Natural Born Killers

NPR gives the tiniest blip of airtime to dissenting views of the blatantly anti-Constitutional and illegal assassination of US citizen, and terrorist suspect, Anwar al-Awlaki.  Most of NPR's coverage is decidedly favorable US security establishment - such as Friday afternoon's summary by CIA spokesperson Dina Temple-Raston and Pentagon Sock Monkey, Rachel Martin's Saturday defense of the murders of al-Awalki and Samir Khan.  

Friday afternoon and evening's 5-minute news summary featured Abu Ghraib criminal interrogator/and trainer for the Iraqi Torture Interior Ministry - Professor Matthew Degn - plugging the glorious successes of the endless War on Terror:

[Jack Spear] "In what US officials are deeming a significant blow to al-Qaeda's most active affiliate...the man believed to directed the attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas day among other plots was killed in a missile strike in Yemen today.  Matthew Degn is Director of Intelligence Studies at American University he says the attack is significant in the ongoing war with al-Qaeda.  [Degn] 'You win a war by defeating its leaders. You win a war by defeating the organization, and to do that you have to eliminate its leaders - capture or kill the leaders and that's what we're doing right now in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere around the world.'" [Now you know WTF we are doing in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere!]

The little squeak of dissent permitted occurred during Friday's ATC promisingly titled piece "Debate Erupts Over Legality of Awlaki's Killing." Carrie Johnson ran the briefest little clip of Hina Shamsi from the ACLU: 

[Shamsi] "The government should not have the unreviewable authority to carry out the targeted killing of any American, anywhere whom the American president deems to be a threat to the nation."

That was it for the dissenting viewpoint on Johnson's report.  The rest of the time was given to apologists for the assassination.  First was the Justice Department who Johnson tells us "responded that Awlaki wasn't just any American....[but] an operational leader who helped equip terrorist plotters with bombs." Next was Bushist lawyer, John Bellinger, who weighed in with this brilliant analysis: "The requirements of the Constitution with respect to due process for killing an American are not clear." [I swear I'm not making this crap up.]  To deliver a coup de grace to the concept of due process, Johnson found Ken Anderson, a professor who, according to Johnson, "says the analysis starts with whether Awlaki amounted to a lawful target, U.S. citizen or not." 

Probably the most grotesque defense of the assassination came from Rachel Martin on Saturday morning with Scott Simon.  Scott opens the discussion with an evidence free conviction of al-Awalki: "he was a key operative for al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen," and it's downhill from there.  Here are quotes from Martin - essentially her talking points - and they are indistinguishable from those of the Obama administration, the CIA, and the Pentagon:

• "...this was a man directly linked to several high profile terrorist attacks over the last couple of years." 
• "...part of why he was so important - because he INSPIRED others to violent action with his message." 
• "...he was the architect of that plot [Xmas day underwear bomber] against the United States.  This is what al-Awalki was all about...
• "one one side there is an argument that he is a US citizen, he has legal rights...but the US government is clear here Scott, they say this was legal..."
• "the US government argues that when someone, even an American citizen, joins the enemy in an ongoing war against the US that person becomes a legitimate target."

As our Constitution withers in the face the assaults of US corporate/security state with its promotion of endless war, NPR has made it clear which it is on.  To anyone still supporting NPR with donations, you do so at your own peril...

Bobble Siegel's Profound Humanity

After Rachel Martin's pumped up assessment of Plans A & B on Monday's ATC [see previous post], we were treated to further explanations of the Global War on Terror from Robert Siegel - a reporter of "intellectual heft and profound humanity." Robert Siegel's sympathetic attitudes toward criminal secrecy, the slaughter of civilians, and the erasure of history are breathtaking.

Siegel opens the interview stating, "

I'm joined by Ben Venzke, CEO of IntelCenter. It's a counterterrorism contractor. And we're going to hear about other fronts in the war against al-Qaeda and its allies."

We are already in a propaganda minefield here. The first problem is the non-information provided about Ben Venzke. He runs IntelCenter that distributes "terrorism" videos of questionable sourcing, and he worked with iDefense before starting his company. At iDefense, Venzke worked closely with military intelligence operative, Jim Melnick, a Rumsfeld propaganda operative. Given his background, he is an untrustworthy "expert" at best. The second issue in this brief opening is Siegel's description of "other fronts in the war against al-Qaeda." The media's use of the language of conventional war (e.g. "other fronts") to describe US operations against a minuscule number of al-Qaeda operatives has to be one of the great propaganda triumphs of the US security/permanent-war state.

If this were the only problem with Siegel's interview, I'd chalk it up to typical NPR laziness, and would not have bothered working on this post. But after its lackluster opening, it becomes truly pathological. Siegel asks a direct question about US involvement in Yemen, and Venzke says, "Well, I can't comment because of our involvement with the government...." To which, Siegel follows up with

"According to one of the biggest disclosures in the WikiLeaks cables, one of the biggest contributions of Yemen's president is not bombing al-Qaeda targets, but saying he is and letting the U.S. bomb al-Qaeda targets. Is there a vigorous local counterterrorism effort in Yemen? Or is it more simply permitting the United States to do what it has to do there?"

To do what it has to do there? One has to assume that Siegel is talking about slaughtering 55 human beings - including 14 women and 21 children; after all, that is what the WikiLeak cable is about. To this question Venzke again hides behind secrecy, "That's not something that I could comment on." And Siegel's response? He laughs. I'm not kidding; here's the transcript from NPR:

Siegel: "Can't comment on that. (Soundbite of laughter)"

In the finale of this bloodsport of an interview Siegel directs his line of questioning to Somalia. After Venzke explains the supposed terrorism threats posed to the US by Somalia's al-Shabab, Siegel asks,

"And is there any countervailing authority in Somalia that's doing anything there? Or do they really have a dysfunctional state and have the run of the place?"

