Dronespeak: Temple-Raston Goes Radical

[cross-posted at NPR Team Check]

Running a series called "Going Radical," NPR claims the mantle of "investigative journalism" as it works to shore up the military and foreign policy interests of the United States. Instead of investigating how - under the rubric of a "war on terrorism" -

• the tradition of Constitutional law in the US was chucked in favor of unrestrained surveillance, illegal detention, disappearances, assassination and torture, or
  
• an unsuccessful businessman/crook of low to middling intelligence became so radicalized that he lead the US into two wars of aggression against two predominately Muslim states based on propaganda and manufactured intelligence, or
  
• the state of Israel was brazenly supported by the US government through two massive military assaults (Lebanon & Gaza) targeting civilians and in enacting policies against Palestinians that are tantamount to genocide, or
• how someone goes from a position of privilege to one of radically bragging about committing an international crime for which the penalty on conviction is death or life imprisonment,
  

NPR throws its resources into supposedly explaining the radicalization of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas bomber of Flight 253. What this "investigation" dutifully refuses to explore is any detailed assessment of the grim human toll of US foreign policy in Central Asia and the Middle East and why this policy continues to win recruits to extremism and terror. Daring journalism also would seek answers as to why Abdulmutallab was allowed onto a US bound flight even thought the "intelligence community" had it's eye on him, and would want to find out exactly who helped Abdulmutallab get on Flight 253 in the first place. But if you are a believer in the exceptional goodness of US foreign policy and the nobility of the US war on terror, then NPR won't disappoint.

The star of NPR's Going Radical series is Dina Temple-Raston (NPR's resident FBI spokesperson). She hosts three of the features in the series:

• Her Thursday morning piece is a thing of twisted beauty. In a matter of minutes she is able to conflate anti-Guantanamo, anti-torture activism with terrorist extremism. She notes that ex-GITMO detainee Moazzam Begg spoke at a University College London 2007 "Terror Week" event. First she ties Begg to Abdulmutallab by stating, "People who attended the conference say Begg and Abdulmutallab were sitting next to each other" and concludes that "when Abdulmutallab started meeting people like Moazzam Begg, he was exposed to vitriolic and very anti-American views." What is it with these people who've been kidnapped and tortured by the US being so vitriolic and anti-American? - sheesh!

• On Thursday afternoon Temple-Raston is back to highlight a character who features in all three of her reports, a Hitchenseque fellow named Shiraz Maher who used to recruit for Islamic extremism, but is now firmly in the camp of rationalizing Western exceptionalism, state repression and aggressive Zionism. His writing can be sampled in Standpoint Magazine where he takes a stand on Israel's annexation wall:

  "We tend to hear only about Israel's because of the news coverage and hippy activism it attracts. No other security fence has attracted quite as much attention and theirs - that despite Israel suffering a torrent of terrorist attacks from 2000-2003....where is the ‘fairness' and ‘consistency' that Islamists and their leftist cheerleaders continually complain about?"

  It is telling that there actually is another former recruiter with a similar story to Mr. Maher's. His name is Maajid Nawaz, but instead of excusing the "western" security state or Israeli aggression - he brings a far more compassionate, nuanced approach to the lessons he's learned.

• Finally on Friday afternoon Temple-Raston - like our President - plays the role of judge, jury and executioner. Remember Anwar al-Awlaki, the US citizen targeted for assassination by the US government (see post below)? Speaking of al-Awlaki as if she were discussing him receiving a traffic ticket, Temple-Raston explains that

  "The U.S. has been trying to bring him in for questioning for years. After the Fort Hood attack, it even launched a missile strike on one of his houses in Yemen, but he survived the attack."

  Hey, but he deserves extrajudicial execution because Robert Siegel opens the piece with the damning evidence that

  "He's admitted to knowing Abdulmutallab. But their relationship, according to intelligence officials, goes far deeper than that. In fact, NPR has learned that al-Awlaki may have been in charge of a small terrorist cell and that Abdulmutallab may have been his first al-Qaida recruit."

  Still not convinced? Temple-Raston lays it on:

  "He is the same radical imam who was implicated in the Fort Hood shootings last year. He was in email contact with the suspected shooter, Major Nidal Hasan. And, apparently, he blessed that attack and then called Hasan a hero"

  and

  "Al-Awlaki has always been a propagandist. If he actually mentored Abdulmutallab while he allegedly trained to bomb a U.S. airliner, that would mean al-Awlaki had moved into an operational role in the organization."

  Still not ready to lynch? Nothing like a huge dose of fear to nail the case: "What's more, officials tell NPR that they believe al-Awlaki was put in charge of more people than just Abdulmutallab. They believe he trained an entire cell of English-speaking recruits. Apparently, Abdulmutallab named names and provided locations to authorities. Law enforcement officials are looking for those young men now. Officials say they don't believe the young men are in the U.S."

