A Grain of Salt with my Prime Rib Please

Any half-witted reader knows that it is the nature of governments to lie, and then to lie some more, and finally to lie again. People of all ilks have pointed out Goebbels' pointed remarks about the power of the big lie (ironic link warning!). Of course, the US is as guilty as any promoting lies that have dire consequences: from Vietnam and El Salvador to secret prisons and torture. The Bush administration, however, has taken this tendency and turned it in to a stock in trade.

So you might expect any thinking person, and especially a journalist, to be extremely skeptical about the latest Bush Administration presentation of "intelligence" on the Syrian facility destroyed by Israel back in September. You might expect it, but not NPR. To serve up this latest dish from the White House, NPR turns to Tom Gjelten. Here's just a sample of his hard-hitting skepticism evidenced on Thursday's ATC :

• "...the amazing thing Melissa is that they have photos...that were taken inside the reactor by somebody, a spy presumably..."
• "...photos show definitively that what was being built there was in fact a nuclear reactor."
• "...however they did have a very interesting picture of a senior North Korean official..."
• "...they also said that they could support all of these pictures and the conclusions they drew from them with other evidence."

I'm not claiming to know whether or not Syria was building a nuclear reactor or not. The silly video that the Bush folks produced makes a dumbed-down case, but are the photos real, current, actually from the bombed site, etc? NPR doesn't express a hint of doubt, but, as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out, joins the rest of the mainstream media in just repeating whatever the administration claims. For a bit of salt on this juicy story you can read the Greenwald piece, take a look at Larisa Alexandrovna on Huffington Post, David Kurtz on TPM, or Steve Benen on Carpetbagger Report. Or you can just sit at the counter with NPR and gobble it up - yum.

Update (4/27): Juan Cole (through an informed reader) pokes more holes in the US/Israel case against Syria. In his post he also recommends this Farley article in Counterpunch (which spanks Gjelten and National "Pentagon" Radio).

The Line on Lebanon

On the dangerous situation in Lebanon NPR turns this morning to "expert" David Schenker. Schenker is from WINEP (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy), a right-wing, pro-Zionist think tank. (At least NPR mentioned that Schenker has honed his expertise in the Pentagon from 2002-2006.) Schenker is a complete tool of Neocon-Israeli policy as this gem of an interview reveals.

It's pretty sad, that when the US public should be getting information about the complexities of the Lebanese crisis, NPR turns to someone who churns out the standard bunk about a "pro-Western" government threatened by the Syrian hegemon. Nothing about Washington helping Israel to bomb away the "Cedar Revolution" during the summer of 2006. Nothing about the occupation and crimes of Israel during its years in southern Lebanon that gave rise to Hezbollah in the first place. Instead it's just the flattened narrative of good guys vs. bad guys.

Iran, Syria, and "Salvador" Sepp

This morning Renee Montagne talks to Kalev Sepp about the need to secure Iraq's borders. Here's Renee launching the piece with her completely unsubstantiated accusations against Iran and Syria: "There are six countries surrounding Iraq – Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Iran – the most problematic of these borders are with Syria and Iran; black market oil is being smuggled into those countries, weapons and foreign fighters are flowing out to Iraq. That’s according to Kalev Sepp of the Naval Post Graduate School..."

Beyond the "according to Kalev Sepp" attribution, Montagne doesn't offer a shred of evidence for her claims. I've yet to find any independent sources that can confirm strong Syrian support for foreign fighters crossing its border into Iraq (any more than Saudi Arabia). And the idea that Iran is arming and supporting the Sunni insurgency is ridiculous. Iran's interests are with its SCIRI allies in Iran. Sepp states that Iran in particular "helps move terrorists" and "the most lethal forms of the improvised explosive devices" across its border. As if the insurgents needed more lethal weapons from Iran when they were able to loot and cache them after the invasion.

Who is this Kalev Sepp and should we trust him? Here's what he has to say about the horrors of murder, rape and torture that the US inflicted on El Salvador in the 1980s, "During the 12-year-long Salvadoran Civil War, 25 SF[Special Forces] field advisers and 30 staff advisers were the core of the effort that trained the 50,000-man Salvadoran Army that battled insurgents to a draw and forced them to accept a negotiated end to the war." This nightmare of unspeakable US-sponsored atrocities against a civilian population he calls "America's success." And Sepp should know, he was one of the US Special Forces advisors helping the Salvadoran killing machine of which he's so proud.

