Q Tips

NPR related comments, notes and critiques welcomed.  For new readers, I have been posting far less frequently in the last year, but - through the efforts of contributors - Q Tips continues to be an informative and vital part of keeping tabs on NPR's role as the loyal mouthpiece of institutions of power in the US.

Show Your Support for Your Enemies

Irony is Dead

(Update below)

The latest spam in my inbox from my misguided friends at Free Press wants me to get a sticker (see graphic on the left) so I can show people how devoted I am to the hippy-bashing, Fox loving, war worshiping stooges working for NPR.  Well, looks like Free Press isn't the only organization that knows how to "take action."  David Swanson at War is a Crime has an excellent piece up on how NPR rushes to harshly punish a non-employee who dares to exercise her 1st Amendment rights in a way that presents no conflict of interest - unlike NPR's highly paid rogues gallery of Mara Liasson, Cokie Roberts, Scott Simon, etc.

I keep wondering when and if those progressives who keep coming to the defense of NPR will ever wake up and realize NPR just aint that into you...

Update, 10-21-11 8pm EDT - Looks like Fox Radio NPR (S40) is showing what a big, brave suck up to the right wing it really is...  Here's the news from WDAV and Poynter. Readers of this blog have long known which percent NPR stands for (hint: it's not the 99).  It's pledge time for most NPR stations and you can let them know that you'll give elsewhere until they stop sending your dollars to NPR news (remind them that there is Pacifica, Free Speech Radio News, and  DemocracyNow!)

Q Tips and Puppets

NPR has hired a new CEO.  His name is Gary Knell and he has been the CEO of Sesame Street Workshop. He starts his new gig at NPR on Dec. 1 Sometimes it's just best to let reality speak for itself:

[Knell] "Despite the fact that it may appear that I'm a guy who's doing puppet shows, that's not really true."

I guess he can truthfully make that claim until December 1st rolls around...

I'll leave this post up as a Q Tips post where other NPR related notes and comments are welcomed and encouraged.

Natural Born Killers

NPR gives the tiniest blip of airtime to dissenting views of the blatantly anti-Constitutional and illegal assassination of US citizen, and terrorist suspect, Anwar al-Awlaki.  Most of NPR's coverage is decidedly favorable US security establishment - such as Friday afternoon's summary by CIA spokesperson Dina Temple-Raston and Pentagon Sock Monkey, Rachel Martin's Saturday defense of the murders of al-Awalki and Samir Khan.  

Friday afternoon and evening's 5-minute news summary featured Abu Ghraib criminal interrogator/and trainer for the Iraqi Torture Interior Ministry - Professor Matthew Degn - plugging the glorious successes of the endless War on Terror:

[Jack Spear] "In what US officials are deeming a significant blow to al-Qaeda's most active affiliate...the man believed to directed the attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas day among other plots was killed in a missile strike in Yemen today.  Matthew Degn is Director of Intelligence Studies at American University he says the attack is significant in the ongoing war with al-Qaeda.  [Degn] 'You win a war by defeating its leaders. You win a war by defeating the organization, and to do that you have to eliminate its leaders - capture or kill the leaders and that's what we're doing right now in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere around the world.'" [Now you know WTF we are doing in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere!]

The little squeak of dissent permitted occurred during Friday's ATC promisingly titled piece "Debate Erupts Over Legality of Awlaki's Killing." Carrie Johnson ran the briefest little clip of Hina Shamsi from the ACLU: 

[Shamsi] "The government should not have the unreviewable authority to carry out the targeted killing of any American, anywhere whom the American president deems to be a threat to the nation."

That was it for the dissenting viewpoint on Johnson's report.  The rest of the time was given to apologists for the assassination.  First was the Justice Department who Johnson tells us "responded that Awlaki wasn't just any American....[but] an operational leader who helped equip terrorist plotters with bombs." Next was Bushist lawyer, John Bellinger, who weighed in with this brilliant analysis: "The requirements of the Constitution with respect to due process for killing an American are not clear." [I swear I'm not making this crap up.]  To deliver a coup de grace to the concept of due process, Johnson found Ken Anderson, a professor who, according to Johnson, "says the analysis starts with whether Awlaki amounted to a lawful target, U.S. citizen or not." 

