LAURA WINS ONE FOR HER GIPPER
ON THE IRAQ INSURGENCY
MORE ON GIULIANA

Yuk, yuk. Ha, ha! We are all human… We are all jokers.

The White House correspondents had their annual dinner Saturday, and Laura Bush poked fun at George and everyone laughed, and the edge was once again taken off any acrimony that might exist between the president and his servile press corps(e). Rituals like this erode whatever adversarial relationship still exists between the press and the government. It’s a form of cultural embedding, softening the partisan edges.

AP reported:

“The president began a speech late Saturday at the 91st annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, but was quickly ‘interrupted’ by his wife in an obviously planned ploy.

“‘Not that old joke, not again,’ she said to the delight of the audience. ‘I’ve been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there. I’ve got a few things I want to say for a change.’

“The president sat down and she proceeded to note that he is ‘usually in bed by now’ and said she told him recently, ‘If you really want to end tyranny in the world, you’re going to have to stay up later.’”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-04-30-bush-gala_x.htm

She brought down the house when she called herself a ‘desperate housewife.’ I am not laughing but crying, having just found this article by Media Tenor which reports that our press continues to give BushCo a positive ride.

MEDIA LESS CRITICAL OF BUSH

“U.S. President George W. Bush started his 2nd term with a remarkably mild media echo as a Media Tenor study shows. Although his ratings in the networks’ main evening news stayed negative in the 1st quarter of 2005, Bush’s media image improved notably in comparison to the first months of 2004… Overall, coverage of the President was rather balanced during the first three months of 2005: In all analysed media outlets criticism went down, the surplus of negative compared to positive statements was less than 10%.”

http://www.mediatenor.com/

PRESS MORE POSITIVE THAN PUBLIC

As press attention remained popular, the president’s support seemed to drop. Dana Milbank wrote Saturday in the Washington Post:

“No Light at the End of the Tour

“President Bush’s ‘60 stops in 60 days’ campaign to promote his Social Security proposals ends tomorrow, and the Treasury Department marked the occasion by sending out a list of statistics, among them: 127 cities visited by administration officials, more than 500 radio interviews given by administration officials.

“The liberal Center for American Progress retaliated with its own stats: 38 percent of Americans approved of Bush’s handling of Social Security before the tour, and 31 percent approve at the end of the tour…”

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0430socsec30.html

SHOULD WE FIGHT INSURGENTS OR SUPPORT THEM?

Who are the insurgents in Iraq? You would think the U.S. media would be interested. Think again. Most of the coverage of the insurgency is focused on COUNTER-insurgency, the Iraqis who are battling the insurgents without too much success, judging by all the bloodletting this past weekend, (100 deaths in three days). There were more killings reported today, as well as the taking of an Australian contractor as a hostage.

New York Times Magazine writer Peter Maass, a smart and evocative reporter, rode with the new Iraqi commandos as they brutalized their adversaries with the advice of an American counter-insurgency specialist. He notes that El Salvador and its death squads is now the “template” for the U.S. effort. (70,000 people were killed there.) James Steele was one our operatives then — and now. Who is he?

”James Steele, one of the United States military’s top experts on counterinsurgency. Steele honed his tactics leading a Special Forces mission in El Salvador during that country’s brutal civil war in the 1980’s. Steele’s presence was a sign not only of the commandos’ crucial role in the American counterinsurgency strategy but also of his close relationship with (Iraqi General) Adnan. Steele admired the general.

“’He’s obviously a natural type of commander,’ Steele told me. ‘He commands respect.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/magazine/01ARMY.html

I asked Hearts and Minds director Peter Davis if he read the piece. His response: “Yes, I’ve read the Maass piece — it sickens me we have become the torturers and, worse even, the torture-teachers of the Third World wherever the dispossessed fight the possessors.”

TIME TO BACK THE REBELS?

It is this angle of vision that is leading some in the anti-war camp to call for supporting the insurgents as the only way to drive the United States out of Iraq. Mike Whitney takes this position:

”The greatest moral quandary of our day is whether we, as Americans, support the Iraqi insurgency. It’s an issue that has caused anti-war Leftists the same pangs of conscience that many felt 30 years ago in their opposition to the Vietnam War. The specter of disloyalty weighs heavily on all of us, even those who’ve never been inclined to wave flags or champion the notion of American ‘Exceptionalism.’

“For myself, I can say without hesitation that I support the insurgency, and would do so even if my only 21 year old son was serving in Iraq. There’s simply no other morally acceptable option…”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8716.htm

ON THE HOME FRONT

Howard Dean, now head of the Democratic National Committee, has abandoned his call for withdrawal from Iraq. The former California State Senator and long-time anti-war activist Tom Hayden has challenged him on his stance in a letter that brings to light a conflict in the party. Here is part of it:

”There is growing frustration at the grass roots towards the party leadership’s silent collaboration with the Bush Administration’s policies. Personally, I cannot remember a time in thirty years when I have been more despairing over the party’s moral default. Let me take this opportunity to explain.

“The party’s alliance with the progressive left, so carefully repaired after the catastrophic split of 2000, is again beginning to unravel over Iraq. Thousands of anti-war activists and millions of antiwar voters gave their time, their loyalty and their dollars to the 2004 presidential campaign despite profound misgivings about our candidate’s position on the Iraq War. Of the millions spent by ‘527′ committees on voter awareness, none was spent on criticizing the Bush policies in Iraq. [Note: MoveOn.org was one of the leading 527’s.]

