Robert Fisk: Secret Slaughter by Night, Lies and Blind Eyes by Day
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2003 by vgdesign

FALLUJAH, 14 September 2003 — In the Pentagon, they’ve been re-showing Gillo Pontecorvo’s terrifying 1965 film of the French war in Algeria. The Battle of Algiers, in black and white, showed what happened to both the guerrillas of the FLN and the French Army when their war turned dirty. Torture, assassination, booby-trap bombs, secret executions. As the New York Times  revealed, the fliers sent out to the Pentagon brass to watch this magnificent, painful film began with the words: “How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas...”

But the Americans didn’t need to watch The Battle of Algiers. They’ve already committed many of the French mistakes in Iraq, and the guerrillas of Iraq are well into the blood tide of the old FLN.

Sixteen demonstrators killed in Fallujah? Forget it. Twelve gunned down by the Americans in Mosul? Old news. Ten Iraqi policemen shot by US troops outside Fallujah? “No information,” the occupation authorities told us last week. No information? The Jordanian Embassy bombing? The bombing of the UN headquarters? Or Najaf with its 126 dead? Forget it. Things are improving in Iraq. >>More

Schwarzenegger says, "a pump is better than coming" on National Television
Posted Monday, September 15, 2003 by symbolman

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday discussed comments he made about sex years ago, prompting wife, Maria Shriver, to put her hand across his mouth to stop him.

"My mother is watching the show. My mother is watching the show. My God," she said, laughing but appearing a bit flustered by the body builder actor-turned-politician's remarks during an appearance by the two on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Schwarzenegger is running in the California governor's recall vote, though polls show he may be in trouble with women voters due in part to a 1977 Oui magazine interview in which he said he took part in a gymnasium orgy and received oral sex during a bodybuilding competition.

"But did you remember the parties, Arnold?" Winfrey asked.

"I really don't," he replied. "These were the times when I was saying things like 'a pump is better than coming,"' he said, prompting his wife, dressed in a long black dress with a silver cross around her neck, to put her hand across his face.>> More

MAN! And the Right talks about President Clinton! Talk about lowering the bar. This man is disgusting. His wife EXCUSES him for this, and in front of her OWN MOTHER. These people should be living in a TRAILOR PARK, not running for Gov of the 5th largest economy in the WORLD. Ahnold, get some self respect and QUIT. Repulsive. This may be the first time someone running for a major office has said the word "coming" on a Major Network, and we hope it's the last.

Bush's New Spoils System
Posted Monday, September 15, 2003 by vgdesign

By Doug Ireland, TomPaine.com

Just in time for the anniversary of 9/11, the Bush administration has given a poisonous gift to the government employees who are supposed to be protecting us from a re-occurrence of similar attacks: he’s privatizing their jobs. And, as usual, he’s employing the Big Lie technique: he’s evoking "national security" as a weapon to gut the civil service system.

As the great Helen Thomas, doyenne of the White House press corps, reported for Hearst, "The administration’s sales pitch is to raise the specter of terrorism and 9/11 -- a surefire way to scare Congress into backing" the plan. Thomas reported that the Office of Management and Budget has given federal agencies until October 31 to designate 15 percent of their jobs as "not inherently governmental" and thus available for "outsourcing." First on the list are, incredibly, air traffic controllers.

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

The eventual goal, announced by the White House last November to little public outcry, is to privatize half the federal work force. It’s an attack on the very essence of the federal government, replacing the notion of public service for the common good with the profit motive. By eventually turning over at least 850,000 civil-service jobs to private contractors, the plan -- which might require no congressional approval -- will destroy the firewall that protects federal jobs from political influence, taking the U.S. government back to the 19th century and the everything-for-sale days of, for example, the administration of Ulysses S. Grant.
...
In an interview in the May 12 New Yorker  magazine, Karl Rove laid out the real reason why the Bushies have put federal civil service workers on their hit list.

