27
May
Terrorized By The Terror Alert
THE WANTED SEVEN
ISRAEL’S NEW PUSH
NY TIMES MEA CULPA
When I grew up, the number seven was considered lucky. I loved films like “The Magnificent Seven.” (and John Sayles’ “The Secaucus Seven.”) Now I go to bed fearing the most wanted Terror Seven, 7 evil looking suspects who we are told who represent “a clear and present danger to America.” That warning came yesterday from John Ashcroft, fear-mongerer-in-chief of the Bush imperium. (Didn’t he give a similar press conference with sound-alike warnings last year?)
The Attorney General came on like a western sherrif from the days of yore branding the seven “armed and dangerous” although. of the group, all but one had been mentioned before. One had been born in the USA (forgive me Bruce for using your song in vain) and had been a heavy metal fanatic before converting to Islam. Another was reported to have left the Boston area for Pakistan eons ago?
I am not sure how many TV viewers were focusing on the alleged and accused given that American Idol named its big winner, yesterday, the uniquely named Fantasia Barrino. (While other channels did their Terror news this morning, Don Imus on MSNBC was advocating some terrorism of his own, ie. putting the stars of NBC’s Today Show in a bus and then blowing it up. Leave it to the derranged “I-Man” to say what’s on his mind.)
Fox and Friends was also branding MoveOn.org an extreme radical group as it put down a talk yesterday in New York by AL Gore who, with a new look, (slickbacked hair) had a fiery new message, demanding that Rumsfeld and his neo-con gang resign as “a clear and present danger to America.”
HOW SERIOUS IS THIS THREAT?
How serious is this “new” threat? For one thing the Yellow Alert stayed yellow indicating that the homeland securocrats don’t see any imminent danger. Is the new threat like all those old threats that never came to pass, even as they gave police incredible amounts of overtime? Is Big John crying wolf or is there reason to fear? And if there is, it certainly shows that Al Qaeda’s power has not been dented much by the war on terror? CIA Director Tenet nows says it will take another five years before we can smash these evil doers. What was most surprising this morning was to find the discussion on FOX News skeptical rather than supportive.
WHY STOP WITH 7? BEWARE “MATRIX”
The terror hunt in America is not being restricted to this unmagnificent Seven, but is also targeting the rest of us. Jim Dede writes in the Miami Herald about a computer program called MATRIX that has all of us in its cromputer cross ?hairs:
” On Sunday, I wrote about a computer program called MATRIX,which was invented in the aftermath of 9/11 by Hank Asher,a Boca Raton millionaire who made his fortune creatingdata-processing companies.
“Asher’s program sifts through more than 20 billion piecesof information and assigns what he calls a ‘’terroristquotient'’ to every individual in the country. MATRIXanalyzes and evaluates information such as a person’s age,gender, ethnicity, credit history. Within months after9/11, he had generated the names of 120,000 people whocould fall under suspicion, and from that list a selectgroup of about 1,200 whom law enforcement should considerinvestigating.
“Last week, the ACLU released a report outlining its owninvestigation of the system, culled from public records’requests in more than a dozen states where the MATRIXprogram was being used. The ACLU sees the MATRIX andprograms like it as being a threat to our rights ofprivacy?.”
DOWNPLAYED NEWS
When this terror alert first broke yesterday, it was attributed to anonymous sources, and as one Dissector reader suggested, seems to have driven this story off the air:
“Abuse of Captives More Widespread, Says Army Survey
” An Army summary of deaths and mistreatment involving prisoners in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan shows a widespread pattern of abuse involving more military units than previously known…
http ://www.nytimes.com
IS THE PRISON VIOLENCE RACIAL VIOLENCE
Yes, says Canada’s Sherene Razack, a professor of Sociology and Equity studies in Education ofthe Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.” The will to deny that a specifically racial encounter is taking place inIraq is a strong one. Gratefully, everyone mouths the truth offered in themedia: war pushes people to become torturers. If it is war, terribleconditions, poorly trained soldiers, an interrogations policy gone awry, andmost of all a cunning enemy among whom are many terrorists, then all isforgiven. We understand. Enough said. Just be careful not to cross the linenext time.”
NAJAV CEASFIRE?
