A Killer Angel

On one hand we have bigots like Ahmadinejad who deny the Holocaust, and then on Tuesday morning we have NPR joining in to exploit the Holocaust. Could there be anything much more revolting than celebrating one of the 20th century's greatest war criminals and mass murderers as a Holocaust hero? Talk about cynicism. We get to hear Kissinger say "There's nothing I'm more proud of, of my service to this country, than having been one of those who had the honor of liberating the Ahlem concentration camp." Ugh...

Steel yourselves for the day Kissinger dies. I'd wager money that when it happens, NPR will give him a glowing send-off.

More Betrayal

Last Saturday (Sept. 22) ATC gave extensive coverage to MoveOn.org's "General Betray Us" ad. We get to here our chief mass murderer George W. say "the ad was disgusting." Who cares?
One can debate the tactical wisdom of MoveOn's campaign, but how about if NPR would do a little back reporting on the past incompetence of Petraeus and the obvious spin of his testimony. Instead NPR generally has nothing but glorious admiration for Petraeus.

Working for Blackwater

Interesting how some journalists describe Blackwater's most recent massacre. The Independent notes:

• "The reports we got from members of the public, Iraqi security personnel and government officials, as well as our own research, leads to a markedly different scenario than the American version. There was a bomb blast. But it was too far away to pose any danger to the Blackwater guards, and their State Department charges. We have found no Iraqi present at the scene who saw or heard sniper fire."

Last Sunday morning Hansen, opted to go with the lowest casualty count: "at least 8 Iraqis were killed." At this time estimates ranged from 8 to 28 killed. Hansen also interviewed Garrels and basically spun the story as a "they said" "we said" event.

Consider also McClatchy's informative and disturbing coverage of Blackwater given this week as compared to NPR's "balanced" coverage.

Open Thread

NPR News driving you nuts? Got comments? Park 'em here.

Weekly Roundup

I'm trying a new format. I'll still post about once a week, but will split the report up into individual posts so that the single post is not so long and it will be possible to link to the specific sections. I'd be happy to get any reactions and feedback.

The Louisiana Shuffle

NPR News finally gets around to covering the "Jena Six" story and protest on Friday morning - oh wait, no, they were on it the day before that (so cutting edge)! Well those of us with the sense to listen to Democracy Now! heard a news story about the case way back on July 10th -two months ago! And readers of Common Dreams would have heard about it a week before that! So what's NPR's excuse for the slow shuffle on down to Louisiana? Audie Cornish states that after the conviction of Mychal Bell (on June 28, 2007) "the story was picked up by the Black media, especially radio, blogs and social networking sites..." And just in case you didn't get the message Renee Montagne concludes Cornish's piece with "For months the story of the "Jena Six" unfolded largely out of sight of the mainstream media. You can read about how African American bloggers helped generate...." And to think I wasn't even aware of the fact that Democracy Now! and Common Dreams were "Black media"! And all along I thought the problem was that NPR News was complacent, misleading, smug and lazy. My bad!

Happy Birthday to...

On Thursday morning NPR celebrated the 6oth "birthday" of the CIA - no kidding. The report opens with the supposed problems of the CIA: "In more recent years the agency has suffered through the intelligence failures of 9/11 and the flawed intelligence on Iraq..." Two problems there - not a peep about the recent years of secret prisions and torture, and the fact that the "flawed" intelligence waas cherry-picked and "fixed" by the administration.
Mary Louise Kelly tells us, "The state of the CIA this week is pretty festive. Tonight there's a big birthday bash at Langley headquarters..." She goes on to sing the praises of the A-12 spy plane. We hear about "the good mood prevailing at Langley" and how "agency staff are focused on the core missions: fighting terrorism, tracking nuclear threats, stealing secrets--that and maybe scoring a piece of birthday cake tonight..." I can't wait to hear NPR celebrate little CIA's first steps, and baby's first coup - so darling.

Rather Disgusting

It just kills me how ATC on Wed can cover the Dan Rather suit against CBS without mentioning the real irony of CBS' botched story on the Decider's weasely military record: the fact that the substance of the story remains completely accurate - despite the apparently phony document used in the story. No mention is made that the record shows George W. Bush never should have been admitted to the Air Guard, had spotty attendance, and consistently turned in a subpar performance. Even timid Slate describes him as a draft dodger. He clearly got the gig due to wealth and connections. A good timeline on the current commander-in-chief's military record is worth looking at.

Genocide Lite

On Wednesday's ATC Robert Siegel introduces Westervelt's report on Israel's plans for speeding up its genocide against the 1.2 million Gazans by saying, "Angered by Palestinian rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, Israel today turned up the pressure on the militant Islamist group Hamas...cutting off fuel and other vital supplies." So now depriving 1.2 million ghettoized civilians of the basic necessities of life is "turning up the pressure."

