The Archangel Simon

Scott Simon sermonizes about evil this morning. Simon decides that the premeditated killing of civilians doesn't deserve to be probed for motives:

"A word like 'motive' seems to imply there was reason or purpose. It suggests that, however profane their actions, the terrorists had the incentive of some goal in mind."

He notes that when human beings are "the very objects of damage" it is simply evil, no matter how "terrorists and apologists may ultimately embroider the assault with supposed political significance."

Maybe Simon is right when he says "that evil men and women see no innocents in the world. They will slaughter mothers without conscience and their children, too, because mothers give birth to children who can grow up to be their opponents." Given this new, righteous Scott Simon, I'll look forward to his denouncing ALL targetings of civilians whether done by terrorists in India or by the US government and it's friends and proxies.

Privatizing Public Radio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rogue Nations, Rogue Reporters

This from a reader was in my inbox today:

This morning at about 8:10, one of the NPR regulars interviewed a NYTimes reporter about how the illegal US nuclear deal might not pass muster in the Indian parliament.

Nowhere did either reporter discuss that the Bush Admin's deal is illegal under the US constitution (as it violates the NPT, which is the Law Of The Land). Indeed, they very carefully skirted around the NPT issue, at one point saying that the deal angers 'some' non-proliferationists. No, it angers MOST NPT supporters and is seen as a way for Bush to undermine the Rule of Law and encourage more illegal nuclear technology transactions outside of the NPT and IAEA framework.

The most dishonest report on this issue outside of Faux Noose.

Indeed, if you can stand hearing it the report is here. My favorite moment comes when Somini Sengupta, South Asia Bureau Chief for The New York Times, says that if India scraps the deal, it "would certainly rob the Bush administration of a significant foreign policy legacy." So now demolishing nonproliferation international law is "a significant foreign policy legacy"! Amazing.

For information on the story you might skip this nonsense from NPR and look at this recent piece by Noam Chomsky or this Arms Control Association site.