In Iraq the big news is focused on Njav and on where Moqtada Satr has or has not proposed a cease fire and whether US forces will accep. On CNN, reporting had a “we have heard this all before tone. On BBC, it was seen as a positivce devevopment. BBC also reports
“US troops have seized a brother-in-law of radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr in Najaf, where fighting in the cemetery has reportedly left dozens dead. Iraqi sources said Sayyed Ryad al-Nuri, a close aide to the Mehdi Army’s leader, was taken without a fight during raids in the city.”
THE DAYS OF CHLABI WORSHIP
We will leave Iraq for now with a quote of the day by an old friend of mine as qoted in TomDispatch.com: “At a meeting I attended with European diplomats to discuss reconstruction, a Rumsfeld prot駩 asserted that ‘Ahmed Chalabi is like the prophet Muhammad. At first, people doubted him but they came to realize the wisdom of his ways.’” (From a piece written for the Christian Science Monitor by David Phillips, “architect and facilitator” of the “democratic principles working group” from the State Department’s The Future of Iraq project, which was shoved aside by the Pentagon during the war.”
Yesterday, we told you about the UN’s choice for Iraq’s new prime minister once power is “handed over.” Today we learn from BBC: “A top nuclear scientist tipped to become prime minister in the new Iraqi cabinet will not be taking the job after all, the UN envoy in Iraq said. Hussein Shahristani, 62, a Shia Muslim jailed under Saddam Hussein, had been seen as an ideal candidate.But Lakhdar Brahimi said in a statement Mr Shahristani had said he would rather “serve his country in other ways”.
THE MOSSAD WANTS YOU
We keep hearing about intelligence sources. It seems as if one of the world’s most shadowy agencies, Israel’s Mossad is having trouble finding recruits so it is advertising on the web. Aaron Keith Harris reports from Jerusalem for AP:
“Israel’s normally secretive Mossad spy agency came in from the cold this week, launching a Web site aimed at recruiting staff ranging from computer security specialists to English-speaking waiters and agents for “special tasks.” The site, which is available in both Hebrew and English, has a main page featuring a shadowy figure standing next to an Israeli flag and a link to a letter from Mossad Director Meir Dagan inviting “the best and most suitable to join us.” …
“According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, more than 1,500 people applied for jobs on Monday, the site’s first day in operation.”
FUEL FOR “TRUTH”
While Israel recruits news spies, a new volunteer army is forming in the US to help the embattled country improve its image abroad. A new group called Fuel For Truth says it has 200 more people signed up for propaganda duties after an event in a New York night club called Crobar. Here’s what they say about their work and “formula:”
“The event resulted in over 200 new volunteers who will join FFT?s ever growing ranks around the world. These volunteers will provide their expertise in various fields to help FFT accomplish it?s mission of disseminating accurate information about Israel and the Middle East. Jews, Christians and Muslims could be seen signing up in FFT?s VIP Volunteer room. This event followed the same winning Fuel For Truth formula: Provide an authentic NYC social atmosphere and introduce important information into the mix. This formula has been extremely successful at attracting previously unaffiliated or “disinterested” Jews” into the cause.”
ISRAEL”S DEPUTY PM EVOKES HOLOCAUST COMPARISON
Fuel for Truth will has its work cut out for it after The Washington Post reported a comment by one of Sharon’s own colleagues;
“One of the key political moderates in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s cabinet deplored on Sunday the Israel army’s offensive in the Gaza Strip, saying television images reminded him of the suffering of his family during the Holocaust.
“In stark and emotional language, Deputy Prime Minister Yosef Lapid, who also holds the Justice Ministry portfolio and is a Holocaust survivor, told Israeli radio that the country risked further international condemnation if the army continued its campaign of pursuing Palestinian gunmen, demolishing homes and expelling civilians from the heart of the populous Rafah refugee camp.
“On TV I saw an old woman rummaging through the ruins of her house looking for her medication, and it reminded me of my grandmother who was thrown out of her house during the Shoah,” or Holocaust, Lapid said in a radio interview after the weekly cabinet session. “
JOURNALIST’S ASSASSIN BUSTED IN CANADA
The other day I had a call from an old friend of mine in Maputo Mozambique telling me that the convicted killer of one of that country’s top journalists Carlos Cardoso, also a friend, had escaped from a high security prison an was reportedly captured in Canada. The Toronto Star ran this item yesterday:
“The escaped killer of a prominent African journalist has been captured in Toronto, but Canadian government officials are keeping quiet about the arrest.
“Spokespersons for Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Immigration and Refugee Board yesterday refused to confirm that Anibal Antonio dos Santos had been detained at Pearson airport last week.
