Assassinating English: Belligerent Signals

A Belligerent Signal - from The Mirror (UK)

As usual, Glenn Greenwald has an excellent post on the distorted coverage by the US mainstream media [including NPR] regarding the latest assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist.  In spite of official US denial and condemnation of the murder - most experts agree that Israel - and possibly - the US were responsible for the killing (although at this time there is no conclusive proof).

However, as Glenn Greenwald points out, the murder allows us to see how the term "terrorism" is worthless as a factual term, but - in the US mainstream press - is a politically loaded term of propaganda applied ONLY to states and individuals deemed hostile to the US government/corporate interests.  By comparing the coverage of this actual terrorist attack against a civilian scientist to the coverage of the ludicrous US claims regarding Iran's supposed plot to kill a Saudi ambassador, one can see how the term "terrorism" is distorted and misused in most major news organizations in the US.  And NPR is no exception.

If you have any doubts that NPR is somehow distinct from other corporate news organizations, this latest story offers firm evidence to the contrary.  A simple search on NPR's site will reveal the way the NPR aligns its coverage:

Search "Iran terror assassination" on NPR's site and limit it to "Heard on Air" and you get FIVE stories (3-Morning Edition and 2-All Things Considered) on the flimsy, alleged Iranian assassination plot from October 2011, but NONE on this actual terrorist act against Iran. Among the stories from October is this chestnut featuring State Department "intellectual" Ray Takeyh throwing around various forms of the word "terror" (in relation to Iran) 13 times!

To find anything aired on NPR regarding the actual political murder of a civilian in Iran you have to drop "terror" from your search and simply query NPR with "Iran assassination" and limit it to "Heard on Air".  Doing this gives you ONE story on All Things Considered. Not only does this January 11, 2012 story not mention terror or terrorism, it features Peter Kenyon normalizing this assassination as a legitimate tool of statecraft.  Paraphrasing nuclear analyst David Albright, Kenyon says, "Tehran must be feeling the pressure." Albright then speaks,

"It knows that some of its scientists are under threat by assassination. There's been cyberattacks. There's efforts to get Iranians to defect. And we've called it kind of a third way. All those things are continuing, and that's added to the pressure."

If there is any doubt that Kenyon and NPR share this criminal attitude, Kenyon adds,

"This is the latest in a series of increasingly belligerent signals between Tehran and Western capitals."

That's interesting because I don't recall the "plot" to kill the Saudi ambassador described as a "belligerent signal," and I would wager a Romney-sized $10,000 that the assassination of a US or Israeli scientist by Iranian-backed killers would never be called a "belligerent signal" on NPR.

One can not help but listen to this rubbish from NPR and recall the previous Ombudsman's defense of NPR's refusal to call torture "torture" when the US committed it.  NPR could not call waterboarding torture  because, as she put it, "the problem is that the word torture is loaded with political and social implications for several reasons."  And of course, the exact same twisted reasoning must be motivating NPR to avoid using any form of the word terror to describe actions that serve US government interests - no matter how clearly they fit any basic understanding of the term.

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?

A Tale of Two Teens

If the security apparatus of the United States assists a client state in disappearing and detaining an American citizen, torturing him, and keeping him imprisoned so the FBI can aggressively interrogate him - how long does it take NPR to report on this assault on the rights of a citizen?

The horse hasn't even left the gate on that one. The story of Gulet Mohamed's detention and alleged torture was broken by the NYT on January 5, 2011, and as of the evening of January 18, 2011, NPR has yet to give ANY airtime to the case. As of tomorrow we'll be at two weeks and counting...

However, if you are an American citizen arrested on the evening of November 26, 2010 for planning to bomb a public event in Portland, Oregon, how long will it take NPR to jump on the case? The answer is four days (that does not include the immediate on-air hourly news-updates which NPR doesn't archive for searches). On November 30, 2010 there will be a full story on the case itself, and additional report featuring confrontational questioning of the mayor of Portland challenging the wisdom of his city's not fully joining a federal security "anti-terror" organization.

