“TALIBAN HAMMERED” is the headline in this morning’s Daily News, with a report that the bombing of Afghanistan is at its heaviest levels. CNN this morning was showing viewers how a US aircraftcarrier works, relaying once again video supplied by the Defense Department. Meanwhile, last night it was British television that showed the dazed survivors of one of those bombs. I saw the footage on Canada’s News World International channel, featurng footage on an Afghan home that is no more, Unfortunately, it was on the Northern Alliance side of the line. Another accident. “Why do they bomb us,” a survivor asked,

Meanwhile, Pakistani tribesmen have recruited 5000 heavily armed men who are now on their way into Afghanistan to fight the coalition, which increasingly feels like it has dwindeled to two–the US and Britain. More worrying is investigative reporter Seymour Hersh’s latest, due out tomorrow in the New Yorker, revealing that Pentagon planners, worried by growing “unrest” in Pakistan, are sending in special teams to “ferret out and disarm nuclear weapons.” Add Nukes to your growing list of threats to fear.

There were few such alarming reports this Sunday in The New York Times which reports quietly: “Allies Preparing for Long Fight as Taliban Dig In… preparingfor longer and tougher combat in Afghanistan than they hadhoped.” Yesterday, I reprinted part of a story from London’s Independent which reported that the recent ground incursion by US special forces in Afghanistan was staged for the media, and was a mess. This item prompted Mike Tronnes of Cursor.org to see what, if anything, the Pentagon had to say about the report. He writes:

“I’ve beenlooking and haven’t seen anything. Here’s a link to Friday’s Pentagon pressbriefing, where no one brought it up. Guess they were too embarrassed abouttheir complicity in the Pentagon spin. I suspect that the story was fed tothe British press — I think one of them even quoted a Pentagon source –because it was right when they were committing troops to Afghanistan. But Ialso find it incredibly revealing that the U.S. press wouldn’t touch it. For more: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Oct2001/t10262001_t1026stf.html

WHEN THE NEWS IS UNCRITICAL, COLUMNISTS ARE MORE OUTSPOKEN

While the news seems to straining to hit an upbeat tone, editorial columnists like Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich are growing more skeptical. A Pundit Watch is in order because as the editorial section goes, the tone of news reporting often follows. Dowd: “Can Bush Bushkazi? “After one of the worst weeks in the capital’s history, the question was suspended like a spore in the autumn air: Arewe quagmiring ourselves again?” While Dowd doubts the war on one front, Rich was spraying sarcasm yesterday on progress in the war at home:

“Of the more than 900 suspects arrested, exactlyzero have been criminally charged in the World Trade Center attack (thoughone has died of natural causes, we’re told, in a New Jersey jail cell). TheBush team didn’t fully recognize that a second attack on America had begununtil more than a week after the first casualty. ? Given that this is the administration that was touted as being run with C.E.O. clockwork, perhaps it should be added to the growing list of Things That Have Changed Forever since Sept. 11. But let’s not be so hasty. Noteverything changes that fast ? least of all Washington. The White House’shome-front failures are not sudden, unpredictable products of wartimeconfusion but direct products of an ethos that has been in place since Jan.20.”

SCARIER THAN ANTHRAX

is the speed with which the Anti-terrorist bill galloped through Congress. Republican Texas Senator Phil Graham who had promised to finally retire was back on TV this morning calling for the death penalty for anyone tied in any way to terrorism. I am not sure if he meant before or after a trial. The emotion is understandable, but look at all the “human errors” that seem to plaguing the crackdown at home. Here are two stories that got me more fearful that the risk of anthrax in my mail box.

The first one involves a kid named Omer, who the FBI thought sounded suspiciously like Omar. Where have you seen this reported? This comes from the Arutz Sheva News Service IsraelNationalNews.com datelined Oc 26:

“Five young Israelis are “on the verge of collapse,” according to family members, as their incarceration in New York on charges relating to the Bin Laden attacks continues. They were arrested on Sept. 11, only hours after the World Trade Center attack, on charges of “plotting to blow up” a New York bridge.

” Katie Shmuel of the Galilee town of Yokne’am, southeast of Haifa, says that her son Yaron is in “a very critical psychological situation,” given that they are not allowed to have visitors and the difficult conditions in which they are being held. “Even the Israeli Consul-General in New York was allowed to visit only after asking several times and receiving a special permit,” Katie told Arutz-7’s Yosef Zalmanson today. “He was allowed to talk to them only in English, and only from behind a glass partition. The Consul told me that the boys are in a bad state and that they are being held under difficult conditions.”