"Bigger government strengthens the Democratic Party," he said, adding, "It generates federal employees who will mostly vote Democratic... conversely, smaller government helps the Republicans." >>More

Senate Sets Vote on FCC
Posted Monday, September 15, 2003 by vgdesign

By Todd Shields, MediaWeek

The U.S. Senate last week began debate on a binding resolution to overturn the Federal Communications Commission's June 2 relaxation of media ownership laws, even as the White House threatened a veto.

If the resolution succeeds in a Senate vote set for Tuesday (Sept. 16), it still would need to pass the House, where Republican leaders who favor the FCC's deregulation edict are expected to prevent the measure from coming to a vote. Sponsors of the measure, Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.), said Senate passage might inspire House members to demand a vote. "I don't think we should underestimate what might happen," Lott said.

The White House responded that the FCC rules "accurately reflect the changing media landscape...while guarding against undue concentration." It said advisers would recommend a veto if the measure reaches President Bush. >>More

If you haven't signed the FCC petition from Free Press >>Take Action Now

Amanpour: CNN practiced self-censorship
Posted Monday, September 15, 2003 by vgdesign

Media Mix by Peter Johnson, USA Today

CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war. And, she says CNN "was intimidated" by the Bush administration and Fox News, which "put a climate of fear and self-censorship."

As criticism of the war and its aftermath intensifies, Amanpour joins a chorus of journalists and pundits who charge that the media largely toed the Bush administrationline in covering the war and, by doing so, failed to aggressively question the motives behind the invasion.
...
Said Amanpour: "I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did."
...
Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti said of Amanpour's comments: "Given the choice, it's better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda."

CNN had no comment. >>More

MSNBC Host Gets Bitten by His 'Rat of the Week'
Posted Monday, September 15, 2003 by vgdesign

By Howard Kurtz, Washington Post

Two weeks ago, MSNBC talk show host Joe Scarborough introduced a guest, attorney Mike Papantonio, to point a finger at the "Rat of the Week."

Papantonio slammed a wood-preserving company called Osmose, saying it makes a dangerous product used in playground equipment and has "figured out how to poison our children and make a profit in the meantime."

What Scarborough didn't say is that Papantonio is his law partner, and that their firm has filed a lawsuit against Osmose. Instead, he urged viewers to demand that the government recall the company's product.

After an inquiry by The Washington Post, the former Republican congressman said last night on his program, "Scarborough Country": "I should have known that Mike Papantonio was involved in that case and should have asked him that question, so you could have had the full story. . . . I'll be the first to admit it: I made a mistake. And for that, I'm this week's Rat of the Week." >>More

Desperate Iraqis Clamor for Help as Powell Visits
Posted Sunday, September 14, 2003 by vgdesign

By Andrew Cawthorne, Reuters

BAGHDAD - Black-robed women wept for lost sons. Old men brandished death certificates with photos of bombed homes and scarred bodies. Jobless men begged for work.

As Secretary of State Colin Powell visited the main U.S. headquarters in Baghdad Sunday, desperate Iraqis kept up a daily ritual at barbed wire barriers outside.

Knowledge that Powell was just a stone's throw away - meeting Iraq's U.S. governor Paul Bremer inside one of the former palaces of deposed President Saddam Hussein - heightened the clamor beyond the gates.

"He must be told that the Iraqi people have gained nothing from the American war. Now it is much worse than under Saddam," said Mushtaq Talib, 28. >>More

>>Iraq Body Count

IRAQ: Experts Warn of Radioactive Battlefields
Posted Sunday, September 14, 2003 by vgdesign

By Katherine Stapp, Inter Press Service (IPS)

Concerns are growing about the presence of depleted uranium and other toxins in Iraq following a rash of illnesses among U.S. troops and the discovery by a reporter that radiation levels in parts of Baghdad are extremely elevated.

So far, according to figures obtained by the 'Washington Post', more than 6,000 soldiers have been pulled out of Iraq for medical reasons since the start of the war. About 1,400 of them were injured in combat or non-combat incidents, such as vehicle accidents, meaning the majority were evacuated for various physical or psychological illnesses.

No further breakdown has been released. In July, the U.S. Army announced that two soldiers had died of severe pneumonia and more than 100 were hospitalised for the illness. The deaths are still being investigated.