The complete lack of coverage of Gulet Mohamed's ordeal is no accident. It has been written about extensively since January 6, 2011 by Glenn Greenwald - and a "big follower" of Greenwald's writing is none other than NPR's go-to "Counterterrorism Correspondent," Dina Temple-Raston. Here is what Temple-Raston said to Greenwald on Nov. 5th at the NYU Constitution and National Security Conference [beginning and ending time is indicated]:

(53:16) "Hi there, I'm Dina Temple-Raston with National Public Radio, and I'm a big follower of yours Glenn and I like your stuff very much, but I'm sorry I'm going to have to correct you on a number of very basic points that clearly, uh, our representative from the FBI feels uncomfortable correcting you on..." (53:32)

The stark nature of attention and promptness NPR devotes to stories promoting the enhancement of state encroachment on individual liberties versus its complete lack of interest in reporting on the crimes of the US security apparatus is telling in this case. Both central figures in these events are about the same age, are American citizens, and were born in Somalia - and when it involves Somalia and the US "war on terror," Dina Temple-Raston is usually all over it.

Got History?

This past week NPR had Quil Lawrence providing us with "history" lessons on Afghanistan - always a dodgy prospect on NPR. This series features a major hole in the narrative; the active, long-term role that the United States played in bringing Islamic extremism and terror to Afghanistan is both ignored and covered up.

On Monday's ATC Quil gives us the long history of imperial adventures in Afghanistan. He says this:"In 1978, a communist coup installed a pro-Soviet president. The tribes rose up, and the Soviets invaded. Andrey Avetisyan is Russian ambassador in Kabul....By the mid-'80s, the United States was aiding the Mujahedeen to the tune of half a billion dollars...." [This "mid-80s" claim is furthered with a time-line on the web version of the story.]

Then on Tuesday's ATC - in a report that does at least note that many of the depraved warlords of the post-Soviet civil war are now in the government that the US is backing - we hear only that

"The mujahedeen, a patchwork army of Islamist guerrillas, bolstered with copious funding from Washington, defeated the Soviet army in 1989. What they couldn't do was unite to govern Afghanistan."

There are several problems with the NPR narrative:

• It places the beginning of active US involvement in stoking conflict in Afghanistan in the mid-80s, when in fact the US was actively assisting Islamic extremists there starting in the early 1970s. As Robert Dreyfuss has documented, this policy was just one part of the US government decision to encourage and promote Islamic fundamentalist movements as a counterweight to nationalist movements in the Middle East and Central Asia.
• The NPR version also ignores the role the US played in luring the Soviets into the Afghanistan trap (as recalled by Robert Gates and Zbigniew Brzezinski), leaving listeners to conclude that the US was simply reacting to events that were out of its control.
• Finally, NPR presents the US as simply funding what mujahedeen forces existed, instead of accurately exposing how the US recruited, organized and supplied the most ruthless, criminal and fanatic elements for fighting in Afghanistan. The idea was to foster these Islamic terrorists as a way of attacking the Soviet Union. The fate of the Afghan people never figured into (and still doesn't) the geopolitical maneuverings of US foreign policy players. As this pre 9/11 article from The Atlantic notes:

  "...the CIA began providing weapons and funds -- eventually totaling more than $3 billion -- to a fratricidal alliance of seven Afghan resistance groups, none of whose leaders are by nature democratic, and all of which are fundamentalist in religion to some extent, autocratic in politics, and venomously anti-American."

Some might argue that NPR's oversight is not all that important to the current complications that the US/NATO finds itself entangled in. But understanding the cold-blooded, ruthless arc of US foreign policy is essential to a critical assessment of the current US occupation of Afghanistan. By ignoring this, NPR can present the current US mission in Afghanistan as having only noble aims, allowing Quil Lawrence to make this closing statement in his Friday ATC report on "the mixed report card" from Afghanistan:

"And many of even the harshest Afghan critics of the Obama policy think it would be a disaster for the U.S. to leave Afghanistan in the state it is today..."

Really?...

[click picture to view the original WWI version]

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.

JACKPOT!

Shhhhh...whatever you do, don't say scramble on NPR when you talk about Africa. No matter how obvious (and crass) the military, energy and economic objectives of US foreign policy in Africa are - and no matter that others know a scramble when they see a scramble - keep the focus on the US military or State Department talking points about how noble the aims of the US in Africa are - or at least how they will stop the spread of terrorism there. Zwerdling interviewed Fisher of the BBC about Clinton's trip to Africa:

Zwerdling: "What are a couple of the countries there the US has the most potential problems ahead and what could they do to help you know ameliorate them?"

