PLANES AND PARANOIA

SADDAM’S $40 BILL

TV’S BIOGRAPHY SERIES

Is it paranoia or something more?

An alarm woke me this morning and I realized that most of our news today is about alarms, new stuff to worry about — an unexpected SARS case in China; a new bin Laden tape sounding like an old bin Laden tape, unconfirmed as yet by the CIA, hardly a source of great sagacity; a report in the London Mirror, unconfirmed, of a woman carrying Semtex or some explosive substance in her body on flight 223 out of London to Washington; a bizarre Britney Spears wedding for a day; a strange Joe Lieberman Howard-Dean-bashing appearance in yesterday’s debate in Iowa for a primary (caucus) in which he is not contesting. Remember that song by Bob Geldof and his first band about hating Mondays. I started humming it to myself.

THE GRID MAN

The other day I had a person visit me who claims to have decoded the Jon Benet Ramsey kidnap note. He put a grid over its many scrawling words and threats, and they point, he claims, to the work of a racist cult that has been at war with the United States since the Civil War. She was their “Helen of Troy,” he suggested, just one target in a larger war against the North, the government, land of the free. He noted that the letters TT are in the letter, as revealed by his grid, which indicates foreknowledge of the attack on the Twin Towers.

I am not sure my own intelligence is elevated enough to fully understand his “revelation,” which he tells me is about to come out and blow the case wide open. He claims he is briefing the authorities. Who knows? Maybe he is onto something. Strange are the times we live in. On the other hand, there are so many people walking around, many in high places, that you could describe as certifiable. And many of them seem to find me.

This new “informant” talked a mile a minute and seemed very sure of his conclusions. When we left the building, I asked him what he and his “sources” think is going to happen next.

NUKING NEW YORK?

“Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “THEY are going to nuke us.” My eyes rolled into my head until I read a report of a report in one of Berlusconi’s newspapers in Italy — not reported here to my knowledge. It claims that Al Qaeda has vowed to nuke New York and that God will destroy America. This brought me back to the 1950’s when we had those “duck and cover” civil defense drills and fallout shelters and lived with the constant fear of a Soviet nuclear attack…

That night, I caught Bill Clinton on C-SPAN saying that his biggest regret is that he didn’t kill bin Laden. He tried, he revealed (again). He then mused, “They [al Qaeda] are very good at what they do.” He repeated the statement. You don’t usually hear American politicians praise “evil-doers” this way.

So, yes. I am not sanguine about threats. This is a scary time — but in more ways than one. Do I trust the government? No? Do I trust Al Qaeda? No way. So whom do you trust and how do you evaluate all these planes being blocked from taking off or entering American airspace? Intelligence “chatter” or something harder? When it sounds crazy, it usually is crazy.

I am not one who believes that “the government must know what it is doing.” On the other hand…

LEAVE THE FLYING TO US

The NY Times reported, “Seven international flights have now been canceled since last Saturday after the Bush administration began an aggressive approach to defending American airspace when the nation was put on orange or ‘high’ alert on Dec. 21.”

What was accomplished?

“I don’t think we know yet, and we may never know,” a senior administration official said.

Officials cite the absence of an incident as evidence that whatever they are doing is working. Who can disprove them? It’s a perfect rationale for more funding.

STORY NOT COVERED IN UK

Oddly enough, part of what is being reported in the US is not being reported in England, according to William Bowles. He cites the Times too:

In another indication of the turmoil resulting from the increased security measures, an American official said that the cancellation of the British Airways flights was not in response to United States safety concerns, but rather was prompted by the refusal of British pilots to fly with armed marshals on board. The United States put other nations on notice earlier this week that it would not allow certain suspicious flights into its airspace without armed marshals on board.
New York Times, January 3, 2004 from a story by Eri Lichtblau [my emph. WB]

So why no coverage of this in the British media? One must assume that the story has some basis in truth for what reason could the US official quoted have for lying? The fundamental issue however, is why this was kept from the British public by the media who we are told, are purveyors of the facts?

