No Comment Necessary

Yesterday, introducing a report on the Israel/Palestine conflict and Olmert's announcement that he will retire, Michele Norris states:

"At the State Department today, Condoleezza Rice tried to keep the push for Middle East peace on track."

I guess if Henry Kissinger can win the Nobel Peace Prize, anybody can be a pusher for peace...

Ecstatic

I just had to laugh at Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson's report from Baghdad during the hourly news summary this morning. NPR (following the dreary AP's lead) decided that Iraq's being allowed to send four athletes to the Olympics in Beijing is not just big news, but joyous news:

"Iraqis here are ecstatic after IOC officials announced they had lifted the ban following a meeting with the Iraqi government."

Call me skeptical, but I'm willing to wager that you'd be hard pressed to find an Iraqi outside the Green Zone who could give a rat's ass about this news. But hey, celebrating Iraqis always make for thrilling news from the land of liberation.

The Art of Distraction

(graphic is from NPR's web site)

This morning, as I listened to Jennifer Ludden's moving story of an Iraqi refugee finding work, support and kindess in Billings, Montana - I had the odd experience of finding myself seething. How dare NPR run this kind of folksy, feel-good story about one Iraqi refugee while it does virtually nothing to report on, investigate and expose the criminally negligent US response to the Iraqi refugee crisis that its invasion and occupation created.

I'm happy that there are people of goodwill who will help out an Iraqi refugee in the US, but good God, where is the attention to the 4.7 million Iraqi refugees displaced by this war of choice? Where is the focus on the heartless and inadequate assistance and resettlement that the US has provided for this humanitarian mess of its own making? It's not as if the problem has gotten better since the UN statistics were released in September of 2007; Amnesty International issued a scathing report on the Iraqi refugee crisis just this past June.

I was angry because I was being had. Like a good pickpocket, NPR is trying to strip us of informed outrage. It wants to distract us with a story that is notable for how little it represents the experience of most Iraqi refugees and how little information it contains about the scale of the problem and who is responsible for creating it. It takes advantage of the humanity and decency of listeners, trying to leave us feeling moved and reassured about a case that is the exception, while - of course - leaving us less informed than ever.

Q Tips

NPR related comments welcomed.

Right Out of the Movies

NPR was in a festive mood on Saturday, celebrating the 100th birthday of the FBI. On Weekend Edition Saturday, agent Temple-Raston was excitedly telling us about the heroics of 102 yr. old former FBI agent, Walter Walsh. Completely ignoring FBI assaults on our civil liberties (as usual), NPR simply lionizes the FBI.

Temple-Raston describes the career of ex-agent Walsh in adoring, comic-book style:

• "Walsh was an FBI agent in those days when the life of an agent seemed right out of the movies."
• "...he's sharp and funny and there's a twinkle in his eye."

Then on All Things Considered Andrea Seabrook runs with the movie metaphor, telling us "Here are a few of our favorite FBI flicks [sound clips play from G-Men, Point Break, Breach, Silence of the Lambs, and Catch Me If You Can ] - just a few of the great FBI moments from movie history."

Seabrook finished this commercial with an invitation: "What are your favorite FBI movies, visit NPR.org and click 'contact us' and send us a note with 'FBI Movie' in the subject line." Call me gullible, but I took NPR up on the offer. Here was my note to them:

Dear NPR staff:

Andrea Seabrook invited suggestions for FBI movies. Here are a few that might take a bit of the shine off the celebratory tone that NPR has adopted for the FBI centenary:

The Murder of Fred Hampton
The U.S. vs. John Lennon
Incident at Oglala
Ruby Ridge: Anatomy of a Tragedy
Waco: The Rules of Engagement

These movies would help correct NPR's lopsided portrayal of the FBI as simply heroic and would convey its more troubling role as a weapon of government power exceeding and often abusing its legal role.

Thanks.

Stay tuned...

Q Tips

NPR related comments welcomed.

Benny Gets a Pass

I hope Tony Karon over at Restless Cosmopolitan is right that Iran is definitely not going to be attacked by the US or Israel, because Robert Siegel's distorted interview with Benny Morris is bloodcurdling in its implications. Siegel raised a few weak challenges to Morris' logic, but here are some Morris statements that essentially went unchallenged:

"I think Iran is bound for nuclear weaponry...if they get it there is every chance they will use it against Israel..."