Of course the direct US role [involving a grotesque level of indiscriminate slaughter] in creating this "dysfunctional state" (by pressuring and then assisting a reluctant nation to invade Somalia when it was beginning to stabilize) is never mentioned. And why would it be? - on NPR it was never covered in the first place.

Less Tea Drinking, More Drone Strikes

NPR's perky sock monkey has earned her own comic strip with her latest effort. All Ms. Martin's statements are straight from Monday's ATC "report" which is introduced by Audie Cornish. Hover over panels to see which ones have superpowered hyperlinks!

Good JSOC Monkey

On Thursday morning our favorite sock monkey had this to say about the US war in Afghanistan:

"Administration officials say this review isn't a referendum on the strategy itself, but a close look at how it's being implemented; a gut check on what's working and what's not. And there are things that are working. U.S. led operations in the southern part of the country have pushed insurgent groups out of key areas. Special forces raids have captured or killed hundreds of insurgent leaders in the past few months."

Yes, there are things that are really working in Afghanistan: airstrikes are working wonders, civilians are benefiting immensely, operations in the south are clearly driving somebody out, and JSOC (special forces) raids - well they are definitely working. Astounding really. And the evidence offered? Martin says,

"Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says some progress was inevitable."

This is the same Anthony Cordesman who weighed in on Mr. Holbrooke on Tuesday's ATC and summed up his work in Af-Pak as follows:

"Mahatma Gandhi, had he been involved, could not have done better."

Now why didn't I think of Mahatma Gandhi when I thought of Richard Holbrooke? I guess that what experts like Cordesman are for - and why NPR returns to him again and again.

Dronespeak: Temple-Raston Goes Radical

[cross-posted at NPR Team Check]

Running a series called "Going Radical," NPR claims the mantle of "investigative journalism" as it works to shore up the military and foreign policy interests of the United States. Instead of investigating how - under the rubric of a "war on terrorism" -

• the tradition of Constitutional law in the US was chucked in favor of unrestrained surveillance, illegal detention, disappearances, assassination and torture, or
  
• an unsuccessful businessman/crook of low to middling intelligence became so radicalized that he lead the US into two wars of aggression against two predominately Muslim states based on propaganda and manufactured intelligence, or
  
• the state of Israel was brazenly supported by the US government through two massive military assaults (Lebanon & Gaza) targeting civilians and in enacting policies against Palestinians that are tantamount to genocide, or
• how someone goes from a position of privilege to one of radically bragging about committing an international crime for which the penalty on conviction is death or life imprisonment,
  

NPR throws its resources into supposedly explaining the radicalization of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas bomber of Flight 253. What this "investigation" dutifully refuses to explore is any detailed assessment of the grim human toll of US foreign policy in Central Asia and the Middle East and why this policy continues to win recruits to extremism and terror. Daring journalism also would seek answers as to why Abdulmutallab was allowed onto a US bound flight even thought the "intelligence community" had it's eye on him, and would want to find out exactly who helped Abdulmutallab get on Flight 253 in the first place. But if you are a believer in the exceptional goodness of US foreign policy and the nobility of the US war on terror, then NPR won't disappoint.

The star of NPR's Going Radical series is Dina Temple-Raston (NPR's resident FBI spokesperson). She hosts three of the features in the series:

• Her Thursday morning piece is a thing of twisted beauty. In a matter of minutes she is able to conflate anti-Guantanamo, anti-torture activism with terrorist extremism. She notes that ex-GITMO detainee Moazzam Begg spoke at a University College London 2007 "Terror Week" event. First she ties Begg to Abdulmutallab by stating, "People who attended the conference say Begg and Abdulmutallab were sitting next to each other" and concludes that "when Abdulmutallab started meeting people like Moazzam Begg, he was exposed to vitriolic and very anti-American views." What is it with these people who've been kidnapped and tortured by the US being so vitriolic and anti-American? - sheesh!

• On Thursday afternoon Temple-Raston is back to highlight a character who features in all three of her reports, a Hitchenseque fellow named Shiraz Maher who used to recruit for Islamic extremism, but is now firmly in the camp of rationalizing Western exceptionalism, state repression and aggressive Zionism. His writing can be sampled in Standpoint Magazine where he takes a stand on Israel's annexation wall:

  "We tend to hear only about Israel's because of the news coverage and hippy activism it attracts. No other security fence has attracted quite as much attention and theirs - that despite Israel suffering a torrent of terrorist attacks from 2000-2003....where is the ‘fairness' and ‘consistency' that Islamists and their leftist cheerleaders continually complain about?"

  It is telling that there actually is another former recruiter with a similar story to Mr. Maher's. His name is Maajid Nawaz, but instead of excusing the "western" security state or Israeli aggression - he brings a far more compassionate, nuanced approach to the lessons he's learned.

• Finally on Friday afternoon Temple-Raston - like our President - plays the role of judge, jury and executioner. Remember Anwar al-Awlaki, the US citizen targeted for assassination by the US government (see post below)? Speaking of al-Awlaki as if she were discussing him receiving a traffic ticket, Temple-Raston explains that

  "The U.S. has been trying to bring him in for questioning for years. After the Fort Hood attack, it even launched a missile strike on one of his houses in Yemen, but he survived the attack."

  Hey, but he deserves extrajudicial execution because Robert Siegel opens the piece with the damning evidence that

  "He's admitted to knowing Abdulmutallab. But their relationship, according to intelligence officials, goes far deeper than that. In fact, NPR has learned that al-Awlaki may have been in charge of a small terrorist cell and that Abdulmutallab may have been his first al-Qaida recruit."

