A Largely Peaceful Police State

On November 30th the LAPD cleared out the LA Occupy encampment with a massive police action that was hailed in most mainstream media outlets as being peaceful and well-conducted.  Being a defiantly mainstream media organization - NPR jumped on the bandwagon of LAPD-love with two features on its November 30 Morning Edition.

One involved Renee Montagne interviewing Frank Stoltze a reporter at NPR affiliate KPCC.  Stoltze described "a massive police operation" that was "a largely peaceful operation" and commented that the protestors were "quite well-disciplined."  Stoltze also claimed that the police action was due to "concerns about public safety' and because "there was some drug use going on."  At that point Montagne interrupted him to say "And drug dealing, I mean there were some stories of you know, you know homeless encampments that had encroached on the encampment." [Of course "some stories" is all the evidence Montagne produces to substantiate such a provocative claim].

The second story featured Inskeep interviewing Frank Stotlze who explained that "in the end there was very little force used...in part because this is a new LAPD."  The interview covered much of the same material as the Renee Montagne piece.

BUT there were a few little problems with this Police State Theater propaganda from LA:

First, the coverage of the raid was restricted to 12 members of a media septic tank pool.  Like the restrictive media pools of the US military these "pools" are meant to tightly control access to what is actually happening and to favorably tilt coverage toward those who set up the pool and grant/deny access to this "pool" - in this case the LAPD.  You would think, just the very concept of the police media pool would raise journalistic concerns - unless your news organization is tiltled toward spinning press coverage in favor of police actions against dissidents.

Second, and most important, a lot of rough and very ugly police behavior occurred outside the coverage perimeter that the media pool had access to, and to those who were arrested once they were out of the range of media pool coverage.  Ruth Folwer of Occupy LA reported on police "kettling," rough tactics, and arbitrary arrests that occurred on side streets around the main occupy crackdown.  Lisa Derrick documented police use of "non lethal" weapons  on non-violent, non-resistant LA protesters. The LA Weekly blog noted the brutal police attack on photojournalist, Tyson Heder.  Patrick Meighan, one of the writers for the popular FOX cartoon, Family Guy, has posted a very detailed description of his first hand experience of the rough treatment meted out to those arrested at Occupy LA.  A very similar picture emerged from Exiled editor, Yasha Levine's description of his treatment by the LAPD.  The Brad Blog gathered evidence of both the deplorable conditions endured by arrestees and the use of police violence against protesters during that "largely peaceful operation" by the "new LAPD" that NPR's Frank Stoltze was so impressed with.

Any organization that claims to be doing journalism would recognize that it has a duty and responsibility to revisit a story/s which future events and facts have shown was so distorted, truncated, and false.  It's bad enough that NPR considers it acceptable to adopt the servile role of reporting from a police-picked/ police approved "pool" - but even more disturbing is its utter lack of follow-up in correcting the misinformation conveyed in that report. Given that we are talking about NPR (which has a fondness for jack-booted police tactics and for the expanded powers of the surveillance state) it really is no surprise at all that NPR has purposely ignored the evidence that their two main feature stories on the police action against Occupy LA were nothing but pro-police propaganda filled with inaccuracies and spin.

If you want to get a sense of the "objective" and "unbiased" attitudes of the so-called journalists who work for NPR and its affiliates listen first to the Steve Inskeep interview story I mentioned above and hear the derision in Inskeep voice as he sneers "OK, so the tree fort is on its way out." [this link has great images and descriptions of that "peaceful" action.]  Even more disturbing is KPCC's John Rabe's editorializing as he interviews pool reporter and colleague Frank Stolze and says [at about the halfway point of the interview]:

"There were a lot of protesters who were saying [Rabe imitates them with snarky intonation] 'This is what a police state looks like.' And it's not what a police state looks like.  They may not like the lines of cops, but nobody was shot down like in say Syria, Egypt, Libya - these are police states; I don't think that helps the Occupy LA's cause by having people shouting dumb stuff like that."     

For Better or Worse

One of the bitterly entertaining aspects of listening to NPR is to wonder how outrageous, ridiculous, and/or stupid the script handed to the on-air "personalities" would have to be before they would balk at reading it. Inskeep had a doozy on Monday morning, introducing NPR's story on Mosul, Iraq:

"We can argue whether it's better or worse, but there's no doubt that Iraq is different than it was five years ago this week."

That is rich indeed! We can argue - challenge accepted.

The case for worse: One million plus civilians killed, over four million Iraqis displaced, almost four thousand US troops killed (tens of thousands wounded), half a trillion dollars spent and counting, the nation of Iraq utterly fragmented and heavily armed, and - of course - all that security that Iraq has brought us...

The case for better: ___________________________________? Maybe Professor Inskeep can come up with something; I'm just drawing blanks.

The story on Mosul also had a notable quote. Montagne was talking to Lourdes Garcia-Navarro about how dangerous Mosul still is. Out on embedded patrol with the US military recently, Garcia-Navarro's convoy came under fire. She described it to Montagne this way:

"And five years later I'm sitting in the middle of a Humvee taking fire from all sides from al-Qaeda in Iraq."

It may sound like quibbling, but how on earth does she know that the fire came from al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)? It might have been any armed Iraqi group, the US isn't exactly welcome in Iraq after all. And if you think this oft repeated distortion of who the US is fighting in Iraq is not a propaganda issue, consider the take of the Weekly Standard and the White House on "al-Qaeda in Iraq." They would have us believe that the fight in Iraq is against AQI. Of course, the reality is far different. Even the Council on Foreign relations admitted in December that "expert estimates on the number of foreign fighters among Iraqi insurgent groups range from a few hundred to over 3,000. Total AQI numbers have been estimated at over 10,000." But the myth of al-Qaeda in Iraq's power and omnipresence is important to the Iraq hawks, after all its the only leg the occupation has left to stand on, and sloppy reporting of this kind only builds their case.

