HOW SERIOUS THE THREAT?

IRAQ IS IMPLODING

HOW MANY HAVE DIED?

Terror, terror everywhere but who is planning to do what to whom? We have cops surrounding buildings based on three-year-old information that lacks specifics. We are being terrorized. Around the world, media outlets are smirking.

The Independent in London asks: “A nation in danger. Or a president in peril?’” It reports that “a transcript of a background briefing provided to the US media on Sunday night by intelligence agencies reveals the extent to which officials were determined to imply the information was current.”

President Bush lashed out at the NY Times for being skeptical of the latest alert and asserting editorially that politics may have been somehow involved.

But it was not just the Times that raised these questions that has forced the Homeland Securocrats on the defensive now claiming that they didn’t want the bad guys to know what we know. The Washington Post was also suspicious in a lead story:

“More than half a dozen government officials interviewed yesterday, who declined to be identified because classified information is involved, said that most, if not all, of the information about the buildings seized by authorities in a raid in Pakistan last week was about three years old, and possibly older.”

“There is nothing right now that we’re hearing that is new,” one senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the alert tells the paper. “Why did we go to this level? . . . I still don’t know that.”

ND?

And if he don’t know, we don’t either. Capitol Hill Blue which has been carrying reports that president Bush is medicated — a story to my knowledge that others haven’t picked up by others– reports:

“The increased terror alerts in New York, New Jersey and Washington are based more on President George W. Bush’s political campaign needs than any actual threat and the information used to justify the alerts is three years old, intelligence pros complain.

“The alerts, planned weeks ago, came right after the Democratic National Convention in Boston as a carefully-orchestrated attempt to play on Bush’s strengths in the war against terrorism and blunt any momentum challenger John F. Kerry might have coming out of the convention.

“The only real ?increased chatter’ we’re seeing lately is between the White House and the Bush campaign headquarters in Arlington,” mutters one Homeland Security operative who spoke to Capitol Hill Blue only on condition of anonymity. “There’s no greater threat today than there was six months ago.”

www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4964.shtml

A PARADE OF SUSPECTS

To add credence to the terror alerts were reports of more buildings at risk including the Trans America tower in San Francisco. . .Most are big investment banks. . .13 arrests of suspects in London yesterday, but BBC had no details on who they are or any specifics on crimes they might have committed. The Pakistanis are hard at work coming up with yet more terror suspects — part, analysts say, of a quid pro quo payback for US military aid.

Al Jazeera reports: “Officials say a new “most wanted” suspect has been arrested. Pakistani security forces have penetrated an al-Qaeda cell in the country, the government says.

“Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the breakthrough had led to seven or eight more suspects being detained in the last two days.

“Another official said an al-Qaeda suspect with a multi-million dollar bounty on his head had been arrested.”

RFE offrs back ground on Paklistan from Simon Serfaty, a specialist in international security issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies:

“While Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf may be at least nominally Bush’s ally, Serfaty says, many of his people are more closely aligned with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban — and allowed those groups to operate in neighboring Afghanistan.

“As a result, Serfaty says, Musharraf is forced to perform a political balancing act: “Musharraf has two constituencies with contradictory needs. One is here in the West. He has asserted himself as a close ally of Bush, and that is very important. On the other hand, he has a domestic constituency which is, in fact, fairly pro-Islamist. And so he’s catering to both, and to that extent he is playing a double game.”

“Serfaty says the best intelligence can, perhaps, deter attacks by groups like Al-Qaeda. But intelligence alone cannot rid Pakistan of people who gladly give the group a place to plan them.”

etting into the act. The Mail and Guardian reports: “South African officials were struggling on Tuesday night to gain access to two nationals detained in Pakistan who are said to have confessed to planning terrorist attacks in Johannesburg. Foreign Affairs Department spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said South Africa’s diplomatic mission in Islamabad had failed to gain permission to visit the men, who were being held somewhere in Lahore.”

IN THE CAMPAIGN

As the political spin doctors go to work on all sides — with a new Democratic Bush Truth Squad on the campaign trail Buzzflash.com reports: “The Truth Squad is comprised of members of Congress, a General, a fellow Vietnam skipper, and other experts committed to presenting Bush’s true record of misleadership and setting the record straight when John Kerry is wrongly attacked.

Meanwhile William Saletan is challenging the view that Kerry has not bounced. I for one don’t trust any of these polls but his take is interesting:

“If you’ve read or watched news reports about polls taken since the Democratic convention, you’ve probably heard that John Kerry didn’t get much of a “bounce.” These reports overlook the important data. Let’s look at the numbers.

