NATION IN DANGER OR NATION AS A DANGER?

ANOTHER WAR BOOSTER RECANTS

TOMMY FRANKS: IT WASN’T ME

Another day has dawned in what our commander in chief calls a “nation in danger.” The president is acting. His rival is reacting, and the press is saying we are all to blame. “How are you coping with the new terror threats?” asks a promo on Eyewitless News in New York. Shameless.

President Bush is co-opting the 911Comission recommendations and says he has asked Congress to create a new post of national intelligence director. ” Al Jazeera reports ” Mr Bush said his administration would go beyond the proposals.”

KERRY:BUSH TOO SLOW

Meanwhile John Kerry is saying that the “the Bush administration hasn’t moved rapidly enough on the 9/11 panel’s recommendations.” CNN reports:

“GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan (CNN) — Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry on Monday accused the Bush administration of doing too little in the fight against terrorism and of instituting policies that encourage “the recruitment of terrorists.”

THE PRESS: EVERYONE TO BLAME

The BBC meanwhile seems bemused by the US media reaction which is that everyone is responsible:

“After the Congressional commission released its long-awaited report on Thursday, the US press did not hold back.

“Failures in policy, management and imagination,” were responsible, according to Peter Jennings on the ABC network.

NBC network presenter Tom Brokaw was more direct.

“[The report] was not meant to assign blame, but nonetheless, it was a sweeping indictment of government inefficiencies, political timidity, naivete or arrogance or a combination of the two, on the part of all of us,” he said.”

“Todd S Purnum of the New York Times said the lapses detailed “amount to nothing less than the gravest dysfunctions in the national security apparatus… [since] the dawn of the Cold War”.

“And he does not think political consensus will be forthcoming. “The partisan wrangling of a presidential election and the capital’s entrenched resistance to change make swift action unlikely,” he said.

Though the Los Angeles Times says the commission has “refused to go out of business”, and “will spend the next 12 months travelling the nation” to make sure their recommendations are implemented.

“The New York Post headline is perhaps the starkest.

“They all let us down,” it says. . .

e is — and no is held accountable.

WHAT DO WE KNOW? WHEN DID WE KNOW IT?

The New York Times reports that the information behind the latest terror was known for years. Fox reports that Ray Kelly, the NY Police Commissioner, says the photos seized on the Al Qaeda computer were taken pre-911 and represent more of a “vulnerability analysis” than an operational plan. This does not suggest that there is evidence of any imminent threat — and none had been offered up by the government despite the raised security level. There were 500 images and data in the computer seized from Al Qaeda. The Al Qaeda operative was captured in July, not this past weekend.

FRANKS: OBL A “WORTHY ADVERSARY”

Retired US Centcom Commander Tommy Franks was on with Ted Kopppel last night and called Osama bin Laden, a “worthy adversary,” and not just a “coward.”

Said Franks: “..we’re, we’re at peril if we underestimate our, our enemy. Going back into the ’90s, Osama bin Laden indicated that he had great capacity, that, that he was ideologically supported by a lot of people. And he may or may not be a personal coward, but I do know that he is a worthy adversary, and it is in our best interest to, to treat him as such.. Franks is now selling his book which is largely uncritical of Operation Iraqi Freedom

And on WMD’s: FRANKS: “I was wrong with respect to my appreciation of the weapons inventory that Saddam, that Saddam Hussein had. Ted, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind when we entered Iraq on the 19th of March of last year that our troops would see weapons of mass destruction used against them. When they didn’t, I was surprised, and actually, I suspect most of the Arab leaders, if not all of the Arab leaders, were also surprised by the fact that these weapons were not used.”

TIME went further asking him who was to blame for the military screw-ups:

“IN YOUR BOOK, YOU ABSOLVE YOURSELF, PRESIDENT BUSH AND DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD OF INADEQUATE POSTWAR PLANNING. SO WHO’S RESPONSIBLE?

“It’s possible to underestimate the difficulty inside our bureaucracy as well as inside the international bureaucracy when it comes to things like fund raising. The planning, in fact, incorporated the need to rehire a quarter of a million Iraqis who had been in the military. When they all went home, they were unemployed. The question is, How long does it take to generate funding in order to re-employ these people? Unfortunately, it took too long.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040809-674710,00.html

Newsmax focuses on another aspect of Tommy’s world view: “Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded . . .”

ONE RESOURCE ON REAL THREATS

http://www.nti.org/f_wmd411/f_index.html

MEDIA FREEDOM SET BACK IN IRAQ

Al Jazeera reports “US occupation forces in Iraq have arrested Dr Muthana Harith al-Dhari the editor of al-Basaer newspaper (Insight) and media officer for the influential Association of Muslim Scholars.

“US forces arrested Muthana Harith al-Dhari this morning as he turned up at the Um al-Quraa mosque, the headquarters of the committee,” Ahmad Abd Al-Ghafur al-Sammarai of the AMS, Iraq’s leading Sunni authority, said.

“This is the work of the occupation forces. They’re here to intimidate and terrorize people not to rebuild our country,” he added. Al-Sammarai said he had no idea why al-Dhari had been arrested and called for all detainees of the occupation forces in Iraq to be released. ..”

