Echo Chambers, Mirrors and Henny Penny Temple-Raston

Juan Cole and NPR Check reader, informedveteran, recommended Tom Englehardt's excellent piece on the Washington Echo Chamber's reaction to the revolutions sweeping the Middle East. Englehardt writes:

"It would seem like a good moment for Washington - which, since September 12, 2001, has been remarkably clueless about real developments on this planet and repeatedly miscalculated the nature of global power - to step back and recalibrate.

As it happens, there's no evidence it's doing so. In fact, that may be beyond Washington’s present capabilities, no matter how many billions of dollars it pours into 'intelligence.' And by 'Washington,' I mean not just the Obama administration, or the Pentagon, or our military commanders, or the vast intelligence bureaucracy, but all those pundits and think-tankers who swarm the capital, and the media that reports on them all. It’s as if the cast of characters that makes up 'Washington' now lives in some kind of echo chamber in which it can only hear itself talking."

(Enter Dina Temple-Raston stage far-right)

Dina was not about to let her bread and butter (banging the al-Qaida fear drum) get drowned out by the inspiring and historic events in North Africa and the Middle East. On Thursday's ATC she dragged out a trio of "those pundits and think-tankers who swarm the capital" to rattle on about the terrifying opportunities that the uprisings provide to al-Qaida. The statements of these "experts" provided some rich irony:

Bush stooge Juan Zarate said,

"That is to say, al-Qaida has been very good at focusing the attention of their constituents and of the world on this idea of the far enemy. That is that all of the world's problems, all of the angst and grievances of the Middle East can be blamed on the United States, or at least can be affected by attacking the United States."

Seems to me there was some other terrorist organization that focused its constituents' attention on a far enemy and blamed every problem on a distant foe.

Then Temple-Raston trots out NPR regular & CIA-award winner, Bruce Hoffman to state that al-Qaida will

"exploit whatever issue is served in front of it, and do so equally adroitly. So for now it will focus on the near enemy."

Oh my God, enemies of freedom and civil rights focusing on the "near enemy"!

Lastly Temple-Raston highlights the expertise of Rick "Ozzie" Nelson whose "last military assignment was with the Joint Special Operations Command" (can you say JSOC?) Regarding Yemen and Libya, special operative Nelson explains that al-Qaida's leadership is

"probably best positioned to exploit the weakness in those countries."

Imagine the cynicism of a group that exploits weakness and upheaval in troubled countries to indiscriminately murder civilians.

Seriously, one of the things that I love about these uprisings in the Middle East is how starkly they expose the history of US government actions in the region as being based on complete contempt for the human rights and dignity of the actual people in the region. The fact that al-Qaida apes Washington in its contempt for the people it claims to champion and - like the US government - is willing to use extreme methods of violence to achieve its aims is almost laughable compared to the decades of such behavior by Washington.

But it's not laughable if you are one of the media "professionals" who depend on the Washington echo chamber that Englehardt critiques. In that case you have to keep hammering on the same discredited themes that earn you access to the "expert" think-tankers and counterterrorism wankers that populate your predictable reports. These reports are predictable that you'd think a journalist would be embarrassed. Not Temple-Raston, she was back on Saturday morning squawking about the terrible danger of al-Qaida rising Phoenix-like from the turmoil in Libya. Want to guess who her experts were? Bruce Hoffman, Juan Zarate, and Rick "Ozzie" Nelson. Now where have you heard those names before?

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.

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."

Talking Swat

Last Tuesday on ATC I heard a rather typical Jackie Northam piece regarding the Pakistani truce with TNSM in the Swat valley. She interviewed the usual smorgasbord of CIA, US State Department, and National Security Council shills and - what do you know - they all had basically the same opinions, or as Northam so pointedly stated:

"....none of the analysts interviewed for this report thinks that the truce in the SWAT valley will hold for long."

