STINGER ALERT

AIRLINE SCANDALE

FBI MANUEVER

I am nervous enough about flying as it is, but the latest warning and footage on CNN this morning didn’t help ease my anxiety. I am off to a conference in Berlin later in the day, and so really didn’t need to see and hear what I did. The first was a story of a helicopter crashing on Mount Hood in the midst of a rescue attempt. The story was hardly a national news event except for two developments. As the Times noted, “An Air Force reserve helicopter sent to rescue a group ofclimbers trapped on Oregon’s Mount Hood crashed into themountain, critically injuring at least one of the crew.”

But, happily for CNN, there was footage shot from another chopper. And so we had disaster footage of the helicoprter break up, rolling over over as it hit the mountain there, to be shown again and again, taking up more air time than a report on the dangers of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. CNN’s report came from Pakistan but did raise an issue that has been absent in most of the reports I have seen — the question of self-determination for the people of Kashmir. How about it India and Pakistan — why not an internationally supervised plebecite. And how about media, why not raise the issue?

ALERT THIS!

The other alarming news was one more warning, this time of AL Qaeda using Stinger missiles to target civil aviation. CNN has obtained an FBI report. The report is shown. It references one possible incident at a Saudi Arabian airbase in which a missile casing was found suggestinga missile MAY have been fired. But then again, it may not have been. The FBI document makes clear there is no real evidence to suggest that stingers are being readied to bring down planes in the US. It is totally speculative, unsourced, referencing the use of stingers in Aghanistan 20 years ago, Footage from that war is shown. Why are we watching it? Because CNN “obstained.” They gave it scoop status, quite irresponsibly in my view. And so it became news: news concocted to scare the shit out of you and keep you watching. (I hope I am not wrong, inshallah!)

SEYMOUR HERSH ON THE AIRLINES AND TERRORISTS

As for airline safety, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh looks into some of the history of the airlines and terrorist and a lack of inter –agency coordination in his latest outing in the New Yorker. “… after the crash of T.W.A. Flight 800,a commission directed by Vice-President Al Gore also called for closerliaison. This time, according to Boivin, who retired last August, theF.B.I. refused to give the F.A.A. security officer a building pass thatwould permit unfettered access to F.B.I. headquarters. “The problem withthe intelligence community is that you didn’t know what you didn’t know,”Boivin said. ” ‘If there is a problem,’ the bureau would say, ‘we’ll tellyou about it.’ ” The difficulties continued after September 11th. Boivinsaid that the F.B.I. sought to get rid of the F.A.A.’s liaison man atheadquarters, because, in Boivin’s words, “he was seen as too pushy abouttrying to get information.” (An F.B.I. spokesman, when asked for comment,said, “Both before September 11th and after September 11th, the bureaushared information with our law-enforcement partners to the fullest extentpossible.”)

“The airlines, always eager to trim operating expenses, successfully lobbiedagainst many of the safety provisions recommended by the Gore commission,such as more stringent security checks on airline employees and tighterscreening of passenger baggage. William Webster, the former F.B.I.director, served as the airlines’ lobbyist. “The airlines never wanted tospend a lot of money on security,” said David Plavin, who was on the Gorecommission and is the president of Airports Council International, thelobbying arm of the nation’s more than five hundred commercial airports.”They were always concerned that the government would stick them with thebill.” Much of that worry, Plavin told me, was alleviated after September11th with the passage of legislation creating the Transportation SecurityAdministration, which puts the responsibility for security on the federalgovernment, but the new legislation won’t solve the most serious problem:bureaucratic infighting. “More than half a dozen federal agencies areinvolved in airline travel, and their inability to work with each other isnotorious,” Plavin said. “Protecting their own turf is what matters.”In the late nineteen-nineties, the C.I.A. obtained reliable informationindicating that an Al Qaeda network based in northern Germany hadpenetrated airport security in Amsterdam and was planning to attackAmerican passenger planes by planting bombs in the cargo, a former securityofficial told me. The intelligence was good enough to warrant thedissemination of an F.A.A. Security Directive, and the C.I.A., working withGerman police, planned a series of successful preëmptive raids. “TheGermans rousted a lot of people,” the former official said. The F.A.A. andthe C.I.A. worked closely together and the incident was kept secret. “Whilethe threat was on, the F.A.A. was getting two or three C.I.A. briefings aday,” the former official said.

