dr. J.’s Short Shots, II” (http://drjsshortshots.wordpress.com/).
In his book The New Americanism, Dr. Jonas presents his proposal for that “new vision and mission” for the Democratic Party that so many, for so many years, have been urging it to find. A new vision and mission are obviously needed with increasing urgency as with increasing speed and determination the Georgites drive our nation towards frank theocratic fascism. Dr. Jonas finds the needed vision and mission in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. "The New Americanism: How the Democratic Party Can Win the Presidency is available from Amazon.com (go to "Books;" enter the full title) and BarnesandNoble.com (same).
He is also the author of The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022. Under the pseudonym "Jonathan Westminster" this book was originally published in 1996. It was republished with a New Introduction in 2004. Under Georgite rule, the “fictional non-fiction” scenario of this work of “future history” is, most unfortunately, becoming all too real, now almost day-by-day. Both versions are available at http://www.amazon.com/ and http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ (go to "Books;" enter the title). The 2004 edition is also available at http://www.xlibris.com/ (click on “Bookstore,” then “Search” with the title).
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