Returning Dog

"As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." --Proverbs 26:11

I thought I'd open this post with an apt bit of religion since NPR opted to end its Thursday story about the the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association (RTCA) dinner on an sanctimonious note with Bush saying, "And so to Bob Woodruff, the Bloom girls, Elizabeth Edwards, Tony Snow, and of course our men and women in uniform, Laura and I and millions of other Americans are praying for you and your families. May God Bless you and thank you very much." I was biking home from work when I heard that, and thought I might hurl, especially as it was preceded by Don Gonyea's fawning over how funny Bush's self-deprecating jokes were and how Karl Rove's creepy rap performance even "trumped" Bush's performance.

I didn't post on it because I was so much more angered by Jamie Tarabay's complacent attitude toward beating and killing Iraqis. But then today on Saturday Weekend Edition it was - like the proverbial dog - back to the RCTA dinner AGAIN! This time Brian Naylor was crowing about his great seat at the dinner: "I had a really great seat this year, right between Nancy Pelosi…and Dana Perino, who is the deputy White House Press Secretary, and I don’t think she’d mind if I revealed that she’s a big NPR fan."

Well, Brian, she might not mind, but I'm disgusted. Her job, as underling and now stand-in for Tony Snow, is to be the official apologist and liar for the White House -- no wonder she's a big NPR fan.

As the report goes on we are subjected to Bush's jokes and Rove's rapping AGAIN, and then Naylor's commentary: "A lot of people think it’s wrong for the media to mingle with the politicians they cover, and wrong to laugh at one another while there’s a war going on, but as I put my tux away until next spring, I think of my nephew Kevin in Iraq, and my good friend John who…is battling cancer and I think that once in a while laughing and mingling isn’t such a bad thing." Well Mr. Naylor, it wouldn't be such a bad thing if the rest of the year you and NPR News weren't constantly treating US government, military, and business leaders as if they were truthful and credible instead of holding up their words and actions to rigorous skepticism and scrutiny.

Skinning the Kangaroo Skinner in a Kangaroo Court

It was a bitter irony to listen to ATC today. Jackie Northam stooges for the Gitmo sham "trial" of David Hicks. She reports about his "guilty plea" and all the allegations he "admitted" to: "they essentially followed the trajectory of his few months in Afghanistan right through to when he was captured there in December 2001…allegations talked about how Hicks trained at al-Qaeda camps, he learned about weapons and basic explosives, he was trained in urban warfare at one camp and that included kidnapping techniques and assassination methods…how he fought with the Taliban and al-Qaeda members against US and coalition forces…" Not one reference to the fact that these allegations have no legitimate evidence backing them, that they flout international standards, and that the entire procedure was a legal farce. Also no reference to the sexual torture that America's finest inflicted on Hicks.

It was so perfect that this sorry excuse for journalism was followed by the story of the British soldiers being held by the Iranians and the justifiable skepticism over their "admissions" of wrongdoing.

Open Thread - Friday

NPR related comments welcomed.

In the Labyrinth

(Image source)

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

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

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

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

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

Tales From Afar

How many bogus success stories from Bushworld do we have to see dissipate like a mirage before NPR will just come out and state the obvious -- Bush is a liar. This afternoon on ATC we get to hear about the tragedies of "once-exemplary" Tal Afar. Newsflash NPR: there never was a success story in Tal Afar. And the earlier US actions in Tal Afar weren't very pretty either.

A Freak Snow Storm

I have compassion for anyone who gets cancer, and I don't want to see anyone die young - but for God's sake having a terrible disease doesn't make an antidemocratic, lying, Limbaugh-like, sycophant a decent person. Don Gonyea could have just reported that current Bush-mouth, Tony Snow has had a recurrence of cancer which is very serious. He also could have mentioned that as four years of lies and deceptions around the Iraq War and the "war on terror" are unraveling - along with the lies surrounding the US attorney firings - that Snow's facility with fronting for the White House will be missed by the Bush administration.

Instead Gonyea praises Snow, saying "It is clear this is a job Snow has enjoyed; he’s often combative, but he’s also extremely comfortable at the podium and quick with a laugh..." Quick with a laugh! God yes - war, torture, warrantless searches, cluster bombs, secret prisons, and closed hearings are such a gas!

Why, under Tony Snow, learning about the Bush Administration has been like going to Disneyland....oops that line was in the Gonyea report as he aired Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino saying, "I do know that Tony Snow loves this job...he in fact has called it communications Disneyland."