” In contrast, in operations in which theF.B.I. took the lead, “the F.A.A. got nothing. The F.B.I. people said, ‘Ifthere is a threat, we’ll tell you, but we’re not going to tell you what’sgoing on in the investigations.’ The F.A.A. told them that it had much moreinformation about threats in Hamburg and Beirut than in Detroit, and theysaid, ‘That’s the way it is.’ They’d come and give a dog-and-pony show.”

CIVIL LIBERTIES? WHAT CIVIL LIBERTIES

Say Sayonara to civil liberties on both sides of the big pond. Over in England, the Guardian reports:” European law agencies have been given the right to monitor telephone,email and internet traffic in move described as the biggest threat todata privacy in a generation.In the US, the Times notes: “The surveillance restrictions on the F.B.I. that were liftedThursday were self-imposed. A legal challenge to thechanges would be unlikely to succeed.”

Could the FBI’s recent admissions of errors and the like actually bepart of a calculated plan to distract attention away from the agency’s new plans in conjunction with the CIA? Writing in the Register, a paper in England from Washington Thomas C. Greene suggests, “…After cleverly castigatinghimself for the bureaucratic bungling which caused warnings from thePhoenix field office about foreigners taking pilot training last Summerto go unanswered, and which also allowed Zacarias Moussaoui to gowithout a thorough investigation while he was in custody before theSeptember atrocity, Mueller slickly concluded that the Bureau has got togo about things in a more direct manner, which is of course a schemehe’s been rigging for some time.

The FBI couldn’t have leaked evidence of these failures more cleverly.Once the mainstream press had a chance to be outraged by the shockingrevelations which the FBI no doubt deliberately fed them, Mueller beathimself up in public to bolster his arguments, win sympathy amongjournalists and citizens, and pave the way for his new regime.

SECRET POLICE RESURGENT

These sorts of failures will be inevitable and on-going if the FBI isn’tallowed to operate outside the law, was the subtext. Calling anti-terrorinvestigations the FBI’s new and primary crusade, he proposed tore-organize the Bureau and transform it into a premier nationalsecret-police force as it had been under J. Edgar Hoover.

Writing from New Mexico, one of our readers Eugene Duran writes about all this: “The FBI has effectively taken the “heat” for the disastrous 9-11 debacle according to Mueller yet many FBI agents are in a state of rage at this accusation. Many have filled suit! Why? Has it been decided that the CIA could not take the heat for this one. Plausible deniability. A failure to communicate. Bad computers. Defective emails. Rules prohibiting surveillance. Suddenly, so many explanations and all within weeks of the admission that they knew. Why won’t any gov’t agency explore the ‘Put’ options? follow the $$$!”

PIPELINES OF FREEDOM

Back in Afghanistan, the big news is less about stingers and more a bouta sting, about dollar signs in the eyes of Mr. Karzai and company. Here is Agence France press with some news about economic INETRESTS that so rarely are woven into political and war reporting. ISLAMABAD, May 29, 2002 (AFP) - Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzaiis to arrive here late Wednesday to promote plans for a gas pipelinethat would open up Central Asia’s vast reserves to the wider world.

Karzai will hold day-long talks with Pakistani President PervezMusharrafand the president of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, on Thursday which areaimed at firming up the proposal.

The three leaders are expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding(MoU)on the plan to pump gas for the first time from Turkmenistan to PakistanoverAfghan territory, an official statement said.”