Killing Health Care Again

On Tuesday's ATC Melissa Block hammers away at Hillary Clinton over Health Care and Petraeus. Block critiques Clinton's Health Care plan because it will cost businesses more. What she never does is critique it for being what Clinton's 1993 plan also was - a massive gift to the Health Insurance Industry. (NPR continues selling the revisionist view of Clinton's 1993 plan as an attack on the insurance industry (listen to the Sunday piece with Mr. Insurance, Laszewski. ) What is stunning is that Clinton's current plan is not critiqued from the position of those who want a nationalized single-payer plan. Nothing, nada, zilch! Amazing. After her whining about cost, Block then tries to trap Clinton into saying that Petraeus is the craven liar for the Bush administration that he is - this is pure Fox News tactics. Block even tries to get Clinton to denounce the MoveOn.orgs "Petraeus - Betray Us" ad. How about Block spending half the effort just reporting on all the B.S. that Petraeus tried to spin for Bush, and let the evidence speak for itself?

Blackwater, Blackshirts

Monday afternoon finds Anne Garrels swimming in Blackwater. Of this nascent praetorian guard all Garrels can say is "…they have a reputation for being really tough. When they’re on the streets people back off" (she forgot to mention or get shot). I love the matter of fact way she describes the supposed government of Iraq's authority over the US legion of blackshirts; "It’s not clear that the Iraqi government has any authority over Blackwater or that Blackwater has had to have a license…” I guess embed Garrels is the "liberal" perspective on Blackwater because to analyze the situation NPR does a hard right over to Mark Hemingway of National Review Online. As you can guess, not a peep about the Christian militarist leanings and history of Blackwater. Is is NPR or National Review? Hard to tell...

Health Care Analysis to Die For

Sunday's (9/16) ATC had Bob Laszewski on as an "expert" to talk about health care and the candidates. I was struck by how Laszewski kept repeating that the government can NOT afford to pay for health care! So just what is Laszewski's history? Well, well, he just crawled out from under the insurance industry rock itself! What a surprise. His own biography states "Before forming HPSA in 1992, Mr. Laszewski was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Group Markets, for the Liberty Mutual Insurance Group. He has had twenty years of health insurance industry management experience - nine of those years as a chief operating officer." Did NPR mention that Laszewski is a stooge for the insurance industry? Not a chance. Adams introduces him as "president of a consulting firm." To his credit Laszewski himself mentions during the interview that "much of my past has been in the insurance industry." NPR just reports, and you decide. Get the bag, I think I'm getting sick...

Open Thread

NPR News related comments are welcomed.

Knees, Teeth, Vistas and Distractions

Entertaining the Masses

I had one of those "I'm living in the Roman Empire" moments Friday morning. Morning Edition dedicated more than four minutes to the intricacies of the knee problems that have ended Greg Oden's upcoming NBA rookie season. Every damn detail about his knee and imminent surgery was covered. If only NPR News had been around 2000 years ago to do such masterly coverage of the superstars of the Colosseum.

Dental Metaphors


The Good Ol' CIA with Mary Louise Kelly. The CIA has a new director of clandestine intelligence, Mike Sulick. "Michael Sulick is an old school spy's spy...he cut his teeth in Asia and Latin America." Around the CIA Kelly tells us, "delight is the word I keep hearing." Fair enough that Sulick is not a complete know-nothing partisan appointment like Porter Goss was, but this shiny gloss on the disgusting CIA is more than I can stomach. Kelly likes that phrase "cut his teeth" but I think when talking of the CIA in Latin America "sharpened his fangs" would be more accurate.

That Vast Expanse between Right and Far Right

By Friday afternoon, NPR turns to some experts. Melissa Block tells us, "for some analysis...we turn to our political observers: E. J. Dionne is a columnist with the Washington Post and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review." Ah yes, the range of opinion from center right to goosestep. For an antidote to this blather Glen Greenwald has some strong medicine.

Scott Simon for the Defense

On Saturday Simon talked to Democratic Senator Dodd. Dodd's father was a lawyer who assisted in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, and Sen. Dodd has published a book of his father's letters from Nuremberg. About why he published the book, Dodd said an amazing thing: "...my motivation on this came with the decision by Congress to support the Military Commissions Act which stripped Habeus Corpus, basically restored the idea of torture in interrogations...." This is stunning; a senior Senator and presidential candidate has published the Nuremberg Trial letters of his father because the actions of the Congress and President are such a fundamental assault on humanity and the rule of law that they bear comparison to the crimes of the Nazis. Wow! And guess what Simon's reaction is? Does he mention Bush's violation of Nuremberg's supreme crime - aggressive war? Not a chance. He completely ignores Dodd's statement and focuses in on Dodd's father's troubling statements about the trial becoming a "Jewish Trial" and then oozes over the sentimental aspect of the letters (which were written to Dodd's mother). Saturday morning's prince of schmaltz and distraction strikes again.

Surging News

This week simply demands a midweek post!

No Shame Department

On Sunday Tom Bowman had the gall to say "Now, some nine months later, Petraeus has convinced some skeptics like Michaels O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution." Skeptics!? O'Hanlon has been an ardent liar and promoter of the Iraq War from before the get-go! NPR knows he is always wrong and a pro-war spokesperson and yet brings him on again and again (including today) as a supposed expert - or tries to pass him off as a skeptic.

