*TALKING TURKEY

*CNN’S NEW “RULES”

*MOYERS WEARS THE FLAG

Take a close look at what’s going on in Turkey. The New York Times front page tells us “Turkey Will Seek a Second Decision on a G.I. Presence…Turkey’s foreign minister indicated that his government would ask Parliament a second time to allow U.S. troops into the country.” However, Adam McConnel reports for Globalvision News Network from Turkey that Turkish dailies “Milliyet” and “Radikal” report today that Turkey’s governing AK Party will not introduce a new motion regarding the U.S.’ war demands to the Turkish parliament until after the 9 March election in the SE Anatolian city of Siirt.

What did happen there? Adam explains: “The Turkish parliament did not actually say “no” to the U.S.’ demands in Saturday’s vote. The result was 264 “yes,” 250 “no,” and 19 abstentions, so in actuality more legislators said “yes” than “no.” In order to get the majority needed for passage, however, 267 “yes” votes were required because parliamentary rules for passage stipulate that such a motion must carry a majority of the MPs present.”

PRESSURE DROP

“The Turkish press has spent much time evaluating why Saturday’s vote failed. Some political commentators argued that the vote showed weakness in the governing party….Other media reports quoted MPs who noted the Bush Administration’s intransigent, even insulting negotiating stances and style in explaining why they cast a “no” vote on Saturday.

“Intransigent, even insulting?” Can that be? Actually, when you read the New York Times story from the bottom up — the key issues are often buried in the landfill at the bottom, you find this illuminating paragraph: “Several Turkish legislators complained of what they described as the United States overbearing and sometimes petty approach to the negotiations.” Petty? When you read on you discover that the US diplomats sought to avoid having to pay taxes on what the US bought in Turkey. One issue; who would pay for Identification tags for US troops. (This reminds me of a time in Vietnam when the Pentagon insisted that Korean troops wear name tags, half of them carried the name Kim.)

I was pleased to see I am not the only one who caught this. TomDispatch.com puts it in a media context: “Until the Turkish negotiation story finally broke, imperial arm-twisting, concession-giving, gift-showering, and bribing at the UN and elsewhere on our beleaguered planet had hardly been covered in the American media, which — since it was evident to the naked eye of someone like me light years from the action and without an inside source in sight — has been nothing short of criminal. Now, if we read carefully and to the ends of articles in the elite press, or check out the right columnists on op-ed pages, we can pick out the tale.”

MEANS AND ENDS

Back in the days of that other evil empire, the mantra of those who backed US versus THEM was that, “the means never justify the ends.” Anyone who has lived through that period knows that phrase well. Today, as war with Iraq looms, we might look at the MEANS that the BLM — The Bush Liberation Movement — is using to bludgeon its way in the face of world opinion which has turned against the United States. It includes spying on allies, bribery, and hard ball bullying of the kind associated with dictators, not democrats. And, yes, this story line is buried in most of the stories about the looming war.

SPYING

Once again, an English newspaper, the Observer out-scooped the US press on an major American story. And it is a whopper, because it conjures up shades of Richard Nixon who may have died although his dirty tricks live on. Martin Bright, Ed Vulliamy and Peter Beaumont report: “The United States is conducting a secret ‘dirty tricks’ campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favor of war against Iraq.

“Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer.

“The disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official at the National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts communications around the world - and circulated to both senior agents in his organization and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking for its input.

The memo describes orders to staff at the agency, whose work is clouded in secrecy, to step up its surveillance operations ‘particularly directed at… UN Security Council Members (minus US and GBR, of course)’ to provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for Bush officials on the voting intentions of UN members regarding the issue of Iraq.” (Please tell me if you have seen this story on US TV?)

AND BUYING

When there is no spying, there is buying as Senator Joe Biden smugly conceded in an aside on Fox News Sunday when he smiled knowingly when host Tony Snow asked him about reports that the US government was paying off Turkish legislators. “Oh yes, they are playing,” he quipped but, of course, without any follow up as if that is business as usual and not worthy of more digging. Maybe it is.