How Stupid Does NPR Think You Are?

This morning NPR's Inskeep tells us they are going to "examine two things that are said again and again about the Middle East. These are basic statements that turn up in news coverage, not always with much explanation. One statement is about Iran and we’ll get to that in a moment. The other involves Lebanon which is in the news this week."

This seems like a reasonable start to an important topic, but note what comes next--the voice of President Bush breaks in, "We support the Lebanese people’s desire to live in peace and we support their efforts to defend their democracy against attempts by Syria, Iran, and allies to foment instability and violence in that important country."

Bush, Inskeep explains, "was responding this week to the assassination of a Lebanese politician. The politician was an opponent of neighboring Syria and the President, like many officials, mentioned Syria’s attempts to influence Lebanon. That leads to the basic question of why Syria would try to influence Lebanon."

Unbelievably, there is no irony intended, even though Bush helped Olmert and Israel's armed forces virtually destroy 15 years of Lebanese structural and political gains during Israel's 34 day rampage against Lebanon this summer. What kind of mess has Bush-US foreign policy created in the Middle East and why have they done it is the "basic question" that comes up if you have a heart and a brain.

As usual NPR refuses to seriously question the aims of US foreign policy, and so to answer its own biased question, it turns to former US Ambassador to Syria, Theodore Katouff! There is nothing wrong with interviewing ambassadors (the Syrian ambassador was just on the BBC) but they are never independent sources of information (unless they have defected or renounced their professional role). Katouff, actually seems like a thoughtful man, and he genuinely seems to want better relations with people in the Middle East -- but he is a career representative of US foreign policy and has nothing critical to say about this summer's tragedy. Why not consult Josh Landis, Bassam Haddad, Juan Cole, or the intrepid Dahr Jamail?

In this two part series, NPR next is going to tell us about Iran's role in the Iraq conflict and whether they can help stabilize it. NPR opens this part with this blather from Blair regarding Iran: "where the roots of this global terrorism are to be found, where the extremism flouishes." Then to explain the Iranian connections to Iraq, NPR turns to its own Mike Shuster! This is really sad; Shuster has no expertise on Iran, and apparently doesn't speak Farsi or Arabic. From him we get the lukewarm statement that assertions about Iran assisting the insurgency are "questionable" (they are in fact absolutely ludicrous). He also asserts that Iran "could prevail upon certain political figures like Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq to reign in their forces" even though al-Sadr is no tool of Iran , whereas the ruling DAWA party or SCIRI parties are very close to Iran (something Shuster never mentions).

Could NPR be more lazy and unprofessional? Probably...

Holes

There are two glaring holes in NPR's Morning Edition and ATC coverage of the tragic assassination of Pierre Gemayel in Lebanon. The first is the refusal to bring up the possibility of his assassination being the direct or indirect work of Israeli or US covert operations. Any impartial coverage of the situation would have to at least bring this up given Israel's history of assassinations and covert operations in Lebanon and other countries, US rogue behavior, and the political benefits that the US and its allies have gained from this assassination (not to mention its obvious disadvantages to Syria and Hezbollah). NPR on the contrary repeats again and again the opinion that Syria was behind the assassination (which may or may not be true).

The other missing angle on this development is that a major reason the current Lebanese government is so weak and Lebanon so fractured is because of the US/Israeli assault on Lebanon this past summer (NPR politely calls it the war between Israel and Hezbollah). On Morning Edition Peter Kenyon has the gall to say, "...here in Lebanon, where arguably the closest thing to a success the White House has had in the Middle East is the pressure that forced Syria to withdraw its troops last year. If this government now falls and a pro-Syrian or dysfunctional national unity government takes its place some say that success would be badly tarnished." Tarnished? -- hey newsflash Peter, that "success" was killed and buried in this summer's preplanned military attack on Lebanon.

It is really sad that NPR can't offer its listeners full, complex, nuanced coverage on an issue such as this one, even if it means daring to question Israel and the supposed good intentions of US foreign policy.

P.S. A reader kindly pointed out the close coverage of the assassination offered on the Angry Arab blog -- take a look if you get a chance.