Major General Garrels reports that 'It's Working'

Quoting Petraeus on Monday's ATC, Block asks Garrels, "...the military objectives of the surge are in large measure being met...a drop in security incidents....Does that jibe with what you've been seeing and hearing when you've been there?" And in-bedded Garrels responds, "Yes it does. Most people, most commanders here, say things have improved, but...the gains are very fragile..." Then citing Crocker, Block adds, "...2006 was a bad year for Iraq. So 2007 is looking better." Garrels responds, "That's right. It's slow." Regarding Petraeus' shell game "draw down" Garrels notes of US troops, "they thought that his timeline makes sense....One captain said to me 'Listen, we're finally engaged in counterinsurgency strategy head-on and it's working. Let us make it work.'" These NPR News drones would do well to read McClatchy - they actually investigate the cooked numbers from the US military about the success of the surge and come up with a different picture.

On Tuesday ME Inskeep talks to NPR's Garrels and Bowman. Amazing, astounding, big improvements and progress is what Tuesday morning is all about. Reporting from combat outpost "Apache," Garrels tells Inskeep, "There are dramatic improvements here..." According to her ethnic cleansing north of the "outpost" has not happened "because of the surge...according to commanders and Iraqis who live here" (since when has Garrels freely talked to "Iraqis who live here"). Garrels credits all this improvement to, "The big difference is that US troops are now living in the neighborhoods. They know their areas of operation very well. They know the people. And they are working very, very closely with the Iraqi Army..." Later we get treated to - BING! - a former Assistant Secretary of Defense under Reagan (at least he's earned his liar credentials). Bing West is on to tell us how he can stroll around peaceful Fallujah without his flak jacket - wow!

Tarabay Uses Her Microphone

Tuesday ATC was much better. Jamie Tarabay does an admirable job of letting various Iraqi workers talk about their views of the surge (they have a bitter, dismal view of their security). Seriously, isn't this what journalists are supposed to do - use their skills and resources to hold up to scrutiny what the powerful are telling us - without always turning to sources who are beholden to the institutions of power? Also on Tuesday, we hear not only from a Republican Senator, but from Democratic Senator Feingold who is articulate and firm about the Iraq disaster and the nonsense of surge success.

Let it Snow...

On Wednesday's ATC Michele Norris talks to Tony Snow: "You've had a particularly tough run defending an increasingly unpopular president and an unpopular war..." She lets Snow get away with saying, "I hate to say it, but the public trust in journalists is far lower than it is the President's..." Two major issues with this: 1) Popularity is not the main issue for Snow. The FACTS of Bush's lies and incompetence are the problem and the public's growing awareness of the reality of Bush's disasters is the issue and 2) Snow's statement about journalists doesn't wash at all (except among Fox viewers) - Bush has disapproval ratings of 62-64% while favorabilty ratings for news reporting from national cable, network, and newspaper outlets are 75%, 71%, and 60% respectively.

The Freaking Beard

Please tell me that I had an auditory hallucination and that my listener support dollars weren't really used to put together Wednesday ATC's 2 and 1/2 minute segment on whether Bin Laden's beard is fake or dyed black. Seriously, why not spend a little time explaining why the foreign policy of the US first helps train and create a despicable character like Bin Laden and then continues policies that play right into his hands? That would be worth at least a couple of precious minutes.

Open Thread

NPR News related comments welcomed.

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.

Leisure, Perfect Storms, Terrorist Centers, and Rovers

And progress...of course. NPR dithers along with the ups and downs of government and military reports (Bush and the Joint Chiefs and the State Department on corruption in Iraq) while missing the obvious fact that the situation in Iraq is worse by any measure and getting worse. Juan Cole points out the perversity of this sick media game and the Washington Monthly answers his call with a graph showing all that touted progress in the security situation for US troops (NPR News keeps claiming this progress, too).

On Monday's Morning Edition Montagne, talking to Marine Col. Clarke Lethin speaks through the progress filter, "…are you worried that gains in say Al Anbar and these other places would evaporate when in fact the Marines do leave.”

Tuesday morning news headlines had another typically unsubstantiated claim that 33 insurgents had been killed by US-Iraqi forces. This kind of uncritical reporting for the military is really disgraceful and all too common.

Do you think people in the US work too much while real dollar incomes for median workers have been falling? Are you really disturbed by the exponentially growing gap between the rich in the US and everyone else? Take heart, on Wednesday NPR News proudly announces that workers in the US gain leisure time! Not only that but compared to other countries Americans work shorter hours than most. These stories reminded me of 1984 where Winston listens to the broadcasts of all the great news being issued from the Ministry of Truth...

You probably didn't forget that this week marked the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina destroying much of the US Gulf coast and the US Army Corps of Engineers destroying New Orleans. NPR is comfortable talking about the Katrina part but coverage of the Corps of Engineers fiasco is virtually nonexistent. What we do hear about on Wednesday's ATC is that Bush is visiting New Orleans, but loyal David Greene doesn't mention any of the anger against Bush in the region. This piece was followed by a report from Zaroli about mixed results in the rebuilding efforts in the region.