“The Democratic candidate, and other party leaders, even endorsed the U.S. invasion of Falluja, giving President Bush a green-light to destroy that city with immunity from domestic criticism. As a result, a majority of Falluja’s residents were displaced violently, guaranteeing a Sunni abstention from the subsequent Iraqi elections…”

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0429-23.htm

UN IN THE LIMELIGHT

The New York Daily News is reporting that criticisms of the UN’s Kofi Anan were omitted from a report on the UN oil-for-peace scandal. Most of these reports on this scandal do not report that British and American companies were the biggest profiteers in UN sanctioned oil trade with Saddam’s government,

PEACE PROTEST IN NEW YORK

Yesterday, I stopped into Central Park to see Mayors for peace and a delegation of victims of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki speak at a rally in Central Park. The main demand: abolish nuclear weapons. Organizers claimed 40,000 people in the park, To my surprise, the New York Times, while reporting on the earlier march tacked on another 20,000:

”A coalition of groups opposed to nuclear weapons marched in New York today, just before talks start at the United Nations to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Marching bands played, and demonstrators held placards and flags pushing for nuclear disarmament and rallying against war as they made their way toward Central Park.

“The protest by United for Peace and Justice, an antiwar group, and Abolition Now, which advocates the elimination of nuclear weapons, have said they expected up to 60,000 people to participate, including the mayors of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the United States dropped atomic bombs in 1945 in the final days of World War II, killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of people.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/nyregion/01cnd-protest.html

I spoke with the very eloquent Mayor Akiba of Hiroshima, who is leading the fight for the abolition of nuclear weapons. He will speaking to the UN special session that will review the non-proliferation treaty this week.”

WHAT THE UN NPT SESSION WILL DISCUSS

The Mail and Guardian reports:

“The rift between nuclear and non-nuclear states, is so serious that a final agenda had still not been agreed on.”

Richard Butler, who headed nuclear disarmament efforts at the United Nations before he became a chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, wrote about the key issues at the UN session. in the Sidney Morning Herald:

”The five-yearly review will begin in New York later today. There will be great difficulty and argument. Sources of contention will be: the alleged break-out from treaty obligations by North Korea and Iran; the issue of failure to bring inside the treaty the three ‘unofficial’ nuclear-weapons states; and the failure of the five nuclear-weapons states within the treaty to meet their obligation to eliminate their nuclear weapons.

“On the third of these points, the five have the obligation of nuclear disarmament under Article VI of the treaty, which was stepped up at the 2000 review conference, when they gave their ‘unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals’.

“Their failure to fulfill this undertaking is seen by non-nuclear-weapons states as breaking the fundamental bargain of the treaty. While this is serious enough, even more serious is the decision by the U.S. Administration to make new nuclear weapons and to incorporate these weapons into its regular battlefield arsenal. This decision violates America’s undertakings under international law. This issue will be center stage at the review conference.”

ANOTHER COUNTRY — TWO DEMOS

Israeli Journalist Uri Avnery writes:

‘The day before yesterday, two demonstrations were held, just a few dozen kilometers apart.

“One took place at the Homesh settlement, not far from Jenin. Tens of thousands of settlers and their sympathizers came to demonstrate against the planned evacuation of this settlement. The demonstrators swore to sabotage the decisions of the government and the Knesset. One of them declared that they could be removed only in coffins draped with the national flag.

“Hundreds of soldiers and policemen were stationed along the route to protect the demonstrators against all eventualities. The official Voice of Israel radio told its listeners that the traffic police were acting on instructions from the leaders of the Settlements Council.

“At the same time, another demonstration took place at Bil’in, west of Ramallah. The inhabitants of that and the neighboring villages, together with Israeli peace activists, demonstrated against the ‘Separation Fence’ that is being put up on their land.

“This demonstration was savagely attacked by soldiers and policemen, who assaulted them, beat, injured and arrested them, using old and new weapons. The security people, as the Hebrew expression goes, ‘had murder in their eyes’.”

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2005%20Opinion%20Editorials/April/1o/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Demonstrations%20By%20Uri%20Avnery.htm

HOW IS THIS COVERED IN ISRAEL?

Avnery also writes about the role of the Israeli media:

”In the news programs, not a word — literally not a word — of criticism of the settlers is ever heard. The establishment ‘leftists’ also speak of the need to ‘embrace them’ and ‘understand them’, and so, of course, do all the spokespersons of the government and the big parties. To people who have an opposite opinion, no opportunity is given to speak about the settlers on the main media of the country.

“In this way, Israeli democracy puts all its media exclusively at the disposal of the enemies of democracy. Even in the Weimar Republic, stupidity did not go this far.”

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2005%20Opinion%20Editorials/April/1o/A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Demonstrations%20By%20Uri%20Avnery.htm

TORTURE IN THE NEWS

60 Minutes ran (or was it re-ran?) a report on abuses at the U.S. terror gulag in Guantanamo Bay, featuring an interview with a U.S. soldier who estimated that of the 600 prisoners there only a few dozen could be considered serious terrorists. Meanwhile, ICH carries this story:

“U.S. Recruits a Rough Ally to Be a Jailer

“Seven months before Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors.

”The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were ‘beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask.’ Two prisoners were boiled to death. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly, ‘Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights.’ Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, however, the Bush administration turned to Uzbekistan as a partner in fighting global terrorism.”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/01/MNGE5CI9MO1.DTL

NOTED

“HAVANA, Cuba (AP) — Saying that U.S. citizens are oppressed by their own government, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez promised Friday that he would not visit the United States again until Americans ‘liberate’ their nation.”

http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/2605/Chavez_Says_He_Will_Not_Return_to_U_S_Until_Liberated