rain and the rhinoceros

One of the best journalists in the U.S. Amy Goodman recently interviewed the so-called “intellectual rock star” Slavoj Zizek on Iraq, Bush, and the War on Terror. You can watch, listen, or read the transcript of Part I and Part II.

In this culture of information, it easy for our attention to become distracted - forever. The front page of today’s news is lost with yesterdays in a span of just a few hours or even minutes. Do you remember the Jack Abramoff scandal? President Bush spying on U.S. peace activists? Because to tell you the truth I hardly do. Perhaps, we should be keeping a list of events that happen; we could write them all down on a piece of paper, so that when we get distracted we will not forget the events that have shaped the present moment.

Indeed, the writing of history is so valuable, but how can we learn from it, when so much happens all the time, so much to learn from, so little time to process all the information inundating around us. It seems there is a new form of media taking over our minds. It does not focus on yesterday’s news, because that is for history books and editorials.

Last year I remember thinking that it would be nice to get a weekly news magazine - but, why would I want week old information? Indeed, it seems that there is both good and bad aspects of the information age. On the one hand, I am thrilled to be able to have access to the latest news from every news organization around the world whenever I want it. On the other hand, I have so little time to process the information; so little time to understand the ramifications and to make sense out of everything happening. It is always difficult to make sense of things I guess. But, it would seem that if everyone remembered what has happened over the last few weeks, months, and years, then there would be enough information to build movements of social change. Perhaps, we would realize the events that have happened and how that effects today. I think that the doctors of spin (mainstream media) and their friends (the government) have come to depend on this sort of current events A.D.D. of the public. Perhaps, they rely even more on our historical amnesia. If the media were to flood us with constant updates on the Jack Abramoff scandal and the Bush spy program we would most certainly be bored, and we would wonder what else is going on in the world. We would seek after new information about new events happening. However, the general public would also be more outraged at Abramoff and Bush, and maybe then, the people would do something about the events. Maybe then, people would be able to process the information, and process the possible ramifications, the immorality, the illegal actions.

Whatever happened to the whole bin Laden video…I guess the media doesn’t really talk about that anymore. Whatever happened…to all that craziness I read about yesterday and the day before…whatever happened…I guess I was distracted by the newest news, the most recent headlines. I suppose I could dig a little to find updates on some of these older stories, but then I would miss out…on the latest information.

In my view, the greatest bias (or hypocrisy) in the U.S. corporate media today is the case against Iranian nuclear proliferation without mention of the fact that the U.S. maintains over half the nuclear warheads (over 10,000) in the world. Indeed, the greatest hypocritical activity lies in the rhetoric of the U.S. government and its attempt to strong arm Iran “for global security” while bombing the hell out of the ’suspected’ homes of Al Qaeda operatives in a small village in Pakistan (only to find out later that the intelligence was wrong - collateral damage I guess). But, is it not the responsibility of the media to expose the inconsistencies between rhetoric and reality? I think the short answer to this question is no. In fact, the responsibility of the media is to make dollars. The only way to make dollars is to please the corporations that fund you. The only way to please the corporations that fund you is by printing information that supports corporate interest (i.e. the U.S. imperial project). I think this is why the corporate media does not expose the nuclear hypocrisy. Instead, it toes the imperial line by deepening the concept in peoples’ minds that the United States is a divine exception to the rules, because they rule the world. In other words, the U.S. possession of almost all of the nuclear weapons of the world is not questioned, because the U.S. is essentially a good and positive force in the world and would never use nuclear weapons to do evil. It is strange that many continue to believe this with some sort of historical amnesia. But nonetheless, this is the mindset of many. So, when Iran (or Iraq) is thinking about, planning on, or in the process of building nuclear weapons, the U.S. threatens violence (either economic or physical). President Bush has recently said it is too late for “discussion” with Iran. Discussion? It is too late for discussion? Why is President Bush allowed to say such things without media harassment. I mean, this is outrageous! Who is President Bush to tell Iran that the discussion is over? More importantly, this is a total rejection of peaceful diplomacy. For one reason, because President Bush knows it won’t work. It won’t work because Iran won’t buy into U.S. hypocrisy. I sincerely believe that if the U.S. did not have nuclear weapons, Iran would not want them either. I also believe that Hugo Chavez would not be trying to buy weapons if it weren’t for the U.S. military machine.

