Last weekend’s National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis was a freewheeling, articulate, committed gathering of activists, policy wonks and everyday citizens dedicated to the idea that there can be no real democracy without a media democracy — independent reporting from diverse communities free of the interference and spin of government and big business...
Some 3500 assembled to participate in panels and hear a range of speakers that included my colleague Bill Moyers, Senator Byron Dorgan, Center for Internet and Society founder Lawrence Lessig, Naomi Klein, Louise Erdrich and Dan Rather. Participants grappled with mobilizing grass roots movements around such hot button issues as continuing, big media consolidation and net neutrality — two words perhaps more elegantly phrased as “Internet freedom” keeping cyberspace open and accessible to all, regardless of income.
--->That story is from Common Dreams. The major sources of US media didn't even cover this story of emerging media reform in America. There was nothing on it in the NY Times.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/13/9603/
---------
Former Democratic presidential contender, Dennis Kucinich, has called for the impeachment of George W Bush claiming that the president set out to deceive the nation, and violated his oath of office with the Iraq war.
The Ohio representative yesterday introduced 35 articles of impeachment against Bush on the floor of the US House of Representatives. Kucinich unveiled a list of alleged illegal and improper acts by Bush, including war crimes.
He accused Bush of executing a "calculated and wide-ranging strategy" to deceive citizens and Congress into believing that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States.
He went on to say that Bush and Cheney lied to Congress and the American public about the reasons for invading Iraq in 2003 and abused their offices in order to conduct the "War on Terror" following the 9/11 attacks.
--->The NY Times, like most of the Democratic Party, remains uninterested in impeachment. America's newspaper of record didn't cover this story, although it gave wide coverage to Bill Clinton's impeachment for conducting a sex act in the White House. That was sex. This is the preservation of our Constitution, just not as important a story.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article3786591.ece
---------
FALLUJAH - Babies born in Fallujah are showing illnesses and deformities on a scale never seen before, doctors and residents say.
The new cases, and the number of deaths among children, have risen after “special weaponry” was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004.
After denying it at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used a year earlier in Fallujah.
In addition, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon admits to having used 1,200 tonnes of DU in Iraq thus far.
Many doctors believe DU to be the cause of a severe increase in the incidence of cancer in Iraq, as well as among U.S. veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War and through the current occupation.
--->The NY Times has had one piece on depleted uranium in Iraq since 2005, and that was in a letter to the editor. With determined investigative reporting like that, who needs media reform?
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/12/9567/
---------
By now, billions have evidently gone into single massive mega-bases like the U.S. air base at Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. It's a "16-square-mile fortress," housing perhaps 40,000 U.S. troops, contractors, special ops types, and Defense Department employees. As the Washington Post's Tom Ricks, who visited Balad back in 2006, pointed out - in a rare piece on one of our mega-bases - it's essentially "a small American town smack in the middle of the most hostile part of Iraq." Back then, air traffic at the base was already being compared to Chicago's O'Hare International or London's Heathrow - and keep in mind that Balad has been steadily upgraded ever since to support an "air surge" that, unlike the President's 2007 "surge" of 30,000 ground troops, has yet to end.
--->The American permanent occupation of Iraq is the big story that always gets left out of our media. Occupation is the forbidden subject, be it in Gaza, the West Bank or Iraq. There is no freedom of the press in America when it comes to reporting on the empire.
http://www.americanempireproject.com/
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Fantasyland Media
Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel laureate, called for an end to the "abominable" Israeli blockade of Gaza yesterday and condemned a "culture of impunity" on both sides of the conflict.
Tutu was in Gaza on a three-day mission, sent by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the deaths of 18 Palestinians from a single family, who were killed by a wave of Israeli artillery shells in Beit Hanoun in November 2006. Tutu said he was in a "state of shock" after seeing Gaza and taking detailed witness testimony from survivors of the incident.
"We saw a forlorn, deserted, desolate and eerie place," he said. "The entire situation is abominable. We believe that ordinary Israeli citizens would not support this blockade, this siege, if they knew what it really meant to ordinary people like themselves." The international community was also at fault, he said, for its "silence and complicity".
-This story from The Guardian. The NY Times, of course, is part of of the silence and complicity. It didn't carry this story at all, although other statements by Desmond Tutu about violence in South Africa were covered.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/30/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast
----------
FORMER US president Jimmy Carter today claimed Europe should be "embarrassed" by the way it had allowed Israel to treat Palestine. Mr Carter used a visit to Wales to spell out how he thinks Britain can help bring peace to the Middle East.