COLOMBIA’S ELECTIONS: THE NON-VOTE

Over the weekend last, there were many reports about the elections that catapulted a rightwinger there into power. But like election news here that does not report on the growinh number of non-voters, the reports made it appear as if all of Columbia had spoken. Not true writes hector Mandragon in a commentary on ZNET: “In the midst of all the euphoria in ruling circles over the triumph of Alvaro Uribe Velez in the Colombian presidential elections, there are certain issues that are not being discussed, even though they have everything to do with the elections.

“The first is the high electoral abstention: the right-wing candidate was elected by 53% of those who voted, but 53% of the citizenry didn’t vote. In Arauca and Caqueta abstention was 75%, in Putumayo 70%, and let’s not forget Guaviare where they had to cancel the elections in half the municipalities, with 80% abstention. In the former demilitarized zone, there was 95% abstention.

But if in these zones the cause of abstention could be violence, the same can’t be said of the populous and urbanized department of the Atlantic, with Barranquilla, the fourth largest city of the country, that had 65% abstention.”

MOGUL WATCH: MESSIER DOWN, MURDOCH UP

In our media round up and mogul watch this morning, it looks like Vivendi (Universal) is still in trouble. The share price plummeted after a board meeting yesterday in Paris, Jean-Marie Messier is secure for now, but Rupert Murdoch is in the wings planning to pick up one of the water/entertainment combines properties in Italy.

SINGING A SAD SONG

Greer Fay Cashman reports in the Jerusalem Postthat the ” Swedish Ambassador Anders Liden decided to mend fences with Sarit Hadad by inviting her to the embassy yesterday to clarify Sweden’s official position on Eurovision.

“Controversy had swirled over the annual song contest, which took place last Saturday night in Estonia. A local Swedish presenter reportedly told viewers before Hadad appeared that Israel was not meant to take part in the contest “because of what it is doing to the Palestinians.” The presenter also reportedly said Israel was not going to get his vote. Sweden was one of 14 countries in the contest that did not give Israel any points.

“Hadad’s song came in 12th out of 24 entries with 37 points, far behind Latvia, which won the contest.

“Liden assured Hadad that Sweden welcomed Israel’s participation and would never do anything to boycott it. Moreover, he told The Jerusalem Post prior to his meeting with Hadad, “I liked the song very much, and also her performance.”

CHOMSKY V BENNET

Here in One Nation Under Television, one of our readers Jay Janson watched Noam Chomsky and William Bennet tangle on CNN yesterday morning, a rare cable TV appearance for the best selling retired MIT professor. Janson scored it for Chomsky, adding some rhetorical overkill to his comments. (Your comments are invited — if you saw it

William Bennett on CNN “American Morning” thought he was successfullycountering Noam’s citing World Court ordered US reparations neverpaid, by heralding the election which put in a government whichrecinded the request for reparations.

“THIS ONLY IDENTIFIED BENNETT AS A SUPPORTER OF TERRORIZINGNICARAGUANS INTO VOTING THE “RIGHT” WAY OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OFCONTINUED U.S. MURDERS OF CIVILIANS AND ALL POSSIBLE MILITARY ANDFINANCIAL ACTIONS AGAINST THAT TINY AGRICULTURAL NATION.

OUR PROF. NOAM WAS DEBATING A TERRORIST IN A SHIRT AND TIE ANDWRAPPED IN THE AMERICAN FLAG WHICH FLEW OVER MAI LAI, AND WAS PAINTEDON THE PLANES WHICH TERRORIZED THE CIVILIANS OF BAGDAD, BELGRADE ANDKABUL.

“Prof. Noam, you did a nice job.” I am hoping MTV wasn’t waching. I would hate for them to do a “celebrity death match” with this dueling duo.

And that is my “nice job” (or not so nice, depending on your viewpoint) for now — and perhaps until I get back next week. If I can file from Berlin, I will. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for items of interest, Send them to me with your comments to dissector@mediachannel.org. The summer is coming, and life is so supposed to slow down. Let’s hope so. I am off into the wild blue yonder.