Brian Eno: Lessons in how to lie about Iraq
Posted Saturday, August 16, 2003 by vgdesign

The problem is not propaganda but the relentless control of the kind of things we think about

When I first visited Russia, in 1986, I made friends with a musician whose father had been Brezhnev's personal doctor. One day we were talking about life during 'the period of stagnation' - the Brezhnev era. 'It must have been strange being so completely immersed in propaganda,' I said.

'Ah, but there is the difference. We knew it was propaganda,' replied Sacha.

That is the difference. Russian propaganda was so obvious that most Russians were able to ignore it. They took it for granted that the government operated in its own interests and any message coming from it was probably slanted - and they discounted it.

In the West the calculated manipulation of public opinion to serve political and ideological interests is much more covert and therefore much more effective. Its greatest triumph is that we generally don't notice it - or laugh at the notion it even exists. We watch the democratic process taking place - heated debates in which we feel we could have a voice - and think that, because we have 'free' media, it would be hard for the Government to get away with anything very devious without someone calling them on it. >>More

David Kelly: The lightning conductor
Posted Saturday, August 16, 2003 by vgdesign

By Kamal Ahmed and Martin Bright, The Observer

This is a story about a government scientist called Dr David Kelly. It is a story about the Government and the case for war against Iraq. It is a story about the media and accuracy. It is a story about sexing-up and spin and denials and half-truths and leaks. Most of all, it is a story about power. About how those who have it use it. And what those without it think about it. >>More

A BUZZFLASH NEW ANALYSIS
Posted Friday, August 15, 2003 by symbolman

If Bush Really Wants to Investigate the Cause of the Largest Blackout in American History, He Should Start with the Vice-President, Tom DeLay and Himself.

The following BuzzFlash news analysis was developed using material provided by alert BuzzFlash readers:

CLAIM

"We'll have time to look at it and determine whether or not our grid needs to be modernized. I happen to think it does, and have said so all along."

- George Bush, 8/14/03 SAN DIEGO - President Bush said he will order a review of why so many states were hit by a massive power blackout Thursday and said he suspects the nation's electrical grid will have to be modernized.

FACT

In June of 2001, Bush opposed and the congressional GOP voted down legislation to provide $350 million worth of loans to modernize the nation's power grid because of known weaknesses in reliability and capacity. Supporters of the amendment pointed to studies by the Energy Department showing that the grid was in desperate need of upgrades as proof that their legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) should pass.

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration lobbied against it and the Republicans voted it down three separate times: First, on a straight party line in the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, then on a straight party line the U.S. House Rules Committee, and finally on a party line on the floor of the full House [Roll Call Vote #169, 6/20/01].>> More

BUZZFLASH NAILS IT AGAIN!

Action Figure
Posted Friday, August 15, 2003 by symbolman

CPJ Troubled by Results of Palestine Hotel Inquiry
Posted Friday, August 15, 2003 by vgdesign

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is troubled by a news release summarizing the results of a U.S. Central Command (Centcom) investigation into the April 8 shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. The release, which was published yesterday on Centcom's Web site, failed to answer vital questions about the incident, which killed two journalists and wounded three others.

CPJ urges Centcom to make available the full report, which a Centcom spokesman today said was classified.

According to the news release, the report concluded that the tank unit that opened fire on the hotel did so "in a proportionate and justifiably measured response." It called the shelling "fully in accordance with the Rules of Engagement."
...
"It is troubling that the results of the investigation as summarized in this news release do not address the central question of whether U.S. commanders were aware they were firing on a hotel full of journalists," said CPJ deputy director Joel Simon. "We hope that the full report deals with these issues and provides more specific information. We call on the Pentagon to make the full report public." >>More

The Age of Murdoch
Posted Friday, August 15, 2003 by vgdesign

By James Fallows, The Atlantic Monthly

Many see him as a power-mad, rapacious right-wing vulgarian. Rupert Murdoch has indeed been relentless in building a one-of-a kind media network that spans the world. What really drives him, though, is not ideology but a cool concern for the bottom line—and the belief that the media should be treated like any other business, not as a semi-sacred public trust. The Bush Administration agrees.

Rupert Murdoch has seen the future, and it is him. >>More

Fox and Franken locked in title bout
Posted Friday, August 15, 2003 by vgdesign

News channel sues satirist over slogan used for book. The move in turn stirs interest.
By Elizabeth Jensen and Renee Tawa, Los Angeles Times

NEW YORK — Perhaps Fox News Channel should have tracked Spike Lee's losing lawsuit against Viacom more closely before filing suit against comedian Al Franken's forthcoming book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right."