"...Israel must consider the military option."

"Bush a true and trusted friend."

"Israel has never threatened any country with destruction..."

"the Iranians on the other hand...have been threatening Israel with destruction for the past few years."

Iran is "driven by religious fanaticism."

"Iranian regime is completely different...these people are not rational by our lights."

"[the Iranians] look offensively and aggressively at places like Israel...want to destroy it..they say that every day."

To his credit Siegel mentions Israel's nuclear arsenal, but he never mentions that Iran has not attacked or threatened to launch an offensive military attack on any state for over a hundred years. And of course, Siegle never mentions that Israel has a history of invading and (as in the 2006 invasion of Lebanon) trying to destroy sovereign states. He doesn't mention that much of Israel's occupation and annexation is driven by religious fanaticism. Siegel also doesn't challenge the idea of Iran being completely irrational: he could have noted that Iran has actually behaved quite rationally for the last several years - it's manuevering in Iraq would have been an excellent case in point where it has played its political hand in a very rational manner or he might have mentioned Iran's willingness to accept a two state solution if Palestinians approve it.

More Balance

Obama is touring Israel and Palestine and NPR is on it. This morning Inskeep and Gonyea report with a big emphasis on balance:

Inskeep tells us that Obama's tour "is taking him to both sides of the dividing lines between Israelis and Palestinians. But while visiting both sides..."

Gonyea insists that Obama "is trying to balance things...probably the trickiest day of Senator Obama's overseas' trip."

Too bad our intrepid NPR journalists don't report on some of that tricky balance. They could have started with that slightly imbalanced US aid to Israel (you can also click on the graphic above to see another breakdown of this aid). They also could have gone looking into the balanced killings and human rights abuses between Israel and Palestine. Or reminded us that one side is an internationally recognized state which has used the full force of its military and US alliance to occupy, annex and repress the other side for over forty years instead of treating the situation as if it were a conflict between two balanced forces.

The other interesting aspect of this Morning Edition report is that Gonyea's pretense to being an authority on the full spectrum of Israeli and Palestinian opinions. Consider this exchange:

Inskeep: "What questions do Israelis have about Obama?"

Gonyea: "They are worried that in dealing with the peace process with the Palestinians that in forcing compromise and trying to broker a deal, he might push the Israelis harder, he might side a bit too much with the Palestinians...and that's obviously reflected in the kind of things we're hearing from Jewish voters in America."

Inskeep: "Are Palestinians any happier about Barack Obama?"

Gonyea: "They have some concerns as well...will no doubt have a warm meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, but there is concern...he might bend over backwards to please Israel."

I'm just curious how Gonyea knows what they are worried about? Who is this mythical they anyway? Gonyea is not reporting on surveys or polls. It's sloppy to report as if Israelis have some kind of unified opinion on Obama (or just about anything for that matter), and in spite of the reactionary politics of many American Jewish organizations - there are diverse opinions about US policy in Israel/Palestine (Jewish Voice for Peace or Tikkun for example). And of course, Gonyea is not talking about even a sampling of Palestinians, but only the US/Israel approved Palestinian officials who supposedly represent the "other side" in the conflict.

Q Tips

NPR related comments are always welcomed.

Surgin'

According to Michele Norris on Thursday's ATC, NPR was "curious about John McCain's premise that applying the lessons of Iraq could lead to victory in Afghanistan." Opening the report, Norris says, "McCain asserts that the best way to turn around the situation in Afghanistan is by using the experience in Iraq as a blueprint." This is followed by McCain's voice asserting "...it is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan; it's by applying the tried and true principles of counterinsurgency used in the surge - which Senator Obama opposed - that we will win in Afghanistan."

What NPR should be curious about is whether the very premise of McCain's claim is true. Has the Surge has been a "success?" Unfortunately, as anyone who follows NPR knows, NPR has simply accepted that the Surge has succeeded.

In the report Norris talks to Nathaniel C. Fick, counterinsurgency advocate and fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Fick is all for using the "lessons learned" in Iraq, Vietnam, Malaya, etc. (NPR has a long history of promoting US/British counterinsurgency) as the US seeks "victory" in Afghanistan. If you listen to the report you won't hear anything about these lessons from the Surge: rearming parties to an unresolved sectarian conflict, that the US may be helping Maliki crush political opponents, that a lot of the "peace" of the surge is from cantonization of Baghdad and ethnic cleansing.