Speaking on a visit to the Hay Festival, the Democrat, who led Americans from 1977 to 1981, said: “They should be encouraging the formation of a unity government that includes (Palestinian political parties) Hamas and Fatah.
“They should be encouraging Hamas to have a ceasefire in Gaza alone as a first step, with Israel as it has announced in the past it wanted to.”
He added: "It's a horrible punishment of them and to see Europe go along with this, I think is embarrassing. It should be embarrassing. There's no reason to treat people this way."
-This story is from IC Wales in the UK. Carter's statements about Gaza are completely ignored by the NY Times. Two references to Carter were made recently in the NY Times, but both refer to the history of Camp David. The Israeli lobby works hand in hand with America's premier newspaper, making sure you don't hear about Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians.
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/05/25/carter-blasts-eu-over-palestine-91466-20972824/
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GENEVA - As the 61st annual World Health Assembly gathers in Geneva this week, a major issue that the world’s governments are struggling with is patents on medicines, and whether the option to digress from a strict patent system should be endorsed by the United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO).
The United States is the sole country obstructing the ability of the WHO to push for a more flexible intellectual property system, according to several sources. This issue is being negotiated at the WHO’s Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (IGWG).
According to the WHO’s website, “developing countries remain largely excluded from the benefits of modern science.” IGWG’s mandate is “to prepare a global strategy and plan of action on essential health research to address conditions affecting developing countries disproportionately.”
-The NY Times, a staunch defender of US pharmaceutical companies, didn't carry this story.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/22/9127/
----------
This week the Guardian broke the news that an upcoming report from Reprieve (human rights organization) documents the use of as many as 17 American warships as floating prisons to hold detainees in the “war on terror”. The report apparently documents not only descriptions of detentions at sea from released Guantánamo detainees, most of whom presumably were held in the early days of the “war on terror”, but also more recent detentions on US warships, particularly in the Horn of Africa, a current hot spot for disappearances carried out by the US military and intelligence agencies.
The report also claims that in the last two years there have been several hundred renditions — another practice thought to have ceased after President Bush declared an end to it in 2006.
-When this story finally breaks in the US, it will not be because of the NY Times, which has refused to run this story.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/09/9515/
Tutu was in Gaza on a three-day mission, sent by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the deaths of 18 Palestinians from a single family, who were killed by a wave of Israeli artillery shells in Beit Hanoun in November 2006. Tutu said he was in a "state of shock" after seeing Gaza and taking detailed witness testimony from survivors of the incident.
"We saw a forlorn, deserted, desolate and eerie place," he said. "The entire situation is abominable. We believe that ordinary Israeli citizens would not support this blockade, this siege, if they knew what it really meant to ordinary people like themselves." The international community was also at fault, he said, for its "silence and complicity".
-This story from The Guardian. The NY Times, of course, is part of of the silence and complicity. It didn't carry this story at all, although other statements by Desmond Tutu about violence in South Africa were covered.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/30/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast
----------
FORMER US president Jimmy Carter today claimed Europe should be "embarrassed" by the way it had allowed Israel to treat Palestine. Mr Carter used a visit to Wales to spell out how he thinks Britain can help bring peace to the Middle East.
Speaking on a visit to the Hay Festival, the Democrat, who led Americans from 1977 to 1981, said: “They should be encouraging the formation of a unity government that includes (Palestinian political parties) Hamas and Fatah.
“They should be encouraging Hamas to have a ceasefire in Gaza alone as a first step, with Israel as it has announced in the past it wanted to.”
He added: "It's a horrible punishment of them and to see Europe go along with this, I think is embarrassing. It should be embarrassing. There's no reason to treat people this way."
-This story is from IC Wales in the UK. Carter's statements about Gaza are completely ignored by the NY Times. Two references to Carter were made recently in the NY Times, but both refer to the history of Camp David. The Israeli lobby works hand in hand with America's premier newspaper, making sure you don't hear about Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians.
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/05/25/carter-blasts-eu-over-palestine-91466-20972824/
----------
GENEVA - As the 61st annual World Health Assembly gathers in Geneva this week, a major issue that the world’s governments are struggling with is patents on medicines, and whether the option to digress from a strict patent system should be endorsed by the United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO).