  Still not convinced? Temple-Raston lays it on:

  "He is the same radical imam who was implicated in the Fort Hood shootings last year. He was in email contact with the suspected shooter, Major Nidal Hasan. And, apparently, he blessed that attack and then called Hasan a hero"

  and

  "Al-Awlaki has always been a propagandist. If he actually mentored Abdulmutallab while he allegedly trained to bomb a U.S. airliner, that would mean al-Awlaki had moved into an operational role in the organization."

  Still not ready to lynch? Nothing like a huge dose of fear to nail the case: "What's more, officials tell NPR that they believe al-Awlaki was put in charge of more people than just Abdulmutallab. They believe he trained an entire cell of English-speaking recruits. Apparently, Abdulmutallab named names and provided locations to authorities. Law enforcement officials are looking for those young men now. Officials say they don't believe the young men are in the U.S."

A final note about Temple-Raston's choices of "experts" in these pieces. As mentioned she leans heavily on Shiraz Maher, and she also features a man of similar politics in the reports - Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion which focuses only on Islamic radicalization - not Euro-American radical militarism. Interestingly, the other former-recruiter I mentioned above Maajid Nawaz - also runs a center against radicalism that is well worth exploring and highlighting - unless your main interest is in promoting the US "war on terror."

The Big Yawn

Two early events in our US government's dismantling of due process and the rule of law stand out in my mind. First, the very public release by the US in January 2002 of the photos of detainees at Guantanamo. Could there have been a more brazen display of official US contempt for its international obligations for the humane treatment of prisoners? The second shocker for me occurred in June of 2002 with the seizure of an American citizen, Jose Padilla, on his arrival at O'Hare airport in Chicago and his subsequent transfer to incommunicado detention in a military brig. NPR's coverage of Padilla's kidnapping was presented by NPR with complete sympathy to the government's actions. Barbara Bradley reported the story for ATC on June 10, 2002, and pointedly noted that the "advantages" of moving Padilla's case to "military custody" included no right to a speedy trial, no need for evidence, and the fact that he could be held indefinitely.

Anyone who listens regularly to NPR news knows that - in deference to the US security state and its purposely amorphous "war on terror" - NPR has demonstrated nothing but a thinly veiled contempt for Constitutional protections required for detainees and suspects - whether US citizens or not. So when another big story recently broke regarding a significant US government assault on Constitutional guarantees, it's no surprise that NPR - by omission - again displays a disregard for our laws and basic constitutional principles. Though not a surprise, it is appalling.

I know it's quaint but the 5th Amendment seems pretty clear about the rights of any "person" (excepting members of the military in cases involving "actual service") not to be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." So shouldn't it be a BIG story when we find out that the previous and current US presidents have been ordering the assassinations of people - including US citizens(!)? Not on NPR; search NPR for "Dennis Blair" the US Director of National Intelligence who recently testified about "killing an American" and you will find nothing about the assassination program...absolutely nothing!

The assassination program also points toward another NPR-censored story. One of the targets of the US assassination program is apparently US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki who the US - and NPR - ties to the Christmas bombing attempt (and who apparently sympathizes with terrorist attacks on US civilian targets). The truly stunning news about the Christmas bombing attempt is the apparent role played by the US intelligence and law enforcement "community" in preventing the would-be bomber's visa from being revoked. Alex Lantier of the WSWS has an excellent write up of the story and you can watch for yourself the testimony of Patrick Kennedy before the US House here (the recording is 3 hours long, but the relevant material comes at the 34:28:00 point and also at the 2:55:25 mark). The testimony is not an airtight indictment, but its potential implications are disturbing at best, and at the worst imply that someone in the intelligence "community" wanted to have a major terrorist event occur during this period of the Obama administration. Like the rest of the mainstream media, NPR gives this story no coverage whatsoever - sticking with the original nonsense that it was a "failure to connect the dots.

One would think that given the large number of people who have been falsely seized in the fraudulent war on terror and Iraq (and even standout cases such as the Oregon lawyer arrested in the Madrid bombing case but then soon exonerated) would cause a news organization to treat all US government actions and pronouncements in the "war on terror" with great skepticism - unless that news organization is more interested in representing the viewpoint of the state, a position euphemistically known as being "mainstream."

The Great Taboo

(If you want to purchase these cute little monkeys they are just $9.95)

On Friday's ATC Mara Liasson says one of the stupidest things I've heard on NPR in a while - which is saying something! Talking about the waning popularity of the BushLite Obama administration among more left leaning and progressive Democrats Liasson states,

"And there are other disagreements. On Afghanistan much of the Democratic base is opposed to the President's troop increase although the Christmas bomber may have taken some of the heat out of that sentiment."

In Liasson/Foxworld one's thinking seems to be limited to rather primitive stimulus/response equations, such as

Terrorist attempt [X] against a US target [Y] = more US military action [N] in Afghanistan [or Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan].

How else to explain the utter nonsense of her claim that progressives - who know that the Obama Afghanistan War is immoral, stupid, and ultimately destructive of real security - would change their minds based on one terrorist's attempt to bomb a US airliner? If Liasson had any clue about progressive/leftist voters she would realize that the attempted Christmas day attack contradicts the supposed rationale for stepping up the US war on Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, Liasson's comments reveal not just Foxified thinking but that of the mainstream media - and especially highlight its refusal to ever consider what creates and motivates acts of terrorism and/or violence against US assets.