Probably the most grotesque defense of the assassination came from Rachel Martin on Saturday morning with Scott Simon.  Scott opens the discussion with an evidence free conviction of al-Awalki: "he was a key operative for al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen," and it's downhill from there.  Here are quotes from Martin - essentially her talking points - and they are indistinguishable from those of the Obama administration, the CIA, and the Pentagon:

• "...this was a man directly linked to several high profile terrorist attacks over the last couple of years." 
• "...part of why he was so important - because he INSPIRED others to violent action with his message." 
• "...he was the architect of that plot [Xmas day underwear bomber] against the United States.  This is what al-Awalki was all about...
• "one one side there is an argument that he is a US citizen, he has legal rights...but the US government is clear here Scott, they say this was legal..."
• "the US government argues that when someone, even an American citizen, joins the enemy in an ongoing war against the US that person becomes a legitimate target."

As our Constitution withers in the face the assaults of US corporate/security state with its promotion of endless war, NPR has made it clear which it is on.  To anyone still supporting NPR with donations, you do so at your own peril...

Q Tips

NPR related comments welcomed and encouraged.

Police Brutality Shielded by NPR

Anthony Bologna - NYPD thug

(Update below)
As readers have commented in the Q-Tips section below, NPR is following the rest of the police state media in offering ZERO on-air coverage of the Occupy Wall Street actions in NYC that were launched on September 17, 2011.  This is especially galling now that the police have resorted to basic thuggery against peaceful protesters and have targeted the relatively small and spirited demonstrators with dozens of frivolous arrests.

Activists have identified one of the chief perpetrators of police violence - Anthony Bologna (see graphic above) - and since the NYPD website gives the places where citizens can demand that action be taken against this criminal in uniform, I thought I'd post it here for anyone wanting to email, mail or call:

"The IAB Command Center office is open for complaint, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A complaint may also be called in by phone to (212) 741-8401, by E-Mail to IAB@NYPD.org, or By postal mail to Occupant, P.O. Box 1001, New York 10014; to the Internal Affairs Bureau, located at 315 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013 or in person at any Police Department facility." 

FAIR asks the obvious question of how the media would cover Tea Party extremists in a similar scenario, but - regarding NPR - one doesn't have to wonder: just take a look at some of the enhanced promotions that NPR has given to them.

Given the assault on many of our constitutional liberties and the rise of paramilitary tactics by police forces around the country when confronting dissent, one would think that liberals and progressives would be calling for a boycott of NPR for its near complete lack of investigative work on any abuses of power by US police, military, or corporate forces.  Unfortunately, as in the past, the opposite seems to be the case with individuals and organizations like Free Press reacting to proposed funding cuts to NPR with this kind of misinformation that I recently received in an email:

"Taking down NPR and PBS has been a decades-long goal of political extremists in Washington who are threatened by public media’s brand of facts-based investigative reporting." [my emphasis added] 

Josh Stearns
Associate Program Director
Free Press Action Fund 

If one wants to make the case for preventing government spending cuts to NPR because it represents a victory for the take-no-prisoners brown shirts of the right that is one thing, but to claim that NPR offers anything resembling "facts-based reporting" is such delusional thinking that it would be funny if the reality weren't so downright depressing.

Update, September 28 - NPR's newest tool Ombudsman weighs in on NPR's censorship.  He decides it's not a problem...surprise!

"As ombudsman, I don't weigh in on daily news judgment unless its totally egregious or part of a long term trend, and this one is neither. But the complaints have validity, too."

Q Tips

NPR related comments welcomed and encouraged.

NPR Covers(up) Torture...Again

When hard evidence of the criminality of US officials in torturing, disappearing, and torturing to death human beings falls into the hands of the so-called journalists at NPR, you can be certain that every effort will be made to obscure (or completely ignore) the laws that were broken, the horrors that were committed, and the guilt of US officials.

Two recent stories highlight NPR's longstanding commitment to the enabling of US torture policy. In the first, a civil lawsuit in New York State exposes details of the CIA's longstanding rendition/torture program.   The second story - which is creating headlines and investigations in the UK - involves the discovery of documents in Libya's Intelligence and Foreign Ministry offices which clearly show that the CIA was sending kidnapped suspects to Libya to be tortured.

