*TRYING SADDAM

*PROBING DR. KELLY’S DEATH

*GOING TO WASHINGTON

They have put digital artists to work to come up with graphics of what Saddam might look like these days; some are mustacheless; most, change his appearance. Like Paladin in the Old West, the US is bounty-hunting for Saddam, dead or alive. Well — maybe, not dead. They want him alive, unlike his two sons who went down in a “hail of bullets.” (Bullets are always in a hail.) The New York Times reports today: “The U.S. has plans to create a special tribunal of Iraqi judges to try Saddam Hussein if he is captured, officialssaid.” Right now, Saddam is very trying — and the crime is his crime against humanity.

A WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL?

As you may recall, the liquidation of the brothers Hussein and their 14 year old nephew and bodyguard turned off most people in the world who do not work for a US TV network or are dependent on their “news.” Critics pointed out that if the US hopes to establish the rule of law in the lawless country of Iraq, they should set an example, So now, plans are afoot to put Saddam on trial. But what kind of a trial will it be?

Will it be like Nuremberg where, because of the impending Cold War, many of the captured Nazis expediently got off or were given wrist-slaps. Those trials were conducted by the victorious allies, the US, Britain, The Soviet Union and France. In Tokyo, at a War Crimes Tribunal run by the US, none of those “I was only following orders” rationalizations were excepted. The Japanese were held accountable for their actions. (Although promulgated by the US, those are very high standards that Washington insists NOT be applied to American soldiers.)

Meanwhile Saddam himself seems to be escalating his response with a new audio tape, this time given to Al Jazeera, whereon he calls for more Iraqi resistance. He also calls for law and order and the protection of state property for when “things return to normal.” I am not sure what it is he’s smoking, but his bravado, which is a cultural phenomenon, certainly underscores the gap between what Americans think is going on and what some Iraqis believe. The cat and mouse game contines.

BLAIR TO TESTIFY

Speaking of courts, I spent a half hour watching Lord Hoon on BBC World describe the questions his inquiry will ask in its probe into the death of weapons expert Dr. David Kelly. The BBC brings us up to date: “The judge investigating the events surrounding the death of the UK Government weapons expert Dr David Kelly has opened his inquiry and confirmed he intends to call Tony Blair as a witness.

“The top judge spent the first 35 minutes of the session explaining how he will conduct the inquiry and who he will call to give evidence, including the prime minister, the defense secretary and BBC journalists…. He also revealed that Dr Kelly’s body had been found with four electrocardiogram pads on his chest - one of the mysteries of the case he wished to unravel.”

BRITISH JOURNALISM AND VS US STENOGRAPHY

We have been reporting this for two years, — and the NY Observer observes this week — that there is a gap between how British journalists see Iraq War controversies and how American journalists choose not to see them. Mostly, US reporters act more like stenographers. One of Britain’s most outspoken journalists is John Pilger. Here’s a snatch of his latest:

“Every day now, in the United States, the all-pervasive media tell Americans that their bloodletting in Iraq is well under way, although the true scale of the attacks is almost certainly concealed. Soon, more soldiers will have been killed since the ‘liberation’ than during the invasion. Sustaining the myth of ‘mission’ is becoming difficult, as in Vietnam. This is not to doubt the real achievement of the invaders’ propaganda, which was the suppression of the truth that most Iraqis opposed both the regime of Saddam Hussein and the Anglo-American assault on their homeland. One reason the BBC’s Andrew Gilligan angered Downing Street was that he reported that, for many Iraqis, the bloody invasion and occupation were at least as bad as the fallen dictatorship.

“This is unmentionable here in America. The tens of thousands of Iraqi dead and maimed do not exist. When I interviewed Douglas Feith, number three to Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, he shook his head and lectured me on the ‘precision’ of American weapons. His message was that war had become a bloodless science in the service of America’s unique divinity. It was like interviewing a priest. Only American ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ suffer, and at the hands of ‘Ba’athist remnants,’ a self-deluding term in the spirit of General Maude’s ‘miscreants.’ The media echo this, barely gesturing at the truth of a popular resistance and publishing galleries of GI amputees, who are described with a maudlin, down-home chauvinism which celebrates the victimhood of the invader while casting the vicious imperialism that they served as benign. At the State Department, the under-secretary for international security, John Bolton, suggested to me that, for questioning the fundamentalism of American policy, I was surely a heretic, ‘a Communist Party member,’ as he put it.”

