June 7, 2003
A most enjoyable — and dead-on — must-read. Be sure to click the link and treat yourself to the entire piece; here are just a few choice bits:
Fox News is an oxymoron and Cheech and Chong would have made a more credible team of war correspondents than Geraldo Rivera and Ollie North. … With its red-faced, hyperventilating reactionaries and slapstick abuse of lame “liberal” foils who serve them as crash dummies, Fox News could easily be taken as pure entertainment, even as inspired burlesque of the rightwing menagerie. But the problem — in fact, the serious problem — is that Fox isn’t kidding, and brownshirts aren’t funny.
Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly became so infuriated by the son of a 9-11 victim who opposed the war… that he cursed the man and even threatened him off-camera. … Neil Cavuto celebrated the fall of Baghdad by informing all of us who opposed the war in March, “You were sickening then, you are sickening now.” If reports are accurate, these troubled men are neither bad journalists nor even bad actors portraying journalists — they’re mentally unbalanced individuals whose partisan belligerence is pressing them to the brink of psychosis.
But the scariest thing about Fox and Rupert Murdoch, the thing that renders them all fear and no fun in a time of national crisis, is that they channel for the Bush administration as faithfully as if they were on the White House payroll. Like no other substantial media outlet in American history, Fox serves — voluntarily — as the propaganda arm of a controversial, manipulative, image-obsessed government. … I swear I hate to stoop to Nazi analogies; but if Joseph Goebbels had run his own cable channel, it would have been indistinguishable from Fox News.
[Murdoch] is an insatiable parasite, a vampirish lamprey who fastens himself to English-speaking nations and grows fat on their cultural lifeblood, leaving permanently degraded media cultures in his wake. Rabid patriotism is a product he sells, along with celebrity gossip, naked women and smirky bedroom humor, in every country he contaminates. …
Murdoch’s repulsive formula has proven irresistible from Melbourne to Manhattan… His great fortune rests on his wager that a huge unevolved minority is stupid, bigoted, prurient, nasty to the core. …
Is it sheer coincidence that the president’s stage manager, Greg Jenkins — responsible for the notorious flight-suit landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln, and for posing George Bush against Mt. Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty — was recently a producer at Fox News?
If these elaborate tableaus Jenkins choreographs for President Bush seem clumsy, tasteless, condescending and insulting to your intelligence, you must be some kind of liberal. …
How stupid are we, finally, how easy to fool? Fox News is… not a news service, certainly, nor even the sincere voice of low-rent nationalism. It’s a calculated fraud, like the president who ducked the draft during Vietnam, and even welshed on his National Guard commitment, but who puts on a flight suit stenciled “Commander-in-chief” and plays Douglas MacArthur on network TV. …
The invasion of Iraq was in no way what it seemed to be, either. Saddam Hussein was never a threat to the United States. His “weapons of mass destruction” remain invisible, his terrorist connections remain unproven, and he had absolutely nothing to do with the destruction of the World Trade Center. Most cynical of all was the “liberation” lie, the administration’s sudden concern for the helpless citizens of Iraq. Saddam, as grotesque as he was, wasn’t getting any meaner, and “liberators” like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were doing brisk business with him when he was in his murderous, citizen-eating prime (and in Cheney’s case, as recently as 1999). …
According to polls, at least half of us were so eager to be deceived, we believed the one lie Bush never dared to tell us, except by implication: that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. … “The Moron Majority,” declares the headline in The Progressive Populist. …
It violates democratic etiquette to call your fellow citizens “idiots.” (Unless they’re liberals — “We all agree that liberals are stupid,” writes Charles Krauthammer.) Fortunately, the PC wordworks has coined a new euphemism to replace the ugly word “retarded.” It’s “intellectually disabled,” and we have it just in time. …
The stupidity of those who buy [the troop-support doctrine] is no more astonishing than the hypocrisy of those who sell it — Republicans who preach our sacred duty to the army’s morale and simultaneously cancel $15 billion in veteran’s benefits and 60 percent of federal education subsidies for servicemen’s children. If you can’t believe that, look it up.
When is it too late to wake the sleeping masses? When a Fox TV show for amateur entertainers turns up more voters than Congressional elections? …
There’s a chilling suspicion that major architects of our current foreign policy are insane. …
I believe that the split between liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican is inconsequential compared to the real fracture line, between Americans who try to think clearly and those who will not or cannot. What hope, a cynical friend teased me, for a country where 70 percent believe in angels, 60 percent believe in literal, biblical, blazing Armageddon, and more than half reject Charles Darwin? … American readers have purchased 50 million copies of Tim LaHaye’s gonzo Apocalypse novels, still more evidence that what awaits the United States of America is not a physical but an intellectual Armageddon.