( http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0175.html )

THE REAL TASK

Bowles also dredges up a quote to show that what’s happening now is not unique in the annals of post-WWII history. He quotes George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning, U.S. State Department from way back in 1948:

Our real task… is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity [U.S. military- economic supremacy]… To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming… We should cease to talk about vague and…unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization… we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.

“ANOTHER 9/11″ COMING?

The other day I got out of the subway and nearly bumped into three mean-looking cops wearing helmets and carrying automatic weapons. They were “on alert,” terrifying commuters. Several readers write to say that this all feels like an attempt by the government to use terror alerts to field test, and then impose, martial law.

I was sent a report by Charles Everett on the World Socialist Web Site:

Black Hawk helicopters over Las Vegas, snipers in Times Square
2004 begins with mass military mobilization in UScities

( www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jan2004/2004-j03.shtml )

— a dry run for martial law in the USA. Of course the Liberal Media will never tell you that.

NY Times William Safire predicts “major terror attackin the US” on eve of 2004 “election.”

Other headlines:

Orange Code Terror alert based on fabricatedintelligence

General Franks: “US Constitution won’t survive if US is attacked by weapons of mass destruction”

All of this prompts one Scott Loughrey to comment:

It seems to me like another 9-11 is coming. Then they’ll close the borders and forbid other travel. A police state will come. Martial law declared. They certainly want everyone to fear them now. If we don’t get afraid we’re disrupting their plans.

THE ALIEN ARMY

I am not sure our “not fearing them” is going to change whatever plans may be in the works (like the apparent decision to use all the attention focused on Saddam’s capture to push new terror legislation through Congress), but all these strange events seem to be stirring a new level of apocalyptic insights. Here’s Gore Vidal talking to Marc Cooper in LA Weekly. (See Alternet.org)

[Cooper] Do you not think of Bush and Ashcroft as Americans?

[Vidal] I think of them as an alien army. They have managed to take over everything, and quite in the open. We have a deranged president. We have despotism. We have no due process.

[Cooper] Yet you saw in the ’60s how the Johnson administration collapsed under the weight of its own hubris. Likewise with Nixon. And now with the discontent over how the war in Iraq is playing out, don’t you get the impression that Bush is headed for the same fate?

[Vidal] I actually see something smaller tripping him up: this business over outing the wife of Ambassador Wilson as a CIA agent. It’s often these small things that get you. Something small enough for a court to get its teeth into. Putting this woman at risk because of anger over what her husband has done is bitchy, dangerous to the nation, dangerous to other CIA agents. This resonates more than Iraq. I’m afraid that 90 percent of Americans don’t know where Iraq is and never will know, and they don’t care

( www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17442 )

SADDAM’S 40 BILLION

Last week when I was breaking from the blog, a story came out claiming that Saddam Hussein was telling the CIA about $40 billion dollars he had stashed. It was played prominently in the New York Post. What was behind it? Here’s Dori Smith dissecting:

A Good Source Worth $40 Billion?

Before the US invasion of Iraq Saddam Hussein was a negative source and George W. Bush did not believe a word he said. Now though, we are being urged to believe that he has turned into a “yes” man under US interrogation and is disclosing the extent of his former wealth and powers readily. In articles tending to feature the mug shot with the dental exam, Hussein is said to be confessing that he stashed away $40 billion in various countries. This information was disclosed to the Iraqi National Congress, who got it out to the mainstream press in about two weeks from the date of Hussein’s capture. On December 29th the former Iraqi leader was reported to have said, “I have hidden $40 billion,” a quote attributed to him in a Reuters story, and various media outlets including the Christian Science Monitor, NewsMax and India Times, reported the same thing on the same day.