“When asked why the five youths, aged 22-26, are being held, Katie replied with despair: “It’s ludicrous. They were on the George Washington Bridge [between upper Manhattan and New Jersey] at the time of the bombing, and the FBI had warnings of a terrorist plot, of guys in a white van, to blow up the bridge. So when the FBI saw this van, with my son and his four friends - one of them had a large sum of money, there were two razor knives in the van, and one of the boys is named Omer, which the FBI guys thought was Omar - they put one and one together and got three, and immediately arrested them… For the first few days, the boys were held in an FBI dungeon, tied up, with no clothes and no food.” She said that original reports that they had been arrested while boisterously watching the disaster from a rooftop “are totally fabricated. For one thing, they weren’t even on a roof, they were in a van…”

STAY TUNED MORE ON TOM RIDGE’S NEW HOMELAND ARMY

Stephen Marshall of the Guerilla News Network sent me this item written by Al Martin. It sounds like a script for a movie — one that we have already seen. He reports on a CNN story I missed:

“Citizen, Can I See Your ID.”

What has not been explained to the American people is the reason why 35,000 Army Reservists and 65,000 National Guard have been called up. It is to maintain internal checkpoints. It has nothing to do with the external “War on Terrorism.” All of these people are being trained at the US Army School of Urban Control at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. CNN actually showed an urban training mock-up, what they’re training on, and what the new Internal Security checkpoint is going to look like. It was mighty sinister looking.

“There was a barrier that went across the road. To the right was an elevated shed like structure, elevated perhaps fifteen feet in the air. It had a small second story that was open. On it was a sign that read “Homeland Security Internal Checkpoint.” There were sandbags and the wooden arm that crossed the road read “100% ID Checked.” Then there was a small shed to the right with a small barbed wire area behind that. On this structure was a sign, which read, “All citizens not having proper identification will be detained. All foreign nationals will be detained. All citizens who are deemed to be acting in a suspicious manner will be detained.” At each of these posts there will be six armed Army or National Guard reservists with M-16’s with full field kit. On top of the structure to the rear, the open structure on top, there’s a man with a machine gun emplacement.

“They showed the actual mockup used for training purposes. They had new uniforms. They weren’t in their regular uniforms. It’s a new gray uniform with a gray helmet and a visor so you can’t see their eyes. The only thing you can see is from their lips down because they said that’s “to prevent any retribution” from people who don’t like this new idea.

“This uniform looked exactly like the Imperial Storm Troopers from “Star Wars” except instead of white, it was gray. All the helmets have little transceivers so they can communicate with each other. There will be six guards at each internal security checkpoint. And there’s another warning on the inside of the barbed wire enclosure, “Any detainees attempting to escape will be shot.” It was a yellow and red sign inside the detainment area.

“The only person who actually spoke on camera during this story was a sergeant, an Army Reservist sergeant. You could tell that he completely disagreed with what was going on. You couldn’t hear the question being asked, but he was looking at the camera and he said, “We’re here to protect the people.” Then he put his head down and shook his head, and you could tell he didn’t believe a word of what he was saying — like it was some big frigging joke.

“Then they showed the procedure they were using to train these guys. An average American car, like a Ford or a Chevy, drives up and there’s supposed to be a husband and wife in the front seat and a couple of kiddies in the back. So they drive up to the checkpoint, and the corporal comes up to the car and says, “May I see your identification, citizen.”

They call everyone “citizen.” I swear to God, I’m not making this up. Then the guy asks for his driver’s license, then something else and something else. Then he says, “Very good, citizen.”

Hey there, fellow citizens, don’t you think this story and issue deserves more media play? Who is investigating the investigators? As for secret bases, the St Petersburgh Times reported yesterday:

THE COALITION IS “SENSITIVE” AND NOW STASHED IN FLORIDA

“WASHINGTON — To help coordinate the international war on terrorism, theU.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa has recentlyestablished the Coalition Coordination Center, a politically sensitiveenterprise that includes military personnel from around the world. Knowninformally as “the coalition village,” the weeks-old center reflects theWhite House mantra that the war on terrorism enjoys broad internationalsupport.

“The 12 countries represented at Central Command, which is directing thewar in Afghanistan, are the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, NewZealand, Jordan, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Qatar, Turkey, Belgiumand Canada. As the war strategy changes, the makeup of the coalition may change aswell?

“Fearing a political backlash, the majority of coalition partners havebalked at promoting their role in the war against the Taliban and Osamabin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World TradeCenter and the Pentagon. ”

ON THE MEDIA WAR FRONT

Citing a fear of Anthrax contamination in the mail, the big TV networks through the National Association of Broadcasters have asked the Federal Communications Commission for a waiver of rules requiring them: I read about this on the Project on Media Ownership list serv:” NAB also requests that the obligation of television stations to include inlicense renewal applications a summary of public written comments concerningviolent programming, also be waived for mail received during the requestedperiod.”

Violent programming was the number 2 lobbying issue for media firms from1996 to 2000. (Center for Public Integrity, “Off the Record: What MediaCorporations Don’t Tell You About Their Legislative Agendas”)

The FCC granted a 60 day temporary waiver for the retention of ALL publiccomments, with an extension depending on circumstances at the later date.(http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-01-2497A1.txt)Presumably this includes comments sent by e-mail or fax, even though there’sno threat of anthrax exposure.”