When the sand begins to grip us and no lifeline appears, we clutch at straws. Yet there’s anecdotal evidence that the polls could be wrong. …
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Hate Speech, Media, Radical Religious Right, Republicans
Backstory: Welcome to Right-Wing Radio: All Spin, All the Time, June 3, 2003
Night after night the bulk of the American people were able to enjoy well-informed reporting, suggesting that the Bush administration’s accusations that Saddam Hussein had WMDs ready to use in as little as 45 minutes had no factual foundation. But now, after the FCC decision, these voices will be stilled. We are entering the era of Big Brother. You think I’m joking? …
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: George W. Bush, Iraq, Media
Translation: wealthy individuals who get most of their income from dividends and capital gains will often end up paying lower tax rates than ordinary Americans who work for a living. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, this latest tax cut reduces federal revenue as a share of G.D.P. to its lowest level since 1959. That is, federal taxes are now back to what they were in an era when Medicare and Medicaid didn’t exist, and Social Security was still a minor expense. How can we maintain these programs, which have become essential to scores of millions of Americans, at today’s tax rates? We can’t.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Business/Economy, George W. Bush
George W. Bush is one of the most inarticulate presidents we’ve ever had. What’s troubling about this particular disability is that it reflects a fundamental distrust of his audience and of his very relation to the ideas he’s trying to convey. As a car salesman, I can tell you that persuading someone to buy is a matter of learning to speak their language and understand their needs. …
George W., for all his populist trappings, is removed from the life of the American people. He is the son of a privileged New England family, and after attending Andover, he was accepted into Yale (BA, ‘68) and Harvard (MBA, ‘75) as a legacy (i.e., his folks had money and connections, but he didn’t have the grades). His business career was built with other people’s money, family ties and investors’ recognition that a business relationship with the son of a vice-president and then the son of a president was a no-brainer. There’s always someone who’ll infuse cash, do favors, or clean up a mess.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: George W. Bush
The [Washington] Post quotes a (naturally) unnamed official saying of Bush, “He does not have the knowledge or the patience to learn this issue enough to have an end destination in mind.” Here’s a photo-op idea. If Bush does arrange a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine — and I am rooting for him — the White House could take down the bridge yet again and have all three of them walk on the water. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it is hard to keep up with how much damage is being done. Tom (the Exterminator) DeLay, House majority leader, says the 6.5 million working people who got cut out of the tax cut at the last minute are S.O.L. No reconsideration will be allowed — unless he gets MORE tax cuts for the rich! I love it: These people have no shame.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: George W. Bush, Israel-Palestine, Republicans, Texas
June 6, 2003
This is just… I’m just so… I’m nearly at a loss for words over this joyous news! Two of the most offensive, lying, right-wing radio talk-show jerks are OFF THE AIR — Michael “Savage” Weiner is gone from San Francisco Bay Area airwaves, while lying Reagan patsy Oliver North is just plain gone (we hope for good):
Savage is off the air at KSFO
Afternoon talk radio host Michael Savage is off KSFO-AM (560) airwaves after declining the station’s offer for a new contract, station executives said.
“We offered a huge increase in salary after months of negotiations, and his lawyer rejected it,” said Jack Swanson, KSFO manager.
Savage couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.
Savage, known for a conservative talk show that often spews hatred against women and members of minority groups, has been extremely popular in the Bay Area and nationwide. His show was often the top-rated program in its 4-7 p.m. time slot on KSFO, the Bay Area’s No. 2 talk station. …
Savage, born Michael Weiner, broadcasts from his Larkspur home and a studio/apartment in San Francisco, to more than 300 stations across the country.
The host has a month left on his KSFO contract, according to Swanson. When negotiations broke down, the programmer decided to end the broadcasts Monday, in case Savage moves to a competing station…
Savage told his national audience that there were “technical difficulties” keeping him off the air at the San Francisco station.
KSFO is now broadcasting Sean Hannity’s national show in that slot.
Okay, so Hannity is a complete dickweed too, but definitely the lesser of the two evils.
More mentions:
Conservative talk show host — “rabid” or “fervent,” depending on one’s point of view — Michael Savage is off KSFO. His contract was to run out at the end of June, the station’s Jack Swanson told TIC, and Savage rejected “a generous increase. Anytime you offer anyone a huge increase and they reject it, it’s always a surprise.” Savage will undoubtedly resurface elsewhere, but although his Web site provides information about his favorite restaurants and his birthday party photos, there’s no word on where; TIC’s inquiring.
Leah Garchik
SFGateJune 4, 2003
SAVAGE DROPPED BY KSFO, OFF AIR IN MUCH OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA! Did our petition make the difference? Will he be back? … Savage has been off the air since Monday, June 2nd (three days after we launched our petition).
And from the Savagely Rabid One’s own Web site (which I refuse to link to — I don’t endorse hate-speech sites, and AFAIC, Savage is right up there with white-supremacist groups on the hate-speech scale):
Right Now the Station that I made famous has chosen to take me off the air out of spite. Beginning July 1, 2003, I will be heard again in the San Francisco Area. Right now you may be able to hear me on 650AM on the dial (KSTE) in my regular time slot between 4-7PM broadcasting live, from Sacramento, California.
Very soon, the whole story will be told.
Yeah, sure… you hateful sow.