WHEN BULLYING FAILS, TRY BRIBERY

IPS is reporting that the pressure is on India to change its mind and send troops to Iraq because Washington is loathe to commit more Americans. Bribing and bullying seem to be the two persuaders the US military is “deploying”:

“The quid pro quo, according to diplomatic sources, is approval of the proposed sale of the state-of-the-art Arrow-2 missile defence system by Israel. Since the $100 million system includes U.S. components and funding, Israel needs U.S. approval to close the deal.

“General Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, is now in New Delhi to try to convince the government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to change its stance on troops for Iraq.

The London Financial Times said Tuesday that the Bush administration has also pledged to further relax the sale of dual-use technology to India in return for that country sending troops to Iraq.”

According to American Jewish sources in New York who are close to Bush and Sharon, there is neither bullying nor bribery, as negotiations continue on a myriad of different levels between Israel and India, India and the United States and Israel and the United States. “There is no connection,” said the source. “It just so happens that both stories broke at the same time. Not everything is linked.”

A “MYSTERY ILLNESS”??????

There are reports in a Florida paper about a “mysterious illness” claiming the lives of US soldiers back from Iraq. Seven are said to have died. Watch for more details when this story goes national as it will. The Gulf War syndrome stories started like this with small reports long before the government acknowledged that there was indeed a serious problem.

http://www.lakesunleader.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2003/July/30-1000-news1.txt

Also, Chemical weapons may be threatening some people in the United States, but the threat is from the US Army and NOT Saddam:

“Today, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) issued it’s final approval to allow the Army to burn the 2,253 tons of chemical warfare agent stored in Anniston. Unnamed high ranking Army officials confirmed their intention to fire up the facility as early as August 6-7th.

“Several community protection measures the Army agreed to implement before burning began have yet to be completed, including protective capabilities at local schools and response plans for the handicapped Last week Alabama’s Governor, Bob Riley requested the Army not initiate operations before granting him the authority to stop the incinerator if he saw fit, but with the permit in hand, this also appears to have been ignored.”

“WE ARE ALL SINNERS

“One of the media critics in the US who does work on bended leg is Dan Kennedy of the Boston Phoenix. Yesterday, his invaluable media log talked about the way the gay marriage issue is being exploited:

“‘We are all sinners.’ President Bush tried to walk a moderate path in his news conference yesterday when he was asked about same-sex marriage. ‘I am mindful that we’re all sinners.’ he said, sending a clear message that he sees hatemongering toward gays and lesbians to be as “sinful” as having non-biblical sex.

“Thanks a lot, Mr. President. …

“So, Mr. President, why won’t you allow homosexual sinners the same rights that heterosexual sinners such as you and the First Lady presumably enjoy?

“Note to the irony-impaired: Media Log does not actually consider any consensual, non-adulterous sex between two adults to be a sin.”

PEEING IN AIR VERBOTEN

Did you know that if you fly to Washington from New York, you can’t take a leak on the plane until you get there? You have to stay in your seat. “Security.” Speaking of…the “wand” went off when my body was scanned before getting aboard. Beep. Beep. The screener in white shirt who has been “siring” me, explaining how he is there to protect us all seemed to think he has a live one.

“I have to take a closer look sir.”

“Of course, I say.” My thoughts have now been deleted like those references to Saudia Arabia in the 9/11 report.

“What do you want to see?”

“It’s beeping.”

“I can see it’s beeping. Why is it beeping?”

“That’s what I want to see.”

He’s right on top of my most private parts. I am wondering what danger may lurk within only to realize that it’s the zipper on my pants that’s got his tool excited, and him on high alert.

I explain. He finally apologizes. I zip up and I am off to board. Delta was ready when I was.

READING THE RIGHT

Of course I grabbed a number of magazines, a staple of shuttle travel. Most of the news and opinion magazines appear to be gone. No Economist. No Mother Jones. So I go for the other side.

