Time To Take The Iraq Quiz
October 31st, 2006 - by: danny
IF YOU ARE AGAINST THE WAR, TAKE THIS QUIZ
By Danny Schechter, Mediachannel.org
New York, New York: OK, class. No talking. Pencils up. All eyes on the exam. Here’s the first multiple-choice question:
The Iraq War is Bad Because:
a. It is illegal, immoral, and criminal
b. It has ended up killing and maiming millions of Iraqis we promised to free
c. It has devastated a country and ignited world opinion against the United States and caused thousands of US casualties
d. It has debased our media and turned much of it into a propaganda organ
e. It was badly managed and poorly executed
If you survey world opinion, there would be a consensus on selecting A-D as a response. If you polled most Democratic politicians and mainstream journalists, you would find overwhelming support only for E – “the we screwed it up” thesis as the correct answer.
What was once hailed as a heroic mission is now being dismissed as a fiasco, error and “mistake,” and to some former war boosters, even a “noble mistake.”
In fact, that’s the view that seems to be framing what debate there has been on the war. It is still – AAU – All About Us. In this view, all that matters is our policy objectives but rarely our economic or geo-political agenda. Iraq as a nation, as a culture, and a people barely exists.
For the most part the American debate leaves out the Iraqis except as victims or killers. The leaders that they said to have elected don’t seem to count with Washington giving them orders and pulling their strings. Prime Minister Maliki had to have a press conference to announce he works for the Iraqi People, not the Bush Administration. He knows that if he is to survive politically and personally, he has to distance himself from his wannabe benefactors. How many of us know that the Iraqi Government we trained is running death squads? How many Iraqis do we ever see, or more importantly HEAR on the air?
The Democratic Party line mirrors this America First philosophy.. Never ready to challenge the deeper assumptions and interests guiding the war, most of the Democrats instead harp on the stupidity and failures of the war’s instigators and managers who are considered incompetent. According to the NY Times, The Democrats are “running to the right,” self-consciously becoming conservative and moderate candidates who posture at being tougher on national security that the Repugs. (Oddly the International Herald Tribune ran almost identical stories ten days earlier.”)
So in the same way that Fox News pushed all other news outlets to the right, the GOP has imposed its worldview on the whole political spectrum. As a result, many Dems are not challenging this distorted ideology, only the personalities identified with it.
Bush’s message points, Cheney’s contentiousness, and Rumsfeld’s ravings make them a perfect foil those who say what they want to do is right – but the way they are going about its wrong.
Isn’t it obvious that the responsibility for the war goes deeper and further? What about the rest of the military which went along with the “plan,” just “following orders,” knowing it was a joke? (Many of the Generals speaking out now held their fire and muzzled their doubts for years.)
And what about the press that did more selling than telling about the war? The TV networks didn’t have to wait for Tom Ricks to publish his expose Fiasco to have him on the air and challenge lousy tactics and pervasive corruption. They all drank the Kool Aid. They were all complicit
Where were – where are —the reports about all the war crimes that have catalogued by scores of credible experts and observers? The use of proscribed weapons, the brutality of which Abu Ghraib is not the worst example, the failed “Shock and Awe,” the neglect and indifference of the needs of ordinary people “living” without water, electricity and sometimes food. Where is the concern for them?
We are talking here not just about casualties or “collateral damage” but about the destruction of a society that is rarely described or understood by journalists who keep American body counts and politicians who avoid the big picture. Journalists overseas are able to assess the situation with greater clarity than their “objective” American counterparts:
Journalist Patrick Cockburn who has watched the war up close concludes in a book for Verso: “The U.S. failure in Iraq has been even more damaging than Vietnam because the opponent was punier and the imperial ambitions even greater.”
Pepe Escobar of Asia Times describes what he calls “the logic of extermination.”
“This logic of extermination of a society and culture was inbuilt in the process since March 2003. In fact, the systematic annihilation of 2-3% of the entire Iraqi population, according to a study by The Lancet, not to mention the 1 million people displaced since March 2003, follow the more than 500,000 children who died during the 1990s as victims of United Nations sanctions. Iraq has been systematically destroyed for more than 15 years, non-stop.”