Meanwhile, Oliver “I Was Only Following Orders When I Arranged for the Illegal Iran-Contra Arms Trade” North is off the air as well:
The Radio America nationally syndicated talker and bestselling author is hanging up his headphones after his July 4 show. The retired U.S. Marine Colonel — whom President Ronald Reagan once called an “American hero” — says he plans to concentrate on writing more books, public speaking and hosting his weekly Fox News Channel program, War Stories. Radio America President Jim Roberts says that having North as part of the network has been “an honor” and that a new host to take over the daily 3-6pm ET slot will be named in the next few weeks.
Now, if you don’t understand why the departure of these two liars is the best news to come out of broadcasting since the days before Clearchannel was created, here’s just a smattering of the thousands of articles which will clue you in to Savage’s abhorrent hate speech — in which he attacks women, Mexicans, gays, you name it:
GE, Microsoft Bring Bigotry to Life: Hate-talk host Michael Savage hired by MSNBC
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, February 12, 2003
HRC Condemns ‘Over the Top’ Comments Made by Radio Talk Show Host Michael Savage
Human Rights Campaign, March 4, 2003
MSNBC Host Michael Savage Barks Like Hitler and Whines Like Olive Oil
SFIndyMedia, March 4, 2003
Michael Savage’s long, strange trip
Salon, March 5, 2003
Ousting a Rightwing Savage
WorkingForChange.com, March 7, 2003
Dell shuns Microsoft’s hate-radio toilet shockjock
The Register (UK), March 13, 2003
MSNBC and the Anti-Gay ‘Savage’
GLAAD
And, of course: MichaelSavageSucks.com and SavageStupidity.com
Next, go refresh your memory on why Oliver North is such a disgrace to the word “American”:
Iran-Contra gangsters resurface in Bush administration
World Socialist Web Site, August 1, 2001
Iran/Contra Rehab
The Nation, March 11, 2002
Iran-contra affair
Fact Monster
Iran Contra Success Stories
Here In Reality
Firewall: Inside the Iran-Contra Cover-up
Consortium News, 1997
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Hate Speech, Homophobia, Iran, Media, Radical Religious Right, Republicans, Ronald Reagan
I’m back from, well, elsewhere, where the only “news” was courtesy of the spinmongers of CNN — which is a lot like watching “McHale’s Navy” to get a balanced look at proper U.S. Navy protocol. God Almighty! How do people watch that crap (CNN, I mean — not “McHale’s Navy”)?! With no alternatives, I’m afraid I had to tune in for a few minutes each day, just to make sure nothing had been blown up, nor anyone assassinated, and once having learned that the world was still as much intact as I had left it, OFF went the bloody telly. (My, that blonde on Larry King — the one Scott Peterson’s father raked over the coals a few weeks ago — she certainly is one scary bitch, isn’t she?)
So let’s catch up — starting with some good news:
Just this headline — Pentagon’s intelligence service reported no reliable evidence of Iraqi weapons last September — makes my day. I hate to keep reminding you that I’m not happy about the fact that the Bush admin can’t be trusted, nor about the fact that BushCo is making the United States look like an even bigger bunch of dumb-asses every single day — but I am happy about the fact that the truth is finally blowing up in Georgie’s smug little mug. Well, no, not because I wish him any personal ill will (that would just be bad karma, kids!), but because the sooner the point that THEY LIED is hammered into the collective American psyche, the sooner we might get an impeachment process going (and I mean for the whole bloody administration, not just Junior), and the sooner we might get somebody decent and reliable running this country.
Anywho, here’s just a snippet from the latest damning Associated Press piece: “The Pentagon’s intelligence service reported last September that it had no reliable evidence that Iraq had chemical agents in weaponized form, officials said Friday. The time frame is notable because it coincided with Bush administration efforts to mount a public case for the urgency of disarming Iraq, by force if necessary. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others argued that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical and biological weapons and was hiding them.”
Of course, the Powers That Be are throwing up a lame defense; i.e., “A White House spokesman said a portion of the still-classified report is being taken out of context of the entire document’s conclusions, which match what the Bush administration argued all along. …”
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Heard that song way too many times already.
Now click the link and read the rest. And if you have a problem with sending a hit to the San Fran Chronicle, you can find the same story from the Boston Globe, USA Today, and numerous other sources — as well as the original Bloomberg article that set off this latest feeding frenzy:
A U.S. Defense Department report in September 2002 found “no reliable information” proving that Iraq had chemical weapons, even as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was saying the country had amassed stockpiles of the banned arms.
“There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has — or will — establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities,” a report by the Defense Intelligence Agency said in a summary page obtained by Bloomberg News. …
Ah, if this is the general tone of the news I’ll be reading today, it’s going to end up being a very nice week indeed!
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Iraq, Media
I find myself liking Dennis Kucinich more than ever these days — the Dem with the bad toupee is sticking to his guns on exposing Georgie Boy’s truth-bending shenanigans, by “introducing a Resolution of Inquiry in the House of Representatives to force the Administration to turn over the intelligence to back its yet unproven claims that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.” I also like the headline of this press release from Denny’s office: Kucinich: Show Us The Evidence, Mr. President.