How did the US and INC manage to spread the word so quickly that Saddam Hussein is now a reliable source? A US Government-funded but London-based organization called, “Indict” helped them out. Indict was set up by Ann Clwyd, an MP from the UK, working to help identify and indict Iraqi war criminals. The $40 billion dollar figure was first offered to the press in April of 2003, by Indict’s Charles Forrest, and some of the current stories about Hussein’s $40 billion mention him. The office of the INC’s Ahmed Chalabi, has been saying that they know about the cash, and coincidentally, the Heritage Foundation’s web site provides a bit of information about where the figure of $40 billion dollars might have come from. They describe, “a future $40 billion Iraqi-Russian economic agreement,” dated 2002 which would have allowed for extensive oil exploration opportunities throughout western Iraq. The catch is that any such explorations depended on the lifting of UN sanctions on Iraq. (See: www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/wm217.cfm ) I want the mainstream press to now ask these reliable sources which agencies will be searching for Hussein’s $40 billion and how it is to be distributed back to the Iraqi people.

WHAT WE DON’T SEE DEPARTMENT

Here’s a TV Trivia Question: “Why has Mary Robinson Never Appeared on ‘Biography’?”

Joyce Walker writes: “Have you ever wondered why Biography never features humanitarians like Mary Robinson of Amnesty International, respected statesmen like Robert Byrd or courageous activists like Kathy Kelly?”

There has always been a scarcity of information geared toward the feeding of inquiring minds on Commercial T.V., but the takeover by mega-media moguls seems to have caused a blight in the programming offered to us the viewers.

Some of us remember when Discovery and The Learning Channel actually lived up to their names. And I remember how encouraged I was at the integrity demonstrated by CNN during the Gulf War by their airing Wolf Blitzer’s controversial telecasts exposing the military’s bombing of civilian sites. In the past, The History Channel aired memorable programs which would not make it past the current political censors.

I really like a good action movie, especially one with a super hero, but I wonder, can the people at National Cable and Telecommunications and Time Warner really believe a constant diet of cops and robbers, weaponry worship, and pro-militancy viewing is healthy for adults or children in this country?

The mind games the media is playing with the public are criminal - or ought to be. ? I’ve decided to do what I can to protest their deception. I’m going to start the new year by not turning my television on all day - and I’m going to send an e-mail to the offices of Time Warner and National Cable and Telecommunications to let them know what I’m doing -bob.meldrum@twtelecom.com could probably care less, but it will do me a world of good to black them out during one of their most profitable events. I wonder, if you and I promote this type of protest, whether it might catch on. If it did, then maybe Bob would notice.

( www.commondreams.org/views03/1230-12.htm )

TELL ME LIES

The debate over media coverage of the war continues. David Miller has sent me a fabulous book on propaganda and distortion in the attack on Iraq (Pluto Press) The title “Tell Me Lies” is based on a poem by Adrian Mitchell that was also the basis of a Peter Brook play of the same name that opposed the Vietnam War. I saw it in London back in the Sixties. I will have more to say about this impressive collection when I read it.

A friend in Geneva sent me an item from the other side of the debate from the International Herald Tribune: “A French journalist fired for accusing the country’s press of blinkered anti-Americanism during the Iraq war said yesterday he had realized the extent of French bias by reading The Telegraph. In his book, La Guerre a Outrances - Comment la presse nous a desinform頳ur l’Irak (The War of Outrages - How the press disinformed us on Iraq), M Hertoghe attacked French reporters for continually predicting that the war would end in disaster for American and British forces.”

SLUDGE

“MOVEON.ORG FEATURES AD COMPARING BUSH TO HITLER…

“ONLINE CONTEST TO MAKE BEST SPOT TURNS VICIOUS. WEBSITE FEATURED AD, LATER PULLED IT AFTER COMPLAINTS, DRUDGE HAS LEARNED. SEE MOVEON.ORG HITLER/BUSH AD CONTENDER.

Have you seen this ad? Agree? Disagree?

YOUR LETTERS

Paul Kneevers, a multi-media artist and music producer in Milwaukee, writes to criticize the local “alternative newspaper.”

The destruction of “alternative” media.