What NPR should be doing is acknowledging that the Surge has been a smashing success if its goal is to reduce immediate violence and postpone the final horrors of the Iraq War until Bush leaves office. If they were reporting truthfully on the failures of the Surge, then McCain's wish to apply the Surge wouldn't even merit serious consideration, but would reveal itself as the self-evident folly that it is.

Q Tips

NPR related comments welcomed.

Open Season on Afghanis

Yesterday's ATC featured one baby step forward, followed by a huge stride backwards. Robert Siegel was talking with Globe and Mail correspondent Colin Freeze discussing the released video of Omar Khadar.

Siegel deserves credit for asking the obvious -but rarely asked - question. Discussing the capture of the teen fighter Khadar in Afghanistan he says:

"....a story about a firefight...he allegedly throws a hand grenade...that sounds to be as close to the capture of a POW and as different from capturing somebody who's hatching a plot to bomb an airplanes let's say as I can imagine. I just wonder if that's a point of contention that his lawyers have raised?"

It's a well stated question, and his guest, Freeze, responds:

"Oh certainly and it's also something we got to ask John Bellinger of the US State Department - a legal adviser there; he gave a briefing to Canadian media on that one. Bellinger's answer was by our laws, al-Qaeda, Taliban were illegal enemy fighters. By UN resolutions we were okay to fire at them, but because they were by nature illegal fighters, anything they fired back was illegal. So therefore what Omar Kadar did was a war crime."

When I heard this stunning response, I thought. Please follow up, please... No chance. Here's just a few possible follow-ups that any journalist might have made:

• Doesn't John Bellinger represent the Bush Administration anyway? Why would his interpretation be decisive? [Bellinger is a complete Bush tool. As his bio notes, "From February 2001 to January 2005, ....he provided legal advice to the President, the National Security Adviser, NSC Principals, and NSC and White House staff on a broad range of national security and international legal matters."]

• What UN resolutions are you referring to?

• Are you suggesting that a UN resolution backed the US military attack on Afghanistan in 2001, and also prohibited any military response by the Afghanis?

Seriously, the UN had plenty of condemnation and sanctions against the Taliban, but nothing like Bellinger and Freeze claim. I came across one coherent argument for denying Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters POW status here, but it's conclusion is interpretive at best.

War Erupting and The People's Army

Tonight's coverage of the exchange of bodies and prisoners between Israel and Hezbollah/Lebanon provided a good case of contrast and compare on NPR. Reporting from Israel, Eric Westervelt had some interesting comments:

"....since they were seized in an ambush on July 12th, 2006 while on a routine patrol near the Lebanese border. Hezbollah guerrillas rained machine-gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire down on their armored jeeps. Three Israeli soldiers were killed on the spot and Goldwasser and Regev were taken captive. They were reservists Israeli soldiers doing their annual duty in what many here call 'The People's Army.'"

That is some colorful storytelling. I searched and searched and could find little details about the ambush itself. The Washington Post and the BBC both had some sketchy information about the operation in which the two Israeli soldiers were captured. Both quoted Hezbollah officials claiming that they had seized the two men in order to force prisoner exchanges. I couldn't find anything about the machine-gun and rocket-propelled grenades, although one might assume such weapons were used given the deaths of the soldiers. The bit about the "People's Army" was just plain salesmanship for the militarized state of Israel.

From Lebanon, NPR has Ivan Watson reporting on the reactions of citizens, government officials and Hezbollah supporters. Unfortunately, Watson - who did some of the better reporting from Lebanon when it was being pulverized by the IDF - has switched to the unoffending passive voice in describing Israel's planned destruction of Lebanon in the summer of 2006. He states,

"When Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in that 2006 raid, Israel refused to negotiate. Instead a vicious five week war erupted which left much of Southern Lebanon in ruins."

War didn't just "erupt," it was planned and premeditated with US assistance. However, the part about Lebanon in ruins was true, but it didn't occur by happenstance.