Honestly, I just didn't have the time, stomach or basic knowledge to sort out Northams lousy (and lazy) journalism, so I emailed Manan Ahmed who posts at the informative ICGA (associated with the other Informed Comment) and who produces the really fine blog, Chapati Mystery. If you haven't visited it, don't let it remain a mystery for too long. I asked him if he'd be willing to post on the NPR piece and allow me to cross-post it here, which he kindly agreed to. Well, he went above and beyond the call - putting NPR in the context of the other rather poor coverage of the Swat valley story. Here's the opening of his post:

READING SWAT

Increasingly, I am convinced that the discourse on Pakistan within the United States needs some major intervention. My fear, or maybe paranoia, is that Pakistan is en-route to be declared "mentally incapacitated" by United States aka "failed state". The impact of such a declaration (whether stated or not) would be that US will need to put a "care-taker" in charge of the mess. The rising frequency of the drone attacks, the extension of missile strikes, the troop "surge" in Afghanistan read as concrete steps towards a radically intrusive strategy towards Pakistan. I will have more to say on this. But I wanted, for the moment to simply bring to your attention some recent writings on Swat.

1. Jackie Northam, "Pakistan Deal With Taliban Draws Critics", All Things Considered, Feb 17, 2009.
Perhaps the worst of all recent pieces - NPR could only find 1. CIA Station Chief, 1. State Department Official and 1. NSC Official to declare that the Swat deal basically meant that Afghanistani Taliban have basically invaded and taken over Swat and that this means the Pakistani army is ridiculously weak. Between the lines, you should understand that the nukes are about to fall into the Taliban hands. Also al-Qaeda. Thank you, NPR.

To continue reading.

Drone Love

I thought NPR couldn't show more love to the unmanned, extrajudicial killing machines of the Pentagon and CIA. There was one at an awesome arms bazaar on January 2007; there was "Drone Daddy" coming home from killing on April 2007, and Drone Bowman salivating over the exquisite precision of killer drones on December 2008.

You can never have too much of a good thing, so NPR brought out Jackie Northam on Monday morning to talk about how the use of killer drones in Pakistan is being "reviewed" by the US. Odd thing is that - except for Andrew Bacevich's blunt assessment that drone attacks represent an expanded war in Pakistan - the rest of the interviewees are rather upbeat about them:

• Seth Jones of the RAND Corporation, using the same "clear, hold and build" propaganda of US counterinsurgency, says that drones may be helpful in the short term, but "over the long run, they need to be supplemented by much broader, longer-term activities to clear hold and build..."
• Stephen Cohen of that "liberal" Brookings Institute claims (with no evidence) that the majority of people killed by drones in Pakistan have been "militants." He also notes how humane they are: "What they do is allow any country that possesses them to pinpoint and target without much collateral damage. The drone in a sense, while it conjures up images of a mechanical monster, in fact is far more effective and more humane than dropping tons of bombs on an area."

After Jackie's softening up operation Monday, Tom Gjelten emerges from the shadows on Tuesday morning with yet another big "scoop" from his employers high officials at the CIA. It's a real performance:

• According to Tom, starting early last year "the CIA turned up the heat. Unmanned aircraft began targeting suspected al-Qaeda leaders and facilities in Pakistan on a routine basis. Now US intelligence officials are reporting the results of the ramped up campaign. The al-Qaeda leadership has been decimated says one official."

• "The enemy is really, really struggling says another official. These attacks he says have produced the broadest deepest and most rapid reduction in al-Qaeda leadership in several years."

• The featured "skeptic" of these claims is Bruce Hoffman (CIA award winner). Hoffman, according to Gjelten "says one effect of the strikes against al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan could be a demoralization of Jihadi warriors in other parts of the world." This is followed by Hoffman's own voice, "Might they not conclude if the United States can reach out and target these highly protected and valued individuals, what happens to the ordinary soldiers?" That is some serious skepticism!

Just in case you get some wild idea that maybe our half-trillion dollar war-stimulus package is a bit much now that al-Qaeda is on the ropes, Gjelten reminds us that we have nothing to fear but the lack of fear itself:

"The officials are careful to say the reported success of the Pakistan campaign does not necessarily mean the al-Qaeda threat has diminished. As many as a hundred fighters have already graduated from training camps in Pakistan and are said to be prepared for terrorist operations in the West."

We then are treated to the puffery of Sec. of War Gates asserting that "we will go after al-Qaeda wherever al-Qaeda is." To which Gjetlen wonders, "And where might that be? Al-Qaeda has been defeated in one area before only to pop up somewhere else. It's operations in Pakistan may be weakened, but officials say the network is now gaining strength in east Africa."

Westward ho! to Africa. Sounds to me like we might need a few thousand more of these humane, freedom lovin' Reapers.

And the Answer Is...