After the Christmas Day bombing attempt, probably the biggest story of the week was the bomber who attacked the CIA in Afghanistan. Any curious person would want to know what motivated the apparently trusted attacker to infiltrate the US base and lethally target US/CIA operations. However, the stunning fact is how little attention is given in the mainstream media to the factors that motivate terrorists and irregular fighters who attack US forces. Glenn Greenwald has covered this taboo recently in two articles: the first regarding the Christmas Day bomber and the second on the CIA base bomber. Regarding the CIA bomber there's nothing unclear or hard to discern about his motives:

• Time magazine notes "The Jordanian intelligence sources who spoke to TIME speculate that al-Balawi had become enraged at the Americans for killing a high number of civilians in their hunt for al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders."
• CBS reports that the wife of the bomber stated that he "was outraged over the treatment of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison and the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan."
• The New York Times reports that the bomber's brother explained "that his brother had been 'changed' by last year’s three-week-long Israeli offensive in Gaza, which killed about 1,300 Palestinians."

So how does NPR cover this? Try a little searching and see if you can find any NPR news stories relating Abu Ghraib, civilian deaths, or the Gaza massacre to the actions of the CIA bomber who attacked the CIA. Here's what you'll find:

• Search "cia afghanistan" - lots of coverage of the attack.
• Search "cia afghanistan civilian casualties" - nothing regarding the attack.
• Search "cia afghanistan abu ghraib" - nothing regarding the attack.
• Search "cia afghanistan gaza" - nothing regarding the attack.

I guess these details don't quite fit in with the "they hate us for our freedom" conventional wisdom or with NPR's recent adulatory coverage of the CIA.

Civilians, Terrorists, and Cold-blooded Killers

(Image by wordle.net - click here for original)

I guess it's a challenge for a CIA-friendly news organization like NPR to decide how to report on an attack on a military base that kills CIA operatives. When the story broke in the evening on Dec. 30th the first reports out of Afghanistan referred to civilians being killed on a military base (which did seem odd). By Thursday morning, the BBC was already reporting that the dead were not "civilians" but CIA operatives. Given the CIA's history of murder and assassination, and its current role in military operations and extrajudicial killings in Af-Pak, you might expect that they would be referred to as paramilitary or irregular forces or simply CIA agent/operatives.

On Thursday morning, NPR's mouthpiece in Afghanistan, Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson still hadn't figured out that no civilians were killed in the attack on the military base in Khost. She told Steve Inskeep that the suicide bomber

"ended up killing eight American civilians here, killing one Afghan and wounding up to a half dozen more."

As the day wore on NPR's top-of-the hour (TOTH) news bulletins had stopped calling the dead civilians - but now the lethal suicide-attack inside a heavily fortified military base housing CIA operatives was transformed into...a terrorist attack! Newsreader Lakshmi Singh, at midday was stating,

"The CIA says 7 of its employees were killed and six others wounded in a terrorist attack yesterday in Afghanistan. The officers were working in a base in the southeastern province of Khost."

By Thursday afternoon (Dec. 31), the reporting on the attack had morphed into a somber tribute to the noble CIA and all that sacrifices if has made to keep the world safe. Mary Louise Kelly was given the assignment for ATC and she talked to Robert Siegel about it.

Siegel: "And what kind of work were they doing in Khost province?"

Kelly: "Well, the agency is not confirming any specifics....But it's safe to assume that they were doing what CIA types do in remote areas of the world, which is help identify enemy targets, also help recruit locals who can serve as CIA agents, perhaps what was they were trying to do here." [Silly me, I thought they tortured and killed people, propped up dictators, and helped overthrow democratically elected governments.]

Kelly later goes on to note that seven is a very high number of fatalities for the CIA to have in one day:

"...And it's interesting, you know, you walk into CIA headquarters today, walk into the original headquarters building and on the big wall on the left, as you enter, is a wall of stars. Each star representing one of the CIA officers who gave their life in service - was killed in action. Now on that wall there are 90 stars. Remarkable really when you think about how dangerous that line of work is and how long..." [I'm just guessing that Kelly is very familiar with the inside of CIA headquarters.]

Siegel interrupts, "It's a very small number for all these years."

Kelly responds, "Exactly. They've been doing it for six decades now. So, that helps, I think, give some perspective on how devastating it is to have lost seven in one day." They definitely have been doing it...and if there were one star for every poor soul killed as a result of CIA "service" there wouldn't be a wall big enough to put them all on.

And From the Left

NPR's supposedly liberal, left-leaning Dan Schorr weighs in on Obama's escalation of the war and occupation of Afghanistan on Weekend Edition Saturday:

Simon: "President Obama appeared at West Point, send 30,000 or more U.S. troops to Afghanistan by next fall. How would you characterize the speech?"

Schorr: "I would characterize it as being a statesmanlike speech trying to deal with two disparate problems. One of the problems is they need to send more troops to Afghanistan. The other problem is that that does not go down very well with a great many liberals in the Democratic Party [seriously, click on this link to see my Republican representative's stand on Afghanistan]. And what he's done in effect is to say here we come and there we go, 18 months later, hoping that he managed to get both groups. He may succeed, but not entirely.

Simon: "Of course the concern was raised by a number of people this week - in Congress, commentators - that if you a put time stamp on a commitment, it doesn't impress anybody and it allows the Taliban to say we'll just hold onto the ropes for 18 months, and for that matter, as some people suggested, it's hard to ask U.S. troops to risk their lives for that kind of exit."

Schorr: "Well, you're right. It's not really a very wise thing to do if you want to get the Taliban and al-Qaida out of there. You don't say just hang around, we'll be leaving in 18 months, it's not a very good idea. But he had a very sticky problem that what would work internationally would not work with public opinion at home, and he tried to straddle that.