And what about the contribution of the Clintonistas who imposed sanctions that killed off an estimated one million Iraqi children while posturing about how bad Saddam is and was. I still remember Madeleine Albright telling 60 Minutes that that death count was “acceptable” because the goal was so noble. No wonder they have been so timid in criticizing the war. It represents their policy by other means!
Our lack of knowledge and blatant denial can perhaps be explained by the lack of context and background offered in the media and the failures of our educational system to prepare young people for a changing world. . 63% of our students couldn’t find Iraq on a map after three years of “coverage.” This is a reflection of the dumbing-down process which substitutes entertainment for information. No wonder Americans seem to have so little empathy and a sense of connectedness to the rest of the world. Many believe in the title of that anthem – “We Are The World,” a song that was ironically making the opposite point. They support charities but not deeper change.
Playing to this culture of ignorance and indifference is the Pentagon’s Information/media war. They have just announced a new unit to better promote its message across 24-hour news channels, particularly on the internet. The Pentagon said the move would boost its ability to counter ‘inaccurate’ news stories and exploit new media. BBC reports that Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff said the unit would reportedly monitor media such as weblogs – perhaps my own as well– and would also employ ‘surrogates’, or top politicians or lobbyists who could be interviewed on TV and radio shows.
Media propaganda like this and the role the networks play without anyone in the Pentagon telling them what to do seems to be ignored by the hyper-partisan “left” as well where concerns about the larger world are minimal and the focus is ONLY on Bush and the White House as if that is where all power resides. What about globalization, human rights and corporate wrongs as well as economic justice issues like pervasive debt at home? Those issues seem to have disappeared even on so-called progressive blogs and “alternative” media outlets that love insider gossip and revel in a sense of exaggerated self-importance. Their view is often narrow, nationalistic and naïve and often apes GOP tactics from the other side.
I don’t want to rant but I am also troubled when I watch nominally independent films about Iraq that sell the war in the guise of offering “verite” reporting by soldiers. “The War Tapes” is one such film – funded in part by progressives – which I later heard praised by President Bush’s media advisor. No Wonder. It is de-facto pro-war! The War Tapes also use “hot bang-bang footage” from Fallujah to show how scary the US military mission is without offering any context or clearly showing the consequences of their ‘we destroyed the village in order to save it’ approach.
Even Iraq for Sale by my friend Robert Greenwald tends to praise the mercenaries of “Blackwater Security” because they were double-crossed by the military without fully showing the crimes they committed in Fallujah.
If the war had been more successful – say like Israel’s 6 Day War instead of its recent Lebanon disaster – would we all be rallying behind the Bush policies instead of condemning them? Sure Saddam is a creep but he was our creep for many years and his demonization was not a basis for the war.
Let’s stop pandering on national security to out-Republican the hard right. That approach failed in 2004 and it will fail again. The whole issue is convoluted anyway. Even as President Bush insists that “America loses” if The Dems win because that will somehow strengthen the terrorists, Al Qaeda strategists say openly that they prefer the Republicans in power and the US military stuck in Iraq to keep their Jihad alive. Odd as it seems, they like Bush, and believe that his Global War on Terror (GWOT) strengthens their war of terror. And like him, they just want us to “bring it on.”
It’s time to abandon this superficial approach with its patriotically correct slogans and failed practices – bombing that doesn’t work, torture that offends the world – and return to core small d democratic principles. Instead the Repugs are going the other way with more bluster about “progress” and with “moderates” like former Vietnam War Bombadier John McCain proposing a troop increase and more escalations, a clear sign that the US is losing.
Let us articulate what we stand for – not just what are we against. May we oppose the war for the right reasons and absorb its lessons less we repeat them in Iran or other wars that are certain to some if we don’t. How’s that for an “inconvenient truth?”
Trick or Treat?
News Dissector Danny Schechter wrote two books, “Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception” and “When News Lies,” and directed the film WMD about the Iraq war media coverage. See Wmdthefilm.com. Comments to: Dissector@medichannel.org.
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Trick or Treat at the Polls?