While experts discount a single cause for these illnesses, some remain concerned that neither the troops stationed in Iraq nor the civilian population is being adequately protected from toxic residues left over from the war.

These fears were heightened when a correspondent for the 'Christian Science Monitor' took a Geiger counter to parts of Baghdad that had been subjected to heavy shelling by U.S. troops. He found radiation levels 1,000 to 1,900 times higher than normal in residential areas where children were playing nearby. >>More

>>Bring Them Home Now!

Iraqi guerrillas fight for independence, for their leaders
Posted Sunday, September 14, 2003 by vgdesign

“Can you describe a man who defends his country as a terrorist?”
By Hannah Allam, Knight Ridder Newspapers

... The men here, armed with grenades and rifles, seem a ludicrous match for U.S. forces, whose superior weaponry is evident at every checkpoint in the country.

But two leaders of guerrilla cells told a Knight Ridder reporter and photographer in separate interviews that they would fight until the last vestige of the American presence in Iraq is gone. Their fate, one said, is “victory or martyrdom.”

The interviews, conducted nine days apart in late August and early September, were the most extensive to date granted by the fighters who are killing Americans, and the visit to the camp was the first by journalists covering the war here.

The first interview, with an Iraqi who identified himself as Abu Mohammed, took place in an abandoned building in Mansour, Baghdad’s most exclusive neighborhood. The second, with a Jordanian who called himself Abu Abdullah, was at the encampment near Baquba.

The two cell leaders said their fighters primarily were former Iraqi army officers and young Iraqis who had joined because they were angry over the deaths or arrests of family members during U.S. raids in the hunt for Saddam Hussein and his supporters. >>More

America's hidden battlefield toll
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 by vgdesign

New figures reveal the true number of GIs wounded in Iraq - By Jason Burke in London and Paul Harris in New York, The Observer

The true scale of American casualties in Iraq is revealed today by new figures obtained by The Observer, which show that more than 6,000 American servicemen have been evacuated for medical reasons since the beginning of the war, including more than 1,500 American soldiers who have been wounded, many seriously.

The figures will shock many Americans, who believe that casualties in the war in Iraq have been relatively light. Recent polls show that support for President George Bush and his administration's policy in Iraq has been slipping.
...
It is military police policy to announce that a soldier has been wounded only if they were involved in an incident that involved a death.

Critics of the policy say it hides the true extent of the casualties. >>More

Fisk: A hail of bullets, a trail of dead, and a mystery the US is in no hurry to resolve
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 by vgdesign

A human brain lay beside the highway. It was scattered in the sand, blasted from its owner's head when the Americans ambushed their own Iraqi policemen.

A few inches away were a policeman's teeth, broken but clean dentures, the teeth of a young man. "I don't know if they are the teeth of my brother - I don't even know if my brother is alive or dead," Ahmed Mohamed shouted at me. "The Americans took the dead and the wounded away - they won't tell us anything."

Ahmed Mohamed was telling the truth. He is also, I should add, an Iraqi policeman working for the Americans. United States forces in Iraq officially stated - incredibly - that they had "no information" about the killing of the 10 cops and the wounding of five others early yesterday morning. Unfortunately, the Americans are not telling the truth.

Soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division fired thousands of bullets in the ambush, hundreds of them smashing into the wall of a building in the neighbouring Jordanian Hospital compound, setting several rooms on fire.

And if they really need "information", they have only to look at the 40mm grenade cartridges scattered in the sand near the brains and teeth. >>More

Today in Iraq: War News for September 12 and 13, 2003
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 by vgdesign

Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers killed, seven wounded in raid in Ramadi. Two others wounded in Ramadi in mine ambush unconnected with CJTF-7 raid.

Bring ‘em on: US troops in firefight with Iraqi guerillas (not police) in Fallujah.

Bring ‘em on: Three US soldiers wounded in Baghdad mine ambush.

Bring ‘em on: Firefight reported in central Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Four US soldiers wounded in ambushes near Khaldiya and Mosul.