Fisher: "....but it seems like perhaps Somalia seems to have been a real focus of this trip meeting with that president in Kenya and also Zimbabwe here...two areas...hoping to push things forward..."

Zwerdling: "For example, Somalia, it's been an endless civil war there are apparently huge numbers of militants and extremists crossing the border into Kenya almost unchecked. What realistically could the US do about that?"

Fisher: "...al-Shabab this Islamist group which is causing great concern in Washington, it's said to have links to al-Qaeda and the great fear is that Somalia as a failed state might act as a springboard for further terrorist activity....so Somalia is one of these very difficult problems which Africa has had to grapple with. It's been in a state of almost non-stop civil war since the early 90s so it's not a problem which is going to be solved overnight..."

Not only are the real motives of expanding US hegemony not discussed, but when the focus is on Somalia the recent history of US destruction of stability in Somalia is censored, as it always is on NPR (see April 2007 and November 2007 for two glaring examples). You can't help but sense that to honestly discuss what Uncle Sam is up to in the world might just lead someone to connect the dots and conclude that...STOP! We are not an empire, we are not an empire, we are not, not, not, not....

Temple-Raston Busted Under New Restrictions

Damn! I guess Ms. Temple-Raston forgot to read the new policy I posted (see note below) for NPR employees about using stupid and misleading language such as "bad guys" in a report. If she had read it she would know that she now owes $1000 for this zinger during yesterday's glowing report on data mining software that will supposedly help catch terrorists:

"That's how it's supposed to work if you start with a specific target in mind. The harder problem is whether this approach can find a bad guy no one has already suspected was a terrorist..."

Actually, Temple-Raston's report was really a twofer - managing to promote a data mining software company AND to throw out some lop-sided propaganda about Hezbollah being nothing but a terrorist operation with "global reach." Given that NPR doesn't want to "take sides" when shooting off it's loaded-language pistol, I'm guessing Hezbollah (a political party and armed resistance group that repelled an aggressor, occupying power out of a sovereign nation) qualifies as a terrorist operation for killing and kidnapping civilians during its history. All right, if purposely targeting and killing civilians (and kidnapping them) qualifies a group as terrorist, then according to my own data mining I found a group that "no one [at least no one at NPR] has already suspected was a terrorist": the Israeli Defense Forces, of course!

Given the nature of her transgression, I hereby order Ms. Temple-Raston to donate $1000 to the inside source of the information on Israel's latest operation of civilian mass killings - the soldiers of Breaking Silence. She can just click right here and make a donation, and she can feel good about it because they definitely are "good guys."

NOTE: In my original memo to NPR I stated that the use of the phrase "bad guys" was forthwith prohibited. Temple-Raston - being very FBI sneaky - tried to get around this by dropping the "s" from "guys" and claiming that she was, therefore, not in violation of said policy. I submitted our dispute to binding arbitration and Temple-Raston was found to have clearly violated the spirit and intent of the guidelines and was ordered to make the payment immediately. Sorry Dina...

A Promise and an Apologia

NPR listeners may recall that on Dec. 22, 2008 at the end of an Impact of War story, the host of the show stated:

"Hugh Sanson reflects the opinion of a number of you when he writes 'The stories of young soldiers' lasting suffering are deeply moving - I would be further moved if NPR could consider any of the millions of Iraqis affected - the million dead, and the millions wounded or displaced. What effect would a story of a victim of an American bombing have. Is NPR too timid or too dishonest to offer such stories?' Mr. Sanson, our plan is to do just that in January."

Well, this morning NPR starts delivering on its promise. Liane Hanson states,

"During the month of December we broadcast a series of stories and conversations about the impact of war on US military personnel and their families. Now we're going to examine the wars' effects on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Next Sunday Iraq...today we focus on Afghanistan."

Interestingly, the story has almost nothing to do with the people of Afghanistan, instead focusing on how the rise of civilian killings by US and NATO forces is creating problems for the US/NATO "mission" there. Here's the substance of the piece:

• Nelson: "Well, Liane, Afghans are very, very angry, but surprisingly perhaps, their anger is directed mainly at Western forces...."
• Nelson: "...this operation [in Azizabad] had gone after a Taliban leader in the village, and what happened was when US special forces and Afghan special forces showed up to arrest the man - he and his men apparently fired first, and this resulted in a battle that lasted for many hours, and by the time it was over 90 civilians were dead..."
• When Hansen asks, "What accounts for the increasing death toll at the hands of US and NATO troops?" Nelson answers, "Well, one problem is that there just are not enough troops to deal with the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan which basically means that NATO and US forces have to use airstrikes to cover more ground to be able to get at the insurgents and the uh the terrorists that they're trying to get rid of...."
• Nelson: "And what are the troops going to do? They're going to have to fire back, and if they need help, they'll call in air strikes and you end up with a lot of civilian casualties.
• Nelson: "Another big problem is when in fact the Taliban do engage the West...they will do so from villagers homes and they will use people as human shields - and certainly that's what happened in the Azizabad case according to the Americans."
• Hansen: "Why aren't the Afghans expressing more anger then toward the Taliban fighters who are purposely putting Afghan civilians in harm's way?"
• Nelson: "Well to ease the anger the Americans do something...make condolence payments when there is an incident of civilian death that's caused, that's proven. And they do this quite liberally and quite frequently - also in general the West has changed it's rule of engagement in the past year or so, really addressing the need to be more careful, and perhaps look before you shoot and that sort of thing, they've also improved public outreach, and conducted joint investigations.

And where is the up-close, personal story focused on the impact of war on Afghanis that has marked the extensive "Impact of War" series so far? Guess I missed it.

Not only is Nelson's piece little more than a thinly veiled patchwork of pro-US/NATO damage control spin, it is poorly researched and simplistic. Throughout she portrays the war in Afghanistan as being "The West" against some monolithic Taliban (a misleading simplification that favors the US role in Afghanistan) or terrorists. Anand Gopal deconstructs this nonsense and his Global Dispatches blog offer an antidote to NPR's disinformation. Needless to say, Nelson didn't include input from any independent Afghani group such as the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission or the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan-RAWA (no wonder!) or any other independent locally based group.

Hansen ends the piece with "Next week our Baghdad correspondent...will join us to talk about the impact of war in Iraq on its citizens." So I guess that "story of a victim of an American bombing" will just have to wait for next week...or maybe the week after that...or maybe...

Mission Accomplished

Amazingly, the two following letters ended up by accident in my inbox:

Dear NPR,

Thanks so much for your loyal news summary this morning; I couldn't have scripted it better myself. Michele Kelemen did an excellent job representing the US State Department point of view regarding the Somali piracy issue. I've really appreciated your stellar record on muting any analysis of how our own foreign policy has lead to the dramatic rise in piracy. I also appreciate that bit about peacekeeping - nice - we definitely plan to keep Somalia in pieces for as long as possible.

Sincerely,
Condeleezza Rice

The other letter was from the big dog himself:

Dear NPR Reporticators,

I felt very gratificated for your kind warm-up for the War Collage speech that I'm going to presentify this afternoon. I just loved how Carl Kasell pointed out that there hasn't been any big terrorism attack on the Fatherland since I assumptioned to power on 9-11. He really warmed to my successful domestic security blanket successfulnesses. I definitely would like to have Carl fill out my legacy report card.

Mr. Kasell defintitely went above and out of the bounds of dutifulness in crediting my securification of America for my undisputed electoral reelection victoriousness in 2004. And it was a nice little twist of argumentation for him to note that the problem with the Iraq Freedom Campaign is weariness.

Thanks Carl, oh and I'm a big fan of the wit and suffocafistication of that Wait Wait funny show you do on NPR. I just loved the funnin' you had with CIA Hayden.

Sincerly,
George W. Bush

If you missed the news summary this morning, here are the sections that Rice and Bush were referring to:

Kelemen: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who was in the Security Council for the vote says the resolution goes a long way to help countries coordinate their response to what she called 'the scourge of piracy.' It authorizes nations to pursue pirates not only at sea, but on land in Somalia. Rice said the council should also address the root causes of the piracy problem: the poverty, instability and lawlessness that have plagued Somalia for decades. She said it's time for the UN to consider a peacekeeping operation though that will be a much longer diplomatic battle."

* * *

Kasell: "President Bush speaks today at the US Army War College in Carlyle Pennsylvania. He plans to return to the theme that helped him win a second term: preventing another terrorist attack against the United States. The President is expected to point to his record on national security emphasizing that terrorists have not struck again since the 9-11 attacks when Homeland Security became his focus. The President is also expected to promote the steps the administration has taken such as reshaping the intelligence community and disrupting terrorist financing. Mr. Bush won a tough reelection battle in 2004 largely because of his advantage among voters on the national security issue. Since then a turbulent second term has eroded his public approval, the country has grown weary of the war in Iraq, and more recently the staggering economy."