The first story is dispensed with on ATC on September 1, and features NPR's intellectual heavyweight, Robert Siegel interviewing WaPo reporter, Peter Finn about the "details."  There is a lot of discussion about the millions spent on the CIA's rendition (kidnapping) flights and the focus of the story is Siegel's amazement that the US government even allowed this case to come to light: 

(Siegel) "Now, the mystery in all this is the absence of mystery. You quote the lawyer...as saying that he kept on waiting for the government to step into this case. Don't they usually do that, and why didn't they do it in this case?"

What is completely absent is any indication that kidnapping people and flying them around the world to be tortured and disappeared is completely illegal (and morally reprehensible). 

The second, more recent story - coming out of Libya - reveals documented evidence that the CIA flagrantly violated the US Convention Against Torture.  On Weekend Edition Sunday, September 4, NPR runs cover for the US/CIA.  There is no gray area in the law - unless one supports the the US being able to torture suspects: 

"It shall be the policy of the United States not to expel, extradite, or otherwise effect the involuntary return of any person to a country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture, regardless of whether the person is physically present in the United States."

NPR is well aware of  Libya's systemic use of torture: 

(Melissa Block on September 1) "Under Moammar Gadhafi's rule, tens of thousands of people disappeared into prisons. According to human rights groups, the Libyan state security apparatus tortured detainees and held them without due process."

If it's common knowledge that Libya, under Gadhafi, tortured prisoners, that means there are "substantial grounds" for believing anyone handed over to Libya then would be tortured, and therefore makes the US and CIA officials guilty of violating both US and international law, right?  Not on NPR.  It's worth reprinting Sunday's interchange between Cornish and coup-cozy Beaubien:  

Cornish: "And, of course, we're seeing reports about files uncovered in the Interior Ministry and the Foreign Ministry." 

Beaubien: "Yes, that's right. And actually Human Rights Watch got a hold of an entire batch of documents....And these documents show that clearly, you know, from what was in these documents, apparently the CIA was using Libya as a place of rendition; to move the suspects in, have them interrogated in Libya." 

Cornish: "And, of course, at this point these documents have not been authenticated. But the idea that the - that even the idea that the U.S. might be having suspects moved to this country with the traditional - with a tradition of brutal questioning is something that's raising a lot of eyebrows. 

Beaubien: "Yeah. And I should add that in these documents it does explicitly say - these communications between the CIA and the Gadhafi regime, it does say that Libya, you must respect the human rights of these people. So I should add that. But it certainly does raise questions about who the U.S. and the British intelligence services were using to interrogate terror suspects in (t)his global war on terror."

How's that for hedging, qualifying, minimizing, and excusing? If torture weren't such a perverted, disgusting, pornographic, and pathological practice, then Beaubien's straight-faced assertions that the CIA-linked document "does explicitly say...it does say...'you must respect the human rights of these people'" would be laughable naivete, instead of what it is: an intentional and ethically bankrupt attempt to obscure the fact that the US and CIA willingly participate in the torture of human beings. 

Q Tips - Heavy Lifting

Hello readers. I'm putting up a new open thread as the previous one reached the 130 mark! Commenters are doing an incredible job of documenting NPR awfulness. I'm finding that NPR disgusts me so much that I'm listening to very little of it these days, and am often not up for dissecting its lazy, inaccurate and subservient to power broadcasts. Thank you to all who continue to listening and analyzing...

Q Tips - Midsummer

NPR related comments welcomed and encouraged.

NPR Loves it Some Dumbness

I made the mistake of listening to NPR for about 15 minutes this morning and got to hear Andrea Seabrook present a Bart Simpsonesque explanation of debt economics. Here's Andrea:

"...so it's useful to take a moment and just remind ourselves of the big picture here. The financial world is already kind of skittish; the markets haven't tanked, but investors are on alert. They're still recovering their confidence from some pretty hard shakes in 2007 and 2008. Now they're watching other countries - especially Greece - deal with the effects of too much government debt built up over years of spending. And then they look at the US...and the benefits the government has promised to people who are retiring cost way more than it can afford... Investors see serious work that needs to be done..."