Just as Lee's suit gave the launch of Viacom's Spike cable channel a free publicity boost, the main beneficiary of Fox's legal action this week so far appears to be Franken's book, which, after the deluge of publicity, shot up the Amazon.com bestseller list to No. 1 by Wednesday and held that spot on Thursday. The book won't be published until Sept. 22. >>More

IRAQ: Massive Military Contractor Makes Media Mess
Posted Friday, August 15, 2003 by vgdesign

Analysis by Katrin Dauenhauer and Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service

It is no secret that U.S. defence and construction companies -- particularly those with close ties to the administration of President George W. Bush -- are making a lot of money in the post-war rush for contracts in Iraq.

Firms whose directors held membership in Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Defence Policy Board (DPB) or in the 'Committee for the Liberation of Iraq' (CLI) did not appear to suffer any handicap, either.

Two big winners, of course, were Halliburton, whose last CEO was Vice President Dick Cheney, and engineering giant Bechtel, whose senior vice president, Jack Sheehan, serves on the DPB. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, a Bechtel board member and former top executive, also chaired CLI, a supposedly non-governmental body that helped lead the march to war and dissolved itself late last month.

Less well known is San Diego-based Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC), one of the Pentagon's largest, most lucrative, and politically connected contractors. Of the six billion dollars it earned in revenue last year, about two thirds of it came from the U.S. Treasury, mostly from the defence budget.

SAIC is among the most mysterious and feared of the big 10 defence giants >>More

Military Rescinds Iraq Media-Access Order
Posted Friday, August 15, 2003 by vgdesign

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military briefly issued an order Thursday that could have restricted journalists from accompanying American troops on all but routine missions in Iraq, including operations aimed at capturing or killing Saddam Hussein.

The directive told commanders throughout Iraq that reporters, photographers and television crews would be prohibited from traveling with the military on some operations as so-called "embedded" journalists.

The U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad rescinded the order shortly after The Associated Press reported on it. No explanation was given. >>More

Kelly 'used as weapon against BBC'
Posted Friday, August 15, 2003 by vgdesign

The Scotsman

The Government’s decision to name Dr David Kelly as the source of a controversial BBC Iraqi intelligence report showed the scientist was being used as a weapon in their war against the broadcaster, shadow deputy prime minister David Davis said today.

Mr Davis said Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon’s decision to send him before the Foreign Affairs Committee pointed to the same thing.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: "Hoon overruled Sir Kevin Tebbit on the sending to the select committee and that is unusual I promise you, as a past select committee chairman and a past minister, it is unusual to overrule on something like this. The question which I think is going to be the pivot of the next few weeks is how he was named, why he was named, who authorised it."

He added: "It just shows that this battle is a war in which any weapon can be used." >>More on the Iraq dossier row

THE HUTTON INQUIRY >>Hearing Transcripts

The Andean Condor Who Deploys the Hawks: Meet Eleana Benador
Posted Thursday, August 14, 2003 by vgdesign

By Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service

When historians look back on the U.S. war in Iraq, they will almost certainly be struck by how a small group of mainly neo-conservative analysts and activists outside the administration were able to shape the U.S. media debate in ways that made the drive to war so much easier than it might have been.

Part of their success, of course, is attributable to their own close ties to the administration. Some, such as former CIA chief James Woolsey, and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Richard Perle, for example, used their access as members of the Defence Policy Board to enhance their credibility as players with inside information.

And many of the same group could credit their polish and polemical skills with dominating the talk shows on television and radio and the op-ed pages in the nation's major newspapers.
...
But historians would be negligent if they ignored the day-to-day work of one person who, as much as anyone outside the administration, made their media ubiquity possible. >>More

>>Benador Associates

When the Media Worm Turns
Posted Thursday, August 14, 2003 by vgdesign

By Susan J. Douglas, In These Times

Ah, this is the life. To be on vacation near the ocean, sunning on the beach by day, and, by night, hearing Hardball's Chris Matthews, of all people, repeatedly liken Bush to Ted Baxter, the obtuse anchorman on the old "Mary Tyler Moore Show." As I eat fried calamari and striped bass, I get to see Matthews, hardly a friend of progressives, hammer Team Bush over their serial lying about weapons of mass destruction and yellowcake. Was Bush such a clueless puppet, sputters Matthews, that he simply read whatever Cheney or Rumsfeld put in front of him and told him to sell to the nation? Why, I must be in Margaritaville.