Privatizing Public Radio

On Thursday morning Steve Inskeep spoke to Reva Bhalla about the events unfolding in Mumbai. It was an odd interview, because as the interview went on, it was clear that Bhalla didn't really know much about what was going on. Here's a sample of here "expert" analysis:

• "...what's more likely is that this is part of a larger outfit India Mujahadeen which has been on the militant scene for a while now...."
• "...already there are some indications when they're bringing up the boats where the militants supposedly came by, um, some hints of Pakistani links..."
• "...so far it looks like there's seem to be some reports of them being Pakistani, more Kashmiri...so were looking most likely at Islamic militants."

Really, Bhalla offered nothing that any listener to the BBC couldn't have come up with: blah, blah, blah...India Mujahadeen...blah, blah, blah...the boats where the militants supposedly came by...blah, blah, blah...Pakistan...etc.

The only explanation given by Morning Edition for spending several minutes with Bhalla was that "she is director of geopolitical analysis at Stratfor, which is a private intelligence company in Austin Texas." The striking thing about Stratfor, is how little you can find out about it. Barron's ran an interesting article about Stratfor back in October of 2001. You can also find Stratfor produced and purchased information featured by several right-wing sites such as Bill O'Reilly, Right Side News and Right Bias. A critic, Al Giordano of NarcoNews has pointed out how in line with the US State Department policy Stratfor's information and analyses are (which coincidentally makes it a perfect fit with NPR News.) Some information on Stratfor can be found at Sourcewatch and almost nothing from their own corporate site.

As far as information on Ms. Bhalla, I similarly could find almost nothing, except her byline on Statfor published articles. However I did find that she has a profile on Facebook which notes that she is a Texas alum '04 (UT Austin I presume) and a Georgetown grad student.

Wondering how NPR justifies using such a "source" I sent an email to the Ombudsman noting the inaccessibility of information on Bhalla and Statfor and asking "why NPR uses Stratfor as a news source when it is not open to any kind of public scrutiny. Does NPR pay Stratfor, and if so how much?"

I'll add an update to this if I hear anything back.

Wall to Wall to Nearly Nothing at All

I happened to take a look at Craig Murray's blog a few days ago and noticed his interesting piece about the recent Airline Bombing Plot jury decision. This got me to wondering about NPR's coverage of this case.

Let's do a little time traveling, with our stopping off point being August 10, 2006. If you've wisely forgotten what miserable events were roiling the news back then, I've pasted in the screen shot (click for larger view) of just some of NPR's Morning Edition coverage of the foiled "mass murder" plot to supposedly bomb multiple airliners. As you can see there was no lack of hype to NPR's coverage. NPR considered the "plot" so significant that it devoted a separate web page to the story. It's important to note that not everyone was so sanguine about these US/British claims: early on, Craig Murray cautioned skepticism, noting that both Blair and Bush were in sorry political shape and needed some big, positive PR (especially with US midterm elections coming in November).

Well, what do you know, travel forward from August 10, 2006 to September 9, 2008 (just a few short days ago) and the apocalyptic plot has shrunk to a British jury convicting 3 of the suspects on conspiracy to murder charges. Yes, the men were apparently plotting to set of bombs and kill innocent people (no small matter), but the original story was clearly one of "over-egging and exaggeration of the plot" as Obsolete has noted in an excellent post on the implications of the decision.

So given all the "Oh My God, Mass Murder, Super Terrorist Attack" coverage that NPR devoted to the allegations, surely they will provide some substantial coverage of the fizzled conclusion of this story. Let's see: ah, ha! one little, teeny tiny story on Morning Edition of September 9, 2008 with Renee Montagne talking to Rob Gifford. In the piece Gifford's tone is defensive, mostly blaming the complex nature of the case for the failure to win a bigger conviction:

"But frankly speaking, intelligence officials here are completely dismayed by this verdict, and really it has highlighted some of the problems in complex cases like this....They weren't sure the plot was far enough along, and indeed that has proved the case because the jury has come back and has not convicted the men of conspiracy to blow up airplanes."

Interestingly, NPR didn't even mention that if there was a major plot afoot, it was US intervention that undercut the British surveillance of the suspects. Not the first time that the US has intervened for short term public relations benefits at the cost of securing real intelligence (e.g. Milan and Miami).

