THE POOLS OF BAGDAD

NIELSON RATINGS CHALLENGED

I, JUROR

Writing about terror threats is one thing; confronting them another. Last night I found our stretch of 8th Avenue in Manhattan sealed off because of a mystery truck parked across the street. The bomb squad was on the way. The zone was, in security parlance, "frozen." None of the cops knew nothing. I had kept working away in my office only to be told later how stupid I was for ignoring what might have been a serious "situation." Who knows if it was serious or not, or even a situation? I checked the local news website. Nothing. Clearly, we are vulnerable and jittery. Period. What can one do?

UPHILL?

Al Jazeera was telling us yesterday that the new Iraq government is facing an "uphill battle." How uphill is that? It’s hard to find out what is going on there as well. While Dan Senor, the hard nosed political spokesman and motor mouth for the US run Coalition, sells his wares on Good Morning America, journalists in Iraq are frozen out of the official meetings. Check this out - a "pool" report filed by a Washington Post reporter chosen to represent the press at a meeting of the Coalition. He files a report for his colleagues to draw on. Here’s his take on a cabinet meeting yesterday, and you don’t have to read between the lines to see how controlled all of this is.

Pool report of Allawi’s first cabinet meeting.

2 June 2004

Pooler: Chandrasekaran/WashPost

Your pool was escorted by CPA press office to attend a final few minutes of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s first cabinet meeting. We were told that the meeting started at 3 p.m. The pool was let into the room at 5:30, as the meeting was wrapping up. The meeting was held in the former chambers of the Governing Council, where Allawi, 27 ministers and the council’s former executive secretary sat around a large oval table covered with a dark green cloth. There were eight Iraqi staff members in the room but no other CPA personnel present, except for Western security guards and the press handlers who escorted the pool into the room.

The pool was able to observe only the final minutes of the meeting, which we were told focused on security issues. As we entered, the minister of public works, Nasreen Mustapha Berwari, urged Allawi to give the ministers to have a role in shaping the government’s response to a U.S.-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution on the handover of sovereignty and the continued presence of multinational forces …

Once the meeting concluded, your pool was able to ask two questions … The second was from this pooler, who asked Allawi for his view of the Bush administration’s position that U.S. forces in Iraq after June 30 would remain under U.S. control and command. The pooler also asked Allawi how he planned to bridge the differences between members of his government, and Iraqis at large, over the issue of control over the activities of U.S. forces.

Speaking in English, Allawi answered the question as follows: “Currently discussions are underway in New York on the resolution, the Security Council resolution. The forces which will be deployed in Iraq will be the multinational forces under the control of the United Nations. Maybe the commanding officer of the coalition forces, of the multinational forces rather, would be from the United States because they will be the most country participating in the multinational force. [sic] We cannot forecast."

When your pooler attempted to ask a follow-up in an effort to get Allawi to answer the question, Allawi said he had answered the question and proceeded to read a brief statement.

Your pool was then escorted out of the room. As we were leaving the Governing Council offices, we saw a motorcade with President Ghazi Yawar arriving. He had extremely heavy security, with at least two Humvees in the convoy.

Such is freedom of the press in Free Iraq.

NOT COVERED BY THE POOL (1) CHALABI CIA LINKS

Tom Lewis writes: "Will Tenet and Rumsfeld apologize for letting this dirtbag Chalabi into the hen house? Chalabi is doing as much damage as bin Laden. We can’t declare war on Chalabi because the banks he and his family owned and probably looted in the Middle East were probably used as conduits for CIA money. Never mind that. The criminal mistake here was when the CIA, Rumsfeld and his gang of stupid neocons, including Richard Perle and the uniformed bureaucrats who run the armed forces decided to believe Chalabi’s fairy tales about Iraq because he was telling them and selling them what they wanted to hear. The CIA is ducking this now but you couldn’t convince me they haven’t been in bed with Chalabi for a long time."