You would have had to jump to page eleven in the Sunday New York Times, way down at the bottom of the page to find this quote from Murat Mercan. A member of the majority party who said; “the Americans dictated to us. It became business negotiation, not something between friends. It disgusted me.”

He was not the only one who is disgusted. Moving up that page in the newspaper of record, I found similar stories within the stories that in many ways defined them. Right above the Turkish news was an account of the debate among the Kurds vis a vis the United States. One Kurdish leader speaks of president Bush’s special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad this way: “If Khalizad thinks he can push us around like the Afghans, he is mistaken. One of his aides called Khalilzad a “bully.”

“HEAVY HANDED, CLUMSY AND OBVIOUS”

As I moved up the page to the next piece, this one on Hans Blix, the subtext of bullying was the same. Here is the revealing line, again way down in the piece, “A Blix associate at the United Nations said that Mr. Blix was unsettled by what he viewed as undue pressure from Washington. ‘The Americans have been very heavy handed, obvious and clumsy in their dealings with him,’ the associate said.”

At the bottom of the page, a story about South Korea speaks of the generation gap in that country in which young people say they have also been bullied. A 27 year old Park Yun Jun is quoted as saying: “Older people have lived in times when they got a lot of pressure from America and towards Americanism and obedience.” And so it goes. All of these stories report on these feelings of being bullied and pressured but no one story or investigation explains that these tactics, long associated with Tony Soprano et al. are the MEANS Washington relies on.

THE THREE RING CIRCUS

It’s like a three ring circus. Turkey was in the center ring this weekend., but, in what will soon be the main ring, the actual war is underway in Iraq but no one seems to be noticing, except perhaps South Africa’s Mail and Guardian which reports:

“Allies bomb key Iraqi targets

“Britain and the United States have all but fired the first shots of the second Gulf war by dramatically extending the range of targets in the “no-fly zones” over Iraq to soften up the country for an allied ground invasion.”

In the third ring The Arab Summit meeting was carrying on as the United Arab Emirates called for Saddam to go into exile. The Independent’s Robert Fisk detects the heavy hand of the US pressure there too. “Even the Saudis didn’t oppose the Emirates’ plea, while the Egyptians – host to the Arab League summit – could only claim that they were “not in the business of changing one regime for another”. How much does it cost to produce this kind of subservience? In Egypt’s case, $3bn (£1.9bn) in US aid and other credits, plus another $1bn in gifts. Another $1bn for Jordan, which has just accepted US troops on its territory – only to man Patriot missile batteries, of course. Money seems to make the Arab world go round. The Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram and the Saudi newspaper Al-Hayat are singing the Emirates’ tune and demanding a “regime change” in Baghdad.

CNN “SCRIPT APPROVAL”

Fisk also broke a story last week on a new script approval process at CNN that undermines independent reporting.” A new CNN system of “script approval” - the iniquitous instruction to reporters that they have to send all their copy to anonymous officials in Atlanta to ensure it is suitably sanitized - suggests that the Pentagon and the Department of State have nothing to worry about…

‘Indeed, reading a new CNN document, Reminder of Script Approval Policy, fairly takes the breath away. “All reporters preparing package scripts must submit the scripts for approval,” it says. “Packages may not be edited until the scripts are approved… All packages originating outside Washington, LA (Los Angeles) or NY (New York), including all international bureaus, must come to the ROW in Atlanta for approval.”

“The date of this extraordinary message is 27 January. The “ROW” is the row of script editors in Atlanta who can insist on changes or ‘balances’ in the reporter’s dispatch. “A script is not approved for air unless it is properly marked approved by an authorised manager and duped (duplicated) to burcopy (bureau copy)… When a script is updated it must be re-approved, preferably by the originating approving authority.”