Groovy, Denny! As you know by now, I’ve been pretty iffy about you since your flip-flop on the pro-choice issue, but you’ve redeemed yourself in my eyes in a number of different ways. I still don’t think you’re going to win the Dem nomination (although you could, if this nation of sheep would only pay less attention to image, and more attention to issues), but I do think you’d make a nifty running mate for my main man, Dr. Dean.
Incidentally, Denny also rates a mention in a piece today that focuses on our old pal, Rev. Al Sharpton. Now, I would never think of doing anything so bloody stupid as to actually vote for Rev. Al, in either the primaries or (on the weird chance he were to make it past the primaries) for president — come on, folks, you know he hasn’t got a chance in hell (two words: Tawana Brawley), and the Republicans are dying for Sharpton to win in order to screw the rest of the Dem candidates — but I do find him immensely entertaining these days; to wit: his dead-on remarks at Friday’s “Take Back America” conference:
“We have come out of war with weapons we can’t find, guided by a president who told us a year and a half ago we’re getting bin Laden — he can’t find him.
“Everything President Bush is after he can’t find.
“If you can find the weapons before the war, how come you can’t reveal the weapons now?”
You go, Rev. Al! Just don’t get too serious about the Oval Office.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Democrats, Dennis Kucinich, Election 2004, George W. Bush, Howard Dean, Iraq
June 4, 2003
Make That the “Roadmap to Hell”:
In Mideast, Bush presses Arabs on peace. In his first trip to the region, Bush meets today with Arab leaders to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian road map. [Christian Science Monitor]
Chirac: Moufflarge! Voulez-vous cesser de me cracher dessus pendant que vous parlez?
Dubya: Thanks, Jack, you’re a real swell guy, too!
U.S.-French Détente: Leaders Lower Voices. When the American and French Presidents met, they were polite in public and, by all accounts, even nice to each other in private. [New York Times]
Another chicken resigns from KFC:
Mary Cheney ducks out of GOP gay group. Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of U.S. vice president Dick Cheney, has resigned from the board of the Republican Unity Coalition slightly more than one year after taking on the largely honorary post with the gay-straight political alliance. [The Advocate]
R.I.P.
Burke Marshall, a Chief Official of the Civil Rights Era, Dies at 80. Burke Marshall, the government’s legal strategist on civil rights in the era of freedom rides, the Birmingham church bombing and the March on Washington, died Monday. [New York Times]
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Civil Rights, Dick Cheney, Europe, Gay Republicans, George W. Bush, Israel-Palestine, R.I.P., Race/Ethnic Issues
June 3, 2003
Just as the controversy appeared to be dying down after the Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines mildly ridiculed President Bush before the start of the Iraq war, country radio programmers are disappointed in the group once again.
This time, they take issue with the fact that Maines apparently chose to take a shot at fellow country musician Toby Keith during her May 21 performance at the Academy of Country Music Awards.
Maines wore a sleeveless shirt with the letters F.U.T.K. on the front.
Most viewers, including awards show presenter Vince Gill, interpreted the letters as an expletive aimed at Keith.
After opening the envelope that revealed Keith had won the night’s biggest award — entertainer of the year — Gill quipped, “I think his name was on someone’s shirt tonight.” …
You can read the rest of the article if you want, but it just goes on about how “disappointed” certain narrowminded D.J.’s are in the Chicks, yada, yada, yada… yawn.
Isn’t it funny how the people most disturbed by both the time-honored American value of good, honest dissent and the mere suggestion of a word that predates the United States itself are invariably the most uptight, asexual, repressed, self-ordained thought police?
Isn’t it also funny that the United States — which prides itself on being the most freedom-loving nation in the world — is the most uptight society in western civilization?
And isn’t it downright hilarious that when right-wing celebrities make a political statement, they’re “right-thinking” patriots — but when left-of-center celebs do it, they’re know-nothing traitors?
Hey, Chick-haters: Get OVER it.
P.S. In case you’re not a total Net geek, and you don’t get the Tokelau allusion in the subject line, .TK is Tokelau’s domain extension.
Related:
And you thought Lennon’s “Jesus” remark was a big deal…
April 6, 2003
Eye Candy for Free-Speech Advocates Only!
April 25, 2003
More Eye Candy? Uh, Not Exactly!
April 27, 2003
What Dixie Chicks Boycott?
May 3, 2003
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Celebrities, Civil Rights, Free Speech, George W. Bush, Iraq, Music
Bye-bye, last hope for responsible journalism!