A final note about Temple-Raston's choices of "experts" in these pieces. As mentioned she leans heavily on Shiraz Maher, and she also features a man of similar politics in the reports - Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion which focuses only on Islamic radicalization - not Euro-American radical militarism. Interestingly, the other former-recruiter I mentioned above Maajid Nawaz - also runs a center against radicalism that is well worth exploring and highlighting - unless your main interest is in promoting the US "war on terror."

A Provocative Piece

For once, when anti-Muslim/anti-Arab hatemongers in the US lay their ignorant, xenophobic cards on the table, wouldn't it be refreshing if the media (in this case NPR) simply called it out for the racist ideology that it is? Sadly, as Arianna Huffington has pointed out in her latest book, Right is Wrong, the establishment media (such as NPR) have gone to great lengths to accommodate and normalize the most extreme views of the right wing:

"A key to understanding the fanatical Right’s takeover of the Republican Party and how these ideas spread to the rest of the country is looking at the role of the media—not the Fox News pseudo-newsmen or the talk radio blowhards—but the respectable, supposedly liberal media. Without the enabling of the traditional media—with their obsession with “balance” and their pathological devotion to the idea that truth is always found in the middle—the radical Right would never have been able to have its ideas taken seriously."

So when the venomous Michele Malkin and the Little Green Brownshirts Footballs blog attacked Dunkin Donuts for featuring Rachel Ray wearing a scarf that looked like a keffiyah, it would have been great for NPR to put such anti-Arab/anti-Muslim activism in context. Given all the Arab/Muslim bashing in the media, is it any wonder that US torturers at Gitmo have included anti-Islamic tactics in their repertoire, that a Marine was filmed singing an anti-Islamic song, that a US soldier used a Quran for target practice, and that a Marine in Fallujah was evangelizing the locked-down residents of that city with "Christian" coins?

Instead of just naming the anti-Keffiyah attacks as another example of the far-right's strategy of expanding the general Islamophobia that pervades the US, NPR treats it as reasonable, or at best subjects it to some slight ridicule as if it's just harmless overreacting. And so on Thursday's ME we get Robert Smith trying to be funny: "conservative commentators noted that the look was popularized by fashion icon, Yasser Arafat. Perhaps they have uncovered a vast donut conspiracy...." Jamie Tarabay follows up on Thursday's ATC, sadly opening the piece with

"Rachel Ray is one of Dunkin Donuts most prominent spokespeople...there's a provocative piece of black and white clothing draped around her shoulders in one online ad...."

Provocative piece of black and white clothing? I'm sorry but what's "provocative" about it, unless you are walking in lockstep with a bunch of hardcore pro-Zionist, Islamophoic rightwingers? Tarbay's piece does include some criticism of the anti-keffiyah attacks, but overall it presents this latest far-right action as deserving balanced, mainstream consideration. Not surprising really; that was the same premise that underlay the really disturbing NPR "Intelligence Squared" segment I heard in April on whether radicalism dominates Islam (imagine them doing a similarly inflammatory slant on Judaism or Christianity).

Zwerdling, Watson, and Weird Iran

First kudos to Daniel Zwerdling for his Thursday ATC reporting on the horrid treatment of Iraq vets suffering from PTSD and brain trauma. Not only should NPR be running his stories; he should be training their staff in how to do stories. I was fascinated by how doggedly detailed his work is. He'd quote an assertion by someone, and then talk about tracking down as many sources as possible to verify or contradict what was alleged. He would constantly note who was willing to talk and who refused. It was stellar, and the exception. More!

Second, kudos to NPR and Morning Edition for featuring the story about "The Axis of Evil" comedy troupe and their Middle East tour. I noticed that the reporter for this was Ivan Watson - the only NPR reporter who showed humanity during the Israeli/US slaughter of Lebanon in the summer of 2006. In the current Islamaphobic times we are living in, it really was refreshing (and dare I say brave) of NPR to air a piece that showed a rich and varied Arab/Islamic culture across the world. More!

Lastly, in the one step forward, two steps back category was tonight's piece about the potential nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The piece opens with one of those vague "experts say" fear statements: "but experts say some of this renewed interest is sparked by fears that Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon and they worry about a future arms race." However, NPR does break the usual taboo and refers to Israel's lawless nuclear arsenal:

• "Cairo analyst says there are genuine energy needs driving some of these demand for nuclear plants, but having watched the west fail to stop Israel from acquiring what experts say is a powerful nuclear arsenal, Arab states are now watching a defiant Iran pursue uranium enrichment."

• "...the nuclear free argument was primarily meant to put pressure on Israel's nuclear program and it led nowhere."

Holy smokes! Amazing. But wait, the piece began with the Iran boogie man and so it must end with this truly bizarre statement:

• "For much of the world the primary nuclear issue of the moment is Iran and Arab states appear to be wondering if they can rely on America and the West to stop the Iranians from acquiring the bomb or if instead they should be trying to catch up."

Rely on America and the West? You've got to be joking.

(The picture? I just liked it. It seemed to capture the holiday irony of this post - am I being the Grinch or Susie Who?)