“Note the key words here: “approved” and “authorized”. CNN’s man or woman in Kuwait or Baghdad - or Jerusalem or Ramallah - may know the background to his or her story; indeed, they will know far more about it than the “authorities” in Atlanta. But CNN’s chiefs will decide the spin of the story.”

MEDIA IDEA MANAGEMENT

TV idea management takes many forms, including the neutering of ideas themselves. Today’s example: Fox News has added the line: “Real journalism” to its advertising. MSNBC is not saying anything to critics who charge that Phil Donahue was dropped as a talk show host not because of poor ratings (His show was #1 on the channel) but because of the anti-war guests he had on with regularity. Ralph Nader has commented on this in his most recent newspaper column adding this delicious detail:

‘Starting last fall, leaks from top NBC sources badmouthed their own Donahue show, leading to regular trade press rumors about the demise of the show. This is no way to maintain morale, much less run a business supposedly endowed with at least some recognition of the public’s right to diverse information and opinion. Top NBC executives, given their enormous pay, should start paying attention to simple improvements. For example, in about half the country, MSNBC is not even listed in the daily and Sunday TV cable guides, including Washington, D.C. If your programs are not even listed alongside CNN and Fox programs, there will be fewer viewers. I notified a top NBC executive late last fall about this remarkable omission. His response: “I’m astonished to hear that,” and he pledged to rectify the situation. Nothing has changed to date.”

MEET THE PRESS

This is not to say that all the boys at GE-owned NBC are one sided. I was pleasantly surprised to see the director of Win Without War on Meet the Press yesterday debating a war booster. The show also featured a segment about celebrities who are squaring off, a kind of Law and Order versus West Wing debate. So there was Fred Thompson, the actor turned Senator turned actor again (or was he always an actor) who has done a TV ad for a group called Citizens United versus Mike Farrell of M*A*S*H fame of Artists United to Win Without War. What was strange was that the issue quickly became their views on the war, not their credentials or the role of celebrities. Thompson’s ad was made by a group slamming leftists in Hollywood (”Those are their words, not mine’ distanced Fred). It said there was a link between Iraq and 9/11, a “fact” that host Russert did not challenge on factual grounds. The Times Week in Review carried a piece showing that media reports have led many in the public to believe this — even though no evidence exists to confirm the point.

BEAT THE PRESS

As for media preparations for war, we have a first person account from Andrew Jacobs now in the Sunday New York Times magazine describing his week at Pentagon training camp. Aside from the all the stories of heavy lifting and journos under fire, there was this reality sandwich way down in the story: “Clearly, there is a measure of self-interest at work here: old-fashioned public relations. The Pentagon’s newfound cooperative spirit was prompted, in part, by media criticism of restrictions during previous engagements, including the war in Afghanistan, when a group of correspondents were locked in a warehouse and prevented from reporting on a ‘’friendly fire'’ attack that left a number of American troops wounded. Military officials have said that battlefield dispatches will not be censored, a departure from many past conflicts, but reporters will be expected to omit place names or troop numbers if such information compromises the secrecy of an operation. ‘’We’re pushing the envelope here,'’ Col. Jay DeFrank, the Pentagon’s director of press operations, said.

‘And what better way to curry some favorable prewar coverage than helicopter joy rides or show-and-tell sessions featuring high-tech weaponry? All that marching, commiserating and drinking with the Marines makes for warm and fuzzy feelings on both sides.

SALUTING THE FLAG

At least one journalist is speaking up. Bill Moyers, whose show NOW gets better by the week put an American Flag on his sweater — no lapel there anymore — to make this point in his final commentary: “So I put this on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don’t have to make it, or approve of bribing governments to join the coalition of the willing (after they first stash the cash). I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not to the government. And it reminds me that it’s not un-American to think that war –except in self-defense — is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and diplomatic skill. Come to think of it, standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.”