There's something to be said for hearing from establishment figures who are loyal to the role of US as global hegemon. People like Richard Clarke are interesting in that they reveal just how radical and extreme the Bush administration is, but they are not usually critics of US military, economic, and political control of the world. This morning Linda Wertheimer interviews Clarke about the troubles that the US-NATO is experiencing in Afghanistan. Wertheimer asks, "Is there a way to turn the situation in Afghanistan around at this point?"

Now astute readers, what do you think the answer is? Any guesses? Maybe a regional solution? Come on, I think you can guess. Clarke says, "There is, but only by sending in MORE TROOPS, and keeping them there for a while...."

Now that is a smart idea, as the Soviets discovered. Clarke goes on to explain how the problem is also with Pakistan that and US unilateral action without Pakistani permission makes sense because, "any President has to act that way to protect the lives of Americans."

As Barnett Rubin notes in a post on Afghanistan, this flattening of the complex situation in Afghanistan to a rather stupid either/or proposition is common in the US media, but doesn't do anything to inform people, or suggest a way out of the morass of Afghanistan:

"As usual, the Times article presented the alternatives as do nothing, Predator missile strikes, or invasion by U.S. Special Forces, without any discussion of competing Pakistani and Pashtun political agendas for the tribal agencies. A successful and sustainable strategy has to be carried out together with allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, within a political framework that they support."

Arguing for the Government

So the Miami Six trial ended in another mistrial. There is a gag order still in effect and NPR is determined to make us do just that! Now you might think that a second mistrial would indicate that something is a bit rotten at the core of the government's case. Even in the Reuter's story of the case today they reveal that the initial arrest was greeted with skepticism by some:

"U.S. officials denied there was any political link between the Miami case and the midterm U.S. congressional election in November 2006.

But the election came against the backdrop of a slump in President George W. Bush's popularity and in public support for the Iraq war, and critics of the administration frequently accuse it of exploiting fear of a repeat of the Sept. 11 attacks."

Not NPR though. They are here to explain how honest and sincere the US government is in the "war on terror." Inskeep begins the story telling us that a "dramatic arrest has turned into a legal nightmare for the federal government." Yeah, and what about the legal nightmare of people caught up in these ridiculous cases (e.g. Jose Padilla or Sami Al-Arian).

Greg Allen then files the report by talking to Wake Forest University Law Professor, Robert Chesney. Allen explains that "...one reason this has turned out to be such a tough case for prosecutors, he says, is because the government intervened in the alleged plot so early." See, Big Brother Uncle Sam was just all anxious to protect us from the big, bad jihadists and that's why the case is so weak. In case you don't get the message, Allen carries on: "at the time of their arrest Justice Department officials talked about this early intervention strategy, saying they were intent on being proactive and preventing terrorist attacks. Chesney says that strategy can make prosecutions difficult."

And this passes for journalism. God help us...

American Drones

Jackie Northam emerged from Think Tank World to catch us up on how critical "relations with Pakistan's military are...to US national security." Her story simply endorses and builds on the US government's long policy of focusing on maintaining (and engorging) the Pakistani military at the expense of Pakistani civil society.

Ahmed Rashid in an interview in Harper's Magazine offers a stinging assessment of this kind of approach:

"The U.S. has relied upon the Pakistan army in the Cold War in the 1950s and 1960, in the Afghan war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s and so for it to depend again on the army in the war on terrorism is not unusual. The problem is that this is not an external war but an internal war or even a civil war in parts of NWFP [Northwest Frontier of Pakistan]. Here what is needed is a government and local authorities which have the confidence of the people so that they can fight the extremists but also deal with public problems and deliver services. None of this the army is capable of doing and the Americans have utterly failed to realize this."

NPR's Jackie Northam likewise has "utterly failed to realize this," too. But, God forbid history or critical thinking get in the way. NPR can always go dipping into the pro-US government think tanks for backup help. Northam turns to

• Fredrick Barton with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The CSIS states that it was founded for "finding ways for America to sustain its prominence and prosperity as a force for good in the world."
• Kurt Campbell (notice his bio is from his days at the CSIS )the CEO of the Center for a New American Security.
  
• Professor Anatol Levin with the Department of War Studies at Kings College, London. He has connections to IISS, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the New America Foundation.
  

In and of itself, there's nothing wrong with NPR interviewing these people about Pakistan, but their perspectives are all grounded in an approval of the US as a "soft" imperial power in the world. All are believers in the essential goodness of the US imperial mission in the world. There is no significant range of opinion - which is typical of NPR.

