Simon Says

Saturday morning Scott Simon puts on his uber-somber/emotional voice to do a little typical NPR surgery on history. He's interviewing Colonel Timothy J. Geraghty, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), who was in charge of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit in Beirut when it was attacked with a massive truck bomb on Oct. 23, 1983.

The gist of the report - based on Geraghty's recent article - is that the truck bombing marked the beginning of a new tactic in terror - the suicide car/truck bombing. However, as Mike Davis has pointed out in part one and part two of his history of car bombings, the Beruit attack simply added the kamikaze dimension to a terror tactic which has a long and storied history (one in which the US and Israel have happily participated when it served their ends).

No surprise that NPR doesn't touch that one, but a Simon also censors a more obvious bit of information on the Beirut bombing. He opens the report by saying "220 US Marines and 21 other US service members died that day, along with 58 French paratroopers; they had been sent to Beirut as peacekeepers." Well, yes, they may have been sent there as peacekeepers, but it's funny that Simon doesn't mention a bit of what happened later. Even Geraghty, in his article writes

"It is noteworthy that the United States provided direct naval gunfire support-which I strongly opposed for a week-to the Lebanese Army at a mountain village called Suq-al-Garb on 19 September and that the French conducted an air strike on 23 September in the Bekaa Valley. American support removed any lingering doubts of our neutrality, and I stated to my staff at the time that we were going to pay in blood for this decision."

Leatherneck.com forum has a similar note of the US political decision to veer from neutrality. The author of the post notes that after an initial positive reception by forces in Beirut,

"the perception of the United States as an impartial peacekeeper changed and, with it, the attitude of the Moslem population toward the marines. General Mead cited the U.S. training of the Lebanese Armed Forces, an essential element in the rebuilding of national authority, as one of the first developments perceived as U.S. bias in favor of the Christians.....The latest, and perhaps the most significant, change was the use of naval gunfire in support of the Lebanese Armed Forces during the September fighting at Suq el-Gharb."

This is no small quibbling with details. That so many men were killed is tragic - but it is hardly a simple act of "pure terrorism" as Geraghty states in the NPR piece with Simon. The Wikipedia article on the Beirut Barracks Bombing rightly notes that

"Under international law, peacekeepers are regarded as non-combatants due to their peacekeeping role, but in Lebanon the U.S. Marines had become allied with the Maronite Christians and were actively engaging in battles, thus waiving their non-combatant status. The U.S. still categorised this attack as an act of terror as it was directed against off-duty servicemen, which the U.S. defines as non-combatants. However, no international law defines sleeping or off-duty servicemen as non-combatants."

Simon, needless to say, doesn't raise this issue at all. Besides, that would also get in the way of the other message of the NPR feature: Iran and Syria were behind the attack and the US should have retaliated (and maybe still should?).

BTW, I'm also looking forward to see how NPR covers another act of "pure terrorism": the sneak attack on a little country which resulted in about a hundred deaths and was conveniently launched just two days after the Beirut bombings, thereby helping to erase that failure from the public's awareness (those Reagan years were such golden times!).

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.

The Line on Lebanon

On the dangerous situation in Lebanon NPR turns this morning to "expert" David Schenker. Schenker is from WINEP (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy), a right-wing, pro-Zionist think tank. (At least NPR mentioned that Schenker has honed his expertise in the Pentagon from 2002-2006.) Schenker is a complete tool of Neocon-Israeli policy as this gem of an interview reveals.

It's pretty sad, that when the US public should be getting information about the complexities of the Lebanese crisis, NPR turns to someone who churns out the standard bunk about a "pro-Western" government threatened by the Syrian hegemon. Nothing about Washington helping Israel to bomb away the "Cedar Revolution" during the summer of 2006. Nothing about the occupation and crimes of Israel during its years in southern Lebanon that gave rise to Hezbollah in the first place. Instead it's just the flattened narrative of good guys vs. bad guys.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named

Listening to John Ydstie and Deborah Amos "explain" the current outbreak of fighting in and around the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee in Tripoli, Lebanon, I couldn't help but wonder what is the story they are not telling. You don't have to work too hard to figure it out--and as usual it ain't pretty: Tony Karon does an excellent job of sizing up the situation and exposing the sinister machinations of our own Lord Voldemort--Dick Cheney.

Also useful are a couple of links describing the Fatah al-Islam group (this from Al Jazeera and this from the Council on Foreign Relations).

Skip It

Take a pass on NPR's "coverage" of the Lebanon fighting and head on over to Juan Cole's Informed Comment.

Nukes and Newborns

Senior NPR analyst Dan Schorr was on a roll today. Summing up the past year he offers, "I think one can say about the year 2006, it was the year when the era of non-proliferation ended. All these years the United States, in company with others, has been trying very hard to hold the line, no more, no more…that era is over." Dan might want to get on the phone and try to talk to Mordechai Vanunu, he might have a slightly different idea of when non-proliferation ended. (But to do that would break the NPR taboo of ever holding Israel to account for its rogue-state behavior. Or perhaps Schorr considers the US plans for mini-nukes to be part of "holding the line."