With "liberals" like these who needs conservatives?

Propaganda Squared

A reader noted in the Q Tips section below that Tuesday's ATC featured Pentagon propaganda on the Green Berets. It's no secret that NPR do love it some counterinsurgency, including the Green Berets.

The piece from Jon Kalish was an unabashed, uncritical advertisement for a Green Beret commercial called Why We Fight Now. There was no critique of the Green Berets, just positive comments, an "explanation" of the filmmaker's motives, and a handy link to the 10 minutes of the film on YouTube (watch it if you can stomach it - it's a lazy, stupid, paean to warriorism).

Here's a taste of the NPR feature:

Kalish: The film is titled Why We Fight Now, a nod to the World War II series Why We Fight, produced by Hollywood filmmaker Frank Capra for the U.S. War Department.....Why We Fight Now has no narration and consists mostly of Green Berets talking about their work. It was directed by Mark Benjamin, a 62-year-old Manhattan filmmaker who might seem an odd choice for the job." [Actually there is nothing but narration, provided by Green Berets parroting a simple-minded world view and the worship of war and counterinsurgency which in NPRspeak is "talking about their 'work.' "]

Benjamin: "I've always been anti-war and never thought I would ever work for the military."

Kalish: On the wall in Benjamin's office is a poster of Che Guevara, but there's also a picture of a Green Beret handing a piece of food to a child in Afghanistan. Benjamin's political evolution is due in no small part to the terrorist attacks of September 11. He knew people who died and has made several films dealing with the day's repercussions."

Benjamin: "Because of 9/11, I became this liberal hawk. My own political perspective on global conflicts, democracy, capitalism, human rights everything changed. I certainly became more militant. I think we should go after terror wherever it is."

That's all we get. Not one bit of intelligent information or analysis. There is some chatter from an ex-Green Beret who now is a fellow at NPR-favorite war-tank, Center for New American Security, who liked the film (surprise!) and seemed surprised that the military is airing this pro-special forces rubbish (because it favors the Green Berets over other special forces!)

As always there was no mention of the sordid history of the Green Berets supporting dictators and torture states - such as the disgusting Karimov of Uzbekistan or the torture deaths of Green Beret prisoners in Afghanistan (yawn...) or the usual trail of torture, blood, and repression that US special forces leave in their wake all over the world.

In the comments section below the story Boulder Dude nails it: "So, what does one call Propaganda of a Propaganda film? Double Plus Good news?" Or as I see it propaganda squared.

An Afghanistan Strategy That Works

"But the big fool said to push on." - (click photo for graphic source)

Is Sorya Sarhaddi Nelson really and truly in Afghanistan? I've heard her interviewed the last day or so regarding the fortunes of of the US debacle in Afghanistan - in light of the non-runoff runoff and the "victory" of Hamid Karzai - and I can't say I've learned anything from it.

Nelson was on ATC Monday talking to Michelle Norris and this exchange occurred:

Norris: "With Hamid Karzai now declared the official winner of the presidential election, to what degree does that now solve the political uncertainty in Afghanistan?"

Nelson: "Well, for the West it gives them - in particular, President Obama - a green light to move ahead in redefining and setting an Afghanistan strategy that works, in terms of international involvement here. But the question remains whether Afghans will accept this government as a legitimate one. I think much can be forgiven, including the fraud, in a very lengthy and disappointing election process if in fact the new Karzai administration delivers services and delivers security, which is what people here are really wanting."

Keep that little nugget in mind as you read Tony Karon's brutal assessment of Sen. Kerry's mission to Afghanistan where he rather publicly retied the strings to the wayward US puppet - and was hailed as some kind of diplomacy wizard by "the spoon fed media."

Or consider Nelson's open ended optimism ("a strategy that works, in terms of international involvement there" and "whether Afghans will accept this government as a legitimate one") as you read just the first two or three paragraphs of Tom Engelhardt's depressing assessment of where things stand in Afghanistan and how the US is likely to proceed there.

Or consider Gareth Porter's Halloween article in the Asia Times about the US-warlord ties.

Can anyone in her right mind still pretend that there is a US-led Afghanistan strategy that works, or that the Afghan people (whoever that vague constituency is) will come around to welcome the US-Karzai-NATO occupation?

NPR and the Resistence of Memory

Monday's Morning Edition featured another NPR exclusive on Afghanistan. Mary Louise Kelly was on to explain all about the Two-Clock Theory of War. Opening the report Renee Montagne explains:

"We begin this morning with Afghanistan and a story about two clocks: one ticks in Washington, the other in Kabul. They measure progress in the war. The challenge: they are moving at very different speeds" [notice the bloodless euphemisms - "progress" and "challenge"].

All perspectives in the story are provided by war advocates [Peter Feaver -Bush speech-shaper, warmakers Petraeus, Gates, and Mullen - and Steven Biddle, CFR fellow, who Kelly notes is "part of a team advising General Stanley McChrystal...on his war strategy"].

According to Kelly and all her experts, there are always two clocks in US warmaking: the grown-up, big-boy clock of the presidents, generals, and admirals as they bomb, occupy, kill, and destroy. This serious and mature clock ticks very slowly and takes years to produce progress and - ultimately - victory. Opposed to this is the childish, impatient clock of the American public which whizzes away at double or triple time and leads the uninformed masses to reject the wisdom of the wars that the serious grown-ups are running. Kelly's guest Feaver states that "A longstanding criticism of democracies, but especially the American democracy, is that Americans are impatient. They want to see success sooner than later."