A FAIR MEDIA ALERT ON CROSS-OWNERSHIP

This just a minor problem compared to what FAIRNESS AND ACCURACY IN REPORTING fears is coming down the pike. They have issued an ACTION ALERT which calls for protests against the imminent lifting of cross ownership rules, which,as I have written about in great detail, may be a quid pro quo for the lack of aggressive media.coverage.

“Just two days after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center andthe Pentagon, the FCC began to eliminate the last remaining shreds ofregulation on media concentration. With all eyes elsewhere, the FCC votedunanimously to “review” laws that prohibit the same company from owning botha newspaper and a TV station in the same geographic area, and laws thatlimit the percent of the national audience that a single cable company canreach.”

Rupert Murdoch has been one benificiary of a waiver of these rules. The man UK media critics call “The Dirty Digger” was allowed to buy a second TV station in New York City where he also owns Channel 5, The New York Post and Fox News etc. Some good news today about his imperial ambitions: his bid to buy the powerfull DIRECT TV satellite from the Hughes corporation failed yesterday.

WHY DON”T MANY PEOPLE CARE ABOUT THE WORLD?

This issue of why Americans don’t know or care about the world was touched on last night at Institute for Ideas panel discussion at the New School University in which I took part. Much of it was a bit ethereal, with ideas that we reaally didn’t have time to discuss on a panel focusing on the future of progress. I was bold enough to come out for progress. Filmmaker John De Graaf, who made an important film called AFFLUENZA attributed our estrangement from the world in part to the all consuming epidemic of overconsumption in the US that distances us from the needs of humanity.

“The Western media hasn’t at all conveyed the crushing pain and humiliation imposed on Palestinians by Israel’s collective punishment, its house demolitions, its invasions of Palestinian areas, its air bombings and killings, as have the nightly broadcasts by Al- Jazeera satellite television, or admirable daily reporting in Ha’aretz by the Israeli journalist Amira Hass and commentators like her. At the same time, I think, there is widespread understanding among Arabs that the Palestinians (and, by extension, the other Arabs) have been traduced and hopelessly misled by their leaders. An abyss visibly separates nattily suited negotiators who make declarations in luxurious surroundings and the dusty hell of the streets of Nablus, Jenin, Hebron, and elsewhere.” The same can probably be said of much of the reporting about the fears of Israelis. I remember Bib Dylan once saying, ” I don’t watch TV News because it never tells me how people feel.” (Let me add, another problem is inadequte reporting on what governments DO.)

Sometimes people displace their feelings and caring by assuming a pose of hip detachment which often hides in a wall of self-protective irony. Jerdediah Purdy makes this point in an essay worth reading in the new issue of SHOUT, a journal of “insurgent thought.” He criticizes America’s “long and tedious liasion with self-concern. The ironic manner — impenetrably diffident, premptively but languorously dismissibe, and quietly determined to make a joke of anything before someone else did—had become a default mode among young sophisticates, It rested on the perception that nothing in the world was interesting, dangerous, urgent or lovely enough to take a chance on, and insulated itself against seduction with irony.”

A CALL TO JOURNALISTS TO SPEAK OUT

Veteran Washington Post writer Ben Bagdikian, author of the classic book, MEDIA MONOPOLY, is the first to sign a petition to protest the growing press restrictions. It was initiated by San Francisco’s Media Alliance. Watch Mediachannel.org for how you can involved. Here’s an excerpt:

“It is during times of war and crisis that theimportance of freedom of the press is most vital.During such times there is increased governmentpressure to restrict press freedom.

“We join together to remind the public that the mediamust report the truth–even when that truth challengesassertions that are made by the U.S. government?.

“We, the undersigned journalists, editors, and mediaproducers, call on publishers, owners of mediaoutlets, and our colleagues to resist governmentintimidation, restrictions on information, and directcensorship, and to reject ‘loyalty tests’ and otheractions which restrict media workers’ ability to actin the interest of the public’s right to know.

“We also call on the Bush Administration to cease itsovert and covert interference with freedom of thepress.”

As Attorney General John Ashcroft will soon discover as he cranks up his vast newly sanctioned e-mail monitoring spy system, I have now signed it. I hope he reads it. Please help us tell others about this daily column of media analysis, as well as all the work of Mediachannel.org. Your comments and suggestions and support are welcome. Write: dissector@mediachanel.org

TV PROGRAM NOTE. Harold Channer,who does a weekly interview show on Manhattan Neighborhood Network sends along this program notice for US viewers. Jeff Harmon, an independent film maker friend of mine, is to be featured in a one hour National Geographic television program to be aired on MS/NBC Sunday October 28 at 8:00 PM (East Coast Time). The program will be repeated at Midnight on the 28th and on Friday November 2 at 9:00 PM and Sunday November 4 at 6:00 PM. His films shot in Afganistan during the war with the Soviets include the award winning “Jihad: Afghanistan’s Holy War” . For more: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/explorer/exp/102801.html