October 30th, 2006 - by: danny
HONORING A FALLEN INDY MEDIA COLLEAGUE
NEW YORK (AP) – Undeterred by violence, journalist Bradley Roland Will felt compelled to document what he called human rights abuses around the globe, so he headed to the volatile city of Oaxaca in Mexico.
As the situation turned increasingly dangerous, Will decided to stay. Despite his fears, he wanted people to know what was happening in Oaxaca.
The 36-year-old videographer from New York was killed Friday in the Mexican city where protesters have barricaded streets and occupied government buildings for five months in a bid to oust the governor.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-6177468,00.html
NARCO NEWS REPORT
http://www.narconews.com/Issue43/article2223.html
FROM HIS LAST DISPATCH: “what can you say about this movement — this revolutionary moment — you know it is building, growing, shaping — you can feel it — trying desperately for a direct democracy..”
For more of Brad’s thinking: http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/10/
The Last moments of his camera:
http://www.salonchingon.com/cinema/brad.php?city=ny
Brad Presente!
TURNOUT THESIS VALIDATED
MEXICO CRISIS DEEPENS
FEARS OF IRAN CONFRONTATION
This is the season of trick or treat. With that in mind, what do you think next week’s election will bring?
HOW ABOUT THAT!
Last Friday, I led this blog with the suggestion that the key to the mid-term elections will be TURN-OUT. Most of the coverage usually focuses on who votes, not who doesn’t, and that’s without considering the dirty tricks being used in advertising and at the polls to suppress voting. (Only 38% usually turn out for mid term elections). Guess what the NY Times led its election reporting on Sunday with:
“DEMOCRATS PUSH TO COUNTER GOP IN TURNOUT RACE …. DISADVANAGE IS FEARED.” That’s the very problem I was spotlighting three days before the Timesmeisters got to it. The Times calls Karl Rove’s get out the vote operation “sophisticated.”
The LA Times goes further, reporting:
“GOP at a loss? Karl Rove has an 11th-hour plan”
The top strategist is in rare form for the midterm endgame as he taps government resources to boost candidates in need.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rove29oct29,0,440699.story?coll=la-home-headlines
THIS MAY BE ROVE”S “LEGACY TEST”
http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W9RT02484301F1484F27F335A7EA80
Robert Kuttner critiques what the GOP does:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1028-20.htm
HI HO SILVER, AWAY (PLEASE)
Time Magazine labels Bush “The Lone Ranger.” (No mention of Tonto) and says: “with just nine days left before voters head to the polls, many GOP candidates are running down the campaign trail without stopping for the president.”
Money, that old ‘root of all evil” is at the root of the campaign as the Washington Polls reports:
“As Elections Near, Dueling With Dollars ”
http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W9RT02484C7C91484F27F335D4F3C0
Now we all know that politics is a cesspool so you have to assume that the election will be affected by it as we already see in distorted spots and superficial reporting:
VIDEO: Charge: Tom Feeney tried to pay him to rig election vote counts_ http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=2094
ON A RACE IN PA
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/28/19638/753
ALTERNET’S DON HAZEN: HOW TO STOP THE NOVEMBER ELECTIONS FROM BEING STOLEN
Progressive Democrats are saying “we need to get people to the polls in large numbers, win big, and protect the vote counting to make sure that the congressional elections are not stolen on November 7th.”
http://www.alternet.org/rights/43645/
RALPH NADER BOOSTS BILL MOYERS FOR PRESIDENT
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1028-24.htm
ECO DISASTER LOOMS
AP: David M. Walker sure talks like he’s running for office. “This is about the future of our country, our kids and grandkids,” the comptroller general of the United States warns a packed hall at Austin’s historic Driskill Hotel. “We the people have to rise up to make sure things get changed…”
‘From the hustings and the airwaves this campaign season, America’s political class can be heard debating Capitol Hill sex scandals, the wisdom of the war in Iraq and which party is tougher on terror. Democrats and Republicans talk of cutting taxes to make life easier for the American people.
‘What they don’t talk about is a dirty little secret everyone in Washington knows, or at least should. The vast majority of economists and budget analysts agree: The ship of state is on a disastrous course, and will founder on the reefs of economic disaster if nothing is done to correct it.”