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/25B2BED2-620D-4C37-ADD1-BF36D5654C6A.htm

IT IS NOT BAD, ITS WORSE

As for the American media, US casualties and civilian deaths continue to be understated as the frame of the coverage changes reports Tom Engelhardt of TomsDispatch.com:

“Fill in Baghdad or Ramadi or Falluja or Baquba or numerous other Iraqi cities and towns (without dropping that “hotbed of violence”) and you’ve got a template for the post-war war as it’s been fought for months. One rigged roadside bomb, one dead American and two wounded Americans — which may mean a young woman without a limb, a young man without his sight. . . who knows? This has been the drip-drip-drip of Iraq for us. One death, now generally tucked away well off the front page, because when anything becomes the norm in our media world, it ceases to be the news. In the same way, constant kidnappings or regular beheadings, if endlessly repeated, will also migrate sooner or later into the deep interiors of our larger papers and drop off the half-hour that each night (minus ten minutes of medicine ads for the aging) passes on network TV for our planet’s news.

Ken Dilanian of the Philadelphia Inquirer, who not so many months ago was writing of the media “underplaying the good things happening in Iraq,” makes this point in a recantation piece (”As for the turnaround, I couldn’t have been more wrong”) whose headline tells all, The situation in Iraq right now is not as bad as the news media are portraying it to be. It’s worse:

“A kind of violence fatigue has descended over news coverage of Iraq. Car bombings that would have made the front page a year ago get scant mention these days. Assassinations and kidnappings have become so common that they have lost their power to shock. More U.S. soldiers died in July (38) than in June (26), but that didn’t make the nightly newscasts, either.”

http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/philly3.html

WAR IN SUDAN?

SA’s Mail and Guardian reports: “Sudan’s armed forces on Monday described the United Nations resolution on Darfur as “a declaration of war” and warned that any foreign intervention in the region would be fought “on land, sea and air”. The armed forces spokes-man, General Muhammad Bashir Suleiman, raised tensions by speaking of a jihad against the “enemies of Sudan.”

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?a=37&o=134026

LABOR RIGHTS UNDERREPORTED

David Swanson reports:

“While illegal violations of the right to organize a union — such as the firing of employees who express support for a union — are routinely underreported by the corporate media, the past 60 days have witnessed the underreporting of a serious new threat to the right to organize, a threat raised by the National Labor Relations Board. Nexis searching finds no mention of this story in broadcast media and only a handful of print articles, most of them misleading.

“On June 7, the NLRB ruled, 3-2 along party lines, that it would review the legitimacy of the procedure known as card check. Card check is a procedure under which an employer recognizes a union when presented with signed cards in favor of joining a union from over 50 percent of employees. The main alternative to card check is an election, a process overseen by the NLRB which often drags on for years as the company’s lawyers throw up roadblocks and workers lose interest. Companies hold mandatory anti-union meetings and harass workers during many election campaigns. . . .”

YOUR LETTERS: BOUNCE THIS, FEAR THAT

Da’ud X Mohammed writes from Oregon

“Picking up on your “politicizing of terrorism” from yesterday, overnight we have learned that the information that is still being detailed out as an actual alert of an actual event that could take place at any moment is actually a terrorist “wish list” of sorts with absolutely no evidence to show it as anything other than that. Even more disturbing is the fact that the “latest news” which caused the “We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming” alert was pre-9/11 in origin.

“Karl Rove . . . is working overtime along with Tom Ridge of Homeland Insecurity to 1. Disrupt the normal news cycle of the corporate media; 2. Divert attention away from both the Kerry campaign, and any “bad news” about George W Bush, the economy and/or Iraq, empire, oil and Israel, and 3. Keeping the people in fear as a means of control. . . .

“Shame on the TV and radio stations for participating in the Bush White House fear mongering. There is no evidence of the terrorists (whoever they are) conducting a specific operation at any time on any of the “named” financial targets. All of these so-called targets should be protected rain or shine anyhow. So what’s the big deal about wall-to-wall media coverage beyond saving the broadcasters from an otherwise slow news day conveniently combined with the accumulation of brownie-nose points for adhering to the Karl Rove line?

And as long as we’re into 20 questions, how stupid does the Bush White House think we are to fall for their “cry wolf” scare tactic? They and the news media are an ongoing insult to our intelligence. As for the terrorists, do the Bush White House and the media really think the financial “icons” are the target? Wise up. In the first scenario, raising the fear level in New York is to further Bush and Republican security as convention time nears. In the second (and ongoing) scenario, the financial icons target is a distraction; drawing attention away from the real targets - and you know who they are, and why, and why they deserve to be. The rest of the country suffers for their empire, their oil need and oil greed, and their unreasonable cow-orking to Israel. See Israel OKs 600 New West Bank Settlement Homes to be paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

Sunday Talk Shows pre-empted by Rasputin-in-residence, Karl Rove

“It has got to be more than obvious that the emergency alert was designed to play up the one perceived strength George Bush has; that of being better able to keep us safe from terrorism. George W Bush is to security and safety what Jim Jones was to Kool-aid, and 50% of the people in this country are “willing” sheep of the George W Bush cult, no different than the Jonestown followers.