Thurday morning was "field trip" time. Dina Temple-Raston takes us on a super-exciting, super-secret trip to the Terrorist Screening Center (sounds like the hiring agency for the CIA). You could feel how special Temple-Raston felt just to be allowed in - what a privledge - reminding me of Mary Louise Kelly's tour of the Counter Terrorism Center last Sept. 11th. Temple-Raston continually insists that the center is tracking terrorists and suspected terrorists while completely ignoring its Orwellian use as a harassment tool against domestic dissent. (Something that Mother Jones, Counter Punch, AlterNet, and The SF Chronicle have felt was worthy of coverage). Is Temple-Raston concerned about the abuses and bungling (Wired) of this agency? Not one bit, in fact she tell's us to "rest assured your name is being sent" if you are ever stopped for a traffic stop.

NPR News has been so hard on Karl Rove (just kidding) that on Friday morning they decided to bring on Mark McKinnon, a former colleague of his (and a media advisor to the Bush 2000 and 2004 campaigns) to put a shine on this sorry enemy of our Constitutional system. This piece is pure insult to anyone who gives a crap about the health of our democracy. As usual NPR fails to mention that Rove did leak Valerie Plame's identity (he just didn't get indicted). Furthermore, not only does Montagne not discuss (again) the Rove role in voter suppression in 2004, but allows McKinnon to claim that Rove "added eleven million new Republican voters." You have to wonder how outrageous a claim has to be to get challenged. McKinnon probably could have claimed that Rove gave birth to all eleven million of them and Montagne would have nodded compliantly along.

What a week! Watch for more garbage about "progress" in Iraq and keep an ear out for even more intense Iran is a danger to the world stories which may be part of a fall "gearing up for war on Iran" campaign (NPR has already enthusiastically signed on).

Back to School & Open Thread

To save time and sanity, I'm going to aim for a weekly (instead of daily) update of this blog. I'll probably work on it over the weekends. Here's where readers/listeners come in handy. If you hear a particularly outrageous piece on NPR News, cite it in the "Open Thread" section. Then I'll spend time on the weekend posting a summary of "greatest hits."

We'll see how this goes...should be interesting.

Fluff

Help! Yesterday I woke up and it was 1957 again! Instead of young enlisted persons being killed in a foreign land to save a weaselly President's (and a pathetic Congress') botched war, I heard about "noble" sacrifice and patriotic fervor for heroic deeds.

Instead of biting and serious comics such as Get Your War On, or those by Aaron McGruder, Lynda Barry, Ted Rall, or Tom Tomorrow or I got a 10 year send up of "Sluggy"!

Gosh, all I missed was a few cigarette commercials, a car ad, and a stirring rendition of the national anthem.

Oops, Wrong Colonel!

Scott Simon might have well as talked to Col. Sanders instead of NPR favorite, Col. Gary Anderson. Anderson is on to talk about all the security progress that the US "surge" has achieved in Iraq and how a withdrawal will ruin it.

This continuing fraud of progress is breathtaking. If you didn't catch Nir Rosen on Democracy Now! this week, it is well worth watching (and very sad) - like Patrick Cockburn of the Independent, Rosen actually spends a lot of time outside the Green Zone (literally and figuratively).

If you follow developments at I-Casualities, or read Juan Cole's Informed Comment, you can't but be furious at NPR's absolute whitewash of the nightmare that the US war criminals have made of Iraq. They should be asking every day when the architects of this mess will be held accountable. That would take some integrity - something utterly lacking in the leadership at NPR News.

How I Learned to Stop Reporting and Love the Bomb

Eric Westervelt does Strangelove this morning on NPR. Given that fear-mongering, cherry-picking, lies, and half-truths helped launch the disaster of the Iraq War, you'd think NPR might not buy into a new round of the same to help launch the sequel in Iran. No chance. Like Fox News, NPR is selling an attack on Iran. Click on the "Iran" label below to see other posts on NPR's shameful track record.

In case you don't know that you are supposed to be in panic mode about evil Iran, Montagne sets the stage: "nowhere is the alarm and concern about Iran's nuclear program and growing regional clout more acute than Israel. On several occasions Iran's president has called for Israel to be eliminated."

This junk about "eliminating Israel" is fear-mongering simplification- and NPR turns to it again and again. Take a look at Ahmadinejad's most inflammatory rhetoric on the ADL site. Is he extreme and undiplomatic? I think so. Is he narrow-minded and wrong about the Holocaust? I think so. But does he call for the elimination of Israel, wiping Israel off the map, or attacking Israel?...hardly. He obviously hates the ideology of Zionism and wants it to end. Nothing terribly surprising about that. Hating Zionism, like hating communism, capitalism or imperialism may be contentious, but it is a legitimate position to hold. People can hotly denounce (or defend) Zionism without being genocidal.

In the report Westervelt turns to an Israeli hair salon operator (!) for over a minute of "analysis." This Tel Aviv resident says, "Iran is different because they [are] fanatics; they think that the Muslims have to rule all the world. It's a bit crazy."

As in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, fear mongering would be weak without the threat of the mushroom cloud. Westervelt tells us, "Israeli military intelligence estimates, that if left unchecked, Iran will master the nuclear fuel cycle and begin producing nuclear weapons in as few as three years." He mentions that "the American estimate is...6 to 8 years."