Just a few notes on Andrea's brilliant analysis:

• The Big Picture: You might be thinking that she would mention the collapse of that little old $8 trillion housing bubble [one of those "hard shakes"], or wage stagnation that drives down consumer demand, or the whole ponzification of the US and global financial markets, or....
• Greek Debt Crisis as caused by "years of spending": It's hard to imagine a more stupid summary of the complex Greek situation involving complicated Eurozone history & politics, investor predatory practices, and fallout from the US economic crisis - unless the purpose of the analysis is to promote the FOX/Republican (and now Democratic leadership) line that government spending is a bad thing.
• Retirement benefits are more than government can afford: well what can you say to this pure propaganda about Social security - except to note that it fits with NPR's regular assaults on this successful government program.

Dean Baker's Beat the Press Smackdown

If you missed it, Dean Baker takes NPR to the woodshed yet again. Readers of this blog will notice the familiar NPR pattern of "he said - she said" reporting, a complete disdain for facts, and a typically pro-rich, pro conservative attack on government spending. Enjoy:

NPR Does the He Said/She Said on Minnesota Shutdown

Tuesday, 05 July 2011 04:31

It is not balanced reporting to present a Republican legislator from Minnesota talking about spiraling state spending and then present someone else talking about state services. Most NPR listeners will not have the time to look up the data on state spending in Minnesota. NPR's reporter should.

If NPR had done its job, it would have pointed out that there has been no upward trend in state spending. Therefore when the Republicans complain about out of control or spiraling spending, they are not being honest.

Q Tips & Summer Break

NPR related notes and comments welcomed.

I've currently been posting about once a week, and I anticipate posting far less over the summer months. I'll open a new Q Tips/open-thread post anytime comments reach the 100 mark.

Tough Minded Hope and Faith from Rev. Ron Elving

If you've ever wondered why - when it comes to economic issues - NPR's content almost always echoes the Washington Consensus favoring the wealthy and privileged, you need look no further than Ron Elving, "the senior Washington editor for NPR News, where he directs coverage of the capitol and of national politics."

On Weekend Edition Sunday I was listening to Liane Hansen discuss what she called "twin burdens of the federal deficit and debt" with Ron Elving when I heard him make a remarkable statement. Hansen has just asked him, "And what about the other group, the senators who had a bipartisan group looking into what, a long term global deal on the deficit...?" To which Elving replied:

"Yes and a lot of us were holding out a good deal of hope and faith in that group, but this week the so-called "Gang of Six"...suffered a major blow, a perhaps crippling blow. They lost one of their members, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma."

It is truly a remarkable statement. Notice that Elving didn't say "a lot of people" or "many politicians" etc., but included himself in the congregation of those who held out "hope and faith" in this senatorial "Gang of Six."

Well, that got me wondering just what is the take on "this small group of senators [that] has spent four months in dozens of secretive meetings" on budget issues. No surprise: the group is not progressive and not interested in representing the poor or lower middle classes; its range of "acceptable" options for the budget lies somewhere between Paul Ryan's extreme-right gutting entitlements and Obama's center-right hopey-changey death by a thousand cuts for entitlements.

Amazingly, Reverend Hope and Faith Elving isn't done preaching his articles of faith. Speaking of Paul Ryan's intellectually vacuous rip-off-for-the-rich budget plan (which NPR blessed as inspired long before it landed fresh and steaming on the House floor), Ron Elving says "what Paul Ryan has done,...come forward with something tough-minded, something politically unpopular..."

Lastly, when Liane Hansen asks Elving if he sees any hope on the horizon for the budget, he shows where his treasure lies:

"This week on Wednesday, there is a public event in town sponsored by the Peter Peterson Foundation - this is an anti-deficit outfit, private informal group. And it is billed as the Fiscal Summit 2011. It will bring together the remaining Gang of Five from the Senate, and also Paul Ryan - the man from the House - and also former President, Bill Clinton..."

There you have NPR's senior editor giving his endorsement to a conference organized by the Slash-Entitlements-for-the-Benefit-of-Billionaires Institute (aka Peter Peterson Institute - whose success shaping NPR (and mainstream media) coverage of the deficit "crisis" I've posted on before.

Of course listening to NPR, you would NEVER know about the People's Budget from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Something that actually represents the polled opinions of the people Congress is supposed to represent, is workable, and threatens the the most wealthy and privileged in Rev. Elving's congregation is simply heresy for NPR. Don't believe it? Check out NPR for the proof. Search NPR's on-air content for the following and see what you get:

• People's Budget Progressive Caucus (0) [BTW, that's a zero - zilch, nada...]
• Ryan Plan (35)
• Peterson Institute (79)

Amen! Church dismissed...