Our local “black sheep” alternative paper, the Shepherd Express has written articles promoting the 3 new coal burning power plants that will be built here in SE Wisconsin to “solve” our energy needs. This in spite of the fact that they aren’t even operating their old plants up to 1970’s Clean Air Act standards. The fact that the Shepherd Express’s new Milwaukee Film Festival was sponsored by WE energy, our energy monopoly might have something to do with this?!?

I wish that we here in Milwaukee could get a REAL alternative paper that had the balls to report issues, versus selling out their asses and consciences to their advertisers, especially the ones who are destroying civil society in the name of profit, and greed. Artists like myself who dare to identify these issues are routinely censored out of the Shepherd Express cultural coverage in favor of sanitized, safer artistic coverage that also satisfies advertisers and their agendas.

NABLUS NEEDS TO BE IN THE NEWS

Pamela Wilson passes some news along of some urgency:

I’ve been a fan of yours for quite a while now, and read you religiously. I collect your newsletters, and save them as a type of “truth-journal” of these strange and chaotic times. You’ve exposed me to a number of issues I was ignorant of, and I’m deeply grateful for that, and for all the work you do.

I’m writing you now because I desperately hope you might make some mention of what’s happening in Nablus right now. I’ve been following the International Solidarity Movement for some time–you may be aware that an Israeli soldier recently confessed to shooting without provocation one of their activists who is now brain-dead, Tom Hurndall.

What’s happening now to the community in Nablus is spiraling into a more and more desperate situation, as evidenced by this forward, and is receiving almost no attention in the media. I’m certain that some of your readers are unaware of what’s happening (how can they be, when it’s so difficult to get reports on the situation without being tied into the ISM and other activist networks?) and I’m equally sure they’d be as incensed as I am by the human rights violations taking place daily by one of the USA’s closest allies, Israel. Please, please mention something about this in your newsletter.

I feel like I’ve done something just by writing you. I trust you and your sensibilities, and believe in your work. Again, thank you for what you do, and keep the faith.

John Yang of ABC NEWS compiled a strong piece on abuses by the Israeli army for World News Sunday, so the networks could cover the story if they wanted to. A human rights activist sent me an appeal on the issue that reads:

‘Write and Call media outlets and ask why they are ignoring the news of Nablus, Balata and Beit Foreek. Letters to the editor (150 words or less) or Opinion Articles (700-800 words) may be addressed to your favorite local, national or international newspaper or other media outlet. Each letter should be sent to one newspaper only and must include your name, address and phone number.

KEERECTIONS

Mark Glaser writes to set me straight, and he is right. Sorry. “I saw your quote from an article I wrote for Online Journalism Review, which was nice, except… could you please include my name and/or the correct name of the publication when quoting from something I wrote? You wrote it was in ?Online News Journal’ which is incorrect. I’d appreciate any type of correction you could make.” Done.

Another error to clarify was brought to my attention with a stiff reprimand by Ralph Bonheim. He advises me that my citation of Stephen Pelletiere’s New York Times‘ Op Ed on the Halabja gassing of the Kurds was carried 11 months after its publication!! He adds: “Pelletiere’s assertions have been wholly discredited, as shown here http://hnn.us/articles/1242.html.” I checked. He is right.

Apologies for the error.

THE HOME WE SHARE

Finally, how intriguing to learn through the vigilance of TomDispatch.com that our Secretary of Defense and the most exalted anchor of CBS News share a ranch. This was first disclosed in TIME: “You would think, especially after the capture of Saddam, that Rumsfeld could pack it in, go out on top and settle down in that ranch in Taos, N.M., that he co-owns with, among others, Dan Rather.” This juicy tidbit appears in Time magazine’s year-end portrait of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by Michael Duffy and Mark Thompson. (See http://tinyurl.com/2xs8a.)

Small world, hey what? Are you strapping in for the ride ahead in 2004? I am, I am still at dissector@mediachannel.org waiting for your every word.