Happy Times on the Plantation

Any doofus who knows anything about the history of South and Central America knows that most of the countries there have suffered for centuries the horrors of the latifundia /hacienda system whereby tiny, extremely violent elites held nearly all the arable lands. Slavery, murder, torture and terror were used to crush resistance and enslave workers in these plantations. In the twentieth century the US was often the generous provider of arms, funds, and training for the elites that ruled these countries.

But in Venezuela the problem according to six-figure Steve Inskeep is that "President Hugo Chavez uses revolutionary rhetoric that has incited poor squatters to invade large farms. Chavez says rich land owners care little about the poor." And the solution is..."one of those landowners..." Honestly, "one of those landowners"!

Unlike the misfired New Yorker cover, this story is not parody. It's dead serious. Yep, from the centuries of hacienda hell (which is not ancient history), NPR worked hard to find the one exception, Alberto Vollmer, a rich hacienda owner who seems to have both power, wealth and morality. The guy seems like an interesting man, and if one can believe Forero's report - and that's always a big if with Forero - the policies of the democratically elected Venezuelan government (including Hugo Chavez) have created an opportunity where the extremely wealthy can use their holdings to better the lives of others instead of destroy them.

But God forbid that any credit go to the government of Venezuela. No the only hope is from the plantation master, who in spite of everything has a heart of gold.

Q Tips

NPR related comments welcomed.

You Can't Spell Elliott without O...I...L

Sometimes NPR is pretty darn slick (as in oil that is). This morning I heard their piece on the debates around offshore drilling for oil and gas along the Gulf Coast states. As the report progressed, it seemed all right: a range of comments from people holding different views on whether or not Florida should allow offshore drilling. But then it struck me as curious that in Debbie Elliott's report the only significant challenge she raised was to an opponent of drilling offshore. She was interviewing Sandy Johnston, executive director of the Pensacola Beach Chamber of Commerce, who said, "We have people coming from all over the world to see this. Why even take a chance?" Elliott retorts, "We're sitting here on the front porch of your visitor information center and we're watching the traffic come in. People have to pay for gas to drive to get here. Do you not think that at some point the trade off is worth it when people can no longer afford to come here?"

That was odd, given that no one else in her report was put on the defensive with such a direct question. But the real zinger came right at the end. After giving a lot of airtime to the pro-drilling Frances Coleman, editorial page editor of the Mobile Press Register, Elliot sums up her views and the report with, "So when she hears her cross border neighbors whining about the price at the pump her response: Well bless their hearts." Whining? That's interesting...seems like somebody else was recently just accusing the public of whining...now who could that be?

The other major problem with Elliot's story is how it is framed completely as an economic issue. Will "unsightly" drilling negative affect the tourism business in Florida, and if so, is it worth it given the energy and financial gains that might come from drilling. There was absolutely nothing of substance offered regarding the environmental risks and impact of offshore drilling. That is odd, given that there are significant impacts and risks (even from natural gas drilling). Furthermore, there was no input from environmentalists, even though there are local environmental activists available for input. This lack of the environmental aspect is striking, given that even such bland outlets as USA Today include the environmental angle as a substantive part of their coverage.

Let's just say, this NPR report seems a bit rigged (oil that is) from the start.

Bilge

Imagine someone saying the following:

"I am free, free as any man can be, as free as any man ever was - almost continuously. Sure I have to occasionally stop, touch land, mingle with dirt dwellers and their slick glad handing politicians and of course the related uniformed power thugs which anxiously encircle them - you know they don't talk about extortion, these days, nah that's not PC. They don't talk about strong armed tactics or intimidation, nah, they are too civilized for that. Instead we call it taxes and universal health care, and my favorite - paying one's fair share."

Extortion, strong armed tactics, intimidation = health care! Give me a break. Anyone can harbor whatever resentful, bitter ignorant attitudes they want about taxes and health care, but it's not fit material for a public news program. However, NPR sees fit to provide a forum to captain Fatty Goodlander.

I could only wonder if Goodlander felt the same about health care when he had a minor heart attack and was "evacuated by air to a cardiac unit in Puerto Rico"? I wonder who was extorted and intimidated to get him the care he needed then?

The Royal We

I'm always suspicious when some talking head on the news is talking about some disastrous situation such as the Iraq War, the credit crisis or - as was the case today - the banking crisis, and lays the blame on "us" saying, "We all got it wrong," or "We've all been lulled." Usually these statements are just not true, and serve to ignore the critics and dissidents who actually "got it right" or "weren't lulled" at all.