FCC adopts media ownership rules. The Federal Communications Commission narrowly approved new media ownership rules Monday, allowing television broadcasters to expand their reach, despite fears the move may reduce the variety of viewpoints available to consumers. [CNN Money]
Vote to relax media rules sparks protest. The Federal Communications Commission on Monday approved controversial changes to the US’s media-ownership rules that would allow large corporations to buy more local newspapers and television stations, in a decision that was greeted with anger on Capitol Hill. [Financial Times]
Will approval of more media mergers change TV? The prospect of radio, TV, and newspapers all being owned by a single company in a market drew fire from opponents, who argue local coverage will be compromised, as will ultimately the principles of free and diverse speech. [Christian Science Monitor]
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Business/Economy, Media, Television
U.S. Report Faults the Roundup of Illegal Immigrants After 9/11. The internal Justice Department report found that many people with no connection to terrorism were forced to languish in jails. By Eric Lichtblau. [New York Times: International]
Report: 9/11 Detainees Abused: Justice Dept. Review Outlines Immigrant Rights Violations. Authorities violated the civil rights of hundreds of immigrants detained after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and demonstrated “a pattern of physical and verbal abuse” at a federal prison where 84 of them were held, according to a long-awaited Justice Department report released yesterday. [Washington Post]
Excerpt From Analysis of Detention of Foreigners After 9/11 Attacks. Following is an excerpt from the conclusion of a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, on the detention of hundreds of immigrants after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. [New York Times: Politics]
For Jailed Immigrants, a Presumption of Guilt. The aggressive tactics used against people held on minor immigration violations were, civil libertarians said, a natural result of the Justice Department’s new approach. By Adam Liptak. [New York Times: International]
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Homeland Insecurity, Immigration, September 11, Torture
Eight-man unit to be questioned over Iraqi PoW ‘torture’ pictures. Eight-man unit to be questioned over Iraqi PoW ‘torture’ pictures [www.indymedia.org:8080 newswire]
My horror at PoW sex abuse pics. The young mum who uncovered the Iraqi PoW sex snaps scandal said last night: “I felt sick to the stomach at those pictures.” Kelly Tilford, 22, called police after developing a film in her photo shop. The shocking pictures — revealed by The Sun yesterday — showed male Iraqis apparently forced into sexual positions by their British captors. In another a prisoner was suspended by rope from a fork-lift truck driven by a laughing Brit. Fusilier Gary Bartlam, 18, of Tamworth, Staffs, is being grilled by the Army’s top criminal investigator — amid fears the scandal is the tip of an iceberg. [The Sun]
Nerve Gas Exposure in Iraq in ‘91 Probed. The government miscalculated the number of U.S. troops who may have been exposed to nerve gases when Iraqi weapons were destroyed during the first Gulf War, congressional investigators say. The data indicate that initial reports that about 100,000 troops were exposed were wrong. The memo doesn’t say whether more or fewer troops were likely to have been affected. [Associated Press]
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Chemical Weapons/DU, Iraq, Torture, United Kingdom & N.I.
What’s the news, across the nation?
We have got the information
In a way
We hope will amuse
Youse!
We just love to give you our views
La da de da…!*
Hi-ho, cats ‘n’ jammers! I’m back momentarily, but will be heading out for another couple of days (don’t ask where or why — my life is a mystery, sometimes even to me). So ready yourself for a blast of headlines and off-the-cuff, snarky remarks to tide you over ’til the coming weekend.
In fact, brace yourself for some really heavy stuff this weekend — I’ve been spending my mini-vacation reading a lot of Noam Chomsky. You know — a little light reading. 
Here are just a few the tantalizing headlines sitting in my inbox — I may get to commenting further on some of them tonight, or I may not. It doesn’t matter — what matters is that you read them. If you get to nothing else, make sure you dig into this first batch of articles — I tell you, people, this is no longer a lousy drip-drip-drip kind of leak; the Disinformation Dam is about to burst wide open. And it is up to YOU to pay attention, and make sure your fellow citizens (you know, the ones so doped up by Faux News and CNN that they’ve lost all capability of independent thought) hear about this stuff. You’ve been shown repeatedly that you can’t rely on anybody else to get the truth to the masses. So BLOG it, people! The health and welfare of the United States — and the world — depends on YOU! (And I am not kidding!)
Truth and consequences: New questions about U.S. intelligence regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass terror. On the evening of February 1, two dozen American officials gathered in a spacious conference room at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va. The time had come to make the public case for war against Iraq. For six hours that Saturday, the men and women of the Bush administration argued about what Secretary of State Colin Powell should — and should not — say at the United Nations Security Council four days later. Not all the secret intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s misdeeds, they found, stood up to close scrutiny. At one point during the rehearsal, Powell tossed several pages in the air. “I’m not reading this,” he declared. “This is bulls—.” [U.S. News & World Report]
Transcripts raise alarm across NATO. Transcripts of a private conversation between Jack Straw and Colin Powell expressing serious doubts about the reliability of intelligence on Iraq’s banned weapons programme are being circulated in western government circles where there is a growing feeling that officials were deceived into supporting the Iraq war. A document known as the “Waldorf transcripts” — after the New York hotel where the US secretary of state was staying before making a crucial speech to the UN security council earlier this year — is described by an official of one Nato country as “extremely useful”. The description is used in a paper seen by the Guardian as part of an effort among Nato allies to “rein in some of the less acceptable policies of the Bush administration”. [The Guardian]
US Senate opens WMD probe. A Congressional inquiry will examine possible misuses of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. [BBC News | World | UK Edition]