I guess you can't expect much from a story that begins with Steve Inskeep saying, "Here's a question for you: What does Pakistan's military have in common with the game of cricket?
Well, they both have intricate traditions and rules, they're both difficult for outsiders to follow, and according to some observers, the army and the popular sport may be the only two things still holding Pakistan together."

Northam closes her report by noting that the US has stepped up its "counterterrorism" role in Pakistan and states that "there have been several air strikes recently on suspected al-Qaeda hideouts - reportedly from American drones."

Inskeep opening, Northam closing: I'd definitely say American drones.

Patriot Act

What "premiered right after 9/11 but...was created before the attacks"? The Patriot Act, right? Yes, and Jack Bauer! According to Pam Fessler this morning, on NPR's scummy commercial for Fox TV's 24, it "premiered right after 9/11, but Jack Bauer's character was created before the attacks."

And who "is always...torturing people" and "willing to risk...the Constitution." Bush? Cheney? Rumsfeld? Well, yes...and Jack Bauer, too!

Now, you might think that a legitimate news show covering a pro-fascist hero like 24's Jack Bauer would be interested in exploring how disturbing it is that a show like 24 has been so popular when it's sick values have had parallel expressions from the bunch of criminals running this country for the last seven years.

Of course that's expecting a lot of NPR. Instead of offering substance, NPR wants to lionize Jack Bauer. According to Inskeep "the 21st century has its own fictional hero [music from 24]. He's a ruthless counterterrorism agent who fights the clock to protect the nation." And Fessler has a hard time keeping her limited wits about her as she gets hot for Jack: "What is it about Jack Bauer that's so appealing?" she asks. She even asks the founder of a Bauer fan website if she's "bothered that we don't really have a Jack Bauer to save the day?"

In case any NPR listeners have a scrap of humanity or intelligence left and are thinking, "This is really sick," Fessler turns to pop culture pundit (pimp?) , Robert Thompson, to bolster her case. Thompson assures us "in a world in which we think that so much is out of control, it is incredibly satisfying to watch a human being who is so completely in control....If real life in the 'War on Terror' we are not going to be able to kick the enemy's butts in noticeable ways, then we are going to demand to see the enemy's butt kicked in our fiction." Fessler also takes comfort in the fact that fans of the show include Cheney and Chertoff!

Fessler manages to include ACLU officer Barry Steinhardt who is a fan of the show to reassure us that "it doesn't mean that you agree with everything that you enjoy; this is pure escapist entertainment." Then we get the morally bankrupt and stupid argument about torture not being utilitarian. "Steinhart points out that when Jack Bauer does it, it always seems to work" and then Steinhart chimes in "Well in the real world torture doesn't work [sounds of a torture session]." Well, I beg to differ. Torture works wonders. It worked for the US in helping Pinochet rule for over a decade, and for destroying Nicaragua, etc. I'm so sick of hearing how torture might be ok if it gave good intelligence. Who gives a crap? Shouldn't torture be condemned because it victimizes the innocent, benefits oppressors, and destroys the dignity of human beings and societies.

Sickening

Scott Simon felt moved to open his heart and denounce the terrorist bombings in Baghdad. Here are highlights glossed with hyperlinks:

"...the kind of news that can startle and sicken.

Many of those killed were reportedly young school boys....

Every now and then it doesn't seem impertinent to ask 'Why?' What did the people who plotted those bombings think that killing innocents would do about anything?

Several Iraqis in the market told authorities they recognized the women, they were mentally handicapped....mentally disabled adults...respond to attention, how they're so often eager to be helpful. The thought that someone took advantage of these generous instincts is - I can't avoid the word again - sickening.

Those innocent people killed...were the object of the attack. Some people make violence their own ideology, death and destruction their own goals. They may invoke venerated names, even God's, or cite some goal, even peace or freedom as their guiding lights, but killers often say they hear voices. Conventional politics takes so much time, so much compromise. You can lose or win and see little result, so some people try to capture history with a single shot....people don't have to know what you stand for, just what you're willing to do - that's how the thugs in this world can make good people cower.

This Is a Pro-Agency Story

That's what John Kiriakou tells Robert Siegel in an interview on ATC tonight. I'm inclined to take him at his word, too. There's something fishy about this whole Kiriakou fellow. Are we really supposed to believe - as he tells Siegel - that he didn't get CIA permission before going public about the waterboarding of Zubaydah? Frankly the whole Kiriakou episode smells of a carefully planned story/leak. When I first heard him on ABC news the other morning, I assumed he was still an active CIA asset (though claiming to be retired), and was getting out the "ticking time bomb" and "torture saves American lives" line because evidence of CIA torture was going to be exposed anyway as relates to the contorted destroyed-tapes story. Who knows?