All of this is not to say that I am advocating Iranian nuclear proliferation, for this is certainly not the case. Nuclear proliferation of any kind is exactly what I am against. In this article I am raising the question of U.S. nuclear hypocrisy and the media’s role in deepening the concept of the U.S. imperial exception to the rules. I believe that the U.S. (and also Europe, Russia, and China, who are also hypocritical) should disarm their nuclear weapons immediately - I think Iran would begin to listen then.

NY Times
December 1, 2005
U.S. Is Said to Pay to Plant Articles in Iraq Papers

By JEFF GERTH and SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 - Titled “The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic Iraq,” an article written this week for publication in the Iraqi press was scornful of outsiders’ pessimism about the country’s future.

“Western press and frequently those self-styled ‘objective’ observers of Iraq are often critics of how we, the people of Iraq, are proceeding down the path in determining what is best for our nation,” the article began. Quoting the Prophet Muhammad, it pleaded for unity and nonviolence.

But far from being the heartfelt opinion of an Iraqi writer, as its language implied, the article was prepared by the United States military as part of a multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends, military contractors and officials said.

The article was one of several in a storyboard, the military’s term for a list of articles, that was delivered Tuesday to the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm paid by the Pentagon, documents from the Pentagon show. The contractor’s job is to translate the articles into Arabic and submit them to Iraqi newspapers or advertising agencies without revealing the Pentagon’s role. Documents show that the intended target of the article on a democratic Iraq was Azzaman, a leading independent newspaper, but it is not known whether it was published there or anywhere else.

Even as the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development pay contractors millions of dollars to help train journalists and promote a professional and independent Iraqi media, the Pentagon is paying millions more to the Lincoln Group for work that appears to violate fundamental principles of Western journalism.

In addition to paying newspapers to print government propaganda, Lincoln has paid about a dozen Iraqi journalists each several hundred dollars a month, a person who had been told of the transactions said. Those journalists were chosen because their past coverage had not been antagonistic to the United States, said the person, who is being granted anonymity because of fears for the safety of those involved. In addition, the military storyboards have in some cases copied verbatim text from copyrighted publications and passed it on to be printed in the Iraqi press without attribution, documents and interviews indicated.

In many cases, the material prepared by the military was given to advertising agencies for placement, and at least some of the material ran with an advertising label. But the American authorship and financing were not revealed.

Military spokesmen in Washington and Baghdad said Wednesday that they had no information on the contract. In an interview from Baghdad on Nov. 18, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, a military spokesman, said the Pentagon’s contract with the Lincoln Group was an attempt to “try to get stories out to publications that normally don’t have access to those kind of stories.” The military’s top commanders, including Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, did not know about the Lincoln Group contract until Wednesday, when it was first described by The Los Angeles Times, said a senior military official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Pentagon officials said General Pace and other top officials were disturbed by the reported details of the propaganda campaign and demanded explanations from senior officers in Iraq, the official said.

When asked about the article Wednesday night on the ABC News program “Nightline,” General Pace said, “I would be concerned about anything that would be detrimental to the proper growth of democracy.”

Others seemed to share the sentiment. “I think it’s absolutely wrong for the government to do this,” said Patrick Butler, vice president of the International Center for Journalists in Washington, which conducts ethics training for journalists from countries without a history of independent news media. “Ethically, it’s indefensible.”

Mr. Butler, who spoke from a conference in Wisconsin with Arab journalists, said the American government paid for many programs that taught foreign journalists not to accept payments from interested parties to write articles and not to print government propaganda disguised as news.

“You show the world you’re not living by the principles you profess to believe in, and you lose all credibility,” he said.

The Government Accountability Office found this year that the Bush administration had violated the law by producing pseudo news reports that were later used on American television stations with no indication that they had been prepared by the government. But no law prohibits the use of such covert propaganda abroad.

The Lincoln contract with the American-led coalition forces in Iraq has rankled some military and civilian officials and contractors. Some of them described the program to The New York Times in recent months and provided examples of the military’s storyboards.

The Lincoln Group, whose principals include some businessmen and former military officials, was hired last year after military officials concluded that the United States was failing to win over Muslim public opinion. In Iraq, the effort is seen by some American military commanders as a crucial step toward defeating the Sunni-led insurgency.