I report on Walker’s predictions in my film IN DEBT WE TRUST (indebtwetrust.com)
THE CRISIS IN OAXACA IN MEXICO
Nancy Davies writes:
“President Vicente Fox, through his Secretary of Internal Affairs Carlos Abascal, has authorized the entry of the Federal Preventive Police (PFP in its Spanish initials) into Oaxaca, in direct response to the events of October 27 in Oaxaca. Following a declaration by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) to launch an all-out work stoppage and boycott to force the hand of governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz (known as “URO”), Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) supporters, both police and private individuals, assaulted the population in several different areas of the city on Friday. The result, according to the Radio Universidad, was four dead, thirty wounded. The dead have now been identified as Emilio Alonso Fabià ¡n, Bradley Will and Eudocia Olivera Dà az. The fourth reported death, of Esteban Zurita LÃpez, is at the center of accusations by both sides of the conflict, with each blaming the other.
LA LUCHA CONTINUA
Meanwhile, other reports say The Popular Assembly Movement was not backing down, waiting, calling for strengthening the barricades. But the day, and the night, seem to have passed relatively quietly. And the item below, from La Jornada’s late news posting reports arrest of two of the assassins.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oaxacastudyactiongroup/
Here’s the item in Spanish:
http://www.jornada.unam.mx:8080/ultimas (at 3:50am Central Standard Time)
http://www.jornada.unam.mx:8080/ultimas/detienen-a-2-presuntos-responsables-de-la-muerte-de-camarografo-de-eu
MORE PRESSURE ON US TROOPS TO LEAVE IRAQ
Under Attack Daily, Occupation Forces in Iraq Have Nowhere to Go Except Home
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/817/re11.htm
DEPLETED URANIUM DEATH TOLL
http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=24752
UNDERNEWS: CHENEY SUPPORTS WATER-BOARDING, THEN LIES ABOUT IT
[Sam Smith: We especially like the part where the Post goes to "legal experts" to find out what the English language means. There was a time when reporters thought they knew more about that topic than lawyers]
DAN EGGEN WASHINGTON POST – Vice President Cheney said yesterday that he was not referring to an interrogation technique known as “water-boarding” when he told an interviewer this week that dunking terrorism suspects in water was a “no-brainer.” Cheney told reporters aboard Air Force Two last night that he did not talk about any specific interrogation technique during his interview Tuesday with a conservative radio host.
“I didn’t say anything about water-boarding. . . . He didn’t even use that phrase,” Cheney said on a flight to Washington from South Carolina.
Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters that the vice president was talking literally about “a dunk in the water,” though neither Snow nor Cheney explained what that meant or whether such a tactic had been used against U.S. detainees. “A dunk in the water is a dunk in the water,” Snow said. . .
Many legal experts said it was reasonable to conclude that Cheney was referring to water-boarding, since it has been a widely debated U.S. interrogation technique that uses water to subject a suspect to the fear of drowning. . .
WP: Iraq’s bloody October a turning point?
October 2006 may be remembered as the month that the U.S. experience in Iraq hit a tipping point, when the violence flared and shook both the military command in Iraq and the political establishment back in Washington.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15462753/
ON THE DEBATE ON IRAQ CIVILLIAN CASUALTIES
http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2006/10/genocide-and-denial.htm
BBC: PAKISTAN: 80 Dead In Attack on Madrassa…Iraq Violence soars
IRAN: TENSIONS WILL ESCALATE
Mediachannel Military monitor Joe Dunphy reports:
Saturday’s Iran Daily (10-28-2006) reported that the US and other nations will begin on Monday Persian Gulf operations around a scenario designed to detect and thwart the smuggling of nuclear weapons. The US State Dept. is reported in the Iranian paper as having released the names of some of the countries involved in the exercise –Australia, Bahrain, Great Britain, and France. The active participation of Bahrain is particularly interesting. Bahrain, of course, is a Middle Eastern country. So this can not be seen as a sign of brotherhood by Iran. Observers to the exercise include a number of other Middle East countries. Vietnam-era veterans will quickly recognize the possible parallels to another Gulf of Tonkin declaration, where LBJ rushed Congress into a hasty decision without adequate facts.
