Steve Perry: Bring 'em On!
Posted Wednesday, July 30, 2003 by vgdesign

The Bush administration's Top 40 Lies about war and terrorism

Editor's note: In the interest of relative brevity I've stinted on citing and quoting sources in some of the items below. You can find links to news stories that elaborate on each of these items at my online Bush Wars column, www.bushwarsblog.com.

1) The administration was not bent on war with Iraq from 9/11 onward.

Throughout the year leading up to war, the White House publicly maintained that the U.S. took weapons inspections seriously, that diplomacy would get its chance, that Saddam had the opportunity to prevent a U.S. invasion. The most pungent and concise evidence to the contrary comes from the president's own mouth. According to Time's  March 31 road-to-war story, Bush popped in on national security adviser Condi Rice one day in March 2002, interrupting a meeting on UN sanctions against Iraq. Getting a whiff of the subject matter, W peremptorily waved his hand and told her, "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out." Clare Short, Tony Blair's former secretary for international development, recently lent further credence to the anecdote. She told the London Guardian  that Bush and Blair made a secret pact a few months afterward, in the summer of 2002, to invade Iraq in either February or March of this year. >>More

New York Times Screws Up Again
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN, CounterPunch

Reeling from one blunder to the next, the New York Times  plummeted to new depths on July 25, combining a serious falsehood with possible misrepresentation of authorship.

On the op page for 7/25 appeared a column, datelined Havana, under the name Gustavo Arcos Bergnes, identified as Secretary General of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, and titled "A Prisoner Becomes A Warden". The column narrated how its author had been with Castro in the original attack on the Moncada in 1953, had been imprisoned by Batista along with Castro and other comrades, had eventually turned against Castro. The thrust of the column was to compare the relatively decent prison and trial conditions (and eventual amnesty) enjoyed by Castro and the others in l953, with the grim sufferings and stinted rights of political prisoners in Cuba today.

Towards the end of the piece came the following sentence: "(Although there is no doubt in my mind that my younger brother, Sebastián, died in prison in 1997 because of deliberate lack of medical attention.)"

In fact Sebastian Arcos died in Miami of cancer, a couple of years after he was released from prison for humanitarian reasons. But surely, you ask, Gustavo Arcos would remember where his brother died. >>More

KRUGMAN: You Say Tomato
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

Two leaders politicized intelligence to sell a war. But while one has suffered a catastrophic loss of public trust, the other hasn't, at least not yet.

Are Tony Blair's troubles the shape of things to come for George Bush? Or does the aftermath of the Iraq war show, once again, that we are two nations divided by a common language?

In Britain the news remains dominated by the death of Dr. David Kelly, a W.M.D. specialist who became a pawn in a vicious war between the Blair government and the BBC over claims of politicized intelligence. According to news accounts, someone in the Blair government leaked Dr. Kelly's name as the likely source of a critical BBC report, apparently provoking his suicide.

The government's aim seems to have been to discredit the BBC. After attributing the report to Dr. Kelly, officials questioned whether the BBC had accurately reported what Dr. Kelly said. They also suggested that he was at too low a level to know how intelligence on Iraqi weapons had been put together.

But this attack has backfired badly. >>More

Papers Cover Discontent Among Soldiers in Iraq
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

By Joe Strupp, Editor & Publisher

As U.S. military casualties in Iraq continue to mount, newspapers find themselves thrust into a new area of coverage: the growing discontent among soldiers who have to remain in the war-torn country, and the angry protests of some of their families back home. Newspapers have used everything from a column by an angry spouse to the publication of an anonymous e-mail dispatch purported to be from a soldier in Iraq.

Meanwhile, questions about how the Pentagon is reporting the deaths of soldiers -- and the exact cause of those fatalities -- have placed new scrutiny on how much information the military is willing to reveal to the press and how long they are taking to report their findings, especially in cases that may involve "friendly fire," suicides, or mysterious accidents.

All of this has placed a new burden on reporters and editors who thought postwar coverage would be simply reporting on a new Iraqi government and the swift return of U.S. troops. >>More

Radio rule changes mean Clear Channel can stay big
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS, The Wall Street Journal

The Federal Communications Commission tightened radio ownership rules in June after giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. became the focus of complaints about rapid consolidation in the radio industry.

But Clear Channel may fare better than its rivals under the new rules and may still be able to grow.