Senate Panel Inquiry on Iraq Weapons. Senator John W. Warner said that the Armed Services Committee would conduct hearings this month on the failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq. By The New York Times. [New York Times: International]
Where are Iraq’s WMDs? The message was plain: Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction made war unavoidable. So where are they? Inside the administration’s civil war over intel. [Newsweek]
Search for Guns in Iraq and Surprise Under a Robe. The surprise sweep and nighttime arrests produced bitter complaints, a few comical moments and only a handful of weapons. By David Rohde. “We know the Western countries have democracy and liberty, and we want these things to be implemented in our country,” said Raad Hadi, 38, a baker. “But we see around us that they are arresting our clerics.” [New York Times: International]
Ex-Army boss: Pentagon won’t admit reality in Iraq. The former civilian head of the Army said Monday it is time for the Pentagon to admit that the military is in for a long occupation of Iraq that will require a major commitment of American troops. Former Army secretary Thomas White said in an interview that senior Defense officials “are unwilling to come to grips” with the scale of the postwar U.S. obligation in Iraq. The Pentagon has about 150,000 troops in Iraq and recently announced that the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division’s stay there has been extended indefinitely. [USA TODAY]
‘Dumb’ bombs used to topple Saddam. A third of the bombs dropped on Iraq were old-style “dumb weapons” — despite suggestions from the Pentagon that 90 per cent of munitions used would be precision-guided. [The Age]
Standard Operating Procedure. Misleading the public has been a consistent strategy for the Bush team on issues from tax policy to the war in Iraq. By Paul Krugman. [New York Times: Politics]
Bush shines in the time of the lie. It is said that each of society’s institutions is a crystallization of the dominant values of the culture. If so, we appear to be living in the time of the lie. The military in the recent action in Iraq treated us to the Jessica Lynch POW rescue, which turned out to be an elaborate fabrication notable for its absence of enemy soldiers, not to mention the disappearing gunshot and stab wounds that she was alleged to have suffered. … This cynical view appears to be implicitly endorsed by the current administration, which has so inundated us with lies that most of them pass unnoticed. Unlike the lies about sex that are the legacy of our previous president, the ones being perpetrated by Bush & Co. appear more consequential. [Baltimore Sun]
Meme Watch: A Unified Theory of Bush Lies? On April 26, President Bush said in his weekly radio address, “My jobs and growth plan would reduce tax rates for everyone who pays income tax.” That turned out not to be true. [Slate]
* If you don’t know where that jingle is from, you were definitely born after 1968. First person to identify its source gets a great, big, imaginary cookie with a peace sign in Day-Glo® green frosting on top.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Colin Powell, George W. Bush, Iraq, Jessica Lynch, Military/DADT, United Kingdom & N.I.
Skim the article if you must, but kindly read my comments at the end…
When all three major US newsweeklies — Time, Newsweek and US News & World Report — run major features on the same day on possible government lying, you can bet you have the makings of a major scandal.
And when the two most important outlets of neo-conservative opinion — The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal — come out on the same days with lead editorials spluttering outrage about suggestions of government lying, you can bet that things are going to get very hot as summer approaches in Washington.
The controversy over whether the administration of President George W Bush either exaggerated or lied about evidence that it said it had about the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq before the US-led invasion has mushroomed over the past week.
“This is potentially very serious,” said one Congressional aide. “If it’s shown we went to war because of intelligence that was ‘cooked’ by the administration, heads will have to roll, and not just little heads, big ones.”
The administration was already on the defensive last week as the controversy took off in Europe, particularly in Britain where Prime Minister Tony Blair found himself assailed from all directions for either willfully exaggerating the intelligence himself or being “suckered”, as his former foreign minister Robin Cook called it this weekend, by Washington’s neo-conservative hawks, who started agitating for war even before the dust settled in lower Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Matters took a turn for the worse when the London Guardian reported the existence of a transcript, obviously leaked from a senior British official, of an exchange at the Waldorf Hotel in New York between US Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Foreign Minister Jack Straw just before Powell’s presentation of the evidence against Iraq before the United Nations Security Council February 5.
It quotes Powell, whose forceful case to the council was decisive in persuading US public opinion that Baghdad represented a serious threat, as being “apprehensive” about the evidence presented to him by the intelligence agencies. He reportedly expressed the hope that the actual facts, when they came out, would not “explode in their faces”. (At a Rome press conference on Monday, Powell insisted that he considered the evidence “overwhelming” when he spoke before the council.)
But it appears that Powell’s musing was accurate, as, after almost two months in uncontested control of Iraq, US troops and investigators have failed to come up with concrete evidence of an Iraqi WMD program, let alone an actual weapon.
The scenario of an uneasy Powell received a major boost in the accounts of the three newsweeklies. US News reported, for example, that during a rehearsal of Powell’s presentation at Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters on February 1, the normally mild-mannered retired general at one point “tossed several pages in the air. ‘I’m not reading this’, he declared. ‘This is bullshit’.“
The same magazine also reported that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) formally concluded that “there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons” in September 2002, just as Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld was telling Congress that the Baghdad “regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas”.
The accounts of Newsweek and Time were similarly damning. One “informed military source” told Newsweek that when the US Central Command (CENTCOM) asked the CIA for specific WMD targets that should be destroyed in the first stages of the invasion, the agency only complied reluctantly. But what it provided “was crap”, a CENTCOM planner told the magazine, consisting mainly of buildings that were bombed in the first Gulf War in 1991.