The United States is the sole country obstructing the ability of the WHO to push for a more flexible intellectual property system, according to several sources. This issue is being negotiated at the WHO’s Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (IGWG).
According to the WHO’s website, “developing countries remain largely excluded from the benefits of modern science.” IGWG’s mandate is “to prepare a global strategy and plan of action on essential health research to address conditions affecting developing countries disproportionately.”
-The NY Times, a staunch defender of US pharmaceutical companies, didn't carry this story.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/22/9127/
----------
This week the Guardian broke the news that an upcoming report from Reprieve (human rights organization) documents the use of as many as 17 American warships as floating prisons to hold detainees in the “war on terror”. The report apparently documents not only descriptions of detentions at sea from released Guantánamo detainees, most of whom presumably were held in the early days of the “war on terror”, but also more recent detentions on US warships, particularly in the Horn of Africa, a current hot spot for disappearances carried out by the US military and intelligence agencies.
The report also claims that in the last two years there have been several hundred renditions — another practice thought to have ceased after President Bush declared an end to it in 2006.
-When this story finally breaks in the US, it will not be because of the NY Times, which has refused to run this story.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/09/9515/
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Fantasyland Media
Memorial Day is not actually a day to pray for U.S. troops who died in action but rather a day set aside by Congress to pray for peace. The 1950 Joint Resolution of Congress which created Memorial Day says: “Requesting the President to issue a proclamation designating May 30, Memorial Day, as a day for a Nation-wide prayer for peace.”
But peace today is a nearly impossible challenge for the United States. The U.S. is far and away the most militarized country in the world and the most aggressive.
The U.S. spends over $600 billion annually on our military, more than the rest of the world combined. China, our nearest competitor, spends about one-tenth of what we spend. The U.S. also sells more weapons to other countries than any other nation in the world.
The U.S. has about 700 military bases in 130 countries world-wide and another 6000 bases in the US and our territories.
And why is this a little hard to believe for some of you out there? Our media and our politicians never talk about the empire. It is off the agenda, even though it is probably the largest issue confronting our nation. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/26/9198/
----------
The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world by sea, air or land. An entire population is being brutally punished.
This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international observers...
Regardless of one's choice in the partisan struggle between Fatah and Hamas within occupied Palestine, we must remember that economic sanctions and restrictions in delivering water, food, electricity and fuel are causing extreme hardship among the innocent people in Gaza, about one million of whom are refugees. Israeli bombs and missiles periodically strike the encapsulated area, causing high casualties among both militants and innocent women and children.
Whose voice is this? Not one heard in US media, which has pretty much eliminated anything the former president Jimmy Carter has had to say after his visit to occupied Palestine. The article is from the Times of India, where the Israeli lobby can't censor it. Here, the Israeli lobby dictates what you and I read about Palestine. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3057635,prtpage-1.cms
----------
WASHINGTON - A senior U.S. official said Wednesday that a proposed treaty banning cluster bombs would hurt world security and endanger U.S. military cooperation on humanitarian work with countries that sign the accord.
Stephen Mull, an assistant secretary of state, briefed reporters at the State Department to explain why the United States was not attending a gathering in Ireland of representatives of more than 100 nations working on a treaty to ban the bombs blamed for killing or maiming civilians as their mini-bombs explode months or years after they are dropped.
Cluster bombs are fired by cannon or dropped from aircraft and release hundreds of smaller explosives in the air that are supposed to explode upon impact. In Israel’s 2006 war against the Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, the bomblets’ failure rate was around 30 to 40 percent, and the United Nations said up to a million unexploded bomblets were left after hostilities ceased.
So there we have it. The US opposes limits on cluster bombs for "humanitarian reasons," a delicious irony waiting for any American media to expose. But the NY Times didn't see any irony at all. In fact, for the last two months it has refused to cover the issue at all. Perhaps the story is too anti-American for the nation's most prestigious propaganda machine. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/22/9125/
----------
Should the news media be patriotic? When a journalist uncovers a government secret, which comes first–national security or the public’s right to know? In the United States, reporters consider themselves Americans first, journalists second. That means consulting the government before going public with a state secret. “When I was at ABC,” James Bamford told Time in 2006, “we always checked with the Administration in power when we thought we had something of concern, and there was usually some way to work it out.”
In a new book about the Bush Administration’s efforts to expand the president’s powers at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches, the assumption that the press shouldn’t publish security-sensitive stories is so hard-wired that New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau accepts it as a given. But it’s a very American concept, and one that relies on the presumption that the U.S. government may make mistakes, but is largely a force for good. In other countries, the relationship between rulers and the press is strictly adversarial.