” What’s changed? Three major media polls have been taken since the convention: ABC News/Washington Post, CBS News/New York Times, and CNN/USA Today. Prior to the convention, Kerry’s favorable rating was nine points higher than his unfavorable rating in the ABC poll. Since the convention, this margin has grown to 19 points. Bush’s positive margin on the same question is just two points.

“In a CBS poll before the convention, the percentage of voters who were uneasy about Kerry’s ability to handle an international crisis was 19 points higher than the percentage who were confident in his ability to handle such a crisis. After the convention, that margin of unease has shrunk to 11 points. Bush’s negative margin on the same question is 12 points. In the CBS pre-convention poll, voters said by a 51-36 margin that the Democrats did not have a clear plan for the country. After the convention, they say by a 44-40 margin that the Democrats do have a clear plan.

In a CNN poll before the convention, voters agreed by a 12-point margin that Kerry had “the personality and leadership qualities a president should have.” After the convention, the margin is 20 — eight points higher than the margin for Bush on the same question. Before the convention, by a 51-43 margin, voters trusted Bush rather than Kerry “to handle the responsibilities of commander-in-chief of the military.” Now the candidates are even. Before the convention, more voters trusted Bush than Kerry “to protect U.S. citizens from future acts of terrorism.” Now more voters trust Kerry than trust Bush. “

TAKE THE FALL?

There are new reports today of violations of the Geneva convention in Guantanamo with former British detainees revealing that UK interrogators asked them questions while US soldiers held weapons to their heads. . . .In Fort Bragg, AP reports on another England in the spotlight.

“An Army investigator testified that Pfc Lynndie England and other members of her unit told him that photos of naked Iraqi prisoners piled in pyramids and other humiliating poses were taken “just for fun”.

“As a military hearing started to determine if England should be court martialed for her actions at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Paul D. Arthur testified that when he interviewed her, three months before the prison photos became public in April, she told him the shots were taken while “they were joking around, having some fun, working the night shift.” Her defense lawyers say she was just following orders.

DON”T THEY “GET IT?”

Its another day in Iraq and British commentator Robert Fisk says we have moved from one set of lies to another:

“The war is a fraud. I’m not talking about the weapons of massdestruction that didn’t exist. Nor the links between Saddam Hussein andal-Qa’ida which didn’t exist. Nor all the other lies upon which we wentto war. I’m talking about the new lies.

“For just as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats thatdid not exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist. Much ofIraq has fallen outside the control of America’s puppet government inBaghdad but we are not told. Hundreds of attacks are made against UStroops every month. But unless an American dies, we are not told. Thismonth’s death toll of Iraqis in Baghdad alone has now reached 700 - theworst month since the invasion ended. But we are not told.

“The stage management of this catastrophe in Iraq was all too evident atSaddam Hussein’s “trial”. Not only did the US military censor the tapesof the event. Not only did they effectively delete all sound of the 11other defendants. But the Americans led Saddam Hussein to believe –until he reached the courtroom - that he was on his way to hisexecution. Indeed, when he entered the room he believed that the judgewas there to condemn him to death. This, after all, was the way Saddamran his own state security courts. No wonder he initially looked”disorientated” . . . .

“Indeed, watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days islike tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn’t Blair realize that Iraq is aboutto implode? Doesn’t Bush realise this? The American-appointed”government” controls only parts of Baghdad - and even there itsministers and civil servants are car-bombed and assassinated. Baquba,Samara, Kut, Mahmoudiya, Hilla, Fallujah, Ramadi, all are outsidegovernment authority. Iyad Allawi, the “Prime Minister”, is little morethan mayor of Baghdad. “Some journalists,” Blair announces, “almost wantthere to be a disaster in Iraq.” He doesn’t get it. The disaster existsnow. . . .”

http://tinyurl.com/56dea

HOW MANY DIED?

In this connection, from Iraq comes a new claim of civilian casualties. Al Jazzeer reports without US media pick up:

“An Iraqi political group says more than 37,000 Iraqi civilians were killed between the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003 and October 2003.

“The People’s Kifah, or Struggle Against Hegemony, movement said in a statement that it carried out a detailed survey of Iraqi civilian fatalities during September and October 2003.

Its calculation was based on deaths among the Iraqi civilian population only, and did not count losses sustained by the Iraqi military and paramilitary forces.”