Traveling With the President

On Jan. 16th's Morning Edition Montagne says, "NPR's Michele Kelemen has been traveling with the President and joins us on the line." I think she meant to say on the leash.

Here's a bit of my own two cents for NPR: drop the whole stupid farce of having your reporters accompany, travel with, and follow the President. Whether its Kelemen, or Greene, or Gonyea, your reporters never challenge the stupidity, hypocrisy, or dishonesty of the President - on the contrary, they go out of their way to repeat, rephrase, and regurgitate whatever he and his staff say. It's embarrassing. It's like getting the news from Barney.

Bush just spent a week visiting the scene of his crimes and Kelemen was along for the ride. Here's her insights:

Jan. 8, ME: "he thinks he can help the Israelis and Palestinians reach a vision of what a Palestinian state would look like....Bush said he hopes people in the region will remember him as the, quote, 'guy who was willing to fight extremists and who had faith in people to self-govern.'
But if this is a trip about burnishing his legacy, he's not expected to change his tune on what he calls the freedom agenda."
Jan. 9, ATC: "he tries to get Israelis and Palestinians to agree on the contours of a Palestinian state....Bush, not one to get down into the nitty-gritty of peacemaking, said he's been urging the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to keep the big picture in mind....he is optimistic the two sides can agree on a vision of a Palestinian state...He says the US won't dictate, but will nudge the two sides....another issue is crowding the agenda on this trip, the threat of a rising Iran. "
Jan. 10, ME: "It is a bold prediction [a peace treaty before Jan 2009]....he's confident with the proper help that the state of Palestine will emerge, and he's confident that when it emerges it will be a major step toward peace....Part of this day was really about giving a boost Abbas. The Palestinian president is a weak leader....Gaza, for instance, is under the control of Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel consider a terrorist organization."
Jan. 10, ATC: (referring to Bush's crass joke about checkpoints) "President Bush told Palestinians today he understands their frustrations about Israeli checkpoints and he got a firsthand view of that, well, sort of."
Jan. 11, ATC: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says talks are focusing on threats in the Gulf, the problem of extremism, whether by al-Qaeda or Iran and, as she put it, Iran's tentacles in the region....This was Mr. Bush's first visit to Israel as president, and he capped it with an emotional tour of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, where he said it was a sobering reminder that evil must be resisted."
Jan. 13, ATC: "Mr. Bush came out strong on Iran, calling it the world's leading state sponsor of terror, and accusing Tehran of sending hundreds of millions of dollars to extremists around the world."
Jan. 15, ME: (on all the progress in Iraq) "reinstates former Saddam Hussein loyalists to jobs...reconciliation...some momentum on this legislative front...administration thinks this might add some momentum to the process...."
Jan. 16, ME: (referring to the thug, Mubarak): "And President Mubarak has been around for a long time. President Bush noted that, that he could he could get some advice from someone who's been in this business for a very long time."

Man, that is some hurting journalism. "Arf!"

In the Labyrinth

(Image source)

Jamie Tarabay presented a disturbing piece of embedded journalism this morning. Renee Montagne sets it up with the "progress in Iraq" nonsense that has become standard fare on NPR: "Here’s an example of how signs of progress in Iraq can sometimes lead to side effects," she says.

Tarabay is with a US Army unit conducting "Operation Minotaur" in the town of Quba in Iraq - a town that used to have about 8500 people, but is down to about half that now. Here's what we hear about the operation:

• The unit she's with "arrived at the southern entrance of Quba as artillery from a nearby forward operation base rained down on the northern part of the village..."
• The Americans find three “suspects,” do a swipe test on them that’s positive for TNT and "Captain Few gets on the radio to the soldiers holding the detainees." We hear the captain say, "OK get rocking and start beating this guy up cause he’s obviously working some bombs right now and want to know where they’re at." Tarabay tells us, "The interrogation of the detainees took place out of view."
• According to Tarabay, "By nightfall at least twenty insurgents had been killed and at least as many detained."
• The Captain explains, "All and all it was a good day. All my boys are safe. We accomplished our mission. All my trucks are good. You can’t ask for much more. The first day of the operation went smoothly."
• Tarabay finishes with, "The second day was deadlier. Four of the soldiers in Captain Few’s unit were killed by a roadside bomb. Two others were wounded. The operation continues."

I have a few questions for Lieutenant Tarabay: Does she have any problem with beating up detainees? Is she curious how the "interrogation" is done? How did she confirm that the twenty people killed were in fact insurgents? What happened to the twenty detainees--were they turned over to the hospitality of the drill teams of the Interior Ministry of Iraq or are they just being "beaten up?" Why do four US deaths make a "deadlier" day than twenty Iraqi deaths?"

This piece made me so angry I could barely stand it. Yes, it made me sad that four soldiers from my country were killed and two wounded, probably severely. And it also disgusted me that our President and Congress and generals are sending units of our soldiers to do the dirty work of this illegitimate war--that an operation goes into a town of several thousand people, rains down artillery on them, taunts them with loud speakers, invades their homes, kills twenty of them, disappears twenty more--and then broadcasts it as "a good day." Operation Minotaur (again) is a fitting name for this, although it is not clear who is Theseus and who is the Minotaur in this bloody operation, but the terrible labyrinth is clearly Iraq .