Listen to Your Mother

A thumb's up is in order for Morning Edition for having Pat Tillman's mother on to take issue with the Pentagon's internal investigation clearing it of criminal behavior in the death of her son in Afghanistan. She raises the obvious likelihood that the conditions of her son's death may have been intentionally falsified for propaganda purposes.

Benchmarks

Steve Inskeep continues the series about training US troops in Fort Riley, Kansas for missions in Iraq. How apropos that Inskeep opens the piece by noting that Fort Riley was one of the centers for the US wars against American Indians.

The training at Fort Riley is to make US troops into better "trainers" of Iraqi forces. It is, Inskeep tells us, "a job that may have to succeed before American troops leave Iraq." Sounds like "standing up and standing down"; there's a new concept! No mention that the US troops might leave Iraq because the American voters want them out, the Iraqis want them out, or that the original "mission" was a farce and a disaster.

I have to say that one of the saddest aspects to NPRs coverage of the Iraq War is how often the troops they interview are well-meaning, decent, intelligent (and often idealistic) people. And yet there is never a sense conveyed of how grossly these people are being wasted and exploited by the politicians they serve (starting from the top with the Doofus-in-Chief and working down to the members of Congress who abdicate their Constitutional responsibilities of declaring and or funding wars).

Smell the News

On Morning Edition Renee Montagne speaks to Frank Ahrens of The Washington Post about the stupid celebrity gossip site TMZ which is setting up an outlet in Washington, D.C. Ahrens says, "It’s the hottest news gathering site in terms of growth...." Montagne at least has the sense to raise a weak challenge to this statement, responding, "And you call it a news gathering site, I mean I think of it as a gossip gathering site..."

That's the high point of the interview. Ahrens forges ahead, "Let’s think about the definition of news...an event happens and somebody sees it, reports it, and publishes it...in many ways it’s kind of shoe leather journalism."

Shoe leather journalism! Does Montagne protest? Not a peep. On the contrary, as Ahrens tells Montagne that TMZ loves "vacation photos of, you know, celebrities in the Caribbean who are wearing swim suits and they shouldn’t" Montagne joins right in, aiming for the lowest common denominator, "yeah that’s a little scary," she says, "the thought of some of our folks on the Hill in a swimsuit..."

The Greatest Year of Our Life

How many times do we have to hear from NPR how the training of Iraqi troops is going to be the magic solution to the disaster of Iraq? This morning Steve Inskeep takes us on a trip to fantasyland Iraq complete with "imitation Iraqi villagers" and "contractors who play Iraqis." Inskeep lets us hear quite a bit from Major Jason Figuerido who is leading the training exercises in Kansas. In an audio clip that sounds like bitter comedy, Figuerido says of the coming mission in Iraq, "We’re all looking forward to it. I mean this could be pretty much the greatest year of our life. Very few times in your life where you’re thrown with eleven guys into such a overwhelming experience, but yet so important."

Inskeep, instead of offering any critical check, chimes right in with "Important for this reason: military officials do not regard the so-called surge of U.S. forces in Baghdad as a way to win the war by itself. They consider it a way to buy time, time for a political solution, or time to improve the economy, or time to build stronger Iraqi forces, which is where Americans like Major Figuerido come in."

Well, dear readers lets jump inside the old time machine and travel back about two year to April 12, 2005 when Vicki O'Hara was our tour director through the land of delusion. She noted that "General Peter Schoomaker, the Army Chief of Staff...spoke at the American Enterprise Institute: 'If we continue to see the kind of great progress that’s taking place in standing up Iraqi security services as the political process takes traction, as they continue to stand up and mature.'" Just in case any of the sane among us were doubting this fine serving of b.s., she added, "Analysts and military officials say there are reasons to be encouraged..."

If all this weren't insulting enough Inskeep finishes his Fort Riley commercial with a bit of tried and true racism. We hear Figuerido insist that "the most important things the transition teams will do here is learn to build relationships…and understand the culture and the mindset of the Iraqi Army..." and Inskeep concludes that "When Americans meet real Iraqis they may have to learn to tolerate divided loyalties or corruption..." Good thing the American mission in Iraq has never been tainted by divided loyalties or corruption.

See the 600-Pound Gorilla

If you suffered through Guy Raz's incredible-shrinking-defense-budget nonsense this morning, check out this Louisiana blogger's sharp critique. Also War Resister's League has been settting the record straight on the "defense" budget shell game for years.

Open Thread - Monday

NPR related comments welcomed.