Lichtblau's book is about the NY Times decision to delay for a year the story of the government's illegal wiretapping of its own citizens. With a media like that, who needs censorship? http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/21/9094/
But peace today is a nearly impossible challenge for the United States. The U.S. is far and away the most militarized country in the world and the most aggressive.
The U.S. spends over $600 billion annually on our military, more than the rest of the world combined. China, our nearest competitor, spends about one-tenth of what we spend. The U.S. also sells more weapons to other countries than any other nation in the world.
The U.S. has about 700 military bases in 130 countries world-wide and another 6000 bases in the US and our territories.
And why is this a little hard to believe for some of you out there? Our media and our politicians never talk about the empire. It is off the agenda, even though it is probably the largest issue confronting our nation. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/26/9198/
----------
The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world by sea, air or land. An entire population is being brutally punished.
This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international observers...
Regardless of one's choice in the partisan struggle between Fatah and Hamas within occupied Palestine, we must remember that economic sanctions and restrictions in delivering water, food, electricity and fuel are causing extreme hardship among the innocent people in Gaza, about one million of whom are refugees. Israeli bombs and missiles periodically strike the encapsulated area, causing high casualties among both militants and innocent women and children.
Whose voice is this? Not one heard in US media, which has pretty much eliminated anything the former president Jimmy Carter has had to say after his visit to occupied Palestine. The article is from the Times of India, where the Israeli lobby can't censor it. Here, the Israeli lobby dictates what you and I read about Palestine. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3057635,prtpage-1.cms
----------
WASHINGTON - A senior U.S. official said Wednesday that a proposed treaty banning cluster bombs would hurt world security and endanger U.S. military cooperation on humanitarian work with countries that sign the accord.
Stephen Mull, an assistant secretary of state, briefed reporters at the State Department to explain why the United States was not attending a gathering in Ireland of representatives of more than 100 nations working on a treaty to ban the bombs blamed for killing or maiming civilians as their mini-bombs explode months or years after they are dropped.
Cluster bombs are fired by cannon or dropped from aircraft and release hundreds of smaller explosives in the air that are supposed to explode upon impact. In Israel’s 2006 war against the Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, the bomblets’ failure rate was around 30 to 40 percent, and the United Nations said up to a million unexploded bomblets were left after hostilities ceased.
So there we have it. The US opposes limits on cluster bombs for "humanitarian reasons," a delicious irony waiting for any American media to expose. But the NY Times didn't see any irony at all. In fact, for the last two months it has refused to cover the issue at all. Perhaps the story is too anti-American for the nation's most prestigious propaganda machine. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/22/9125/
----------
Should the news media be patriotic? When a journalist uncovers a government secret, which comes first–national security or the public’s right to know? In the United States, reporters consider themselves Americans first, journalists second. That means consulting the government before going public with a state secret. “When I was at ABC,” James Bamford told Time in 2006, “we always checked with the Administration in power when we thought we had something of concern, and there was usually some way to work it out.”
In a new book about the Bush Administration’s efforts to expand the president’s powers at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches, the assumption that the press shouldn’t publish security-sensitive stories is so hard-wired that New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau accepts it as a given. But it’s a very American concept, and one that relies on the presumption that the U.S. government may make mistakes, but is largely a force for good. In other countries, the relationship between rulers and the press is strictly adversarial.
Lichtblau's book is about the NY Times decision to delay for a year the story of the government's illegal wiretapping of its own citizens. With a media like that, who needs censorship? http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/21/9094/
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Fantasyland Media
The Pentagon has posted to its website the roughly 8,000 pages and audio tapes it was forced to provide to the NY Times regarding its “military analyst” program. Anyone who reads through them...can only be left with one conclusion: if this wasn’t an example of an illegal, systematic “domestic propaganda campaign” by the Pentagon, then nothing is.
Despite this, the truly extraordinary blackout by the major television and cable news networks — which were complicit in this program — continues. Howard Kurtz of CNN and The Washington Post previously called this blackout “pathetic”, and yesterday, The Politico published a relatively impressive article further documenting the “deafening silence” from the networks at the center of this story.
As the article noted:
While bloggers have kept the story simmering, Democratic congressional leaders also are speaking out, calling for investigations that could provoke the networks to finally cover the Times story - and, in effect, themselves.