Listening to this report, I realized that there is something grimly comical that Kelly has forgotten to tell us about: The Third Clock.

The third clock is the one that doesn't tick at all. In Kelly's report she notes something I've been hearing a lot about since Obama took over the Afghanistan War: the 12 to 18 month "window of opportunity." In Kelly's report we hear Admiral Mike Mullen state

"I do believe we have to start to turn this thing around from a security standpoint over the next 12 to 18 months."

Kelly reiterates this by noting, "So, progress within the next 12 to 18 months. But is that on the Washington clock or the Kabul clock?"

The date of Kelly's report is September 14, 2009. Let's see how the NPR clock ticks out this magical 12 to 18 month time frame.

THREE MONTHS ago, General McChrystal told Tom Bowman, "So, we see it as very, very important, probably over about the next 12 to 24 months, that we absolutely get a trend where we are clearly winning....I think that the next 18 months are probably a period in which this effort will be decided."

TWO MONTHS ago Robert Siegel talked to Sir Jock Stirrup [not joking], head of the British war staff, who stated, "Well, I think our judgment is probably the same that has been reached here in the United States, which is that over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, we need to be able to demonstrate convincingly to our people that we are making the right degree of progress."

ONE MONTH ago Inskeep chatted with Anthony Cordesman of CSIS about the coming victory in Afghanistan. Speaking on the US war policy in Afghanistan, Cordesman claimed, "If these tactics are to work, we'll know in 12 to 18 months."

Holy smokes! NPR's clock must be an Einsteinian relativity clock that appears to be moving normally to everyone at NPR, but in the real world is virtually standing still. What do you want to wager that next summer NPR will still be dutifully reporting on the need to show progress in Afghanistan within the critical 12 to 18 month time frame? Who knows, by then maybe they'll have dropped this catch phrase about Afghanistan and be explaining how the US has "turned a corner."

The Protector

On Weekend Edition Sunday, Lynn Neary, speaking to NPR's Tom Bowman about the possibility of more US troops being sent to Afghanistan, asks, "Will General McChrystal be asking for more troops?"

In explaining that McChrystal probably will ask for more troops Bowman states,

"The big effort he's making is protecting the population and to do that you need more troops."

And this passes for journalism?

Another Scott Natural™

(re: NPR sponsor Scott Naturals™ and flushable wipes)

Scott Simon really oozed about Corazon Aquino this morning:

• "Cory Aquino often told interviewers that those years in exile were her happiest. When your husband is thrown into jail for what he believes, in a country ruled by a dictator's words and whims, it is hard to trust that your children can be safe."
• "'I am just one of the thousands and millions of victims of the Marcos dictatorship,' she told crowds."
• "She displeased both leftists who wanted more radical land reform, and rightists who didn't want to talk to leftist radicals."
• "Corazon Aquino didn't have the life she expected—and because of it, gave hopes to others that they could make better lives, too."

Notable is Simon's remark that "she displeased both leftists...and rightists." At NPR that is the mark of excellence in leaders and journalism: not courage, not facts, not truth, not a consistent set of moral or legal standards - but a perverse insistence that criticism from left and right validates any policy or action.

Sadly, Simon's tribute reduces Aquino to a one-dimensional heroic caricature, but her legacy was far more complex. Aquino clearly helped move the Philippines away from dictatorship - but she also tolerated gross human rights abuses and was close to many military leaders who helped overthrow Marcos - but were steeped in traditions of torture and repression.

The most glaring problem with Simon's praise is the complete lack of historical context (a typical feature of NPR reports). Simon fails to mention that the Marcos dictatorship and its "thousands and millions of victims" would not have been possible without staunch US support over many years.

Simon's omissions are quite relevant to current events both in the Philippines and here in the US. In the Philippines a surge in human rights abuses (and US involvement) has occurred since 2001 and continues up to the present under the Arroyo regime (including a US citizen who reported being recently tortured). As the Alfred McCoy link above and his book, A Question of Torture, indicate - there are obvious links between the CIA-assisted Marcos torture regime and the current US torture regime of slappings and beatings, "stress positions," sexual humiliation, waterboarding, sensory deprivation, etc. Perhaps most chilling are McCoy's conclusions that the intoxicating power of the torturers can lead them to attack the very governments they supposedly serve. As McCoy notes, the ability of the torture architects and practitioners to secure amnesty in the Philippines has allowed many of them to stay in power - and for their practices to resurface.

Reciprocity Anyone?

Certain things often get discussed on NPR that make my skin crawl. On Saturday's ATC Guy Raz talks with Richard Clarke about "probing" Bush-era crimes by ignoring US laws and international obligations and instead holding a "kind of truth and reconciliation commission." Why NPR thinks it's adequate to have a legal no-nothing like Guy Raz interview Clarke on such matters is beyond me, but one part of the interview really jumped out - the endorsement of extrajudicial executions.

Raz says, "...a few weeks ago, of course, the CIA director Leon Panetta shut down a program to assassinate members of al-Qaeda - a program that was actually never implemented..." [Raz just accepts that the program was never implemented because CIA officials said so to the New York Times - even though Seymour Hersh reported a strikingly similar implemented program back in March].

Clarke eventually gets around to talking about the assassination program. The conversation proceeds as follows:

[Clarke] "The other issue is should we have a hit squad to go out after the leadership of a terrorist organization that's trying to kill us. I think most Americans would say yes we should under very tight controls, and frankly CIA is not the right place to do that..."
[Raz] "...who should do it?"
[Clarke] "the best way to do it is to give it to a well-trained, well disciplined unit in the US military."
[Raz] "Forgive me, this may sound terribly naive, but why should the United States government be in the business of doing this at all?"
[Clarke] "Only because we have enemies out there who do wish to do us harm and we do need to act in our own self defense against terrorists."