2: FAIR: IRAQI PUBLIC OPINION AND US MEDIA WORLDS APART

FAIR’s latest report notes:

Despite growing calls from within the foreign policy establishment for a reconsideration of the U.S. military presence in Iraq, most mainstream pundits and commentators continue to argue that the U.S. has no choice but to tough it out. According to a survey of editorial opinion by Editor & Publisher (5/7/04), the trade publication of the newspaper industry, “the vast majority of America’s large newspapers favored this approach to Iraq: Stay the course.”

But with resistance to the U.S.-led occupation forces showing no signs of fading away, some journalists have cast a worried glance at Iraqi public opinion. Establishing a democratic government responsive to popular wishes is the main rationale for keeping U.S. soldiers in Iraq. So if ordinary Iraqis reject the coalition’s continued military presence, defending the mission becomes an increasingly awkward task.

In recent weeks, two important scientific polls of Iraqi opinion have been published, and neither offered much solace for those who support staying the course. A Gallup poll conducted mostly in late March– before the recent sieges of Fallujah and Najaf– showed that “a solid majority support an immediate military pullout.”

The polls cited above are the only scientific measures of recent Iraqi opinion in existence. Yet despite these clear signs that Iraqis want U.S. troops out, some journalists have clung to hopes, unsupported by real evidence, that the bulk of the population still quietly supports an American presence.

RAPE: THE NEXT SCANDAL

Former Special forces specialist Stan Goff writes: "Detainee abuse is in the news, but rape is being kept at bay. We have heard little about the rape of Iraqi women, which is being committed against detainees and non-detainees alike, about the rape of Iraqi men who are thereby feminized and dominated by their captors, or about the rape of women who are US service members. Not because it’s not happening. There is ample evidence that it certainly is. We haven’t heard a reluctant mea culpa from the New York Times about failure to cover it, and we haven’t heard more than a peep about "zero tolerance" as the official military reaction to the rapes of women soldiers in the US armed forces. There is a good reason for that. Rape culture doesn’t tell on itself. And the military is not about to open that Pandora’s Box, because what will come buzzing out of it are questions that go to the very heart of the military as an institution, to the male character of the capitalist state, and to the misogynistic roots of the whole social system."

As for the war, all eyes tomorrow on President Bush’s welcome to Italy when he meets his political mate Benito Berlusconi. Oops, strike that first name. A million people are expected to cheer. Oops. Make that jeer.

MEDIA NEWS

NY l reports: "Critics Say New Nielsen Ratings System Undercounts Minority Viewers: The AC Nielsen company is planning to roll out its new television ratings system on Thursday, but critics say minorities stand to lose out under the new method of counting viewers.”

PR Watch carries this item: "The Pentagon is worried: ‘The rapid proliferation of digital cameras, phonecams and wireless gadgets among soldiers and military contractors,’ according to Wired News, has Pentagon officials ‘telling commanders in the field to strictly monitor the use of consumer wireless technology through Directive 8100.2,’ which allows only devices with ’strong authentication and encryption technologies.’ In addition, ‘Defense Department lawyers may be reviewing how the spread of consumer digital-imaging technology … affects the military’s obligation to abide by a Geneva Convention article against holding prisoners up to public ridicule.’ Noting that ‘the first impulse of government is to put a lid on information about itself, even when the public has a right to know,’ Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page suggests digital cameras be given to all servicemembers."

FOX BLASTS BACK

I Want Media.com carries this item: "John Carroll, the editor of the Los Angeles Times, recently gave a speech accusing Fox News of ‘pseudojournalism.’ His newspaper is ‘becoming less relevant,’ writes Fox News chief Roger Ailes. And, in honor of Ailes and the great Fox News tradition, we report, you decide. The LA Times has the full text of Carroll’s lecture available online.

YOUR LETTERS: WHY GAS PRICES ARE SO HIGH

Note: OPEC votes on more oil pumping today. The crisis is unlikely to end. Reason: "The Fear Factor." (BBC). And now onto some letters.