On the military front in Iran, there was a change of command in Iran’s Air Force, promoting Brig. Gen. Ahamd Miqani. On the diplomatic front, the German Parliament sent representatives of its subcommittee on disarmament, arms control, and non-proliferation to Iran, and they will return to discuss their talks with the IAEA. The upcoming week has the potential to be a real humdinger.
Joe adds:
“An important addition to my previous note on Iran, etc. The addition of Bahrain as an active member of the exercise is interesting for an oil-business reason as well. In the book, “Quest for the Presidency,” by Peter Goldman et. al.(Texas A&M Univ. Press, College Station, Tx, 1994, p. 300) we learn the following: A 1990 article in a Texas newspaper questioned George H.W. Bush’s “motives for mobilizing to drive Saddam out of Kuwait. The article implied that he (Bush 41) was doing it because his eldest son, George W., had business interests in Bahrain in need of protection from a widening war.”
IS MARTIAL LAW NEXT FOR WHEN THE S-IT HITS THE FAN?
Frank Morales thinks so:
“In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does soby revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President’s ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.
Public Law 109-364, or the “John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007″ (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a “public emergency” and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to “suppress public disorder.”
President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is “martial law.”
Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures, is entitled, “Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies.” Section 333, “Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law” states that “the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of (“refuse” or “fail” in) maintaining public order, “in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”
STUDENT PROTESTS PREVAIL: Gallaudet Board Votes Out Jane Fernandes –
http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W9RT02484793D1484F27F335DDCB70
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Monitoring Media On A Monday Morn
October 30th, 2006 - by: danny
AGAIN!
Guardian: An Iraqi state TV presenter and her driver were found dead yesterday, a day after being abducted.
JOURNALIST ACCREDITATON AT RISK
A new report from Europe takes aim at an insidious form of state censorship: the misuse of accreditation to journalists. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has issued the report through its media freedom office. The report’s purpose is to remind the 56 OSCE states that open and fair accreditation of journalists is part of their commitment to press freedom.
Other states singled out in the report include Belarus, Russia, Turkmenistan, and the United States. The latter country in recent years has been enforcing a law requiring journalists to apply for an ‘I-Visa’ from the Homeland Security Department-and some have bee expelled for not having one. OSCE says the permit has an ‘unnecessary permissive character.’
http://ijnet.org/Director.aspx?P=Article&ID=305653&LID=1 – International
Journalists Network
PROPAGANDA/NOISE MACHINE
The NY Times suggested Republican strategist fired by Wal-Mart no longer works for Sen. McCain — one day after reporting that he does.
In an October 28 article [ http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://
www.nytimes.com/2006/10/28/us/politics/New York Times reported that Nelson "has worked for various Republican leaders, including President Bush and Senator JohnMcCain of Arizona." In reporting that Nelson "has worked" for McCain, the Times obscured the fact that Nelson currently works for McCain"
http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/us/politics/
http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/20061028000
Jerry Starr on the Times and Cross Ownership
"Today's business section column [reg. required] on why concerns about newspaper-broadcast ownership safeguards are “yesterday’s news” illustrates how poorly informed too many media beat reporters are about their own industry.
First, writer Richard Siklos fails to acknowledge that his own employer-The Times Co.-lobbied the FCC to sweep away such rules during the 2001-3 proceeding. Reporters need to do a better of digging to learn about what their own employers are doing-both politically and in terms of market investments.
In addition, Siklos, like so many others, fails to address how the Internet, due to recent FCC decisions, may not be able to provide a meaningfully diverse array of information sources in the near future….
Read it all:
http://www.democraticmedia.org/jcblog/?p=127
AL JAZEERA HONORS JOURNOS KILLED ON THE JOB
DOHA: The Qatar-based satellite television network Al-Jazeera said on Thursday it will unveil a “Wall of Freedom” in honor of journalists worldwide who have been killed while doing their jobs.
“The 16.5 metre memorial, to be unveiled on the channel’s 10th anniversary on November 1 at its Doha headquarters, is “an ongoing recognition of the dangerous work that many journalists are required to do”, Al-Jazeera said in a statement.
ANIMATED COMMENT: FREEDOM FROM THE PRESS
Http://www.markfiore.com
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
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