Bring ‘em on: US troops under mortar, RPG fire near Kirkuk. (Incident mentioned deep in this article)

CENTCOM reports US medics supported Iraqi National Immunization Day at Balad hospital.

US soldier killed in motor pool accident near Balad.

US troops kill at least eight Iraqi policemen, one Jordanian security guard in fratricide incident in Fallujah. This is the second fatal fratricide incident between US troops and Iraqi police that we know of. It’s time for a review of the US fire control procedures. “Unlike at other police stations in Iraq, there is no American military police presence in Falluja to liaise between Iraqi and US security forces in the area - a circumstance which might have prevented yesterday's tragedy.” Why not? It seems that the complete withdrawal of US forces from Fallujah was a hasty and poorly made political decision intended to reduce US exposure rather than a coordinated measure intended to return civil control to the local Iraqi council. >>More

Iraq quagmire? Plan working
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 by vgdesign

By C.B. Hanif, Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer

For those who are convinced that the Bush administration lied to America while dragging the country into what has turned into today's Iraqi quagmire, Joshua Micah Marshall's words in "Practice to Deceive," his article that ran five months ago in The Washington Monthly, have proved hauntingly prescient:

"Imagine it's six months from now. The Iraq war is over. After an initial burst of joy and gratitude at being liberated from Saddam's rule, the people of Iraq are watching, and waiting, and beginning to chafe under American occupation." That frightening state of affairs, he said, would lead most Americans to wonder how and why we had got ourselves into this mess in the first place. "But to the Bush administration hawks who are guiding American foreign policy, this isn't the nightmare scenario. It's everything going as anticipated."

Just after American forces invaded Iraq, Mr. Marshall accurately predicted that each crisis resulting from the war would draw U.S. forces deeper into the region, and each countermove in turn would create problems that could be fixed only by still further American involvement. The hawks in the Defense Department were provoking this series of crises in the Middle East, he suggested, partly on the theory that the worse things got, the more their approach would become the only plausible solution. >>More

"Practice to Deceive" by Joshua Micah Marshall

This week on NOW with Bill Moyers
Posted Friday, September 12, 2003 by vgdesign

Two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, thousands of families are still wondering what could have been done to save their loved ones. Critics of the Administration's investigation wonder how basic information has still not been provided and are curious about the pages omitted from the 9/11 report only recently released. NOW profiles four New Jersey widows demanding answers to questions about what our government knew before and after the terrorist attacks and what's being done to protect us today.
...
On Monday, the Supreme Court held a special session to hear arguments on constitutionality of the 2002 McCain-Feingold law. In the wake of this hearing, NOW interviews Federal Election Commissioner Scott Thomas, a strong supporter of the campaign finance reform law who has been at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for 28 years. Thomas discusses why, after heavily supporting the McCain-Feingold law, his party members are now recommending Lenhard's nomination, and how this may be indicative of how much pressure the Democrats feel to give into soft money contributions.
...
David Brancaccio interviews international financier George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who has donated more than $4 billion dollars of his fortune to promote democracy and civil reform in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe. Recently, Soros turned his attention to politics here in the US. His opposition to President Bush has led Soros to donate $10 million to an organization aimed at mobilizing voters. Soros talks candidly about the US role in Iraq and why he believes American foreign policy is disastrously off course. >>More

John Gorman: MEDIA IS A MESS FOR BUSH, FCC'S POWELL
Posted Friday, September 12, 2003 by vgdesign

Those who had everything to gain from the FCC's deregulation are now preparing their revenge

FCC Chairman Michael Powell turned his HDTV widescreen to his favorite station, the Cartoon Channel. He watched a Dudley Do Right  episode, which ended with villain Snidely Whiplash's trademark, "Curses! Foiled again!" Mike sighed and said to himself, "I can relate!"