Here is an interesting story of government wrongdoing that the NY Times and Washington Post covered, but no the major TV networks. Of course, the Pentagon's planting of stories makes TV reporting look bad, not newspaper reporting. This from an article by Salon:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/09/8851/
--------------
Amid all the talk about the U.S. military “surge” in Iraq, little has been said about the accompanying “surge” of Iraqi prisoners, whose numbers rose to nearly 51,000 at the end of 2007. Four years after the Abu Ghraib scandal, occupation forces are holding far more Iraqis than ever before and thousands more languish in horrendous Iraqi-run prisons.
Detainees are held by the U.S. command in two main locations — Camp Bucca, a 100-acre prison camp and Camp Cropper, inside a massive U.S. base near the Baghdad airport. The number of Iraqis held in these facilities has steadily risen since the early days of the occupation. In 2007, the inmate count rose 70% — from 14,500 to 24,700.
Camp Bucca, with about 20,000 inmates, is perhaps the world’s largest extrajudicial internment camp. The facility is organized into “compounds” of 800 detainees each, surrounded by fences and watch towers. Most detainees live in large communal tents, subject to collapse in the area’s frequent sandstorms. Water has at times been in short supply, while temperatures in the desert conditions can be scorching hot in the day and bone-chilling at night.
In October 2007, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a contract to expand Camp Bucca’s capacity from 20,000 to 30,000. While easing notorious crowding, the contract suggests Washington is preparing for even more detentions in the future.
Camp Cropper consists of more traditional cellblock buildings. Among its roughly 4,000 inmates are hundreds of juveniles. Cropper is a site of ongoing interrogation and it holds many long-term detainees who complain that they never see the light of day. Though recently expanded, the facility suffers from overcrowding, poor medical attention and miserable conditions.
This article by the Institute for Policy Studies was never printed in the NY Times. Perhaps it is too revealing of the continued human rights abuses America is committing in Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/07/8795/
-----------
I fail to see that the envious and bitter attacks of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright should have created the crisis in Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign when the remarks of Pastor John Hagee have not created a similar crisis in Sen. John McCain’s campaign. Why is McCain somehow not responsible for Hagee while Obama is responsible for Wright? I suggest the difference is that the senator from Illinois is a Kenyan American and the senator from Arizona a white American.
A second question is why the elite national media fix on Wright and ignore Hagee. Wright, you will say, is much better media copy than Hagee. Yet the latter explains Hurricane Katrina as God’s wrath on gays and lesbians and describes the Catholic Church as the “whore of Babylon.”
As the watchdog group Media Matters points out in a recent report, two elite papers — The New York Times and the Washington Post — have paid 12 times as much attention to Obama’s clergy as to to McCain’s.
Since McCain accepted Hagee’s endorsement on Feb. 27, the Times has published 46 articles about Obama and Wright and five articles about McCain and Hagee. The Post’s score is 53-3. The Times has produced 22 editorials and op-eds that mention Obama and Wright and two about McCain and Hagee, and the Post scores 40-2. In the words of Karl Frisch of Media Matters, “It is time for the major media outlets to ask themselves if they’ve been covering the candidates for president with equally critical eyes. . . . If they are honest, they’ll admit they have not.”
One must wonder why not. Obama is the front-runner and hence his destruction is raw meat even for the top journals in the country. Surely both papers understand that many Americans are looking for a reason not to vote for a Kenyan American and that this gaffe will feed their hunger.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/07/8777/
-----------
Amnesty International has called for the role of the United States in Somalia to be investigated, following publication of a report accusing its allies of committing war crimes.
According to the report, based on the testimonies of refugees who have fled Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, in recent weeks, Ethiopian troops have killed civilians by slitting their throats. Ethiopian and Somali forces were also accused of gang-raping women and attacking children.
But the NY Times is fixated on the Olympic Torch (a windfall for US propaganda). The only Amnesty International story it carried was about torch protesters in Hong Kong.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/call-for-inquiry-into-us-role-in-somalia-822166.html
Despite this, the truly extraordinary blackout by the major television and cable news networks — which were complicit in this program — continues. Howard Kurtz of CNN and The Washington Post previously called this blackout “pathetic”, and yesterday, The Politico published a relatively impressive article further documenting the “deafening silence” from the networks at the center of this story.
As the article noted:
While bloggers have kept the story simmering, Democratic congressional leaders also are speaking out, calling for investigations that could provoke the networks to finally cover the Times story - and, in effect, themselves.