Since Team Bush came to power, those of us lucky enough to have the time and money to go on vacation have tried to escape from, or forget, however briefly, the totalitarian and imperialistic schemes of our in-house American Taliban. Nonetheless, it was difficult to shake the sense of doom unleashed by the forces of darkness, and some of us spent previous vacations looking longingly at maps of Canada, fantasizing about where to move. A supine media reinforced our sense that we were exiles in our own land.

But this summer, the worm is turning. The inside story of how and why so many in the press have finally begun to ask hard questions remains to be told. But cracks in the edifice are everywhere. And while, understandably, we on the left are prone to seeing the political glass as always half empty – or less – it is summer, things are falling apart for Team Bush, and we need to appreciate that, for now, the glass is starting to look half full. >>More

Bring Them Home Now: Soldiers' families protest war in Iraq
Posted Thursday, August 14, 2003 by vgdesign

By BOB DART, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

His voice cracking with emotion, Fernando Suarez del Solar spoke Wednesday of his son, Jesus, a Marine killed on the sands of Iraq.

"My son will not return but we want those other children to return to their families," said Suarez, who came from California to the nation's capital to help launch a campaign to "Bring Them Home Now."

The grieving father was among an unlikely band of anti-war activists -- military families and veterans -- who gathered to demand an end to the "U.S. occupation of Iraq" and an immediate return of American troops to their home bases. They expressed outrage that President Bush would issue a "macho" challenge to the Iraqis shooting at their endangered sons and daughters while he was safe, protected by the Secret Service.

"George Bush said 'Bring them on.' We say 'Bring them home now'," said Nancy Lessin, whose stepson, Joe, is a Marine who recently returned to the United States after serving in Iraq for about 10 months. "Supporting the troops does not mean supporting the invasion and occupation."
...
"George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld care about the troops in the same way that Tyson Foods cares about chickens," said Stan Goff, a retired Army master sergeant who served in the Rangers and Special Forces counter-terrorist units. His son, Jessie, is also in the Army and recently deployed to Iraq. >>More

>>BRING THEM HOME NOW!
>>View the C-SPAN Press Conference video

PAUL KRUGMAN: Thanks for the M.R.E.'s
Posted Wednesday, August 13, 2003 by vgdesign

A few days ago I talked to a soldier just back from Iraq. He'd been in a relatively calm area; his main complaint was about food. Four months after the fall of Baghdad, his unit was still eating the dreaded M.R.E.'s: meals ready to eat. When Italian troops moved into the area, their food was "way more realistic" — and American troops were soon trading whatever they could for some of that Italian food.

Other stories are far worse. Letters published in Stars and Stripes  and e-mail published on the Web site of Col. David Hackworth (a decorated veteran and Pentagon critic) describe shortages of water. One writer reported that in his unit, "each soldier is limited to two 1.5-liter bottles a day," and that inadequate water rations were leading to "heat casualties." An American soldier died of heat stroke on Saturday; are poor supply and living conditions one reason why U.S. troops in Iraq are suffering such a high rate of noncombat deaths?

The U.S. military has always had superb logistics. What happened? The answer is a mix of penny-pinching and privatization — which makes our soldiers' discomfort a symptom of something more general.

Colonel Hackworth blames "dilettantes in the Pentagon" who "thought they could run a war and an occupation on the cheap." But the cheapness isn't restricted to Iraq. In general, the "support our troops" crowd draws the line when that support might actually cost something. >>More

The Voice of the Grunt >>DEFENSEWATCH Magazine

Voices in the Wilderness: A Call for 20,000 Voices
Posted Wednesday, August 13, 2003 by vgdesign

Voices in the Wilderness calls for 20,000 or more citizens of the world to raise their voices in outrage

The US Justice Department has sued Voices in the Wilderness to try to collect a fine of $20,000 from VitW for bringing medicines to the people of Iraq. Over the past seven years, Voices in the Wilderness has organized more than 65 delegations to Iraq made up of teachers, veterans, social workers, artists, health care professionals, trades people and people of faith. Many of these delegates carried symbolic amounts of medicine as an act of civil disobedience against the injustice of the economic sanctions; they then returned to the United States to tell about the brutalizing effects of the sanctions, magnified by the US bombing of the Iraqi civilian infrastructure during the Gulf War.