So we have a story of politicians lying about a non-existent massive terror "plot" for their own political gain or we have a story of the investigation into an actual massive terror plot being derailed for political gain. Either way I'd humbly suggest that this deserves more than just one little cursory chat between Rob Gifford and Renee Montagne on Morning Edition.

What Would You Expect?

If you were born in Gaza and had to start working at age 6 to help support your family because your father was in an Israeli jail, if your 17 year old brother, on his way to school, was killed by an Israeli sniper, if just over a week later an Israeli bulldozer attacked and destroyed your home without warning and with your family in it (severely injuring your mother) - what would you do? What would any human being do? The young man in this case decided to fight back: pick up the weapons of a notebook, pens, and a Canon D20 camera. Such is the story of Mohammed Omer (bio in pdf. file)

And what if you did this and became an award winning journalist in the process? And what if on your way back to Gaza from an awards ceremony in London you were stopped at the border by the Israeli Shin Bet agents, harassed, mocked, strip searched, tortured and finally sent home with broken ribs and unconscious in an ambulance? You might think that journalist advocacy groups would take up your cause and you might think US and British media would also give attention to the story (you'd be partially right on both counts (see BBC and Independent), but the overwhelming reaction was...silence.

Of course, IDF-loyal NPR did not have a single word of this gross (but all too common) human rights abuse case. On the other hand, you can be sure that we will hear ad nauseum about today's tragedy in Jerusalem where a Palestinian man killed innocent Israeli civilians with a construction bulldozer. In NPR's coverage, you can assume that there will be nothing of the context of such homicidal rage and - of course - no one will dare utter the bitter irony of this man using a bulldozer to commit his crime. An irony compounded by Olmert's reaction, noted in Haaretz, where he is reported to have "ordered ministers to examine the possibility of razing the terrorist's home in East Jerusalem."

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Radio+active

(source of graphic)

Yes, kids, if you had your handy Family Radiation Measurement Kit set up next to next to the radio Friday evening you would have realized that you'd been exposed to more lethal radiation than these dummies at a test site (great source!).

Though it's no news that there is a real risk of non-state terrorists eventually setting off a nuclear device in the US (e.g. Chomsky has repeatedly commented on this issue and the Union of Concerned Scientists has noted this problem, too). So, you might ask yourself why, just as the presidential election election race is heating up, does NPR decide to dedicate a story focused on the "possibility of a single relatively primitive bomb set off by terrorists in a U.S. city that could potential kill hundreds of thousands of people"? David Kestenbaum tells us:

"....the Cold War is over. No one worries about thousands of megaton bombs wiping out the country. No, the concern now is a single much smaller bomb, like the one dropped on Hiroshima. Til Jolly with the Department of Heimat Homeland Security set the tone: 'there are those who would like to do this to us. Is it likely? I don't know'..."

Actually, NPR could have done quite an interesting program on the nuclear threat, including the fact that though the Cold War is over, there is still a grave threat from an accidental exchange as nearly happened in January of 1995. Regarding non-state terrorism and nuclear weapons, they might have looked at how nuclear non-proliferation is a key to reducing the chance for such an event, and how recent US policy is going away from non-proliferation and has undermined the NPT. Another key would be making US foreign policy less violent and aggressive, thereby reducing the conditions that encourage the growth of terrorist tactics and ideologies - something the Bush administration has been exceptionally inept at.

Could have, might have...instead NPR chose to do a simple FEAR! report: "There coming!" "They'll set off a nuclear weapon!" "Oh My God!" "Hundreds of thousands dead!" "The White House vaporized." The hell with FISA! Who needs habeus corpus? No time for inexperience. What we need is a Strong Leader, any suggestions?

A Little Self Confession

If I should disappear into the loving hands of US interrogators for five years could you please take any confessions and self-professions I might make with a wee grain of salt. Here's NPR in the last two days as they parrot the US CIA/military allegations against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:

• Montagne (on ME, June 5, 2008): "Among the group is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the attacks. He has not been seen in public since his arrest...more than five years ago."
• Siegel (on ATC, June 5, 2008): "Among them Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has boasted that the attacks were his idea..."
• Montagne (on ME, June 6,2008): "...it was the first time the self-professed mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks has been seen in public since his arrest more than five years ago."