What I do know is that Seigel's interview was about as compliant, dull and unremarkable as such an interview could be. Seigel obviously did no homework on the Zubaydah case or he might have challenged the absurdity of Kiriakou's claims that "it worked in that case. And I firmly believe that American lives were saved because of it." Siegel could have simply said, "Can you back up that claim with any evidence besides your own words?" He might have asked how a mentally ill prisoner's tortured testimony could possibly have saved lives? He might have asked how Zubaydah's confessions coming about two months after his capture provided actionable intelligence. Or he might have mentioned that another "high value" CIA detainee's torture yielded "information" that has cost thousands of American (and over a million Iraqi) lives!

All these what ifs would assume that Siegel is really interested in getting at the truth. Instead he comes off as either lazy or complicit, letting Kiriakous get away with saying, "this is a pro-Agency story to be honest with you...the agency is a group of very hard working, very patriotic individuals out there all over the world risking their lives every day to make the United States a safer place. It's an intelligence success story." He really said this!

And Kiriakou must have loved being interviewed by someone who lets him end the interview by stating that the Zubaydah case is "something that Americans should be proud of."

Well, I'm not. I'm disgusted by it, and I'm disgusted that NPR can't challenge this stupid Jack Bauer "saved lives" rubbish. Anyone who knows about torture (much of which is sponsored by the US government) knows that there is no "ticking time bomb" scenario; what there is are hundreds of thousands of innocent people subjected to the ultimate tool of state terror - the violation of their bodies and minds. And once in a while, some poor victim of torture may be guilty of some kind of crime, but they are the minuscule exception.

The Good, the Bad and...

• The Good

I have to credit NPR with doing a pretty good interview this morning on the dissenting Army captains who published a signed opinion piece in the Washington Post. These officers, who have left the military, offer one interesting take on the war in Iraq. It was especially refreshing to hear them after all the "upbeat" news spinning out of Iraq. Wouldn't it be great if NPR didn't wait for people like these former captains to publish something in the Washington Post and instead did a little more original searching for multiple views and opinions on the Iraq nightmare? NPR's website also links to the website of Luis Carlos Montalvan, one of the captains, which is worth a look.

• The Bad

Wouldn't be NPR without the bad, would it? Jackie Northam provides one of the stupidest reports on Pakistan and Musharraf that I've heard in a long time. As Porter notes in today's Open Thread below, where is Philip Reeve's expertise on Musharraf and his disappearing uniform? He last talked on the topic over a week ago. Contrast his thoughtful pieces with this worthless filler from Northam:

Inskeep asks her if Musharraf has really given up anything by "taking off his uniform." She responds, "He has given up an enormous amount of power and influence" even though she later admits to Inskeep that he "he handpicked the next head of the army." Then Northam - apparently thinking she's a walking Zogby poll and can speak for the 164,741,924 citizens of Pakistan - tells us "people seem to like him here; they think it's a good choice." In spite of serious human rights shortcomings, Northam reminds us that this handpicked chief "is pro-American though...and most importantly for the US is that he's on board with this fight against terrorism as is Musharraf. And that's important Steve...." Talk about on board - Bush couldn't have said it better himself - or could he?

• And...

And the ugly? Well there's always plenty of that on NPR, but the commenter, artes moriendi, in the Open Thread below has a deserving candidate - Mara Liasson's sorry piece on the Clintons.

Zero Recall

Morning Edition first ran a piece about Cambodia and the brutal Khmer Rouge years. Funny, I never once heard any questions about the US aerial slaughter unleashed on Cambodia that helped create the conditions for the Khmer Rouge takeover. And, handily, it never came up how the US backed the Khmer Rouge once the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and ousted them. (It's interesting how this twisted version of history so resembles the text that Bush is reading from.)

But heck, that was 30 years ago and the memory does get a bit fuzzy. How about something more recent, like say the joint US-Ethiopian invasion of Somalia way back in December 24th of last year (kind of a little Bushist Christmas present for the people of Somalia).