Will the Congress investigate Sunday’s “politicizing of terrorism” event? Who wrote the Ridge speech?

s there was a bounce:

“Is it me or does the charts say one thing and this story something else?I would love if you could shed some light on this!If you look at the “Trust Candidate on These Areas” table, doesn’t Kerry take significant gains from Bush?

For example, if on one item Kerry gained six points and Bush lost six, that would be a net change toward Kerry of 12″

Meaning Bush is now at ZERO in these areas? This is a tepid bounce?Hmmmm. . .

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/Vote2004/kerry_bounce_poll_040802.html

Gary L. Gehman writes from Philadelphia

“Here’s a serious idea:

“EVERY interested voter should plan to spend voting day in a neighboring state, watching for irregularities at the voting machines and conducting an independent exit-poll. Aside from providing increased scrutiny of the electoral process, the voters get the additional assurance that their votes - by absentee ballot - can be verifiably recounted!”

Jack Shultz from Montreal:” I try to be optimistic about the upcoming election. For all his faults, JohnKerry is a much better man than George W. Bush, but I don’t know if thatcounts for much in American politics. I remember long ago, when I neverimagined, those many years ago that Americans would re-elect a sleaze likeRichard Nixon over a man of integrity like George McGovern, but they did,overwhelmingly.

“This time, on the surface at least, the Democrats are united as neverbefore, but as you said, in this convention, they have tried toout-republican the Republicans, and as Harry Truman once said, “Americans,when given the choice between a Republican and a Republican, will choose aRepublican every time.”

ON THE POLLS AND ELECTORAL VOTES

From the Left Eye: “Danny, I was surprised to see you handling this story this way:”You may have read that Bush is ahead in electoral votes. Not so, say Democratic analsyst Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence…”

“NO ONE is “ahead in electoral votes” because the current electoral vote stands at ZERO to ZERO. The worst part of this story is not people overinterpreting polls, or getting it wrong, or assigning states incorrectly, but in confusing polls with reality. Even if the supposed “margin of error” were zero, those margins are comparable to the scientific notion of “precision.” They don’t necessarily have ANYTHING to do with ACCURACY, and more than “precision” weapons are accurate when they precisely target the wrong house and kill innocent civilians. There are a million ways polls can be extremely precise, yet be completely inaccurate. For example, you could phone people only from 9-5, and exclude the entire population of people who work during the day from your poll. And that doesn’t even count the usual attempt to differentiate between “likely voters” and “all registered voters” (or even “all eligible voters,” since there is still time to register between now and the election.”

K Gary writes:”Danny! how eerie…just the other day (and once or twice a year for the past, what, 20 or so years) my wife and i were lamenting the sorry state of news reporting and we fondly remembered the good ol’ early days of wbcn/boston and danny schechter our news dissector. i remember WAY back to ‘69 (tho it’s a bit fuzzy). always wondered what happened to you, and then POW your blog link appears on tim karr’s mediafordemocracy email. anyway, thanks for back then and thanks for you current astute incisions.”

EVENTS OF INTEREST

HIROSHIMA & NAGASAKI EVENTS HELD NATIONWIDE

A series of eighty-nine events are being held in twenty-two states across the country to commemorate the 59th anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing on August 6th and 9th, and the world’s first atomic detonation in NM on July 16th. A diverse coalition of environmental health, nuclear weapons, toxic waste and peace organizations released a Blueprint of Precautionary Actions to prevent nuclear weapon hazards in the U.S.

See: www.besafenet.com/nuclear.htm

The PEN American Center holds a State of Emergency: Unconventional Reading” Wednesday, August 4th at 7:00 PM (doors at 6:30) The Great Hall, 7 East 7th Street at Third Avenue Free and open to the public

Featuring Laurie Anderson, Paul Auster, Russell Banks, MichaelCunningham, Don DeLillo, Ariel Dorfman, Eve Ensler, Jonathan SafranFoer, Barbara Goldsmith, A.M. Homes, A.E. Hotchner, Margo Jefferson,Edward P. Jones, Walter Dean Myers, Francine Prose, Salman Rushdie,Monique Truong and Kurt Vonnegut. For more information, visit the PENAmerican Center Web site or call 212-334-1660, ext. 107.

We keep reading about police preparations for the Republican convention in New York at the end of this month. Here are what protesters are planning:

http://www.unitedforpeace.org

THE MOUTH FROM THE SOUTH

I love Ted Turner. Last night on Charlie Rose he revealed that he put evangelists Jim and Tammie Baker and Pat Robertson on the air. He then disclosed that he split all the donations they received. Legal? He says yes. For more on Ted’s war on big media, see his new cover story in the Washington Monthly:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.turner.html

From fear city to your home, this is Danny Schechter your news dissector saying keep me in your loop: Write dissector@mediachannel.org. Yesterday when I cited the new sci-fi film ALIEN VS PREDATOR as a metaphor for our times, I left out the tagline: “Whoever wins, we lose.”