Citing a “fundamental problem of credibility” and foreign opposition to American policies, a Pentagon advisory panel last year called for the government to reinvent and expand its information programs.

“Government alone cannot today communicate effectively and credibly,” said the report by the task force on strategic communication of the Defense Science Board. The group recommended turning more often for help to the private sector, which it said had “a built-in agility, credibility and even deniability.”

The Pentagon’s first public relations contract with Lincoln was awarded in 2004 for about $5 million with the stated purpose of accurately informing the Iraqi people of American goals and gaining their support. But while meant to provide reliable information, the effort was also intended to use deceptive techniques, like payments to sympathetic “temporary spokespersons” who would not necessarily be identified as working for the coalition, according to a contract document and a military official.

In addition, the document called for the development of “alternate or diverting messages which divert media and public attention” to “deal instantly with the bad news of the day.”

Laurie Adler, a spokeswoman for the Lincoln Group, said the terms of the contract did not permit her to discuss it and referred a reporter to the Pentagon. But others defended the practice.

“I’m not surprised this goes on,” said Michael Rubin, who worked in Iraq for the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 and 2004. “Informational operations are a part of any military campaign,” he added. “Especially in an atmosphere where terrorists and insurgents - replete with oil boom cash - do the same. We need an even playing field, but cannot fight with both hands tied behind our backs.”

Two dozen recent storyboards prepared by the military for Lincoln and reviewed by The New York Times had a variety of good-news themes addressing the economy, security, the insurgency and Iraq’s political future. Some were written to resemble news articles. Others took the form of opinion pieces or public service announcements.

One article about Iraq’s oil industry opened with three paragraphs taken verbatim, and without attribution, from a recent report in Al Hayat, a London-based Arabic newspaper. But the military version took out a quotation from an oil ministry spokesman that was critical of American reconstruction efforts. It substituted a more positive message, also attributed to the spokesman, though not as a direct quotation.

The editor of Al Sabah, a major Iraqi newspaper that has been the target of many of the military’s articles, said Wednesday in an interview that he had no idea that the American military was supplying such material and did not know if his newspaper had printed any of it, whether labeled as advertising or not.

The editor, Muhammad Abdul Jabbar, 57, said Al Sabah, which he said received financial support from the Iraqi government but was editorially independent, accepted advertisements from virtually any source if they were not inflammatory. He said any such material would be labeled as advertising but would not necessarily identify the sponsor. Sometimes, he said, the paper got the text from an advertising agency and did not know its origins.

Asked what he thought of the Pentagon program’s effectiveness in influencing Iraqi public opinion, Mr. Jabbar said, “I would spend the money a better way.”

The Lincoln Group, which was incorporated in 2004, has won another government information contract. Last June, the Special Operations Command in Tampa awarded Lincoln and two other companies a multimillion-dollar contract to support psychological operations. The planned products, contract documents show, include three- to five- minute news programs.

Asked whether the information and news products would identify the American sponsorship, a media relations officer with the special operations command replied, in an e-mail message last summer, that “the product may or may not carry ‘made in the U.S.’ signature” but they would be identified as American in origin, “if asked.”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington for this article, and Kirk Semple and Edward Wong from Baghdad.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Two articles are posted here. One from the Daily Mirror and the other from The Progressive. The first addresses Bush’s way democracy in the Middle East. The second addresses the forced resignation of a CNN news chief for accusing the Bush administration of killing journalists in the Middle East. With the new evidence from the recently leaked memo, the article suggests that this CNN news chief should get his job back.

The Daily Mirror

22 November 2005
EXCLUSIVE: BUSH PLOT TO BOMB HIS ARAB ALLY
Madness of war memo
By Kevin Maguire And Andy Lines

PRESIDENT Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a “Top Secret” No 10 memo reveals.

But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.

A source said: “There’s no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn’t want him to do it.” Al-Jazeera is accused by the US of fuelling the Iraqi insurgency.

The attack would have led to a massacre of innocents on the territory of a key ally, enraged the Middle East and almost certainly have sparked bloody retaliation.

A source said last night: “The memo is explosive and hugely damaging to Bush.

“He made clear he wanted to bomb al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere. Blair replied that would cause a big problem.