For a little contrast look at this report from CTV (Canada). Notice how it opens with identifying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as "the reputed mastermind." The CTV report also mentions a few interesting tidbits that Jackie Northam failed to mention:

"A sound feed to journalists from the courtroom was turned off twice. The first time, a soldier told reporters it was because a detainee was discussing a medication he had been given, which was a privacy issue.
But his defense attorney, Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, told The Associated Press later that the prisoner had been discussing his five years as a prisoner of the United States.
The sound was also turned off when another defendant discussed early days of his imprisonment. Judge Ralph Kohlmann said that in both cases sound was turned off because classified information was discussed."

***

"It's an inquisition. It's not a trial," Mohammed said in broken English, his voice rising. "After torturing they transfer us to inquisition-land in Guantanamo."

Well, what do you know, the audio gets cut when that nasty little topic of torture pops up. I guess the military, like NPR, wants to avoid such a distasteful subject, even when it's been noted and documented.

And They're Off!

Whew, the Little Laptop that Could is back on NPR on Friday morning. All right, seems that INTERPOL has determined that the computers seized in Colombia's raid on a FARC camp in Ecuador have files that were not tampered with. Notice how the BBC covers it:

• "Interpol certified the authenticity of the files, not their contents..."
• "Interpol head Ronald Noble said his team had not analysed the information contained on the drives....he was quick to stress that the fact that the files had not been tampered with did not prove that the information contained within them was totally accurate."
• "But the files use codes and aliases throughout and nowhere is Mr Chavez mentioned by name."

NPR is a little less restrained:
Renee Montagne gets it rolling with "...the international police agency INTERPOL is backing charges by Colombia that computers seized from rebels show that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been supplying those Colombian rebels with weapons."
Juan Forero then pours it on:

• "documents...show how Venezuela's populist government offered guerrillas help in obtaining surface to air missiles and rocket propelled grenade launches...Interpol announced that the computer files were authentic"
• "major topic among rebel commanders was the increasingly friendly ties with Chavez's government and the aid Chavez was willing to provide"
• Forero includes Sean McCormick of the State Department saying that Venezuela's government is "supplying arms and support to a terrorist organization."
• Forero also notes ""four intelligence officials interviewed in Bogota say Colombian forces have confiscated" Venezuelan provided weapons.
• He also interviews a "young man who recently deserted" who states that "the one who supplies arms to us [FARC] is the Venezuelan government."

Kind of makes you wonder who's writing the script at NPR, doesn't it? But what else could you expect?

No Comment Needed

Thursday Morning Edition's coverage of Bush in the Knesset:
Montagne:

"...another thing linking the US and Israel is concern over Israel's neighbor, Iran, and its nuclear ambitions."

Northam:

"Well the speech was part reflective...how the two countries have this unbreakable bond and that the US will always stand behind Israel and that includes in opposing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. He said that letting Tehran atomic weapons...."

"...and one of the reasons why the President is here is he's trying to push along negotiations towards a peace deal between Israelis and the Palestinians."

"last night there was this lavish event at a convention center and Mr. Bush and the First Lady received a standing ovation and the Israelis just heaped praise on him and the US."

And then on Thursday's ATC:
Northam:

"and one reason for his visit to this area is to push the two sides to make more progress in their negotiations."

"...the President said terrorist groups are driven by power...and he dismissed the argument the US should try to negotiate with them..." [Bush talking about the unsourced Sen. William E. Borah quote 'Lord if I could only have talked to Hitler'] President Bush said that was the false comfort of appeasement which has been repeatedly..."

See if you can tell where Bush ends and Northam begins...

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.

Somebody Didn't Like That First Report

Did anybody else notice the dramatic shift in the reporting on the "No al-Qaeda Links to Saddam Report"? Tom Gjelten's Wednesday's ATC report opened by putting the report squarely in the context of the false assertions of a Hussein-al-Qaeda connection that was made by team Bush in launching the invasion of Iraq back in 2003. That is the news, isn't it? Not bad for NPR.

Then on Morning Edition today Gjelten reports on the same story, but this time the deceit of the administration is completely downplayed and what is emphasized is how connected to "terrorism" the Hussein regime was (just not of the al-Qaeda variety)! Funny how the planned use of car bombs and foreign assassination plots were described as al-Qaeda-like terrorism. What do you call it when Israel or the United States do the same things?

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.