As readers know, I have been tracking the US media coverage of Iraq. For a perspective on US War dead see Jimmy Breslin’s column in Newsday:

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/columnists/nyc-breslinspks0803,0,3269214.column?coll=ny-ny-columnists

Sometimes TV comedians like John Stewart can zero in on media issues that journalists don’t. Watch this interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and weep as you laugh:
http://tinyurl.com/4e8rr

DEATHS IN THE SUDAN

News Insider relays this report from the Scotsman on Sudan: “Sudanese government forces are continuing to help the Janjaweed militia launch attacks on defenseless villagers in the Darfur region of Sudan despite international condemnation and pressure from the United Nations to bring an end to the bloodshed. Aid workers in Darfur say that in the last ten days Sudanese Antonov aircraft, supported by helicopter gunships, have killed a number of people in fresh attacks. ”

YOUR LETTERS KEEP COMING:

Anita, Ramsey writes from the Garden State: “So much still being reported on the abuse of prisoners, yet, as usual nothing has been done, that is, in a positive way. Last week I wrote to you about an article in the LA Weekly, 23-29 July issue, by Doug Ireland and it was also reported in, “truthout,” on 07/26/04; the article is, “Teaching Torture: Congress Quietly Keeps, `School of the America,’ alive”. The article tells us that House of Representatives quietly passed a renewed appropriation that keeps open the US’s most infamous torture-teaching institution known as SOA, where the illegal physical & psychological abuse of prisoners of the kind the world condemned. . . ..”

Jack Shultz has some “good news today from Canada:” Until now, Wal-Mart has been successfully staving off unionization attempts by its 1.4 million employees, called by the company “associates. Yesterday, the Quebec Labour Relations board approved a bid by the United Food and Commercial Workers to represent 170 employees of a Wal-Mart store in Saguenay, Que. The first crack to appear in the wall-mart.”

ON COVERAGE OF CONVENTIONS

The musician Ravi wites from Virginia: “For the first time, I watched the majority of the publicly broadcast Democratic convention television coverage (thank you PBS). It astounds me that commercial networks only covered one hour of each evening, claiming that the decision was based on minimal public interest. If the public’s lack of interest was the motivation for less network coverage, why did PBS, who is directly funded by its viewers rather than by products purchased by their viewers, dedicate more airtime than commercially financed CBS, NBC, and ABC? Networks can certainly find more entertaining programming to appease the lowest common denominator viewers that they have created with Joe Millionaire and Temptation Island. Perhaps advertisers have more to gain from a couch potato public. However, political advertising provides significant revenue for networks. . . . I say shame on the public if it is not interested, but even more so, shame on the networks for not better informing American citizens and inspiring them to go out and vote.”

WANTS MORE COVERAGE OF ISSUES

Kathryn Buck writes: “Wouldn’t it be grand if ALL talk of who’s-got-how-many-electoral-votes, etc., could be put aside by the media and replaced with issues-oriented information??!!

” Hadn’t heard Ridge’s comment about tuition. They really don’t “get it”, do they? Really a shame there was no follow-up on that! Jessica Lynch (and how many others??!!) have enlisted for that very reason; why don’t Ridge’s kids? Let’s send Michael Moore out to ask him! Thanks for the blogging ”

OBIT: “BIG BLACK”

As we read about prison abuses in Iraq — and Nightline had a moving report from that hellhole in Baghdad, we may tend to forget about our own prisons here. Remember the phrase “Remember Attica.’ This just in: “former Attica prison inmate Frank ‘Big Black’ Smith has died at the age of 70. He became a chief spokesperson ofthe prisoners during the uprising. In 2000 he and otherinmates won a $12 million agreement with the state of NewYork.

“During the uprising he forced to lie on a table whileofficers beat and burned him. He was also threatened withcastration and death. The federal judge in the Atticasettlement Michael Telesca said of Smith, “He was a realpeacemaker in the Christian sense.” His attorney ElizabethFink said “He persevered all of the years because hebelieved in what we were doing and because what happened tohim in the (prison) yard changed him.”

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/02/1428205

MY DAY(S) IN COURT

Readers may remember my reports on my short-lived stint as a Grand Juror from which I was summarily removed in a hostile and confrontational way by a Judge after raising some concerns about the proceedings. After being ejected from the Court in the way offending managers or ball players are tossed out of games, I wrote to the presiding judge Mikki A Scherer to complain. I wrote at the time

“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.”

Well I was wrong. Yesterday, months later Judge Scherer wrote back to me from her chambers in the Superior Court promising to send my letter to the Judge who was so hostile and saying: “I regret that your service was so unsatisfactory.” She invited me to call her. This is hardly a vindication of my position but it does show a certain responsiveness when you challenge institutional malpractices.

I write letters and so can you. . . . Thanks to those of you who responded to my request for editorial help. I will get back to you as soon as Internet service is restored to our office. Our provider went bankrupt and left all of its customers in the lurch, including us. We hope to be back online soon. . . . In the meantime, I am getting email: Write Dissector@mediachannel.org