“Maputo police said dos Santos, who escaped for a second time from prison two weeks ago, was grabbed by immigration agents as he flew in to Toronto last week. The Canadians were tipped off by Mozambique authorities, through Interpol?
“In a telephone interview from Mozambique, a friend said Cardoso, 49, was murdered by a death squad led by dos Santos. Cardoso had been investigating the 1996 disappearance of $14 million in privatization funds from one of the country’s banks.
AIM, a Mozambican press agency adds: “According to a spokesperson for the Canadian Ministry ofJustice, Anibalzinho has reacted to his arrest by claimingrefugee status. This desperate bid to remain in Canada is unlikely to work.People who murder journalists, are convicted and sentenced by aproperly constituted court of law, and then escape from prison donot fall under any international definition of refugees.”
BEHIND THE NY TIMES EDITOR’S NOTE
Yesterday, the NY Times acknowledged that its reporting on WMD’s was flawed. (See Letter below)This episode is chronicled brilliantly by Amy Goodman and David Goodman in their new book, “The Exception To the Rulers: Exposing OilyPoliticians, War Profiteers and the Media That Love Them” (Hyperion)
“In the midst of the buildup to war, a major scandal was unfolding at The NewYork Times-the paper that sets the news agenda for other media. The Timesadmitted that for several years a 27-year-old reporter named Jayson Blairhad been conning his editors and falsifying stories. He had pretended to beplaces he hadn’t been, fabricated quotes, and just plain lied in order totell a sensational tale. For this, Blair was fired. But The Times wentfurther: It ran a 7,000-word, five-page expose on the young reporter, layingbare his personal and professional escapades.
The Times said it had reached a low point in its 152-year history. I agreed.But not because of the Jayson Blair affair. It was TheTimes coverage of theBush-Blair affair.
“When George W. Bush and Tony Blair made their fraudulent case to attackIraq, The Times, along with most corporate media outlets in the UnitedStates, became cheerleaders for the war. And while Jayson Blair was beingcrucified for his journalistic sins, veteran Times national securitycorrespondent and best-selling author Judith Miller was filling The Times’front pages with unchallenged government propaganda. Unlike Blair’sdeceptions, Miller’s lies provided the pretext for war. Her lies cost lives?.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/26/1610213
For more on this story:”How Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraq war lobby used New York Times reporterJudith Miller to make the case for invasion…”
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/05/27/times/index.htmlNot fit to print
HISTORICAL NOTE: NIXON OFF THE WAGON
Sometimes it takes decades for the truth to trickle out, AP reported yesterday ” Five days into the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, with the superpowers on the brink of confrontation, President Nixon was too drunk to discuss the crisis with the British prime minister, according to newly released transcripts of tape recordings.
Henry Kissinger’s assessment of the president’s condition on the night of Oct. 11, 1973, is contained in more than 20,000 pages of transcripts of Kissinger’s phone calls as the president’s national security adviser and secretary of state — records whose privacy he had guarded for three decades. The National Archives released them Wednesday.you.”
LOCAL MEDIA ADVISES NGO: YOU MAY BE EXPLELLED
The International Crisis Group learned from the Indonesia media yesterday morning that serious accusations were made against its Jakarta-based director and long time Human Rights activist Sidney Jones, in a meeting yesterday between the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) and Commission I, the committee of the Indonesian Parliament responsible for security affairs.
“How can we answer charges when the charges are made in secret?” says Jones. “I would be more than happy to appear before Commission I and respond in detail to whatever questions Commission members would like to pose.”
ICG has been in Indonesia since 2000. The Jakarta office is one of nineteen field offices of the Brussels-based organisation that produce analyses of conflict around the world. The Jakarta office has produced reports on Aceh, Papua, Maluku, Poso, police and military reform, decentralisation and terrorism.
MICHAEL MOORE STIRS RIGHTIST IRE
Evan Coyne Maloney says that Democrats are planning to help distribute Michael Moore’s new film charging ” several prominent Democratic party operatives havebeen hired to promote Moore’s film. Helping out are Howard Wolfson(Hillary Clinton’s former press secretary), Michael Feldman (an AlGore advisor during the election of 2000), Mark Fabiani (the ClintonAdministration official who spent his time trying to prove theexistence of the vast right-wing conspiracy), and Chris Lehane (AlGore’s campaign spokesman).