That's it: a pathetic "Forgive me, this may sound terribly naive..." whimper is the only challenge offered to a US Government program of assassinations. Missing is any discussion of international laws and human rights issues, including the recent UN concern. Also missing is any history on any similar US assassination programs - even by "well-trained, well disciplined units." If in some ideal world the US actually had reliable, actionable intelligence (which it often does not) then why not arrest and prosecute? In Pakistan the US military use of drone assassinations highlights the rampant slaughter that almost always follows a policy of supposed "targeted killings."

Finally, Raz's deafening silence after Clarke's justification for carrying out extrajudicial killings ["because we have enemies out there who do wish to do us harm and we do need to act..."] begs the question of reciprocity. Why doesn't he ask, "So by your standard, countries - let's say Cuba, Nicaragua, or Iran - that have experienced state terror from the United States would have the right to launch assassination programs against US officials and agents, wouldn't they?"

Unfortunately, on NPR it never enters the newsreaders' or reporters' heads to apply a standard good enough for the rest of the world to the United States - because we are so exceptional.

The Catch Phrase if You Will

If you wondered why the US is in Afghanistan [has nothing to do with the sordid geopolitics of uranium, copper, oil and gas -of course], it's all about keeping promises - so says Steve Inskeep:

"The increase in American troops this summer is in some sense an effort to make good on a promise that the international community made back in 2001 - to bring peace and a measure of prosperity to a country that's been at war for decades..."

Bringing peace and prosperity...of course. How's that for objective journalism?

To bolster the story that the US has nothing but the noblest aims NPR turns to Seth Jones, RAND expert on Afghanistan. He explains that the problem of the Soviet Army's war in Afghanistan was "their decision to treat this as a conventional war and what becomes clear when you look at counterinsurgency operations is the focus should be on protecting the local population not on killing it."

Every time I hear someone talking about counterinsurgency "protecting the local population" it blows my mind. Just what alternate universe counterinsurgency is Jones talking about? Anyone who reads history knows that most counterinsurgency operations are about extreme levels of state terror being applied to vulnerable - usually poor - civilian populations. I'm thinking of Vietnam, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina, Indonesia, East Timor and of course the US godchild of counterinsurgency - Guatemala.

Montagne jumps in to explain that [protecting the local population] "is now the catch-phrase if you will of the US military...McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, that's precisely what he says US troops and NATO troops are there to do now."

Oh silly me, I didn't realize that the "top US commander" said that's what the US military is doing - dang! I guess if the good general says it's so then it must be true. Seth Jones is not about to disagree either, stating that "the focus...has shifted to try to protect the local population." I guess it's not only the military that owns this catch-phrase.

Lastly, the report closes with Inskeep's announcement that "Renee is packing her bags to travel to Afghanistan and we'll be hearing from her..." That is great news, Montagne has done some really profound reporting from Afghanistan including stories of BIG VICTORIES.

NPR and the Pragmatic Police State

This morning NPR features "an exclusive first look at a legal proposal....a detailed plan for holding terrorism suspects without trial, and it comes from two experts outside of the government." Inspite of the two "experts" mentioned by David Greene, Ari Shapiro only interviews one of them, Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution.

According to Shapiro "Wittes occupies a relatively unique position in national security. He has studied and written books on pragmatic approaches to fighting terrorism." [Actually he has written only one book on terrorism - Law and the Long War.]

I don't have any problem with NPR interviewing Wittes. Unfortunately, he is an important fish in circles of state power in Washington, DC, though - not surprisingly - his ideas are not particularly fresh or inspiring, and he heartily supports for projections of US military and foreign policy hegemony. Consider the Publisher's Weekly and Booklist reviews of his book:

• PW: "Both a defense and critique of the Bush administration, the book argues in favor of many of the measures taken by the executive branch while condemning its failure to secure congressional cooperation and the necessary legal architecture to back policies that were bound to be unpopular."
• Booklist: "Wittes remains highly sympathetic to the administration’s aims, giving them the benefit of the doubt on matters that other critics of the administration have not. Ultimately, his hope is that innovative legal structures will be forthcoming and seen as legitimate in a way that current efforts are not."

As Wittes himself states in an article on the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, "we have no choice but to continue the war on terror in some form."

My problem with NPR's coverage of Wittes is that it is an endorsement of Wittes' viewpoint. In spite of his utter lack of credentials in the area of human rights, international, or Constitutional law and his rather conventional apologist approach to torture, he is a "expert" with "pragmatic approaches." As Glenn Greewald notes, Wittes can't even get the most basic Constitutional points correct when he argues for "legal" dictatorial powers for the President.

And what is the thinking behind Wittes' expert, pragmatic approaches? Consider this excerpt of the report:

(Shapiro) "So why push for indefinite detention at all? Well, Wittes says we already have it. People have been at Guantanamo for years. There are thousands more in Afghanistan...." (Wittes) "And so there's no question that we're detaining people outside of the criminal justice system. The question is what the rules are for those detentions and who makes those rules."

Look closely at the logic of this.

So why push to codify and legalize practice __________?
Because __________ is already being done!

All you have to do is put any debased government abuse of power in the blank - torture, rape, murder, rendition, illegal surveillance, etc. to see where this can lead. In Wittes' world (and NPR's by extension) the problem is not with the practice itself and a craven and complicit Congress that refuses its constitutional role of holding the executive office perpetrators accountable. Instead, the problem is that Congress has been slow to enact legislation to codify the practices. And according to Wittes, this reluctance to legislate away basic Constitutional values - and this is where he becomes a hero of the Weekly Standard security state devotees - opens up the possibilty of serious judicial oversight -OMG!