From this nonsense Schorr jumps on the "Birth Pangs" wagon of Middle East analysis. Here's his razor sharp insights regarding the spread of Islamist movements: "We have this kind of revolution of the Islamists which are trying to introduce Koran all over the world and everywhere and to some extent they are at least successful in killing infant democracy..." Whoaa Dan! Killing infant democracy? Oh yea, like the little baby in Lebanon that the US and Israel tried to nurse with a million cluster bomblets this past summer!

A Better Report

NPR deserves some credit for interviewing Fawaz Gerges today on Weekend Edition Saturday. It was really refreshing to hear someone talk about the complexities of the Lebanese situation, and to respond to questions with nuanced answers. Scott Simon asks him, "Who gains and who loses from Mr. Geymayel’s death?" and he replies, "Well I think it's too early to say definitely who wins and who loses. In the short term however, the main loser is the Syrian-Iranian alliance led by Hezbollah..." He later spells out that regional the regional alliances Syria-Iran and US-Israel both use Lebanon in their own geopolitical conflicts.

Notice that Gerges doesn't make accusations, but simply tries to suggest the several directions to which history and evidence point. We listeners have to draw our own--possibly even differing--conclusions. How refreshing!

Of course it is this kind of inquisitiveness and willingness to consider the US as one of several less-than-idealistic players in the region that earns people like Gerges the honor of being attacked by McCarthyite Campus Watch/National Review by the McCarthyite thought police.

Come on NPR. Let's have some more.

Absorbing Lessons

When an army is accustomed to besieging, humiliating, torturing, and killing kids and other civilians trapped in their homes, and then has to fight a disciplined, highly motivated guerrilla force, that army often endures heavy losses, confusion and disorientation--and frequently turns against other vulnerable civilians.

But that's not what happened to the Israel Defense Force in Lebanon this summer according to Eric Westervelt and "analysist" Michael Oren. Talking about what "lessons" haven't been "absorbed" Westervelt says, "the Israeli army changed dramatically during the second Palestinian uprising, or Intifada. After decades preparing to face off against big Arab armies, the Israel Defense Force, by the end of 2002, had transformed itself into a kind of giant police SWAT team, whose main job was arresting or killing Palestinian militants in crowded urban areas in the Occupied West Bank or Gaza. So when war broke out this summer in the rocky terrain of Lebanon…they were ill prepared for the wider fight."

Giant SWAT team? Arresting or killing Palestinian militants? How about a brutal occupation force rounding up and killing many innocent civilians and engaging in extrajudicial executions?

Then Oren, commenting on Israel's inability to defeat Hezbollah says of the IDF, "they had very good weapons for fighting in hallways, in Jenin, but nothing for fighting in the hills of Southern Lebanon." Very good weapons? Hallways in Jenin? That is some dramatic mythmaking--one of those hallways in Jenin is pictured in the photo on this post (from Electronic Intifada). If you think Oren is an impartial historian because of his book on the Six Day War, consider these comments from a Winter 2006 paper of his:

• "...the Israeli army has become the world’s foremost anti-terrorist fighting force."
• "...the refusal of many Arab leaders, whether they be Palestinians, Iraqis, Saudis, or Syrians, to take responsibility for their own failures and foibles....this refusal to accept responsibility is the largest single obstacle to America’s efforts to foster democracy in the Middle East."
• "Israeli soldiers go into the homes of terror suspects, risking their own lives and often sacrificing them in order to reduce civilian casualties, where another army might simply call in an air strike or an artillery barrage."

Given that the US and Israeli efforts to subjugate Palestinians is at the heart of the widening conflicts in the Middle East, NPR is only helping perpetuate such tragedies by airing this distorted reporting. It is this kind of sloppy journalism that leaves so many Americans confounded at the anger of Arabs and convinced of our own supposed moral superiority.

Holes

There are two glaring holes in NPR's Morning Edition and ATC coverage of the tragic assassination of Pierre Gemayel in Lebanon. The first is the refusal to bring up the possibility of his assassination being the direct or indirect work of Israeli or US covert operations. Any impartial coverage of the situation would have to at least bring this up given Israel's history of assassinations and covert operations in Lebanon and other countries, US rogue behavior, and the political benefits that the US and its allies have gained from this assassination (not to mention its obvious disadvantages to Syria and Hezbollah). NPR on the contrary repeats again and again the opinion that Syria was behind the assassination (which may or may not be true).

The other missing angle on this development is that a major reason the current Lebanese government is so weak and Lebanon so fractured is because of the US/Israeli assault on Lebanon this past summer (NPR politely calls it the war between Israel and Hezbollah). On Morning Edition Peter Kenyon has the gall to say, "...here in Lebanon, where arguably the closest thing to a success the White House has had in the Middle East is the pressure that forced Syria to withdraw its troops last year. If this government now falls and a pro-Syrian or dysfunctional national unity government takes its place some say that success would be badly tarnished." Tarnished? -- hey newsflash Peter, that "success" was killed and buried in this summer's preplanned military attack on Lebanon.

It is really sad that NPR can't offer its listeners full, complex, nuanced coverage on an issue such as this one, even if it means daring to question Israel and the supposed good intentions of US foreign policy.

P.S. A reader kindly pointed out the close coverage of the assassination offered on the Angry Arab blog -- take a look if you get a chance.