Westervelt fully accepts the position that Iran is a major threat and weighs in on strong sanctions by noting, "but will strong sanctions prove painful enough to get Tehran to back down?"

So what should the US do? Westervelt brings up Israel's earlier airstrikes against a perceived threat: "In 1981 Israel successfully launched a preemptive airstrike on Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak south of Baghdad - dealing a major blow to Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions." Really, if there were any accountability, Westervelt would get fired for just this kind of stupid journalism. Successful? By what standards? Many experts and people involved in that situation argue that the Osirak attack spurred Iraq's nuclear programs.

The report ends with the briefest mention that some in Israel are calling for dialogue with Iran, but that is quickly dismissed by an unnamed Israeli diplomat who, according to Westervelt, said "There is nothing to talk about."

Open Thread

NPR News comments welcomed.

Guy Raz: Garbage Hauler

It's now old news that the Petraeus-Crocker report in September will be nothing but a Betray Us White House Crock o'Bull. It's also clear that the pro-surge Op-ed written by Ol' Hard Power O'Hanlon was a Pentagon arranged fraud.

So who could possibly put a positive shine on these developments? Have no fear, Guy will save the day. On ATC yesterday Guy Raz puts in quite a performance on selling this junk to the public. Raz describes the discredited, pro-war O'Hanlon as "a military expert at the center-left Brookings Institution...often described as a moderate Democrat." Center-left? Moderate? [Yeah and moderate Democrat Joe Lieberman is a left-of-center New Englander too!]

Raz notes that in an email promoting Pollack and O'Hanlon's Op-ed the White House called them "left-wing critics of the war" and he says this is "not entirely accurate, both men supported the invasion and the recent troop surge." "Not entirely accurate" is pure spin, a manipulative way of not saying that it WAS A COMPLETE LIE.

Raz also presents a recent Gallup/USA Today poll which shows the slightest increase in Americans' positive opinions regarding the surge (up to 31% from 22% last month). Raz distorts this by claiming "polls suggest a growing number of Americans are willing to see the troop surge extend through next April, and this is precisely what General Petraeus will be asking for..." If you look at the poll there is NOTHING about extending the surge to April, but it does state that "Sixty-six percent of Americans say they favor removing all U.S. troops from Iraq by April of next year."

It's stunning that the White House and the Pentagon are going to pass off such a fraud once again on the American people, but it fits with their previous behavior. But that a "public" news service is complicit in passing this off is inexcusable.

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.

Open Thread

NPR related comments are welcomed.

Noriega Notes

In the comments section of "Snorting History" below, John Dinges, author of Our Man in Panama, kindly offers his take on NPR's most recent coverage of Noriega and a few correctives to my post, too.

The Word of the Day Is?

Progress! As in progress in Iraq. This morning I was struck by Liane Hansen's interview with Democratic Sen. Bob Casey about his short trip to Iraq. In asking about troops he met with, Hansen asks, "they gave you no idea about whether or not they thought PROGRESS was being made?" And then later in questioning him about his meetings with US leaders in Iraq she says, "When you sat down and had dinner with General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker what picture did they paint for you of the PROGRESS being made in Iraq?"

That is pretty amazing! What freaking progress? The Iraq project has been a criminal enterprise from the get-go and is an unmitigated disaster from any perspective (humanitarian, political, fiscal, military, strategic). An interesting little exercise is to search NPR's site for "progress in Iraq" and you get 160 hits whereas if you search for "lack of progress in Iraq" you get...4 hits!

Snorting History

[source for image]

Scott Simon puts history in the blender (again) this morning when he interviews Richard Koster about Manuel Noriega, former US-sponsored dictator of Panama. Simon opens the report with the following: "...in a 1989 military invasion ordered after General Noriega violently suppressed political opposition in his country and because of his ties to international drug interests, but until just three years before that Manuel Noriega had reportedly been an informant for the CIA."
Here's just a few problems with this misinformation:

• "...reportedly been an informant for the CIA." Wrong. Noriega was definitely on the CIA payroll for many years, the only "reportedly" is how much he received (perhaps $100,000 a year).
• "after...violently suppressed political opposition" - Completely ignores the US support for the dictator and US satisfaction with years of repression in Panama.
• "because of his ties to international drug interests" - ignores the US involvement in the Contra Drug trade and complicity with Noriega's drug dealing.

Simon ignores the most obvious reasons for the invasion. The US had lost control of a dictator who was not willing to allow Panama to be used for illegal war against Nicaragua.

Open Thread

Got a comment on NPR News? Post it here.

Liberating a Million

I'm still waiting for NPR to report on the thousands killed in Darfur - instead of 200,000 - since NPR insists on reducing the number of Iraqi civilians killed by a huge factor. Tonight Siegel introduces John Burnett's Reporter's Notebook segment by stating that since the invasion "more than three thousand seven hundred US troops and at least tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in the war." (Tens of thousands? Here's a little news flash for you Mr. Siegel: it's more like a million).