Mahoney advises: “Rather than gripe about it, though, conservatives need to build aparallel infrastructure. We need to find, foster and fund the creativetalent that can challenge the ideological monopoly of leftists inHollywood. We need to figure out how to distribute conservative films,even if it means taking the financial risk of renting theaters to showthem. We need to tap into the dollars of that vast right-wingconspiracy and start challenging the left in the various media thatthey dominate?”
YOUR EMAILS: ON DAVID DELLINGER
Abbie Hoffman’s brother Jack writes: “I remember the first time I met Dave.. Chicago 1969. I was invited over to his apartment in between a break in the trial. After schlepping up three flights of stairs and nearing exhaustion, Dave looked to me and said the following “Jack you have to understand that leftist activists always live on the top floor.” ?And it’s almost always the third .’Peace David”
The poet e Katz: “what a generous & courageous example he leaves behind. I’d met himabout a dozen times and have a few really nice letters from him; he wassuch a kind person-to-person human being, as well as an amazing, principledactivist with a great historical imagination. The age keeps aging. It’sinevitable but still gives a fresh sadness….”
Sue Schnieder on the prison story:
“As I watched so many talking heads saying that the sexual aspects of the abuse were of particular offense to Arabs I was puzzled thinking isn’t this offensive to everyone.I found the answer in an article in The Guardian written by Brian Whitaker May 24, 2004 titled,”Its Best Use Is As A Doorstop.” I suggest anyone wanting a better understanding of what went down and why read the article
Boston’sBart Laws on the NY Times saying its coverage was flawed: “Biggest problem — passive voice. Nobody actually committed these egregiousviolations of journalistic standards and responsibility, they just happened.No-one is responsible. The name of no person appears. I mean come on now.Jayson Blair fabricated trivial details of inconsequential stories, and theheads went rolling like a rock slide. In this case specific individuals,and most notably one whose initials are JM, were either conned (or morelikely in my view) knowingly conspired with a gang of liars and thieves –who it now appears may also have been Iranian intelligence agents — to helpmanipulate the country into a murderous war, the worst policy disaster inthe U.S. since Vietnam, maybe since slavery. Yet no-one is accountable,no-one is even named, there are no consequences to anybody.”
Lee Ferrell: “Its awful to have forseen this, but anyone with a sense of historywould have. Last Feb. I wrote a tiny piece to you that the cabal wouldarrange a dramating piece of “terrorist theater” for all the dronessometimes this summer. Low and behold, Ashcroft turns up with just theright warnings, complete with imagery, of what we must look for…. Dothe kids still say, “Duh?”
Bob Katt: “Yesterday, Aljezeera reported that an Iraqi delegate complained to the UN that his country was not receiving a single dinar from the sale of its oil. He was told to forget about it. Of course. Didn’t Der Schrub say just last night that he led the country into war to give the Iraqis democracy? Why couldn’t that presumptuous Iraqi have been happy just knowing that? It would have certainly been an effective anodyne to the pain he might have been feeling because of the suffering and death of thousands of his fellow citizens, the desecration of their holy sites or the pictures of their friends, relatives, fellow tribe members being humiliated and tortured.”
Final thought: Buzz Flash talks with Paul Rogat Loeb about his new book Soul of a Citizen: ” When we give up on democracy, we’re giving up on ourselves. We’re giving up on our ability to act and our sense of possibility. Unfortunately, our culture teaches people to hunker down and isolate themselves. Years ago, I read a Kafka story called “The Burrow” about a little creature huddling in a burrow. The image stuck with me — the idea of people being encouraged to slam our door, double-lock our door, and don’t go outside except in our SUV to go to the mall. Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but our culture encourages us to believe that there’s no way we actually can get together with our neighbors and change the ground rules of the world we live in. ”
Last night I checked out the opening of a political art exhibit called Whipped Majority at the White Box gallery in Chelsea. Fun event featuring hip hop and other agitation by Billionaires for Bush. Ran into a Yes Man, Singer Stephan Smith, and Film Director Marc Levin. Great energy, costumes and guerilla theater?.From there it was on to the Kitting Factory to speak at a benefit for the Bono backed One Campaign (See Theonecampaign.org) It was a spirited with many bands and one I loved for the passion of its lead singer and quality of the music: VORTEX. Check out: www.vortex4u.com.
Time to go. I am here. On alert. Write: dissector@mediachannel.org