Voices in the Wilderness will not pay this fine. All funds received by Voices in the Wilderness were given to us for the purposes of providing humanitarian aid to Iraqi civilians and educating the world community about the deadly effects of the US bombing and embargo of Iraq. The Justice Department is choosing to spend its resources to launch an attack on Voices in the Wilderness at a time when Iraqi people and US soldiers are being killed daily and the US occupying forces have failed to provide for the security and basic humanitarian needs of Iraqi people.
...
Join your voices with ours as we call upon the Justice Department to drop their lawsuit against Voices in the Wilderness and instead direct their money towards the humanitarian efforts of NGOs working in Iraq, the clean-up of the hundreds of tons of depleted uranium now polluting Iraq from US weaponry, and the payment of reparations to the families of Iraqi victims of the US invasion and occupation. >>Raise Your Voice

Kettle (Fox) calling pot (Franken) black
Posted Wednesday, August 13, 2003 by vgdesign

Have Fox's lawyers ever watched their own channel? - By BRIAN LAMBERT, St. Paul Pioneer Press

To the long list of stories you can't make up, we can add the one about Fox News suing Al Franken over his use of the phrase "fair and balanced."

By provoking this hilariously ironic legal snit, Franken, the St. Louis Park-born satirist, has achieved full warrior status in the pitched battle between the forces of cartoon righteousness and the decimated remnants of sanity. The latter are in an Alamo-like defensive position at the moment, surrounded by cutthroat opportunists and firing in every direction. Franken happens to be the depleted tribe's best sharpshooter. >>More

Web of Lies: when journalists rely on official sources...
Posted Wednesday, August 13, 2003 by vgdesign

By Joshua Meyrowitz, In These Times

Now that the invasion of Iraq is a fait accompli, the mainstream U.S. news media are finally giving significant attention to the weaknesses in the Bush administration’s case for the war. Of the many distortions that could be targeted, the media have focused primarily on the “16 words” in the president’s January 2003 State of the Union address—the sentence that repeated the now-discredited claim that Iraq attempted to buy uranium from Niger to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program.

In looking for whom to blame for deceiving the American people about Iraq’s weapons (the CIA, the White House staff, the vice president, the president), the news media have left out one key player in the deceptions: themselves. >>More

It's the Media, Stupid
Posted Wednesday, August 13, 2003 by vgdesign

By Robert Weiner, AdWeek

Have the Democrats learned the hard lessons of 2002?

Democrats don't like being in the minority. But what happened in 2002—the Republican upsurge and control in the last weeks of the election—will happen again if Democrats don't get their messages out. The problem is not that they don't stand for anything; it's that they are not using the media effectively in presenting their stance.

Without a strong nationwide ad campaign for 2004, Democrats can forget about taking back Congress and the White House.

Democrats take pride in repeating Franklin Roosevelt's mantra that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." Yet in 2002, they succumbed to fear — the fear of offending Bush supporters. This nonaggression tactic blew up in their faces. To have tried and failed is bad; to have failed without trying is worse.

While Bush was campaigning across the country last year, nationalizing the Republican agenda around his leadership, Iraq, homeland security and tax cuts, Democrats refused to "interfere with local races." They refused to say to voters that they stood for anything. >>More

Welcome to the Republic of Darkness and Unemployment
Posted Wednesday, August 13, 2003 by vgdesign

Baghdad Blogger by Salam Pax, The Guardian

... I went to a press conference where our new one-month-president [the coalition provisional authority has a rotating chairman] was telling us about what they were up to. The press guy, at the request of the conference, was telling journalists that the instantaneous translation thingy has two channels; channel one for Arabic, channel two for English. I would like to add another channel: channel three for the truth. It keeps repeating one phrase: "We have no power, we have to get it approved by the Americans, we are puppets and the strings are too tight." I feel sorry for the guys on the council, some of them are actually very good and honest people and they have been put in a very difficult situation.

As usual, getting into these press bashes is an event in itself. You have to be there an hour early, you get searched a thousand times and, of course, as an Iraqi I get treated like shit. I have no idea why the American soldiers at the entrance to the convention centre [where the CPA press operation is] are so offensive towards Iraqis while they can be so nice to anyone with a foreign passport. I have to be the Zen master when the soldier at the gate gets condescending.

The reporters of Iraq Today  were not allowed to get to the press conference and they went ballistic. "This is my friggin' government, what do you mean I can't get in?" My sentiments exactly. Keep this image in your head: an American officer stopping you, an Iraqi, from attending the press conference your government is holding. >>More

The Independent Voice of Iraq >>IRAQ TODAY