It was a bizarre report in which Burnett contrasts the immediate post invasion Iraq to today's Made in the USA apocalypse. Back in 2003 Burnett tells us that "in 'liberated' Baghdad, optimism seemed infectious." That Burnett thinks the US ever "liberated" Iraq explains a lot of NPR's coverage of the war. The piece then goes on to feature the longest serving DOD civilian employee who likes to chill by a wading pool with a book in the Green Zone and pretend she's at the beach - pretty scary. Her choice comment was "it's been a life changing experience for me and it's one that I would not trade for anything in the world - nothing..."

Neighbors Talking to Neighbors

Siegel talks to David Brooks, a columnist at The New York Times, and Ruth Marcus, a columnist and editorial board member at The Washington Post. They get around to Karl Rove's resignation:

Brooks: "He's a relentlessly cheerful figure. He's incredibly well educated...as for his public role...in getting Republicans to win he was a master, and he did it by getting neighbors talking to neighbors and that is how you win voters....on substance I actually think he had quite a lot of the right ideas. He tried to make the Republicans the reform party..."

Marcus: "I was struck as I listened to him [Rove] talk...how much he, 'the Architect' has actually teed up a foundation at least for the fall..."

No comment needed.

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Stopping Short

(source of photo)

This morning NPR News covers the Padilla conviction. The story does note that Padilla was held for "over three years, incommunicado and without access to a lawyer." But "torture" never comes up - what else can you call the Soviet style treatment that was documented by Padilla's lawyers and never disputed by the judge in the case.

The most shameful aspect of this morning's report is the way NPR's FBI correspondent, Temple-Raston, frames the whole "dirty bomb" sham that the Bush Administration used to seize and torture Padilla in the first place. Here's what Temple-Raston says:

"...prosecutors in Miami stopped short of charging Padilla with the allegations he may be most famous identified with - that he met with Osama Bin Laden and was dispatched to the US to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb. Instead prosecutors built a case around a terrorism conspiracy..."

Read that carefully. She is asserting that there is substance to the "dirty bomb" charges. It's just that prosecutors "stopped short of charging Padilla" with the dirty bomb plot and "instead" built a different case. This is complete spin. The "dirty bomb" allegations were groundless, and in fact were obtained by - guess what? - torture (the word that must not be spoken). Toward the end of the report Temple-Raston does mention that "the allegations of planning a dirty bomb attack couldn't be substantiated," but notice how weak and open ended that is compared to her initial statements.

I don't expect NPR to denounce the jury's verdict, no matter how scandalously rushed their deliberations were. It was a lawful (albeit red, white and blue) jury - but the cavalier attitude to such gross government behavior is really shameful.

Open Thread

Comments related to NPR? Bring 'em on!

Gunning for Iran

Bill Kristol isn't the only sick puppy; NPR News has dropped any pretense of reporting on Iran (not a particularly new development) and is simply parroting US State Department and Pentagon views of the situation. Consider this evening. The US is apparently planning to designate the Revolutionary Guard of Iraq a "foreign terrorist organization," news that has significant implications for the likelihood of a US attack on Iran. How does NPR News deal with this on ATC? Take a look.

First Jackie Northam reports on the story by talking to State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack. She opens, "For months the US has been trying to confront what it sees as increasingly dangerous Iranian behavior in a variety of ways...State Department spokesman Sean McCormack calls the powerful Revolutionary Guard 'a state within a state.'" (McCormak's voiceover comes in) "They now have tentacles into all sorts of different activities...we all know about their support for those groups that are going after our troops in Iraq...linkages with Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations... "

Then, to provide alternative views (sarcasm alert) on this issue NPR sends Rob Siegel to talk to Philip Zelikow who was a senior adviser to - guess who? - Sec. of State Rice! Zelikow is back to playing a professor of history at the University of Virginia, but still has time to work for his former boss. Speaking of the Revolutionary Guard he says, "...actually it's a large military industrial complex inside Iran - kind of like the SS in the latter part of Hitler's Germany..."

Zounds! like the SS in Hitler's Germany....what are we waiting for? Let's get those planes in the air. Reminds me of Dalia Sofer's recent comments comparing Iran to Mussolini's anti-Semitic government. And what do you know, ATC features a review of Sofer's first novel which helps stoke the hatred of Iran for its dismal human rights records - now that is the icing on the cake.
Get your war on. See you in Tehran!

[the original graphic is from the Northwestern University Library collection]

Practical Considerations

Someone could do a blog just on the inane five-minute hourly news summaries that NPR puts out hour after hour. This morning I had to hear Martin Koste reporting on arguments being heard today in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The two cases deal with illegal electronic surveillance. Given the Bush Administration's obsession with secrecy and subversion of Constitutional checks and balances you might assume that these two cases are extremely important - with what's left of our civil liberties hanging in the balance. Not so in Koste's report. He turns to Orin Kerr, who seems smart enough as far as knowing the intricacies of computer law, but who seems gullible as Gomer Pyle when it comes to trusting Uncle Sam.

Noting that the administration wants the lawsuits thrown out Koste states, "Orin Kerr a George Washington University Law Professor specializing in national security says the government's argument is based on practical considerations -[Kerr's voiceover comes in] 'It's really hard to have the courts figure these things out in open court when we're dealing with national security secrets.'"