Here is an interesting story of government wrongdoing that the NY Times and Washington Post covered, but no the major TV networks. Of course, the Pentagon's planting of stories makes TV reporting look bad, not newspaper reporting. This from an article by Salon:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/09/8851/
--------------
Amid all the talk about the U.S. military “surge” in Iraq, little has been said about the accompanying “surge” of Iraqi prisoners, whose numbers rose to nearly 51,000 at the end of 2007. Four years after the Abu Ghraib scandal, occupation forces are holding far more Iraqis than ever before and thousands more languish in horrendous Iraqi-run prisons.
Detainees are held by the U.S. command in two main locations — Camp Bucca, a 100-acre prison camp and Camp Cropper, inside a massive U.S. base near the Baghdad airport. The number of Iraqis held in these facilities has steadily risen since the early days of the occupation. In 2007, the inmate count rose 70% — from 14,500 to 24,700.
Camp Bucca, with about 20,000 inmates, is perhaps the world’s largest extrajudicial internment camp. The facility is organized into “compounds” of 800 detainees each, surrounded by fences and watch towers. Most detainees live in large communal tents, subject to collapse in the area’s frequent sandstorms. Water has at times been in short supply, while temperatures in the desert conditions can be scorching hot in the day and bone-chilling at night.
In October 2007, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a contract to expand Camp Bucca’s capacity from 20,000 to 30,000. While easing notorious crowding, the contract suggests Washington is preparing for even more detentions in the future.
Camp Cropper consists of more traditional cellblock buildings. Among its roughly 4,000 inmates are hundreds of juveniles. Cropper is a site of ongoing interrogation and it holds many long-term detainees who complain that they never see the light of day. Though recently expanded, the facility suffers from overcrowding, poor medical attention and miserable conditions.
This article by the Institute for Policy Studies was never printed in the NY Times. Perhaps it is too revealing of the continued human rights abuses America is committing in Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/07/8795/
-----------
I fail to see that the envious and bitter attacks of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright should have created the crisis in Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign when the remarks of Pastor John Hagee have not created a similar crisis in Sen. John McCain’s campaign. Why is McCain somehow not responsible for Hagee while Obama is responsible for Wright? I suggest the difference is that the senator from Illinois is a Kenyan American and the senator from Arizona a white American.
A second question is why the elite national media fix on Wright and ignore Hagee. Wright, you will say, is much better media copy than Hagee. Yet the latter explains Hurricane Katrina as God’s wrath on gays and lesbians and describes the Catholic Church as the “whore of Babylon.”
As the watchdog group Media Matters points out in a recent report, two elite papers — The New York Times and the Washington Post — have paid 12 times as much attention to Obama’s clergy as to to McCain’s.
Since McCain accepted Hagee’s endorsement on Feb. 27, the Times has published 46 articles about Obama and Wright and five articles about McCain and Hagee. The Post’s score is 53-3. The Times has produced 22 editorials and op-eds that mention Obama and Wright and two about McCain and Hagee, and the Post scores 40-2. In the words of Karl Frisch of Media Matters, “It is time for the major media outlets to ask themselves if they’ve been covering the candidates for president with equally critical eyes. . . . If they are honest, they’ll admit they have not.”
One must wonder why not. Obama is the front-runner and hence his destruction is raw meat even for the top journals in the country. Surely both papers understand that many Americans are looking for a reason not to vote for a Kenyan American and that this gaffe will feed their hunger.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/07/8777/
-----------
Amnesty International has called for the role of the United States in Somalia to be investigated, following publication of a report accusing its allies of committing war crimes.
According to the report, based on the testimonies of refugees who have fled Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, in recent weeks, Ethiopian troops have killed civilians by slitting their throats. Ethiopian and Somali forces were also accused of gang-raping women and attacking children.
But the NY Times is fixated on the Olympic Torch (a windfall for US propaganda). The only Amnesty International story it carried was about torch protesters in Hong Kong.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/call-for-inquiry-into-us-role-in-somalia-822166.html
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Fantasyland Media
Israel’s Tactics Thwart Attacks, With Trade-Off
By ISABEL KERSHNER
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/03/world/middleeast/03israel.html?scp=2&sq=+ISABEL+KERSHNER&st=nyt
This is a wonderful example of just how distorted the NY Times coverage of Israel is. In fact, it is pure propaganda. Let's look at some of the article's assumptions:
-That Israel built the wall to stop suicide bombers. There is no mention that the wall is almost completely on Palestinian territory.