“There’s no doubt what Bush wanted to do - and no doubt Blair didn’t want him to do it.”

A Government official suggested that the Bush threat had been “humorous, not serious”.

But another source declared: “Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men.”

Yesterday former Labour Defence Minister Peter Kilfoyle challenged Downing Street to publish the five-page transcript of the two leaders’ conversation. He said: “It’s frightening to think that such a powerful man as Bush can propose such cavalier actions.

“I hope the Prime Minister insists this memo be published. It gives an insight into the mindset of those who were the architects of war.”

Bush disclosed his plan to target al-Jazeera, a civilian station with a huge Mid-East following, at a White House face-to-face with Mr Blair on April 16 last year.

At the time, the US was launching an all-out assault on insurgents in the Iraqi town of Fallujah.

Al-Jazeera infuriated Washington and London by reporting from behind rebel lines and broadcasting pictures of dead soldiers, private contractors and Iraqi victims.

The station, watched by millions, has also been used by bin Laden and al-Qaeda to broadcast atrocities and to threaten the West.

Al-Jazeera’s HQ is in the business district of Qatar’s capital, Doha.

Its single-storey buildings would have made an easy target for bombers. As it is sited away from residential areas, and more than 10 miles from the US’s desert base in Qatar, there would have been no danger of “collateral damage”.

Dozens of al-Jazeera staff at the HQ are not, as many believe, Islamic fanatics. Instead, most are respected and highly trained technicians and journalists.

To have wiped them out would have been equivalent to bombing the BBC in London and the most spectacular foreign policy disaster since the Iraq War itself.

The No 10 memo now raises fresh doubts over US claims that previous attacks against al-Jazeera staff were military errors.

In 2001 the station’s Kabul office was knocked out by two “smart” bombs. In 2003, al-Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayyoub was killed in a US missile strike on the station’s Baghdad centre.

The memo, which also included details of troop deployments, turned up in May last year at the Northampton constituency office of then Labour MP Tony Clarke.

Cabinet Office civil servant David Keogh, 49, is accused under the Official Secrets Act of passing it to Leo O’Connor, 42, who used to work for Mr Clarke. Both are bailed to appear at Bow Street court next week.

Mr Clarke, who lost at the election, returned the memo to No 10.

He said Mr O’Connor had behaved “perfectly correctly”.

Neither Mr O’Connor or Mr Keogh were available. No 10 did not comment.

Response from The Progressive Magazine:

Bush Targets Al Jazeera? CNN Head Should Get Job Back
By Matthew Rothschild
November 23, 2005
Remember Eason Jordan, the CNN news chief who was forced to resign back
in February because he dared to say, at a private conference, that the
United States had killed about a dozen journalists in Iraq?

Well, he’s looking a lot better today, one day after the Daily Mirror reported that George W. Bush wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera headquarters in Doha, the capital city of Qatar. “He was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair,” the Daily Mirror said.

The paper said it had a new “top secret” Downing Street Memo that contains a transcript of the Bush-Blair conversation of April 16, 2004.

It has the ring of truth to it.

After all, Donald Rumsfeld has harped on Al Jazeera in none too subtle ways. “We are dealing with people who are willing to lie to the world to make their case,” Rumsfeld said. (He’s one to talk.) And he said Al Jazeera is “Johnny-on-the-spot a little too often for my taste.”

The Daily Mirror story also has the ring of truth to it because the United States bombarded Al Jazeera’s Baghdad office when the war started. Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayyoub died in that assault.

“Journalists with Al Jazeera have complained of harassment and detention since their first unembedded encounters with U.S. troops,” writes David Enders in the September issue of The Progressive. His article, “Reporters in the Cross Hairs,” notes that Al Jazeera reporters have been detained at Abu Ghraib and “subjected to hooding, forced to stand naked, and abused with water.”

That the U.S. has killed journalists in Iraq is undeniable. The Committee to Protect Journalists notes that 13 journalists have fallen under U.S. fire.

These facts don’t get Eason Jordan his job back.

And they don’t get us a President with any sort of moral compass.

That Bush would even contemplate bombing a news organization because he doesn’t like its coverage shows just how maniacal this man has become.

Who is going to stop him the next time he comes up with another harebrained idea like that?

Hold on to your cowboy hats.