What really ticks me off is not that NPR quotes Kerr. But to feature him only and his extremely subjective comments is ridiculous. So it's just national security secrets and practical considerations? A balanced report would have talked to someone like Jennifer Granick who wrote the Wired piece linked above or Jack Balkin who wrote this post on the latest FISA sellout in Congress.

Expanding Pakistan

I have to concur with readers of this blog that NPR News does a service to listeners by regularly featuring Philip Reeves' reports from Pakistan. NPR deserves further credit for its interview this morning with Moshin Hamid and Kamila Shamsie, two Pakistani novelists. They really take apart the one dimensional views of Pakistan that most US citizens are presented with in the press (views that can lead someone like Sen. Obama to assume that Pakistan is ours for the bombing).

Now if NPR could just extend this kind of layered reporting to the rest of the world. One is allowed to wish, eh?

A PBS Aside

A reader of this blog sent me an email noting that Robert Satloff was on PBS News Hour tonight. Since I limit this blog to NPR news issues, I was going to let the information pass, but then I thought the name Satloff was familiar. Indeed, Satloff has been on NPR frequently. He is now a Holocaust Industry hack seeking to extend the blame of the Western-led Holocaust onto the Arabs as he looks for a few "righteous" Arabs to hold up as exceptions to the rule. As he says, "...denial of the Holocaust in many parts of the Arab world is the tip of the iceberg of what divides Arab societies from Western societies." I don't deny that anti-Semitism is a problem in many Arabic countries, but you can't help but be struck by the fact that this bigotry is mainly a post-1948 phenomenon in the Arab world.

One of the most revolting things about Satloff is the organization he once headed and is closely tied to, the pro-violence, militantly pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). If you think Satloff is cozy with NPR News, just look how embedded WINEP is in NPR's coverage. Try to find any credible or progressive institution consulted as much on NPR News; you will search in vain.

Open Thread

NPR related comments are always appreciated.

It's a Guy Thing

This morning Guy Raz gives us a peak into his soft-porn obsession with military aircraft. He begins by bragging "so in the past few weeks alone, I've ridden in an Army Black Hawk helicopter in Kuwait...hovered over Paris in a twin-rotor [sic] Marine CH-53 helicopter...flown around the world on the E-4B which is basically the most secretive and classified 747 in the world...been over Afghanistan in a Chinook helicopter...but nothing I've seen, no aircraft can quite compare to the F-22...there is nothing quite like it on earth; it looks like something out of the future....

The F-22 has caught his fancy: "...the plane is called The Raptor and there are only about 70 of them in existence, most of them at Langley...there are only 100 F-22 pilots in the world. The Air Force likes to call the plane America's insurance policy...sometimes I dream of going up in an F-22, but alas, I never will, there's only room for the pilot."

America's insurance policy! That's rich.

Given the utter non-coverage of the current escalating death-from-the-air being waged in Iraq, and the slaughter that the USAF has unleashed in places a widespread as Panama, Cambodia, Iraq (in 1991), and Afghanistan there is something positively necrophilic about Raz's panting aircraft fantasy.

Raz opens his report by describing the little windowless room that NPR has deep inside the Pentagon. He says, "It's NPR's Pentagon office and working in that windowless room under the hum of fluorescent lighting can be soul destroying..." I hate to break it to him, but it's going to be hard to destroy something that he's already sold.

Featuring Juan Williams

Today's Weekend Edition Saturday has Williams giving his analysis of the week's news. Get a load of this:

On the talks in Iran between al-Maliki and Ahmadinejad:

• "...what they're talking about is obviously the war in Iraq, and the possible, the continued presence of Iraqi, of Iranian arms flowing into Iraq--which is a great concern to the US because they're being used against US soldiers, but being used by Shiite militias--much more so than the Sunnis or al-Qaeda in Iraq..."

• "What happens once the US leaves...do the Shiia in both states now join hands, or do you have a continued sovereign Iraq on the map. This is a great concern of US policymakers...because if in fact what you're seeing is the Shiia coalition forming, it really is bad news for the idea of creating a stable, democratic government in Iraq, which was the US goal."

Regarding a recent report showing high rates of Black on Black crime:

• "I think it's in large part due to this culture of gangster life and thug life that's become so accepted that acceptance of crime, acceptance of drug dealing, the no-snitch campaign, this kind of thing I think is just poisonous for young minds... "

And this is the "liberal" voice on Fox News. God help us!

Lute Plays NPR Like a Fiddle

I'm sick to death of the load of crap being passed off by Bush and the US Military hierarchy. Today NPR interviews "War Czar" General Lute. Lute tells Michele Norris that there has been "demonstrable progress" on security in Iraq and the bemoans lack of political progress from the Iraqis. Just for once, wouldn't it be great if one of these talking heads of NPR challenged these BS-meisters from the Pentagon. Juan Cole has done some excellent work on debunking this murderous spin (see his article on Salon.com and this entry on his blog). In their blog, the editors at Foreign Policy also take on this myth of progress. NPR wouldn't even have to rely on secondary analysis; they could take a look at Iraq Coalition Casualties and ponder the numbers and the articles on the sidebar. The picture is clear: there has been no progress for the US in Iraq.