Our Peacemaker

NPR continues its bizarre portrayal of Secretary of State Rice as a Middle East peacemaker. This morning 's report on Weekend Edition Sunday has Linda Gradstein insisting that "In the past the United States has tried to push the two sides together, saying there has to be bilateral negotiations." We are also told that "Secretary Rice seems to be saying, 'OK, you know there’s no other alternative,' and that she and the Bush Administration are going to try a new push for peace..."

And then tonight on ATC, Debra Elliot describes the report on Rice in the Middle East as being about "Secretary of State Rice and her quest for peace in the Middle East."

It is really maddening to hear such slanted, utterly unfounded statements used again and again on NPR's coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

If you think this bias is a slip-up or infrequent occurrence on NPR take a look back at previous posts on NPR's coverage of Rice.

Gold Stars for Scottie and Guy

The disgusting exploitation of Pat Tillman's death -- orchestrated by the US Army (like the dishonest exploitation the Jessica Lynch "rescue") -- gets soft peddled and papered over by Scott Simon and Guy Raz on Saturday Weekend Edition.

These two accept the latest Pentagon versions of events without question. Here's Raz: "...but I should say at the outset Scott, the report found no criminal intent at all among anybody involved. What it did find was a series of mishaps, bad decisions, that led to circumstances where Pat Tillman’s family and essentially the country wasn’t notified about the circumstances of his death..." The report comes from the Pentagon's own inspector general.

What is interesting is that there is no intelligent coverage (such as can be found here) given to the actual facts or context of the Tillman story (and nothing about Pat's antiwar views or his brother Kevin's passionate critique of the current US war policies - in fact there has never been any coverage of this dimension of the story on NPR [see this search and this one]). Still Raz can say, with no embarrassment, "Well, we all know the story about Pat Tillman of course..."

Given that the original story of Tillman's death was a shameless propaganda ploy, what is the main journalistic concern of Simon? He asks Raz, "Does this in any way endanger the Silver Star that he received?" Now there is the question that gets to the moral heart of this sad tale.

Raz assures Simon that Tillman's Silver Star will not be revoked. Whew...I know I was worried. What Scottie and Guy don't tell us is that they have earned their gold star stickers for being loyal apologists for the Pentagon propaganda machine...good work boys.

Open Thread - Weekend

NPR related comments welcomed.

Prison Nation

ATC had a piece about Colorado agriculture using prison labor to make up for a shortage of seasonal workers. As I listened to the report I kept thinking that its not really fair to report on prison labor without contextualizing it in the current growth of the prison industrial complex and the horrific history of convict leasing.

A brief bit of searching will turn up some fascinating history such as this resource from Florida, the state I was born and raised in, or this general history of the practice. In fact, even NPR has covered convict leasing a few times in the past.

As far as the current prison system, it would have been interesting to hear from someone at Critical Resistance or the Prison Activist Resource Center which has a link to information on prison labor.

Smart Imperialism

Given the dreams of militaristic domination and triumphalism that neocons were dreaming of back in the days of PNAC - it is refreshing to see some of them like Iran-Contra Armitage and go-it-alone Fukuyama are changing their tune (and trying to hide their own culpability). But today's Morning Edition piece on US foreign policy was a true work of constricted debate. The "experts" brought in represented a range of opinion varying from the Pentagon to the US State Department.

The scholarly guest list was as follows:

• James Carafano, a senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation. Carafano had a long career in the US Army.
• Joseph Nye, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Nye has been a loyal servant to both the Pentagon and State Department.
• Richard Armitage, currently working with Nye on a "bipartisan" study for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Armitage was a Deputy Secretary of State during Bush's first term.
• Edwin Luttwak, a senior advisor at the CSIS who as his bio states "has served as a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force."
• Francis Fukuyama of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Worked for the State Department.
• William Martel, an associate professor of international security studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Professor Martel has worked for the Air Force, the RAND Corp., Air War College and Naval War College.

You can probably guess that none of these fellows is going to challenge the underlying premise that the US can and should dominate the globe. Instead these men all agree that since 2001 the US has relied too much on threats, military action, and unilateralism--what they call "hard power." But don't despair, by using more carrots and diplomacy Jackie Northam assures us that "...the US can attract them [allies] with the legitimacy of its long-standing policies and values. Nye calls this soft power."