As Grumpy Demo points out on his blog - this is the kind of logic would please anyone who is hoping that our three branches of government would get "pragmatic" and realize that what we really need in the "war on terror" is a Unitary Benevolent Authoritarian Strong Man in the mold of Pinochet, Peron, or Castro.

Specialized News from a Specialized Reporter - NPR Promotes Counterinsurgency

In these times of austerity and job "shedding" at NPR, I have an excellent money-saving idea for those running the show at NPR. Instead of spending all the money it must take to embed a reporter like Tom Bowman with the US military in Afghanistan, why not cut him out of the picture and just hand a microphone to one of the officers or commanders there? Heck, if that's too expensive, why not just get on the Internets and pull some hard-hitting journalism from the military web site of whatever unit Tom would have been embedded with? It sure would be a lot cheaper, even though it would mean we wouldn't get the kind of critical insight that Bowman coughed up for us this morning:

"What they're going to be doing is something similar to what they did in Anbar province in Iraq. They're going to move out into the countryside and really live among the people - and that's the whole point here, is the counterinsurgency technique is to live among the people, provide security, and eventually help rebuild this part of Afghanistan...." [Could you have a more sanitized, propaganda laden description of the often repressive, brutal and violent strategy of counterinsurgency?]

And how about this informative answer when Liane Hansen asks about the "new top commander, General Stanley McChrystal...can you tell us something about him?"

Bowman: "....[he] ran the Joint Special Operations Command, that's the secretive unit that goes after high value targets. These are the guys that rolled up Saddam Hussein in Iraq and also Abu Musab al-Zarqawi...so he's sort of a specialized soldier with specialized forces...."

How's that for on-the-ground, in-depth reporting. From Bowman's report we'd never even guess that the whole Afghanistan counterinsurgency surge strategy (or any military solution) is likely to fail. And when asked to "tell us something" about McChrystal, Bowman somehow failed to mention the specialized assassinations and specialized interrogations carried out under McChrystal's tenure with JSOC.

I guess I can see why NPR doesn't want to can Bowman; imagine how boring plain, old propaganda, straight from the Pentagon would be without Bowman telling us how the Marines at Camp Leatherneck have some apprehensions, but are "really eager to get out of this base and really start doing the job here....they're eager to get out into the field and into the fight" (and really live among the people, too.)

Rumors of His Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated - NPR Champions Drone Attacks Again

In the comments section, NPR Check reader "Gopol" took note of more Drone Love from NPR on Friday morning. With his permission I'm posting his critique.

Where do these reporters come from? Mary Louise Kelly graduated from Harvard in 1993. Just in time for the Contract On America to usher in fellow Harvard grad Keven Klose as President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an acknowledged arm of CIA/Pentagon propaganda.

On Friday morning Mary Louise Kelly had a piece on how Predator drone attacks are cause for guarded optimism that we may yet kill Osama Bin Laden, whom, you may recall Benazir Bhutto claimed was murdered by the double agent Omar Sheik (about 6 minutes into the interview), just before she herself was murdered. It seems that killing (rekilling?) the straw man OBL has been a preoccupation of MLK (no, not *THE* MLK) for some time. In her pursuit she has made acquaintance with a large number of CIA ops:

"The trail for bin Laden was allowed to get stone cold over seven years," says CIA veteran Bruce Riedel.

Juan Zarate, the top counterterrorism official in President Bush's White House, says, "The administration smells blood here. I think al-Qaida is on its heels."

And of course she's intimately familiar with Ullysees S. Offishalls:
"Predator attacks have killed 11 out of 20 on the Pentagon's most-wanted list along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, say U.S. officials."

Not to be left unnamed, Hank Crumpton:
"a career CIA officer who led the agency's Afghan campaign after Sept. 11. He says Predator strikes are useful on two fronts: They have disrupted terrorist attacks, and they help in the hunt for bin Laden.

'Using the Predator and other drones, it gives us an opportunity to create a great deal of uncertainty, a fear among enemy leaders. It forces them to communicate more, forces them to move more, which provides other opportunities,' he says."

It's so sickening to be invited for an inside seat on the biggest kabuki charade on the planet.

MLK ends with this classic bit of ... what's the word for it when you do the thing that you say you would never do? As in, w"e would never even suggest guarded optimism."

The Counterinsurgency Channel

If you were listening to NPR last night you might have thought Tom Bowman was describing US foreign policy in Afghanistan when he said, "picture a Brinks truck on steroids." Actually he was simply describing a US armored vehicle.

The report itself is meant to promote an aspect of US counterinsurgency in Afghanistan - the training of Afghan police as part of Task Force Phoenix [what dumb ass names these operations anyway?]. The report opens with some great editorializing from Michele Norris:

"If American policy is ever to be successful in Afghanistan, it will be because of people like Army Major Jim Contreras; he's the top American police trainer in Helmand province in Southern Afghanistan. Afghan police are key to fighting insurgents: they know the neighborhoods, the people, who is an insurgent and who is not."

In spite of the likely failure of the US "mission" in Afghanistan - and the dismal (and lucrative) history of the US training program for Afghan police forces, Norris assures us that this will be the "key to fighting insurgents." It's striking, too, how apropos of nothing, Norris confidently asserts that they know "who is an insurgent and who is not"?

There is nothing in the report to indicate how disastrous the new Bushama/Obamush War in Af-Pak will be, instead there is the focus on one program (and one man) that will deliver that ever elusive, mythical (can you say Phoenix?) success that empires are always gunning for in Afghanistan.