For the second time, the communications czar has frustrated his boss. Earlier this year, Powell guaranteed Bush that telephone deregulation, which would make the phone companies self-regulatory, was a done deal. It's the same honor system that First-to-Worst Energy and other electric companies operate under. Phone deregulation was the gift President George W. Bush was bestowing upon the telecommunications industry for their fat-cat political contributions. Then disaster struck when Kevin Martin, one of his GOP commissioners, voted with the Democrats and the proposal was defeated by a 3-2 vote. After a trip to the White House woodshed, the Commander-in -Chief gave Powell a second chance.

Before Bush left for his month-long Crawford, Texas vacation, Powell assured him that the revised media deregulation was a done deal. Call Sumner Redstone. Call Rupert Murdoch. It's in the bag. It's going to sail through Congress without a hitch. The public doesn't know or care.

The returning Bush found a newly skeptical Washington. Even worse, it appears that the entire country has gone skeptical. >>More

How Did 9/11 Change Big Media?
Posted Friday, September 12, 2003 by vgdesign

Since the day that "changed everything," has big media changed? The same government lap-dog, or more public watchdog? Merely big media, or now bigger big media?
By Danny Schechter, Intervention Magazine

NEW YORK, September 11, 2003 -- This is a time for remembrance and reflection. It is also a time for media people to assess the role we have played since two planes smashed into the Twin Towers two years ago this week -- smashing with them some of the illusions that drove the media system in the era historians may yet call "B-9-11."

September 11 was the day that is said to have "changed everything." But did it change the media that played a central part in the drama of that day? I was sitting at this same computer on that morning, writing about the U.S. walkout at the racism conference in South Africa a day earlier, and preparing to note the anniversary of the brutal September 11th 1973 overthrow of Chile's President Salvatore Allende.

And then, a colleague stuck a radio in my ear. There was trouble brewing a few miles south of our Times Square offices. As I listened to breaking news breaking everywhere, I started writing these words in what has become a daily Weblog born on that tragic occasion: >>More

Chris Floyd: Last Rights
Posted Friday, September 12, 2003 by vgdesign

America's media leaders insist there was no coup because power was transferred "without tanks in the streets."

Once again, the dispiriting spectacle of the American media in full campaign cry is upon us, as coverage of the 2004 presidential race begins in earnest. But this time around, the usual inanities, inaccuracies and insipidities have a more melancholy flavor, an almost elegiac feel. It's like watching priests of a dead cult, vacantly enacting their rituals in a ruined temple whose gods have been broken, desecrated and cast down.

The difference from past campaigns lies in the media mandarins' sad belief that there will actually be a genuine, open, presidential election in November 2004. This childlike faith stems, of course, from their equally fallacious conviction that the United States did not suffer a coup d'etat in December 2000 at the hands of an extremist faction of elites. >>More

September 11th Families For Peaceful Tomorrows
Posted Friday, September 12, 2003 by vgdesign

Statement on the Second Anniversary of 9/11

Two years ago today our loved ones were tragically murdered in an act of terror that shook the United States and the world. In the time since their deaths, as we continue our personal paths of grieving, we are comforted by the thoughtful and compassionate response of people all over the world who have offered sympathy and support to the victims of these terrible attacks. But much about the US government’s approach to responding to our loved ones’ deaths stands in stark contrast to the common sense words and comforting actions of ordinary people.

On this two-year anniversary, we stop to reflect on the dangerous course of current policies and to call for a new approach to 9/11 that is focused on bringing about true security and justice. >>More

PAUL KRUGMAN: Exploiting the Atrocity
Posted Friday, September 12, 2003 by vgdesign

Where once the administration was motivated by greed, now it's driven by fear

In my first column after 9/11, I mentioned something everyone with contacts on Capitol Hill already knew: that just days after the event, the exploitation of the atrocity for partisan political gain had already begun.

In response, I received a torrent of outraged mail. At a time when the nation was shocked and terrified, the thought that our leaders might be that cynical was too much to bear. ``How can I say that to my young son?'' asked one furious e-mailer.

I wonder what that correspondent thinks now. Is the public - and the news media - finally prepared to cry foul when cynicism comes wrapped in the flag? America's political future may rest on the answer.

The press has become a lot less shy about pointing out the administration's exploitation of 9/11, partly because that exploitation has become so crushingly obvious. >>More