The Washington Times is carrying an ad for “clean” videos and dvds. “Say goodbye to offensive content.” You can order your favorite film and they will edit out the risqué parts, I wonder of the film directors know that censored expurgated versions of their films are being retailed. See Watimes,cleanfilms.com

The Claremont Review of Books, a new right publication with intellectual pretensions, has a piece on left wing radio. The conclusion: Pacifica stations are dreary. He attacks Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now for not being as funny as Rush Limbaugh’s yak fest. “In the world of “Democracy Now!,” Christopher Flannery writes, “there is no greater danger to anything and everything decent democratic people everywhere love and cherish than the US of A. To this Associate Editor, Amy is a “bleak ascetic.” he says she will never be a “budding radical Rushette” because her “radio personality is closer to Medea with a migraine.” Laugh at yourself Christopher. DeeDee Halleck tells me the TV version of Amy’s show is now on 130 public access stations nationwide and now all the access producers want their shows played near hers because the audience surges.

INDONESIA ON MY MIND

I am on way to hear about a conference being organized in Indonesia to promote unity and diversity, and “to promote progress against the odds: Its being organized by a newspaper editor named Aristides Kottopo whose paper was banned during the days of Suharto’s rule and businesswoman Cheri Nursalim. They are organizing a major educational forum that I hope to attend in Bali next December.

The idea is get the business people, the government and the civil society talking to each other rather than at each other. Indonesia, a struggling democracy, is still trying to recover from the financial crisis of l997. It is a country with more Muslims than any other in the world. Unity and “bridge building is critical to stimulating economic growth in a country where 125 million people live in poverty.

Aristides and Cheri have managed to get the Sloan School of management at MIT involved along with the University of Indonesia to co-sponsor the effort. They have the country’s president Megawatti scheduled to attend along with President Jim Wolfensohn of the World Bank. More significant to me are all the local leaders and groups that have signed on. Wolfonsohn told of a conversation he had with deposed Dictator Suharto who he was pressing on the corruption issue. (He was the worst offender.” He says Suharto took him aside and said, “What you in the west call corruption, we in Indonesia consider ‘family values.”

A REPLICABLE MODEL?

The conference sounds to me like the kind of an initiative that many developing countries need — a forum to explore differences, and build trust involving all sectors of the society and international experts and agencies. It may be a replicable model for how global institutions, educators and businesses can make common cause with NGO’s and state actors.

Mediachannel is cooperating with the Forum by hosting a luncheon for Aristides in New York next Monday with fellow journalists and organizing a media awards program to recognize media that is promoting positive change as an alternative to scapegoating and blame gaming. As I noted in a short intervention at at the organizing meeting in Washington, we all need to build bridges and that Americans can learn from Indonesians too. Most of us are ignorant about the rest of the world thanks to the inattention of our media and the inadequacy of our schools.’

Note how quickly Indonesia caught its terrorists who blew up that nightclub in Bali without bombing the beaches, If you are interested in hearing more about the United in Diversity Conference, write to me, dissector@mediachannel.org

DEFICITS

One of the people on hand in Washington was Lester Thurow, the MIT economist who will be in Bali. He digressed to talk about how the growing deficit in Washington will eventually hurt the rest of the world that has become dependent on exports to the US. When this bubble bursts — as it has in California — it is likely the US will have to bring its deficit down which will ripple out to the rest of the world. He described being on national commission which ended up being deadlocked along partisan lines. He says they all agreed that the situation was dangerous but disagreed on whether there would be a “hard landing or a soft one.” The Republicans say it will be “soft.”

Which brings me to Paul Krugman today, the economist and Op-ed columnist for the NY Times who writes about the economic decline of Califirnia and asks: “is Washington any better than Sacramento?”

“Outside the Social Security system, the federal government is now running a deficit equal to a third of its spending — worse than California. The administration says it will never, ever contemplate increasing taxes; it says it will narrow the deficit through spending restraint, but has never said what spending it intends to restrain.

If the federal government isn’t in crisis, that’s only because — unlike state governments — it isn’t obliged to balance its budget each year. And so far bond markets have been willing to give the feds the benefit of the doubt.