Radio companies generally can keep their current stations under a grandfather clause in the FCC's new guidelines. As a result, Clear Channel, the San Antonio company that is by far the nation's biggest owner of radio stations, can hang onto just about every station it rolled up under the old rules. Yet competitors say the tougher new standards will make it harder for them to replicate Clear Channel's potent collection of stations.

"All (the FCC) did was further entrench them, and gave them more running room," says Lew Dickey, chief executive of Cumulus Media Inc., a radio company based in Atlanta. "It makes it more difficult for the rest of us to line up and compete against them on a national level." >>More

>>>>Graphic: Largest Radio Companies

Japanese reporters in Iraq say U.S. troops roughed them up
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

BAGHDAD — A Japanese reporter was manhandled and temporarily detained by U.S. soldiers Sunday for filming without their permission in an area of Baghdad where they were conducting raids, another reporter who accompanied him said.

Japan Press  reporter Kazutaka Sato, 47, was put in a hold, thrown to the ground and kicked, sustaining injuries to his face and hands, according to Mika Yamamoto, 36, a Japan Press  reporter who was with Sato at the time of the incident.

She said the two had been in the Mansur district of Baghdad filming the damage caused to civilians by the U.S. military when they had their cameras confiscated.

After being thrown to the ground and assaulted by several U.S. soldiers, Sato had his hands tied and was detained for about one hour. >>More

Daschle Urges Bush to Stop Terror Market
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

By KEN GUGGENHEIM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Senate's Democratic leader called on the Bush administration Tuesday to renounce a Pentagon plan for establishing a futures market on acts of terrorism and said apologies should be made to the families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"This program could provide an incentive actually to commit acts of terrorism," Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., declared on the Senate floor. "...This is just wrong."

Daschle called the proposal a "plan to trade in death" and charged it could motivate terrorists to attempt attacks on targets in the United States or against U.S. leaders. "It is perhaps the most irresponsible, outrageous and poorly thought out of anything I have heard from the administration," he said. >>More

>>Wyden, Dorgan Call For Immediate Halt to Tax-Funded "Terror Market" Scheme

Washington Post: Meet the Press
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

THE PRESIDENT is about to head to his ranch for the month of August, but before his bags are packed, we have what might seem like a far-fetched notion: What about a news conference?

Mr. Bush answers reporters' questions on the run or perhaps two at a time in sessions with foreign leaders, but he has not held a solo news conference for nearly five months. His last such event was March 6 -- before the war with Iraq, before the passage of his tax cut, before the latest outbreak of violence in Liberia, before the release of the 9/11 report, before -- well, you get the idea.

Nor is this lag time unusual for the Bush presidency: During his more than two years in office, Mr. Bush has held just eight solo news conferences. The last one before his March appearance took place four months earlier. By contrast, President Clinton had held 33 such events at this point in his term, and the first President Bush had held 61. >>More

David Hunter: There always have been those who stymied liberty
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

If I wore a hat, I'd take it off for James M. Cardwell, whose comments recently appeared in the letters to the editor section of this newspaper. It was a clarification of a misunderstanding of growing proportions - the ludicrous notion that members of the ultraconservative, slogan-chanting, my-country-right-or-wrong crowd are the direct heirs to the principles espoused by the founders of the United States of America.

Nonsense! If the conservatives of that day, the loyalist Tories of the 13 colonies, had won out, we'd all be singing "God Save the Queen" and having afternoon tea. The people who rose up against the British were not members of the status quo; they were men promoting a radical, new doctrine about the individual liberty and dignity of all human beings and would have been hanged by the conservative Tories had they lost.

Thomas Paine, author of "Common Sense," the document that helped fuel the American Revolution, was a freethinking journalist who certainly would not have been welcomed among the neo-Tories in today's White House, where dissent is equated with treason. He minced no words in his call for Americans to stand up in open defiance of the age-old and accepted idea that monarchs reigned by the will of God. >>More

Are Neocons cooking their own goose?
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

By Roger Patching, The Sacramento Bee

While many debate the wisdom of current efforts by neoconservatives in the Republican Party to create their vision of Pax Americana, I wonder if the historical outcome hasn't already been determined.

That is, while Republicans on all sides worry about "containing" what was once considered a war behind closed doors between unilateralist hawks (the neocons) and multilateralist moderates in the party over a policy based upon U.S. hegemony -- world dominance -- I wonder if it isn't an already irreversibly failed policy simply because the American people were never seriously included by anyone, even the media, in the discussion.