-That the wall has provided "enough quiet for Israel to resume peace talks," as if Israel was actually seeking peace rather than an appropriation of more territory.
-That Israel was interested in the economic success of Gaza rather than the strangulation of its population: "After Israel unilaterally pulled out its troops and Jewish settlers in 2005, some hoped that with Western support, the tiny coastal strip might become a model for a future Palestinian state." No mention of the blockade, of course, that has led to extreme shortages in food and medicines.
This story has no news in it. Nor does it have any other point of view (like a Palestinian voice). It is simply an example of how poorly the NY Times does when it comes to Israel. This front page article is nothing but one sided opinion presenting itself as news. It could have been written by the Israeli lobby. And probably was.
The writer, Ms. Kershner, is married to Hirsh Goodman, an Israeli who served as a Strategic Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an influential think tank dedicated to promoting the Israeli agenda in the US.
By ISABEL KERSHNER
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/03/world/middleeast/03israel.html?scp=2&sq=+ISABEL+KERSHNER&st=nyt
This is a wonderful example of just how distorted the NY Times coverage of Israel is. In fact, it is pure propaganda. Let's look at some of the article's assumptions:
-That Israel built the wall to stop suicide bombers. There is no mention that the wall is almost completely on Palestinian territory.
-That the wall has provided "enough quiet for Israel to resume peace talks," as if Israel was actually seeking peace rather than an appropriation of more territory.
-That Israel was interested in the economic success of Gaza rather than the strangulation of its population: "After Israel unilaterally pulled out its troops and Jewish settlers in 2005, some hoped that with Western support, the tiny coastal strip might become a model for a future Palestinian state." No mention of the blockade, of course, that has led to extreme shortages in food and medicines.
This story has no news in it. Nor does it have any other point of view (like a Palestinian voice). It is simply an example of how poorly the NY Times does when it comes to Israel. This front page article is nothing but one sided opinion presenting itself as news. It could have been written by the Israeli lobby. And probably was.
The writer, Ms. Kershner, is married to Hirsh Goodman, an Israeli who served as a Strategic Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an influential think tank dedicated to promoting the Israeli agenda in the US.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Fantasyland Media
Time for some yellow journalism. Racist journalism, in fact.
The NY Times goes about as low as any tabloid in its reporting of Rev. Wright. In a front page story, the NY Times printed the following "news" story about Wright. Not an editorial, but a news story. But the NY Times simply doesn't know the difference.
On the front page we read that: Rev. Wright "wriggles out from under sound bites and screen-grab loops to put himself...on television." He spoke a "stemwinding brew of black history, Scripture, hallelujahs and hermeneutics." He was: "cocky, defiant, declamatory, inflammatory and mischievous, but most of all, he was all over the place..."
The NY Times goes on to describe Rev. Wright's "monomania" as that of a "slightly wacky uncle who unsettles strangers but really just craves attention" and "loves his own voice." Finally, on the front page, "he is the avatar of the American celebrity principle: he grabbed his 30-second spots of infamy and turned them into 15 minutes of fame."
Missing from the front page, of course, is anything that he said. Why would you need that in a news story? The NY Times has decided for you: he is just another ignorant black man acting foolish for the publicity.
Contrast this to the NY Times' effusive praise for Colin Powell when he lied at the UN about weapons of mass destruction. Clearly Rev. Wright needs to be put down for not following the correct script for black people in America.
-----------
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Billions of aid dollars pledged to the Palestinians to bolster peace talks with Israel are having a muted economic impact because of Israeli restrictions on travel and trade, the World Bank said on Sunday.
The World Bank said modest gains in economic growth in the occupied West Bank, where Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas's government holds sway, were not sufficient to offset the "severe contraction" seen in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Israel tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip after the Islamist group's takeover in June from more secular Fatah forces loyal to Abbas. http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2616242520080427
Strong words about the Israeli blockade and its effect on the Palestinian people. But the story was not judged to be newsworthy by the NY Times, which routinely censors out stories critical of Israel.
-----------
George W. Bush is poised to order a massive aerial bombardment — possibly including tactical nuclear weapons - of up to 10,000 targets in Iran. The attack would be justified on grounds that Iran is interfering with U.S. efforts in Iraq and that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, a charge that was debunked last fall in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).