Karen Faris writes from Anaheim CA: "Oil prices are never coming down until we address one of the major causes of the increase — the strength of the dollar. The dollar has dropped over 30% against the Euro in the last two years. Since most of the producers get paid in dollars and spend in Euros, they have to raise the price just to keep the same value they had two years ago. The loss of the value of the dollar is directly tied to the deficit and the criminal financial policies of the Republicans in power in general and the Bush team specifically. As of April, gas prices in Europe had only risen 4%, according to an article in the LATimes by Richard C. Leone and Bernard Wasow, dated April 1, 2004. Thanks for listening."

The Walrus is back with a keerection on a mistake I should have caught: "Good report. One factual error: Murdoch bought DirectTV, not Echo Star. Echo Star is owned by Charlie Ergen, not exactly a hero to media reformers, but a Murdoch business enemy and the best alternative currently available."

Seng Lynn Lee: "Have been reading your blog everyday. Good stuff! Have been too busy to write until this morning. Woke up to a report on CNN about why Saudi Arabia should change the way it runs its schools. Apparently, the Saudi curriculum encourages terrorism and teaches hate. How presumptuous and how very arrogant. When did CNN become involved in Bush’s attempts at re-engineering the world? Small thing, but irked me to no end." (Editor’s Note: This is something being pushed hard right now by New York Times columnist and Free Market demagogue Thomas L. Friedman, as witnessed by what he has said in his many recent television appearances and what he has written in his latest column.)

“IN THE HALLS OF JUSTICE, THE ONLY JUSTICE IS IN THE HALLS”

That was Lenny Bruce’s quip uttered in the hallways of the Criminal Court building in New York years ago. When I was called to Grand Jury duty a week ago, I had to walk those same halls. I should have known something was up when I saw a man in the street just screaming at the building, raging at some Judge whose name I couldn’t catch. As I drew closer, another man stood with a long illiterate billboard attached to his back standing witness against some injustice that I found hard to decipher. I should have been wary when Fox was outside giving out free coffee to promote an upcoming show called "The Juror."

I was there not play a juror on TV but to serve what many feel is a draconian assignment - four weeks of three hour a day case-listening and then handing down indictments as requested by a procession of Assistant Attorney Generals. I was still hoping to become invisible, hoping my name would not be called. But it was. They got me as they set out to do.

I tried to talk to the Judge before being packed off into a jury room to discuss some concerns I had about my ability to be objective if called to evaluate cases filed under the terms of New York State’s Rockefeller Drug laws . Those are laws that have never seen a defendant, guilty or innocent, that it did not want to give hard time to. My effort to reach the judge was intercepted by a phalanx of burly court officers who ordered me out of the room. Conscience is not high up on the list of topics the Court cares to discuss.

CHAIR NUMBER FIVE

Soon I was to become known not by my name but by where I sat. I was chair number 5. We watched a well-made video starring Sam Waterston and Ed Bradley tell us how important grand juries are to the administration of justice and as a brake on abuses of those charged with crimes. That’s the theory anyway. I can’t tell you about the cases because we all promised to keep them secret but suffice it to say, protecting the rights of the accused was not uppermost in what was going on.

It was more of an assembly line of selective accusation, one-sided witness testimony and most jurors willing to do the bidding of the bright Assistant District Attorneys who all follow the same script and template. The quicker you vote, the quicker you leave was the spry I picked up on although the jurors were conscientious and bright. When I queried the DA’s on the Rockefeller laws, others joined in. Most of them took umbrage at being questioned on what was not being said. The Jury chairman complimented me for my questions as did others.

On the first day in the room, I had scribbled a note on my juror form expressing my concerns in writing but the Jury warden didn’t see until it until late in the week. I expressed ambivalence and fear that I couldn’t be objective but tried to be anyway when my concerns seemed to be ignored.