Listen, if you can stand it, to Gwen Thomkins give her report of the sad plight of Somalis streaming out of Mogadishu. It's one of those Africans as poor, herd-like, violence-prone, hungry, diseased folks pieces that is pretty revolting - especially coming from Thomkins who was complicit in running propaganda operations for the US aggression against Somalia in January of 2007. This kind of "Ministry of Truth" trimming of history is typical NPR fare; in fact just three short months after the US and Ethiopia helped install the "transitional" regime in Somalia, NPR had already erased the US from the list of armed parties involved - imagine that!

Fetch!

Surely, you've done this: tell a dog, "Go get it!" as you fake throwing it's favorite ball or toy. Poor creature runs about half way to where the object would be an then turns in confusion. And so with the departure of the Fran Townsend, Bush's "Homeland" security and "counterterrorism" advisor, NPR chases the invisible tennis ball while missing the main story.

First Melissa Block comes on to interview Townsend. You'd think anyone who's been awake for the last six years might just address the fact that the foreign policies of the United States have made it more hated and targeted than ever before, that the war in Iraq has provided a terrorism recruitment bonanza and hands-on training ground for potential non-state terrorists. Even many stalwart centrists and military loyalists such as Joseph Galloway have nothing but venom for the Bush administrations "war on terror." Just do a quick Google search of "failure of war on terror" and you'll get a huge helping of tips on what to ask one of Bush's wooden-headed quislings for the "homeland." Instead all Block can do is chase after the failure to catch Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. Yes that is a tactical failure, but is nothing compared to the overall disaster of "counter-terrorism" that the US government has waged.

Then Pam Fessler comes on to chase the invisible stick by turning to all the pro-establishment experts that NPR can dredge up to talk about Townsend. She talks to David Heyman of CSIS, who as his bio notes has "served in a number of government positions, including as a senior adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Energy and at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on national security and international affairs." Next up is P.J. Crowley from the Clinton Administration, and finally James Carafano from the far right Heritage Foundation, (Of course there is some mild criticism, but obviously none of these people are going to challenge the basic foreign policy actions of the US (both before and during Bush) that fuel terrorism.

(the graphic comes from here)

Up Yours ACLU and Fourth Amendment, Too

A reader pointed out to me that I really needed to give a close listen to Dina Temple-Raston on Sunday's ATC. She's reporting on the ACLU's unmasking of the Department of Defense and FBI colluding to dismantle more of our dear old, 4th Amendment. The basic story is that the FBI can "legally" issue National Security Letters (NSLs) pretty fast and loose and this allows them to snoop on lots (and lots) of people without the bother of going through the courts. The Department of Defense (DOD) on the other hand doesn't have such easy access to our privacy...unless the FBI plays the lackey for DOD requests. It seems the ACLU has caught them doing just that. I know that given the overtly fascist nature of the current Bush administration behavior, the FBI can look pretty good (as in its agents reaction to Gitmo). But, Jeez, the FBI does have a not-so-pretty history of its own.

In this case Temple-Raston discredits herself as a reporter, and comes out fully in the corner of the FBI. Here's what she says:

"[the ACLU claims] that the Department of Defense actually used the FBI as a foil to actually get information that it shouldn't have been getting - personal information- on its employees. And we're checking into this, but it looks like what has actually happened is that - and certainly, this is what the FBI says happened - was that the FBI and the DOD were working together on joint investigations, and in connection to those joint investigations that is where the NSLs were actually issued. So it's unclear whether or not there really was an end run that DOD actually tried to get around the law or whether or not this was done on the up and up. It looks right now like it was all done on the up and up."

It's "up and and up" all right.

Chimp Intellectual and Reagan Revenant

(apologies to the real chimps)

Silence

As of Tuesday the silence was still deafening on the denunciations by two top British Generals, Maj Gen Tim Cross and Gen Sir Mike Jackson, of the US Iraq War plans. Jackson called the policy "intellectually bankrupt" which might explain why NPR News doesn't want to touch this one! There were plenty of natural opportunities to discuss this story, not least the British withdrawal from Basra which was reported on by Corey Flintoff.

Success

Ah, the sweet smell of success! That was the tone and substance of Don Gonyea's homage to Bush's visit to Al-Anbar. All the NPR News talkers have accepted the Anbar success story without qualification - but thank God, Juan Cole offers a needed counter assessment of the "calm" that the US has brought to this restless little corner of the empire.