Talking about the burgeoning banking crisis, NPR's Sunday Weekend Edition talked to financial analyst Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics. Petrou had the following to say:

"We'll have more bank failures....we've all been lulled into complacency. We've had a lot of good years - a boom brings that out in the banking system, and it makes us all lazy; it means that uninsured depositors get too relaxed and they don't take care. It means that regulators get lazy. We've been through a period of time in which we all sort of thought that 'Gee, regulation is always wrong and the market is always right' and I think we got a little too careless."

If only there were someone there to say, "Speak for yourself, Karen." Not everybody was having good years and a lot of people saw banking deregulation for the swindle it was.

Back in 1999 Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman denounced Sec of the Treasury Robert Rubin for his work spearheading banking deregulation, and pointed out the problems with such a policy. Weissman is still writing on the issue. There have been others warning about deregulation such as this article from The Boston Globe in 2000 and this from The Seattle Post Intelligencer in 2002. I wonder when NPR will be consulting some of the folks who got it right? If the Iraq War experience is any indication, it won't be anytime soon.

A Gaggle of Journalists

Today's Saturday Weekend Edition began with it's hourly summary describing the death of Tony Snow. The summary featured a clip of Tony Snow on the Colbert Report where Colbert is congratulating Snow on being a "journalist" because of his years at Fox News. Apparently the sarcasm went right over the heads of the NPR folks because Linda Wertheimer opens the show's segment on Tony Snow by saying, "...former White House press secretary, journalist Tony Snow...."

I'd suggest that Wertheimer and crew brush up a little on the ethical standards of journalism. The Society of Professional Journalists has a few criteria of what journalists should do:

• Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.
• Give voice to the voiceless; official and unofficial sources of information can be equally valid.
• Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.
• Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know.
• Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.

Let's just say that Snow's career doesn't even come close. But what about the coverage of Snow's dishonest (very dishonest) work for the Bush administration. NPR hands the job over to David Folkenflik who tells us how Tony Snow "played a raucous blues flute....lived life easily, enjoyed it too," had a "genial presence" and was "a conduit for the President to conservatives, but also to his former peers in the press corp." Clearly Folkenflik was taken with the personable Snow.

NPR's feature really is an odd, and rather shameful piece - unable to distinguish between partisan hack and journalist. Even when we are given a sound bite of Snow saying that Valerie Plame "wasn't a covert agent, she wasn't compromised," no comment is made about this being a blatant lie. The only revealing bit of news in the piece is that after Snow's work as a speech writer (journalist?) for Bush senior, he "then became a newspaper and NPR commentator."

Dizzy

How does NPR find these guys for interviews? This morning Wertheimer talks to former CIA servant, Kenneth Katzman, who now works for the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service [of course nonpartisan here just means neither Democrat nor Republican, not independent of serving the interests of US global hegemony.]

The heart of Wertheimer's talk with Katzman is the Iraqi Occupation Prime Minister Maliki's call for a timetable for withdrawal. Can you guess where the pressure for such a ridiculous demand is coming from? Iran! What a surprise. Katzman has the following to say:

"I think he is getting pressure from the Iranians. Iran views this as a US attempt to basically complete or contiue its encirlcement of Iran....as a US attempt to secure bases from which the United States can easily conduct an attack...be able to send covert operatives and special forces into Iran...and it's trying to mainly work through the Sadr faction to undermine the agreement."

There's that canard about the Sadr movement being nothing but an Iranian proxy - a bit of doublespeak that simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. As Gary Kamiya notes in his Salon article, which relies a lot on Juan Cole's expertise, Iran is far closer to Maliki's Supreme Council than it is to the Sadr movement.

You also have to love Katzman's arrogance. He says, "several blocks in the Parliament do not want this agreement at all, or at the very least, are arguing that it's an infringement of Iraqi sovereignty - although I suspect that's not the real reason why they oppose it." Yeah, having over a hundred thousand foreign troops in your country for years who are allowed to mount operations without your government's approval and who are not accountable to your government for crimes and atrocities would hardly be an infringement on a country's sovereignty.

It is interesting to read Katzman's interview with CFR from November 2003. He seems to have become far more favorable of occupation and anti-Iran spin than he was back then.