But the people now running the country are every bit as irresponsible as those blocking a serious response to California’s crisis. And sooner or later that irresponsibility will have the usual consequences. California, here we come. ”

YOUR LETTERS

NEW TV SHOW IN AUSTRALIA: “HelloMy name is Brian Paisley. I am the wirter, and director for a T.V gameshow that will be screened in Sydney and Melbourne in September, and then in Europe, Ireland and U.K. We are also looking to get it on in the USA. It is called “State Terror”. It has all the appearences of a normal gameshow, (even more glitzy), however the questions and subject matter depart from standard gameshow fodder ( as the name suggests ).It will focus on the crimes of states, with a big emphasis on the USA and UK and their clients, and not forgetting our designated enemies. It will cover current events as well as historical. As well as focusing on governments and military it will also cover corporations, industry, propaganda, state control,media, hollywood, etc etc I am writing to you in the hope that you may be interested in including us in your programing. I would be delighted to hear from you if you are.

The web-site is currently at http://www.cat.org.au/~brianp/st/This will not be the permanent address.The site is still being constructed at the moment and is on here while this takes place. Please have a look at it. I look forward to hearing from you. Any distributors out there interested. Unfortunately, Globalvision is but a company, not a network. Not yet. Good idea though.

A CHALLENGE FROM DOWN UNDER

Peter Melov responds to my item on Greg Tingle and Derryn Hinch. ” danny, we have fame seekers here in australia too, hinch is a bankrupt who is also a womaniser, also a person who in a desperate attempt to stay in the spotlight, was the BEAST, on a panel show called ‘’beauty and the beast'’, you prob have a show like that in the u.s., people write in with their most intimate problems to a bunch of celebs, they have a joke, few laughs, at the writers expense, tell them to take a pill and lie down, you know what i mean, danny, no guilt at all, he was sacked from that, this man has consistly gone with the most provocotive themes in order to remain famous, he even dies his beard, ie film script, my film script, have you heard about my film script!, as for greg tingle, he sounded like a little boy, completely consumed with talking to someone who is known for his morals[you, danny], please realise these people do not represent the real, ozzies, that are against this appalling, corporatisatoin of the world[just visit hinchs site, now theres a corporate for you], and media man, well, he is just a hinch waiting to happen, I mean he idolizes the man, sorry again danny for these famers, peter”

ON SHARON’S VISIT

Mark Sheffner writes: Great work. I’m a fan and frequent visitor. Re Sharon’s visit to Washington, you may have missed a scathing attack on Bush by Guardian writer Simon Tisdall: “Bush doesn’t get it”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1009739,00.html

It includes this analysis of Bush’s definition of terrorism, which has been begging to be given, yet Tisdall is the first one to put it so succinctly that I’ve seen:

“In other words, Mr Bush seems to have bought, in its entirety, Mr Sharon’s Machiavellian proposition that any act of “terrorism”, however loosely defined, may constitute justification for more foot-dragging by Israel, or even for a de facto suspension of the entire peace process. On this basis, logically, terrorists who oppose the “road map” process (like those politicians in Israel and the US who also oppose it) will always win. ”

LAST WORD TO BUCKY

Finally, some mirth from the often great Art Buchwald who has yet to meet a news story he can’t satirize. His subject: Iraq:

“It is Christmas in the year 2020. U.S. troops are still in Iraq. Bing Crosby is singing “White Christmas” over a loudspeaker. Most of the soldiers have been here since Christmas 2003. They are homesick and also mad at the presidents who succeeded Dubya. Each one promised the men that they would be home for Christmas, but not one of them said which Christmas.

“Tom Brokaw the Third — no relation to Tom Brokaw the First — is now anchor for the merged CBS, NBC and ABC networks. He is in Baghdad to see how morale is holding up. …On his evening news program, he says, ‘The soldiers have just been told they will have to be here for another year — until the chaos quiets down and the various religious factions stop their fighting.’”

WE MADE IT TO AUGUST

Welcome August. We soldier on in our bunker here at Mediachannel as we keep on keeping on. Later this month, we will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the March of Washington of l963 and other events along the way. Stay cool. And keep in touch. Write dissector@mediachannel.org