I wonder if the worldview of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, Vice President Richard Cheney, Richard Perle, columnists William Kristol, Lawrence Kaplan, Robert Kagan and other members and leaders of the Defense Policy Board, American Enterprise Institute and The Project for a New American Century is already dead because not only did they not make a case for hegemony to the public, they never seriously attempted to even define the term or explain the concept.

And, now, it is too late. >>More

The 'Times' Scoops That Melted
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

Cataloging the wretched reporting of Judith Miller - By Jack Shafer, Slate

If reporters who live by their sources were obliged to die by their sources, New York Times  reporter Judith Miller would be stinking up her family tomb right now.

In the 18-month run-up to the war on Iraq, Miller grew incredibly close to numerous Iraqi sources, both named and anonymous, who gave her detailed interviews about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Yet 100 days after the fall of Baghdad, none of the sensational allegations about chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons given to Miller have panned out, despite the furious crisscrossing of Iraq by U.S. weapons hunters.
...
Judith Miller finds everybody associated with the failed search theoretically culpable except Judith Miller. This rings peculiar because Miller, more than any other reporter, showcased the WMD speculations and intelligence findings by the Bush administration and the Iraqi defector/dissidents. Our WMD expectations, such as they were, grew largely out of Miller's stories.

To be sure, Miller never asserted that Iraq had an illegal WMD program or a stockpile of banned weapons. Far from it: Every time she writes about WMDs, she always constructs a semantic trapdoor allowing her to pop out the other side and proclaim, It's the sources talking, not me! >>More

Wolfowitz sparks fury from al-Jazeera
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

By Dominic Timms, Media Guardian

A fresh row has erupted between al-Jazeera and the US government after the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, effectively accused the Arabic satellite news channel of inciting violence against US troops in Iraq.

In an interview with Fox News, Mr Wolfowitz accused al-Jazeera of "slanting the news" in favour of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and claimed that the channel's "very biased reporting" had the effect of "inciting violence against our troops" in Iraq.

And he accused al-Jazeera of deliberately misreporting events surrounding the "detention" of a leading holy man, sparking a furious reaction from the broadcaster. >>More

>>Reuters: Al Jazeera says U.S. forces arrest two employees

FCC's Powell rejects criticism of new media rules
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell on Monday said efforts to limit the growth of media companies appears to be an attempt to control television content and may have unintended consequences.

Powell has been under fire in recent months for crafting new regulations that will allow television broadcasters to own more local stations as well as permit a company to own a newspaper, a television station and radio outlets in a market.

"Much of the pressure to restrict ownership, I fear, is motivated not by worries about concentration, but by a desire to affect content," Powell said in an opinion piece published in Monday's New York Times  newspaper.

"And some proposals to reduce concentration risk having government promote or suppress particular viewpoints," he said. >>More

War dividend leaves BBC in line for 24-hour US news deal
Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2003 by vgdesign

By Jason Nissé, The Independent

The BBC is set to capitalise on strong viewing figures in the US for its news bulletins during the Iraq war by signing a deal for a 24-hour news channel to be carried on American cable TV.

The corporation is in talks with cable networks to carry BBC World, which it already sells to European and Asian satellite TV services.

Although the BBC is under pressure in the UK over its reports on Today and Newsnight about the Iraqi weapons dossier, its reputation in the US has rarely been higher.

During the war its bulletins, which are carried on around 225 public broadcasting stations, averaged audiences of more than a million. Current viewing figures have held at 900,000, up 25 per cent from a year ago.

"BBC World's reputation in the US has been enhanced by our recent unbiased and accurate coverage of the Iraqi conflict, which earned plaudits from viewers and journalists alike," said a spokesman. "We've always said our long-term American goal is to obtain 24-hour distribution. Obviously, there are a number of different potential partners and platforms that could be involved in any agreement." >>More

Uday and Qusay: The Men Who Knew Too Much
Posted Monday, July 28, 2003 by symbolman

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

Uday and Qusay got their 15 seconds of fame recently, although they weren't really in a position to savor the moment.

The Laci Peterson case had run its course for the time being. And the Kobe Bryant sexual assault allegations were settling down for a brief hiatus. So it was fortunate that the Hussein sons showed up for a final appearance, so to speak.

After all, the media was running out of news. Let's face it, how long can we endure tiresome allegations that the president of the United States lied the nation into a war? And a report that implies the Bush Cartel attacked the wrong nation, given that Saudi Arabia appears to be the primary country involved in nurturing, financially supporting and providing the leadership for Al-Qaeda.