In the media news, The Guardian reports that Italy’s media mogul prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, faced a storm of political protest for trying to directly nominate the bosses of the state television service..Don Hazen writes on Alternet that: “In the coming months, increasing numbers of an unhappy public will come together to protest the unbridled growth of media monopolies.” Meanwhile some good news in another Alternet carried story by media historian Robert W. McChesney, and John Nichols of The Nation who claim “The Feds are beginning to reassert the all-but-forgotten principle that decisions on media ownership must consider the public interest.”

YOUR LETTERS

In the email today Larry R Guengerich writes from the Mennonite Central Committee: “Just wanted to thank you for the work you are doing. When you get a second, try checking our Web site. We are one of the few groups still getting aid intoIraq. We are also a part of a large effort to gather $1.0 million to pay for medicine and water for the children there.

http://www.mcc.org/respond/rapid_respond/iraq/index.html

http://www.allourchildren.org

Another Larry, Larry Houghteling says: “Thanks for the mild ribbing you gave the so-called lowering of some Color Alert Stage to some other color. It IS funny, in a stupid way - as though Al Bundy had taken over keeping the United States safe.

‘What doesn’t seem at all funny is the way the media have taken to announcing these periodic raisings and lowerings of the body-politic temperatures. Last nightI noted that both NPR news and the Jim Lehrer news hour led with this silliness, while elsewhere in the world American forces continued to stream toward nations ringing Iraq, American bribes and threats continued to be extended toward countries we’re trying to get onto “our” team, and the United Nations Security Council heads for a showdown vote on a US-UK resolution that would, if passed, give Bush and Blaira go-ahead for war.

‘The media are always stuck when some government agency or official states that something is true. It takes intelligence, persistence and courage — virtues as rare in the news biz as in the rest of the world – to figure out a way of framing the story on such a way as to quote the government official and yet make it clear that there are good reasons to be skeptical of the story … I have a very different idea of what needs to be done. I suppose it is asking a great deal of our corporate-owned Big Media to show intelligence, persistence and courage. But that is exactly what they need to start exhibiting.

I had several queries about an item that my editor Jeanette added to the weblog in good faith but without my knowledge, a practice we will now discontinue.” John Driscoll writes: “I found this note in your Dissect for 2/28 in the story on “Weapons of MassDistraction”:

“(Ed. note: There is growing evidence, cited by Debka, that Iraq’s nuclearweapons were moved to the Bekaa Valley months ago and aimed at the heart ofthe only democracy in the Middle East.)”

I found the Debka site, and couldn’t find a reference to this. The Debkaorganization seems like a very biased intelligence source, at first glance.” My editor Jeanette tells me that a source of hers in a lobbying group in Washington confirmed this and that Debka. Com, which is thought to be close to some Israeli intelligence sources has been correct in the past on some stories. That may be true, but I am sure that if this particular story was true, Colin Powell & Co., with all of their intelligence sources, would be jumping up and down about it. Some interest groups may favor spreading war to Syria but information of this kind needs to be more carefully confirmed. I still haven’t seen the original story but John Driscoll and the others who have written on this issue are right that it is an explosive charge that needs more back up.(Ed. note: Feb 7 issue, not the website, the subscriber’s edition.)

GREG PALAST N.Y. LAUNCH TONIGHT

Finally, I will be joining Media Channel advisor, journalist Greg Palast when he launches the new US edition of his book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: : An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth About Globalization, Corporate Cons and High-Finance Fraudsters at Barnes & Noble, Broadway at 82d street at 7:30 PM. This new US edition in paperback is nearly twice as long as the original hardbound – with new material including blistering new material on who’s ringing the cash register on the war on terror; on Bush Senior’s frightening gold mining ventures; and the very latest on the theft of the election in 2000 and the plan to steal it in 2004. The B&N event is free. Folks there can sign up for to get a new video – the Grassroots Edition of Counting on Democracy – a our Globalvision film, featuring an update of the fiasco in Florida by investigative reporter Palast.

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