It Was the Dirty Hippies Again

Thanks NPR for this Wednesday morning gem of a statement regarding the arrogant, patriarchal, sexually stunted and twisted, and rabidly misogynist leadership of the child-raping Roman Catholic Church:

"A five year study of sexual abuse by priests in the Roman Catholic Church in the US concludes that neither celibacy nor homosexuality was the prime cause. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports the study focuses blame instead on poorly trained priests swayed by the sexual freedom of the 60s and 70s."

Craig Windham read this tripe during the top of the hour news bulletins this morning.

Q Tips

NPR Check critics - doing the heavy lifting since 2006. Light or heavy - NPR related comments are always welcomed.

The Holy Grail, The Best of the Best, and an Epic

This week, Rachel Martin and Tom Bowman could barely contain their almost erotic excitement over the US JSOC operation that resulted in the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

On Monday afternoon, May 2, Martin was positively ecstatic:

"Intelligence officials tracked the courier for years. They knew his operational nickname. They watched his comings and goings and communication patterns, never knowing if he was really leading them to the Holy Grail or a dead end."

Then on Wednesday morning, May 4, Tom Bowman joins in with what FAIR has pointed out is "Superhuman" worship of the Navy Seals who killed Bin Laden (a worship that ignores any controversy of these commando units).

"There's a unit called Navy SEALS and then there's SEAL Team Six. They're not the same....the commandoes who slipped into bin Laden's compound this week are a cut above."

"The best of the best, he says, is SEAL Team Six."

Finally, today on Weekend Edition Saturday, sock-puppet / JSOC-puppet Martin is back on the put a little Homerian gloss on the glorious victory of killing Bin Laden. CIA Hayden (see post below) is up off his cot in the NPR offices to bring his serious expertise to bear, telling us, "But what happened Sunday and what happened in Khost are part of the same epic." Just in case you didn't get the fact that the killing of Bin Laden is one of the greatest military/intelligence feats in the history of the world, Rachel Martin echoes Hayden:

"The final chapter of that epic has now been written. The agency that took the risk at Khost that cost seven lives, took another chance last week — only this time, it paid off."

Zone of Cooperation

On Thursday's ME, finishing up a series (see Tues. ATC & Wed. ATC) of cooperative reports on "enhanced" and "harsh" interrogations (known under US domestic and international law as torture) - Tom Gjelten was on with his handler, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, to set the record straight on the "debate" about "enhanced interrogations."

In the Thursday piece, Gjelten is explaining how some of the first leads in tracking down Osama Bin Laden's courier came "from detainees who were interrogated while in CIA custody." Gjelten tells us that "about a third of the CIA detainees were subjected to what the agency euphemistically called enhanced interrogation techniques." So far, so good. It's helpful that he describes CIA spin as euphemism. A listener might expect that the next step would be to have someone from the ACLU or Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch come on to detail just what these now-admitted techniques (and unadmitted ones) were and how many detainees didn't make it through the enhanced care of the CIA.

The CIA and US military need not fear that Tom Gjelten or NPR would dare shed any light on the gruesome details of US torture. For an unbiased description of the techniques, Gjelten turns to - guess who? - former head of the CIA, Michael Hayden, who gently explains,

"They range from something as innocuous as something called the attention grasp or the facial grasp. You know, grabbing somebody by the lapels or grabbing them by the chin, to a variety of things that had to do with sleep and diet or stress positions."

God, and to think I used to think that US POWS in Vietnam were tortured...silly me, now I know they were just subjected to "a variety of things" like "stress positions."

Just to be sure that you can't accuse NPR of not being "fair and balanced," Gjelten tosses out that old NPR sop of some say: "Critics of enhanced interrogation techniques say they're tantamount to torture." See, it has nothing to do with law, treaties, or actual facts - it's just some anonymous "critics" who allege that its kind of like torture. In case these unnamed "critics" might undermine the very serious and important Michael Hayden, Gjelten notes that critics have also pointed out that real information came from detainees "after the harsh interrogations stopped. And General Hayden says he wouldn't be surprised by that."