If true, that contradicts a series of bald assertions by administration officials and their supporters over the last nine months. “Simply stated,” Vice President Dick Cheney declared in the first call to arms last August, “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction”.
“We know where [the WMD] are,” declared Rumsfeld in a television interview March 30, well into the first week of the war. “They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.” He has since retreated from that certainty, suggesting last week that the Iraqis “may have had time to destroy them, and I don’t know the answer”.
There is also growing doubt about the evidence that Bush himself touted this weekend as proof — two truck trailers described by officials as mobile weapons-productions labs. According to a CIA report noted in the Slate Internet magazine, key equipment for growing, sterilizing and drying bacteria was not present in either trailer. Iraqi officials have said that the trailers were used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
Matthew Meselson, a Harvard University expert on biological weapons who 20 years ago single-handedly debunked reports by senior Ronald Reagan administration officials — several of whom hold relevant positions in the Bush government — about the use by Soviet allies of mycotoxins against rebels in Laos and Afghanistan, has also expressed doubts about the trailers’ purpose, and called for the CIA to hand over the evidence to independent scientists to make an assessment.
Retired intelligence officials from both the CIA and the DIA are also coming out with ever-stronger statements accusing the intelligence community of twisting and exaggerating the evidence to justify war. They say that both agencies were intimidated by the political pressure exerted, in particular by neo-conservative hawks under Cheney and Rumsfeld, who even established a special unit in the defense secretary’s office to determine what intelligence was “missing”.
Much of the evidence on which the WMD case was based came from defectors supplied by the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an exile group headed by Ahmed Chalabi that has been championed by the neo-conservatives — including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Cheney chief of staff I Lewis Libby and Defense Policy Board members Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman and James Woolsey — for more than a decade.
Retired senior CIA, DIA and State Department intelligence officers, including the CIA’s former counter-terrorism chief Vince Cannistraro and the DIA’s former chief of Middle East intelligence W Patrick Lang, have also spoken bluntly to reporters about what they call the administration’s corruption of the intelligence process to justify war.
Both the CIA and State Department have long distrusted the INC and Chalabi, in particular, although he remains the Pentagon’s favorite for leading an interim government in Baghdad.
All of this has outraged the administration, which insists that the intelligence community was united in its assessment about the existence of WMD, and its neo-conservative defenders. The Wall Street Journal on Monday accused the “French and the European left” of trying to tarnish the US victory and charged that discontent among CIA analysts was spurred by resentment of Rumsfeld.
But even the Journal appeared to be moving away from its previous position that Iraq’s alleged WMD constituted a threat to the US and its allies. “Whether or not WMD is found takes nothing away from the Iraq war victory,” it said, citing the gains made in human rights by Saddam Hussein’s demise.
Nonetheless, what the administration knew about WMD and when it knew it — to paraphrase the famous Watergate questions — are now claiming the limelight, to the administration’s clear discomfort. On Sunday, the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that he hoped to begin hearings — with the Select Committee on Intelligence — before the July 4 recess, while the ranking member of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee has asked the CIA to produce a report by July 1 reconciling its pre-war assessments with actual findings on the ground.
This is exactly what I’ve been saying: The Disinformation Dam is bursting at the seams, folks! All the signs are there that the pretext of “weapons of mass destruction” as an excuse to invade Iraq was a lie — as if you didn’t know that already. What’s really important is that the mainstream American media is finally beginning to swarm all over the story — and better, the right-wing media (including righty bloggers) are absolutely livid about it.
The sheer outrage of the Right over any story is always an excellent indicator of how much credence the Right gives that story. In other words, the more pissed-off RW commentators get, the more you know they believe it’s true, too — and they’re running scared. Equally as predictable — and just as good an indicator — is the sudden infiltration of left-wing message boards by right-wingers with a sudden, renewed desperation to attack the left (and defend Bush). Believe it — I’ve seen it happen repeatedly, with monotonous regularity.
Now, listen: This is no time for you to sit back and breathe a sigh of relief because it appears the truth is finally coming to light. You have a job to do — and that job is to make sure the truth is hammered home to the American people.
Why just the American people? Because Joe Sixpack is still in the throes of denial — the last throes, mind you, but still stubbornly unwilling to see what’s right in front of his Coors-guzzling puss.
And why is Joe Sixpack cowering in this cocoon of denial? Joe isn’t stupid, and — while I often allude to American laziness and media-medicated dullness — the truth is that Joe knows in his gut that something is amiss, but (to lift a Jack Nicholson line), he can’t handle the truth.
There’s a most interesting thread going on at Democratic Underground, which I recommend you read if you’d like to get a bead on why Joe Sixpack refuses to hear what we’re trying to tell him.
Edjohn asks:
Why do most Americans approve of the President’s job performance?
Among the answers I favor:
“its a comfort thing… Is the pilot who is flying your plan competent? If your answer is no you are going to have a very unsettling, white-knuckle flight. Most people think the president (any president) is doing a good job because the alterative is just too terrible to contemplate.”