Chimptacular

On Tuesday's ATC Robert Draper provides a pathetic suck up to W. He's got a new book called Dead Certain (all its title lacks is a comma!) We are supposed to believe that Bush is a deep reader (80+ books! this year according to Draper) only trumped by the intellectual Rove (of "brotherly relationship"). Draper describes Bush as like an "umpire." Nothing about his arrogance, smug attitude, complete ineptitude, etc. Here's a few gems of Draper's assessment:

• "...he's a great deal more mature and more disciplined..."
  
• "...he didn't have much a sense of history back then...now he's a real voracious reader of history..."
  
• "...he can be expansive and reflexive..."
  
• "That clarity of purpose, that steadfastness can be seen as a virtue; it can also be seen as stubbornness, and as a vice."
  
• "as far as I can tell, is not a greedy man..."
  
• "...Bush is very interested in promulgating this notion of freedom and how it plays across in other countries."
  

Drones...again

Also on Tuesday, another "slop-sided" report on unmanned drones used to attack people from the air. Not one peep about all the women and kids missiled from bed to grave by the already trigger happy US Air Force. The irony of the drone operator leaving his wife and baby asleep to go to his predator training was too much for words. Typical NPR necrophilia for any military tool that kills people.

Branding

How perfect that ATC is seeking fawning doggerel to go with its theme music - pure corporatized banality, who could argue with that? Oops I meant ATC™.

Getting Killed for Greed and Lies is so Noble

Instead of outrage for lives thrown away in the crime called the Iraq War we get 7-plus minutes of patriotic schlock. Montagne tells us, "the rising casualties have caused many to question their support for the war, but not in Pontotoc, Mississippi, a tiny town that's lost four of its own." Reporter Kathy Lohr notes,"flags fly on main street every day, people talk about love for their country and about the willingness of young men to serve and to sacrifice." "People here honor the soldiers every day like the time the family took Lucas to dinner just after he got out of boot camp." A pastor of one of the dead soldiers said, "John was raised in a church, on the Bible. That's where he got his character...his convictions....that's different from most of the world...we believe that's why we love our country..." Lohr wraps the piece with, "families continue to show their willingness to serve and to sacrifice if necessary..."

Chokehold

Thursday's ATC offers a perfect example of NPR's painfully narrow range of opinion on an issue. If we get any criticism of the Iraq War on NPR, it is sure to come from some government or military official or organization that will never question the basic premises of the US actions. So it is that coverage is given to a congressionally mandated report by a retired Marine general, James Jones. The report gives a bleak assessment of the Iraqi police and a modestly more positive review of the Iraq army. So, to analyze this inside the establishment report where does NPR turn? To NPR regular, Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales! Put that in your jingle!

Thompson Lives!

Fred Thompson, creepy reincarnation of Reagan, enters the race and NPR's ATC has the gall to talk about elected officials having paper trails (have they ever investigated one?), but instead of researching Thompson's Senate paper trail, gives us a superficial send up of Thompson's "presidential" acting roles (Bob Mondello should have refused this assignment). I did have to laugh when I realized how much Thompson sounded like a drugged Dr. Phil (possible running mate?)

Osama Who?

Bin Laden reappears and on Saturday's weekend edition Goneyea says, "The reappearance of Bin Laden can cut several ways for the Bush White House: it does serve as a reminder that the al-Qaeda leader is still at large despite intensive efforts by the US to track him down; it also shows that even in hiding Bin Laden has the ability to get a message out to the world. But the White House also sees the tape as reinforcing the argument that the war in Iraq is a key part of the fight against terrorism..." Is there anyone but a rabid Bush loyalist (and Gonyea) who views Bin Laden's tape as reinforcing the argument for war in Iraq? Notice how pro-Bush Gonyea is: the most obvious way it cuts is that Bin Laden would be either captured or an insignificant pariah if the US under Bush had not moved into uber-militarism and aggression mode after 9/11, but had capitalized on the global revulsion against al-Qaeda by using diplomacy and incentives to work on vexing Middle East problems.

Iraq Mirage

If you could stomach Weak-kneed Edition Saturday you have more fortitude than I. The coverage of Iraq is so far slanted toward US imperial ambitions that it defies the imagination. The general framework of discussion about Iraq is that the US has provided better security, but the hapless Iraqi government has failed to produce results. Today, Ann Garrels is brought on as an expert though she has provided more than her share of misinformation on Iraq, and NPR steps outside its usual military and goverment circles by talking to George Packer of the New Yorker who is on to scold those who want US troops out (what a surprise) - but has nothing to say about the criminals who launched and ran this war from day one.