Don't worry, NPR is not suggesting any wild-eyed hippie ideas like dismantling our global network of military bases or slashing our bloated war budget. Northam lets us know that "Professor Nye is the first to say that soft power by itself is not enough, and that hard power — whether it be coercion or military might — is also needed. The key, he says, is to balance the two so one doesn't undercut the other. The new term for this is 'smart power.'" And if any of you peaceniks are still whining about this, "Armitage says the ability to balance soft and hard power is a sign of a country's maturity and confidence."

And so children, the bedtime story ends: the US is a gentle giant at heart, with a history of noble and legitimate values, and the last six years have just been a little aberration (like the Vietnam War) and now we will get back on our best behavior, just like after Vietnam when as Northam tells us, "within a few years after American troops pulled out of Vietnam, the U.S. had regained its prestige and diplomatic power."

A Good Corrective

I was headed out to a state park this afternoon with the car radio on when I heard a reporter talking about Josh Marshall and Talking Points Memo. It's a good thing I was able to stay on the road as I had to look down to be sure that the radio was in fact on my NPR station.

On this blog's Tuesday's Open Thread a reader commented:

"One thing I've noticed in the last few days is the determination of NPR to defend the Bush administration explanation on the firing of US Attorney Carol Lam.

As Josh Marshall (talkingpointsmemo) has argued, understanding the Lam firing is crucial to understanding the whole scandal. The Bush administration's explanation is garbage, as is NPR's defense of it."

Well, today NPR did a fine thing--a story on Talking Points Memo that gave them credit for breaking and sticking with the US Attorney purge. The report was done by NPR's Robert Smith, and opened with Michelle Norris stating, "the web site Talking Points Memo dogged the story, gathered information from around the country, and pushed the issue forward with a little help from their readers."

Way to go NPR. Man, it feels good to say that!

Inside Edition

Renee Montagne talks to two guest about two different issues this morning, and lets just say NPR doesn't go very far afield for expert opinions:

On Russia and the UN sanctions against Iran we get to hear from Mark Fitzpatrick, only identified as director of the Non-Proliferation Program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. His and Montagne's opinions are strictly within the approved State Department view of Iran. It's no surprise though if you look at Fitzpatrick's bio. Notice that it states, "Mr Fitzpatrick comes to IISS from a distinguished 26-year career in the US Department of State...." I had to laugh at the following: "In previous State Department postings, he headed the South Asia Regional Affairs Office, responsible for non-proliferation and security policies regarding India and Pakistan." I don't think I'd put that on my resume!

Then on the Khalilzad appointment to be UN ambassador Montagne turns to Richard Haass, who was - as she puts it - "an advisor to former Secretary of State Colin Powell." Excuse me, but I'm not interested in hearing from yet another advisor to a disgraced, dishonest public offical. The man offers nothing new--surprise. He hammers on Iran and asserts that Syria assassinated Hariri in Lebanon (no challenge from Montagne), but there are a few laughers:

He says of Khalilzad, that "he’s someone who comes with a good reputation from his experiences in both Iraq and Afghanistan ." Ah, yes, I'd say he's done a "heckuva job." Then later he describes the role of John Bolton at the UN as someone who used "it as something of a podium, and they use it as a way to speak to the world from the position of the United States." Not exactly how I would have put it!

Entertaining...and scary.

Twigs

Richard Harris and Renee Montagne pick apart Al Gore's case on global warming in a strange exercise of focusing on the trivial while admitting but minimizing that the heart of Gore's argument is correct.

Harris says of Gore, "But that said, he does get the big picture very well. Most scientists say he really can see the forest for the trees." You can't say the same for Harris and Montagne; these two apparently can't even see the tree for the twigs!

This was a strange piece. The main complaints they raise with Gore's case are an overstatement of Arctic ice melt, sea level rise, and Hurricane Katrina. It's funny because they pick apart the Arctic ice issue because Gore gives an over-exact number of 34 years for something that should be an inexact estimate, but then they pick apart his argument on Katrina because he only "implies" that Katrina was due to global warming and he does this in (note the intended disparagement) "a very lawyerly way." Well, guess what NPR? Nobody is going to say Katrina was "a result of" global warming, but only fools or crass Bushists would fail to consider the obvious connection between global warming and the ferocity of the back to back hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005.

Too bad that in correcting the overstatements by Gore on sea-level rise, NPR doesn't mention that the predictions for sea-level increase have lately been revised significantly upward--and even a meter increase will be devastating here and globally.

It's sad that NPR can't address the heart of Gore's case--which is that if the leadership of this country, Democrat and Republican, don't take decisive action on CO2 emissions we are going to be seriously screwed...Seriously even Sports Illustrated gets it!