“Inability to entertain the idea they’ve been played for fools … But on a more personal and individual level (multiplied by millions), I’m afraid that a lot of Americans formed an emotional bond with [Bush] following 9/11. People were shocked, angry, fearful, and they needed reassurance and revenge. … To many people [Bush] came to embody patriotism and American values. … Psychologically and emotionally, it is nearly impossible for most people to admit to themselves that they were so profoundly deceived. By investing their trust and belief in [Bush], his agenda became theirs… Shrubco’s war was America’s war was THEIR war. To admit the war was a crime is tantamount to admitting being a criminal.”
“…the country was put through enormous trauma in the build-up to the war; trauma that has not been healed by the disastrous post-war chaos and failure to find WMDs; trauma that will be exacerbated as the US KIA count continues to climb (it will be over 500 by election day). I believe many of those so angry about the anti-war voices were expressing cognitive dissonance; were/are fighting to drown out the truth in their own minds.”
“Because they’re stupid and too proud to admit they were wrong about him.”
“Some people have a hard time admitting they are wrong. So they supported him and now they are stuck supporting him. Especially when they know people like me who won’t hesitate to tell them ‘I told you so.’”
Do read this thread — particularly the posts from “Emillereid,” discussing cognitive dissonance (which are much too long to quote here, but are absolutely fascinating if you have any interest whatsoever in the way the human mind rejects information — and offer some ideas for combatting resistance).
Now, go spread the word! Blog, baby, blog!
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Afghanistan, Chemical Weapons/DU, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Iraq, Media, PNAC & PNACers, United Kingdom & N.I.
You knew you wouldn’t get through a week of doublethink without another cliffhanger from the “Perils of Pauline” “Saving Private Lynch” story — didn’t you?
Oh, come on — this stuff is not only excruciatingly embarrassing to the warhawks, but it’s so absurd, it’s downright funny (well, to everybody except that poor, exploited, 19-year-old kid).
Bravo, Kucinich!
Kucinich Seeks Videotape of Lynch Rescue
Rep. Dennis Kucinich called on the Defense Department on Tuesday to release the unedited footage of the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital and to answer questions about her injuries.
“Nothing the administration has said about Private Lynch has been verified by private news reports,” Kucinich, D-Ohio, said Tuesday. “It’s time to find out the truth.”
Attention has been drawn to the April 1 rescue since a British Broadcasting Corp. report indicated the dramatics surrounding Lynch’s rescue were unnecessary.
Reports of the rescue say the U.S. commandos broke down doors and went in with guns drawn, carrying Lynch out with helicopter and armored vehicle backup, even though there was no Iraqi military presence and the hospital staff didn’t resist.
The hospital’s staff has said they tried earlier to return Lynch to American troops but the ambulance carrying Lynch was fired on, so the driver sped back to the hospital.
Kucinich, ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations, asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a letter to release unedited footage of the rescue and answer the following questions…
But, wait! There’s more! And it just figures that the ever-right-wing-drifting NBC would ignore the facts and stick with the “official” story:
NBC Still “Saving Private Lynch”
Never let it be said that TV executives let truth get in the way of good ratings. Today’s case in point: the Jessica Lynch story.
Despite new information coming to light effectively contradicting the Pentagon’s official version of events, NBC says it’s proceeding with plans to shoot Saving Private Lynch, a TV movie based on the former POW’s “dramatic” April 1 rescue from the Iraqi army.
Instead of scuttling the project, an NBC spokeswoman says network brass would “make the appropriate decisions” regarding the content of the telefilm as new details emerge. …
NBC, not wanting to miss out on the action and get a jump on its rivals, immediately went to work developing a telefilm about the liberation, even though details of Lynch’s capture and rescue were still murky…
Problem is, the gripping story was more Hollywood than Hollywood bargained for.
Investigative reports by the likes of the BBC, CBS’ 60 Minutes and other news outlets have shown that the military version of events played up a drama that wasn’t that dramatic.
Among the biggest revelations: Iraqi soldiers had abandoned their post at the hospital days before U.S. special forces moved in; American GIs were offered the use of a master key, but opted to kick the doors down Rambo-style instead; Lynch did not return fire at her Iraqi captors nor was she wounded or mistreated, as initially reported; and, perhaps the biggest surprise of all, days before her “rescue,” Lynch’s doctors attempted to take her via ambulance to American forces but were forced to turn back after being shot at. …
Meanwhile, Lynch’s family has remained mum on the conflicting reports.
“We’re really not supposed to talk about that subject,” Lynch’s father, Greg, told the Associated Press. “It’s still an ongoing investigation and we can’t talk about nothing like that.”
Lynch herself is reportedly suffering from memory loss and doesn’t recollect anything about her ordeal. The West Virginia native is recovering at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.; while she wasn’t shot or stabbed, she did sustain multiple broken bones, including a serious injury to her back, which will require months of therapy for her to walk again.
Yeah, well, Greg Lynch did talk — and in one short, off-the-cuff remark, demolished the “amnesia” story (as well as the English language):
“Her memory is as good as it was when she was home.
There really wasn’t no amnesia problems.”
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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Filed Under: Dennis Kucinich, Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq, Jessica Lynch, Movies, Television