Saint Billy

I'm sorry I just can't get my respect-o-meter up for a man who gave "Christian" counsel to a president about to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Iraqis or who glibly considered committing war crimes against Vietnamese. But NPR joins in the usual adulation of Billy Graham, offering nothing controversial or challenging. There was one telling anecdote from the interviewee, Michael Duffy, co-author of The Preacher and the Presidents. Duffy tells Norris, "

He really found politics a little seductive and he talks talks about it that way. He sometimes wondered whether the devil wasn't at work because he felt really pulled."

Nixon, the Reagans, the Bushes - what's to wonder?

Breakfast with Ted

Ted Koppel goes to the old Vietnam analogy well to talk about how the US failure in Iraq (politely called "withdrawal") will play out. Ted has this to say about withdrawal debates:

"...back to Vietnam. Those who want to say we can't get out precipitously point to the million or more people they say lost their lives in the bloodbath after the American withdrawal from Southeast Asia."

Koppel is being especially disingenuous. He just drops this twisted reasoning out there as if it made all the sense in the world and was a perfectly legitimate. In fact it has a few little problems:

• Yes, there was a bloodbath in Cambodia after the US withdrew from Vietnam, BUT it was the continuation of a bloodbath in Cambodia begun by the US in 1969 with the pathologically named "Operation Breakfast."
• It can be convincingly argued that the US massacre-bombing of Cambodia (1969-73) created conditions for the extremism and success of the Khmer Rouge.
• Further complicating the picture was the US backing of the Khmer Rouge after the communist government of Vietnam overthrew it in 1979, a truly bizarre turn of events (John Pilger covers this in depth here).

Open Thread

NPR related comments are always appreciated. Fire away!

Dos and Don'ts

Gosh, if only the US had invaded Iraq and sought to make it our permanent Power Rangers Lily Pad and Uber Oil Rig with more finesse and cultural sensitivity, then things would be hunky dory over in Mess O' Potamia. At least that's the word on ATC from Lt. Col. John Nagl one of NPR's counterinsurgency-genius darlings.

Nagl is on with Michele Norris to talk about Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II, a WWII era book updated and re-issued by the military advising soldiers how to behave in Iraq. The interview is nothing but a infomercial for the book (and by association for the new warm-fuzzy COIN in Iraq). Nagl was "instantly charmed" by the old book and Norris praises its "wonderful illustrations." Norris says, "I must say the writing of the book is impressive...an economy of words...the language is very bright." Not to be outdone in pretension, Rhodes Scholar Nagl adds, "There's something almost J.D. Salingeresque about the writing..." Wow, put that on your garden and watch it grow!

(Original "wonderful illustration" is from the book and posted on NPR's site. Additional image from BAGnewsNotes)

Accountability

I was out driving today - registering kids for school, running a few errands - and torturing myself by listening to Bush's press conference. What did I hear, but the familiar voice of David Greene asking W about accountability. In particular, Greene asked about Consiglieri Gonzales and why Bush hasn't held him accountable (not a bad question for an NPR reporter). The question got Bush's dander up; he replied, "....implicit in your question is that Al Gonzales did something wrong...this is a man who has testified, he sent thousands of papers up there. There's no proof of wrong, why would I hold somebody accountable who has done nothing wrong...."

Greene followed up, but didn't offer even a few "proofs of wrong" that Gonzales has done - but, hey, maybe he just assumed Bush would acknowledge the crime family he has surrounded himself with and that would be that. I could forgive Greene for being a bit slow-witted in the heat of the moment- going mano-a-mano with The Decider himself - but , good God, Greene (and the whole apparatus of NPR News for that matter) had the leisure of all afternoon to do a little basic fact checking before All Things Considered aired. Greene could have looked at Crooks and Liars, Think Progress, The New York Times, or The Boston Globe for a wee bit o' reality. But, alas, that would be tiresome, so instead Greene did his usual rehash of the press conference, offering a digested (regurgitated) summary of Bush's remarks with no digression into the world of research. No wonder Bush chummily remarked to Greene during the press conference, "I know you're a kind open-minded fellow." High praise indeed.

Shafted

I've been in Florida visiting family for the last several days. Driving back last night, I was listening to ATC. Michele Norris talked to Walter Arabasz, director of seismograph stations for University of Utah. It was pretty informative and gave the lie to the anti-union mine owner, Murray, who insisted that his mine disaster was caused by "earthquakes." Arabasz made it clear that scientific evidence points toward a mine collapse having nothing to do with seismic activity. NPR gave Murray plenty of airtime to give his obviously self-interested point of view.

So this morning I about choked to hear the headlines state that continuing seismic activity caused more collapsing in the mine. The follow-up story featured, guess who, mine owner, Murray again giving his completely unscientific assertion that earthquakes caused the secondary collapse. It was mentioned that "some seismologists" think the collapse caused seismic readings, but the thrust of the piece and all the airtime was aimed at reinforcing the mine owners assertions.

Open Thread

NPR related comments welcomed.