Go Ahead, Ask and Challenge

This morning featured one of those stories where NPR covers a subject that is very critical of the Bush administration, but then undercuts it significantly by the way it is presented. NPR is covering the release of the Terrorism Index, the third semi-annual survey of foreign policy experts produced by the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy. It's not a particularly courageous thing for NPR to do, after all as the creators of the survey note "Eighty percent of the experts have served in the U.S. government—including more than half in the Executive Branch, 32 percent in the military, and 21 percent in the intelligence community." This is squarely a within-the-establishment critique.

Mary Louise Kelly notes some of the stunning results of the survey: "84% believe the US is not winning the war on terror" and "91% believe the world is becoming more dangerous for Americans." She also points out that "even among the experts who identify themselves as conservative, nearly two thirds say the surge is either having no impact or making things worse." As she says, "That could be read as a pretty stinging indictment of Bush administration policy."

Pretty good so far, but wait...Kelly turns over a significant portion of the report to Aaron Friedberg, who as Kelly tells us, "spent two years as deputy national security adviser to Vice President Cheney." Friedberg says the survey is "not a ringing endorsement...but you always have to ask, 'What would be better and where would we be if we were pursuing policies very much different than those that we have been?' It's possible we would be better off in certain respects, we'd likely be worse off in others..." Whooaa...is there a reporter in the house?

I think Mr. Friedberg just tossed one smack-dab over the plate, and Kelly doesn' even take a swing. I mean seriously, the guy just invited the question...come on. Wouldn't it be great if she asked Friedberg, "So do tell me where would we possibly be that's worse if we had not invaded Iraq, set up Guantanamo, tortured detainees, tried to overthrow Hamas, bungled Afghanistan, etc., etc., etc?" Instead Friedberg's challenge is just allowed to hang there and cast doubt on the whole coverage of the survey that has preceded it. Boy if I were a lying, greedy, sniveling, manipulator working for the Bush administration, I'd just love to get some talk time in with the NPR news team - talk about a cakewalk.

Don't Know Much About History

Skip NPR's chat this morning with regular guest, RAND terrorism hack, Bruce Hoffman. When asked by Renee Montagne if the "explosive filled vehicle" in the UK represents an innovative import from the Iraq War, Hoffman correctly notes "on the one hand this is not a new tactic," but then erroneously traces it back to Hezbollah 's attack on the US Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. Well, well, isn't that convenient - ignoring the previous long history of the car bomb, including Israel's bloody use of it, and the post-1983 reliance on the car bomb by the US in Beirut and in its training of the mujaheddin in Afghanistan (training that inadvertently culminated in the 9/11 attacks).

For a complex and unnerving history of the car bomb use your spare time to read Mike Davis' history: Part I - The Poor Man's Air Force and Part II - Car Bombs with Wings.

The Year of the Thwarted

Break out the champagne! Mary Louise Kelly declares that "You could call 2006 the year of the thwarted attack." She headlines this Bush commercial with the alleged Heathrow Plot of August 2006 and wraps it up by noting, "Here in the US security officials were also busy trumpeting foiled attacks. In June the FBI announced the arrest in Miami of seven homegrown terrorists..."

We then are subjected to three "experts" on terrorism:

• John Brennan, a CIA veteran and former head of the National Counterterrorism Center. NPR doesn't even realize the sick irony of having a loyal CIA veteran on to talk about counterterrorism.
  
• Ohio State Professor John Mueller (seems like the most thoughtful and least ideological)
• Bruce Hoffman (RAND hack and regular guest/apologist on NPR)

About the only interesting fellow among these three is Mueller, who argues that the terror threat is overblown. Notable is that none of the guests talks about the crass and rather Orwellian use of threat alerts and fear-mongering by the US government to justify attacks on civil liberties (eg. the dictatorial Military Commissions Act) and continued funding of its bloated war industry. There is also no attention given to the likelihood that US-Bush policy has created a new generation of sophisticated and battle-trained terrorists who will be a around for many years to come. And finally, given that the report opened with Kelly "trumpeting" the thwarted Heathrow and Miami attacks, it is significant that the two plots are not held up to any scrutiny, even though the Heathrow allegations were problematic in many ways and the Miami plot was a farcical construct of the FBI and Gonzales.