And here's where Gjelten really enters his zone of cooperation, handing the microphone to the good General Hayden himself: "

I'm willing to concede the point that no one gave us valuable or actionable intelligence while they were, for example, being waterboarded. The purpose of the enhanced interrogation techniques was to take someone who was refusing to cooperate with us and to accelerate the process by which we would move from a zone of defiance to a zone of cooperation."

Well, I hope NPR will now do a piece (or two or three) debating the positive and negative effects of the enhanced interrogation sessions that the North Vietnamese applied to US POWs. Given that the civilian slaughter waged against Vietnam by the US military makes the events of 9/11 look like nothing more than a disturbing footnote in the history of atrocities, and given that the North was successful, then maybe all that enhanced treatment to move US prisoners from "a zone of defiance" to "a zone of cooperation" helped them win the war and was justifiable after all.

Q Tips

NPR related comments welcomed.

A Tale of Two Cities - NPR and US Exceptionalism

This morning on Weekend Edition Sunday, I heard the following:

"...but the fact is...this is all unconfirmed. We know the government...has lied on several occasions about civilian casualties and strikes and damage, and frankly, we only have their word so far for what happened."

Isn't that the standard that ought to apply to all reporting? It seems reasonable that when a government has been proven to have lied about civilian casualties (e.g. here and here), lied about its reasons for going to war, and lied about the torture and murder of detainees then shouldn't all unconfirmed claims by that government be treated with skepticism and always be prefaced with the qualifiers included in the quote above. The answer is a rather obvious, "Yes." But on NPR there is one standard for countries and forces that the US government opposes and a completely different standard for the US government and its closest allies. Despite a long record of systematic lying about war, civilian deaths, and the abuse of detainees - I have - over the past five years - documented how NPR consistently grants official US statements the weight of confirmed evidence (or simply ignores stories where the evidence points to systematic lying and wrongdoing).

The quote above, from Sunday's Weekend Edition, is about the war in Libya and the lying government in question is the government of Libya's Gadhafi. The war in Libya - and especially the siege of Misrata - offers a unique opportunity to highlight NPR's embrace of American exceptionalism.

The forces of the Libyan government have attempted to destroy the rebel forces in Misrata in operations that are chillingly similar to the US military's destruction of Fallujah in Iraq. Misrata and Fallujah have about the same population size, about half-a-million for each. In April 2004 in Fallujah, as documented by the intrepid Dahr Jamail, the US used cluster bombs, indiscriminate sniping of civilians, and attacks on medical facilities. George Monbiot documented further war crimes of the US November 2005 assault on Fallujah - including the use of white phosphorous, thermobaric weapons, and the refusal to allow males of "fighting age" to flee the city. As in Misrata, US forces illegally focused their operations on hospitals and medical facilities. In spite of these illegal and barbaric tactics, you can search NPR in vain for stories on these crimes (cluster bombs- nothing, white phosphorous - mentioned after Pentagon admitted it, sniping civilians - nothing, attacking the hospital - nothing). Not only has NPR never reported the US war crimes against Fallujah, it has actually celebrated the assault.

Consider that NPR's censorship of the US horror show in Fallujah is now into it's eighth year, but in the less than two months of Libya coverage we have been given extensive coverage of every crime that the Gadhafi forces have perpetrated on Misrata. For example, in just this one Morning Edition report from April 13th, we hear the following from refugees:

• "We heard the Gadhafi troops were kidnapping people."
• "The Gadhafi forces aren't differentiating among their targets. They're attacking the young, the old, women, dragging people from their houses."
• "In the streets of Misrata I've seen bodies, I've seen them burned. The snipers are shooting people at random."

And a few days later on April 17th Lourdes Garcia Navarro reports on Misrata,

"From rebels that I've spoken to, Gadhafi's forces are shelling civilian areas - we are talking grad missiles, mortar fire, tank fire. A few days ago came the first reports of cluster bombs, which are banned by international law for use in civilian areas."

It's too bad that it is really impossible to imagine NPR ever providing such immediate reporting on US military actions and their impact on civilian populations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, etc... or to imagine that they would ever give such well deserved qualifications of the lack of credibility that should always be given to any official statements issues by the White House, the US military, the State Department, NATO, etc.