And how many times can you get Americans to listen to the dumbfounding revelation that Bush and Condi were warned of large scale Al-Qaeda hijackings in August of 2001, but claimed they never thought about planes being flown into buildings?

What Americans need is a grisly shot of the bad guys -- a la the famous photo of a dead John Dillinger -- laid out on autopsy tables, their bodies crisscrossed with stitches like a beggar's blanket.>> More

Most Iraqi papers spurn US photos of Saddam's dead sons
Posted Saturday, July 26, 2003 by vgdesign

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Only one of Iraq's newspapers on Saturday carried photographs of the bloodied bodies of former president Saddam Hussein's sons released by the US military to convince the Iraqi people of their death.

The independent daily Azzaman  published pictures of the bodies of both Uday and Qusay with the caption "photos distributed by coalition forces before they were shaved and shown to the independent media".
...
Meanwhile, the Al-Rassed  newspaper, under two portraits of the brothers when still alive, said "Washington killed them to bury a number of truths".

"Tyrants Uday and Qusay sent to Hell," the Al-Shams  daily said, without carrying the photographs. >>More

Release of Hussein sons’ photos: Washington exposes its own barbarism
Posted Saturday, July 26, 2003 by vgdesign

By Barry Grey, World Socialist Web Site

The world was subjected to a gruesome and barbaric spectacle on Thursday when the Bush administration released photographs of the mutilated corpses of Saddam Hussein’s sons, Uday and Qusay, ambushed and killed by American forces on July 22.

The American cable news networks wasted no time in displaying blowups of the bloody heads and torsos of the dead men and beaming the images into homes across the US and around the world. US government spokesmen and media commentators could barely conceal their glee at the sight of the shattered bodies, and their satisfaction over inflicting the pictures on a global audience.

Nothing the World Socialist Web Site  could say would be a more devastating indictment of the degenerates who wield power in the US and their media accomplices than their own self-exposure. The overwhelming majority of people around the world, and especially in the US, will feel only revulsion and shame at this exhibition of sadism. >>More

Seize the Airwaves!
Posted Saturday, July 26, 2003 by vgdesign

Break the Corporate Media's Stranglehold on the Free Flow of Information, News, Artistic Expression and Cultural Creativity - By STEVE DUNIFER of Free Radio Berkeley, Counterpunch

You go to the demonstrations, write letters and email to Congress; and yet, you feel as if your voice is not being heard. What if there was a way for your voice, and the voices of your compatriots, to actually be heard? There is--it is called micropower broadcasting or free radio.

Micropower broadcasting began as a means to empower the residents of a housing project in Springfield, Illinois in the late 1980's. By creating a low power FM broadcast station, this community established its own voice and a direct means to fight against police brutality and repression. Unlicensed and unsanctioned by the government, Human Rights Radio, as it is now known, continues to broadcast to this very day.

Since then, micropower broadcasting has grown into a national movement of electronic civil disobedience. Based on the principles of Free Speech and Direct Action, micropower broadcasting seeks to reclaim the electronic commons of the airwaves--a public resource and trust stolen by the corporate broadcasters, aided and abetted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other appendages of the US Government.

Continuing in the rich tradition of the struggle to speak freely and be heard, micropower broadcasting has traded the historic soapbox for the FM broadcast transmitter. Advances in technology and design have allowed for the creation of FM transmitters at a very low cost in comparison to standard, commercial broadcasting equipment.

An entire FM broadcast station covering a radius of 5-12 miles can be assembled for $1000 or less. >>More & Resource List

Clear Channel faces 2 antitrust inquiries
Posted Saturday, July 26, 2003 by vgdesign

By L.A. Lorek, San Antonio Express-News

The Justice Department confirmed Friday it has two ongoing antitrust investigations into San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications.

The Justice Department disclosed the investigations Thursday during testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Task Force on Antitrust. Blaine Rethmeier, spokesman for the Justice Department, confirmed the investigations but declined to provide details.

During testimony to lawmakers, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Hewitt Pate said the first investigation concerns allegations Clear Channel uses its market dominance to coerce recording artists into using its concert promotion business in return for better radio airplay.

The second investigation involves allegations Clear Channel exerts monopoly control over radio stations in Southern California through the use of U.S.- and Mexico-based stations, according to a report in the Deal, a New York-based financial newsmagazine.
...
Clear Channel's stock closed Friday at $40.40, down 25 cents on 3.5 million shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange. >>More

>>Graphic: Largest concert promoters