Seven days into the "my service" a DA finally showed up to talk to me about it. She understood my objections but insisted our job was to apply the law, like it or not. I said I would but had some ambivalence about doing so. I was not against serving per se. I wasn’t judging her or her colleagues … But …

She was very friendly in talking with me and acknowledged that many in her office also didn’t like the laws either and were lobbying to change them. "If you are not happy with them, why must I be a cog in the machine of applying them?” I asked, referring to statues that had been on the books for 25 years. They filled our prisons to the point of overcrowding, leading, of course, to building more prisons and reinforcing the whole sick cycle that has not stopped crime or drugs. She heard me and suggested that she talk with the Judge overseeing grand jurors, the very official I had wanted to talk with on day one.

Twenty minutes later. I was told the Judge now wanted to see me. "Take your stuff Mr. Schechter," I was instructed. Somehow I had the feeling I was not coming back. So up to the Judge we trekked, on back stairways in the massive building connected to a City Jail known as the Tombs by a passageway was once called "the bridge of Sighs." Someone who I know who spent time there compares it to Dante’s inferno.

When we entered the courtroom which had trials in session, the DA approached the bench and told the Judge she had me with him. They whispered for quite some time before I heard an announcement to approach the bench. I did. I had expected to speak with his Honor in private but that was not to be. We were in open court.

To my surprise, Judge Ambrecht, unlike the ADA, was downright hostile, derisively baiting me about my concerns, and about the Rockefeller drug laws. "And what do you know about these laws?" he snarled, questioning why I thought I even had the right to an opinion. "Where did you learn about it, from the New York Times?" He was sneering. I explained that I had also spoken with families of people incarcerated under it. Clearly he found the views of the "liberal" Times an affront and, now, maybe me as well.

He had heard enough. My moment in the sun of Judicial discussion was quickly setting. Without giving me time to explain my views further, he ordered me off the jury and told me he would put me back in the jury pool immediately without any credit for time served. In other words, they would punish me by forcing me to soon serve again but, this time, on a trial jury, not a grand jury. He was rude, lecturing and humiliated me in open court all for daring to raise a question of conscience. When I told him I could continue to serve as I had been, he told me now I couldn’t. That was it. I was silenced, sent to the showers.

When I asked to explain my views further he barked "I DONT WANT TO HEAR IT!" in a loud voice, and then had the armed and uniformed court officers circle the bench as if I had threatened him with more than a tongue. They then ejected me from the courtroom. Did I deserve this type of tongue lashing and bullying? Even defendants are treated better! Even the ADA who, originally, was quite responsive in hearing me, was surprised by the manner and tone in which he acted as if I was challenging him personally or the system. I have since written to the presiding Judge to protest this imperious judicial abuse.

I wrote: "I served because I see it as my duty and had no choice. This does not mean I give up the right to free speech, to ask questions or be treated respectfully. The Judge was very courteous in welcoming jurors and thanking us for serving on the first day. Today, in my eyes, he was an emotional and arrogant monster — just because I raised concerns he had obvious political objections to."

I do not expect to hear back.

So I was off the jury but, now, with a cloud hanging over me and a new threat of more jury duty to come. I am sure I am now at the top of the list. Free at last? Not really.

Later in the day, a former fellow juror called me with a strange twist to the story. Apparently, when other jurors asked about my sudden and swift disappearance from the wheels of judicial deliberation, they were told that a DA worried that I was a "security risk" and could not be trusted with testimony of a case then being heard. They feared that I would break the confidentiality of the jury, something I haven’t done nor would I. Needless to say, no one had made this accusation directly to me nor was any real evidence supplied. I had deviated from the script and so now had to be smeared.

In that sense, my case had became like some of the others I had been hearing. Accusation-driven a, based on a "theory" and a selective reading of the law. Suddenly, in their eyes I had became a spy, worse than a criminal, I even though I started out as a juror. I had been put in in their dock, indicted by their paranoia and then “convicted,” in total contradiction of the spirit of fairness that 60 Minutes Ed (Bradley) had voiced in that slick video extolling the virtues of democracy in the courtroom.

The Judge had pronounced me Guilty without a trial. Of big mouth syndrome! Kafka had come to New York! And what book was I reading when I could? John Grisham’s, “The Last Juror.”

Onward-back into the minefields of dissection! Please share your comments with me at dissector@mediachannel.org