The article goes on to support this thesis, including military changes (including the resignation of Admiral Fallon), accelerated orders for bunker-buster bombs and planes that carry them, and a report of an Israeli exercise simulating missile strikes from Iran, Lebanon, and Syria. The Union of Concerned Scientists has indicated that a “limited” nuclear attack on the main Iranian underground site in Esfahan would result in three million people killed by radiation within two weeks. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/25/8529/
The NY Times has done no analysis of administration plans to attack Iran. It did not carry the report of the Union of Concerned Scientists. What attack being planned? NY Times readers don't have to worry about such things.
-----------
"We have to make clear to the Iraqis that they have been given the greatest gift that a human being can give another human being – the gift of freedom. And it is up to them to decide how they will use that precious gift that has been paid for with the blood and sacrifice and treasure of the United States of America."
That was Hillary Clinton on March 17. No national media took her to task for the utterly stupid and heartless suggestion that the people of Iraq, with a million dead and five million homeless should be thanking America. What next for Hillary, a thank you from Vietnam for the three million dead we left in that country? Until the US media exposes our politicians for the empire building rhetoric that is their stock in trade, the worldwide bloodshed will continue. And Hillary is one of the "peace" candidates we should all be so excited about.
-----------
The UN is to halt food handouts for up to 800,000 Palestinians from today because of a severe fuel shortage in Gaza brought on by an Israeli economic blockade.
John Ging, the director of operations in Gaza for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which supports Palestinian refugees, said there had been a “totally inadequate” supply of fuel from Israel to Gaza for 10 months until it was finally halted two weeks ago. “The devastating humanitarian impact is entirely predictable,” he said.
A shortage of diesel and petrol means UN food assistance to 650,000 Palestinian refugees will stop today, and aid from the World Food Programme for another 127,000 Palestinians due in the coming days will also be halted. “The collective punishment of the population of Gaza, which has been instituted for months now, has failed,” said Robert Serry, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/23/8490/
Such UN quotes never made it into the NY Times. "Collective punishment" has not been used by the NY Times in at least two months.
The NY Times goes about as low as any tabloid in its reporting of Rev. Wright. In a front page story, the NY Times printed the following "news" story about Wright. Not an editorial, but a news story. But the NY Times simply doesn't know the difference.
On the front page we read that: Rev. Wright "wriggles out from under sound bites and screen-grab loops to put himself...on television." He spoke a "stemwinding brew of black history, Scripture, hallelujahs and hermeneutics." He was: "cocky, defiant, declamatory, inflammatory and mischievous, but most of all, he was all over the place..."
The NY Times goes on to describe Rev. Wright's "monomania" as that of a "slightly wacky uncle who unsettles strangers but really just craves attention" and "loves his own voice." Finally, on the front page, "he is the avatar of the American celebrity principle: he grabbed his 30-second spots of infamy and turned them into 15 minutes of fame."
Missing from the front page, of course, is anything that he said. Why would you need that in a news story? The NY Times has decided for you: he is just another ignorant black man acting foolish for the publicity.
Contrast this to the NY Times' effusive praise for Colin Powell when he lied at the UN about weapons of mass destruction. Clearly Rev. Wright needs to be put down for not following the correct script for black people in America.
-----------
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Billions of aid dollars pledged to the Palestinians to bolster peace talks with Israel are having a muted economic impact because of Israeli restrictions on travel and trade, the World Bank said on Sunday.
The World Bank said modest gains in economic growth in the occupied West Bank, where Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas's government holds sway, were not sufficient to offset the "severe contraction" seen in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Israel tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip after the Islamist group's takeover in June from more secular Fatah forces loyal to Abbas. http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2616242520080427
Strong words about the Israeli blockade and its effect on the Palestinian people. But the story was not judged to be newsworthy by the NY Times, which routinely censors out stories critical of Israel.
-----------
George W. Bush is poised to order a massive aerial bombardment — possibly including tactical nuclear weapons - of up to 10,000 targets in Iran. The attack would be justified on grounds that Iran is interfering with U.S. efforts in Iraq and that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, a charge that was debunked last fall in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).
The article goes on to support this thesis, including military changes (including the resignation of Admiral Fallon), accelerated orders for bunker-buster bombs and planes that carry them, and a report of an Israeli exercise simulating missile strikes from Iran, Lebanon, and Syria. The Union of Concerned Scientists has indicated that a “limited” nuclear attack on the main Iranian underground site in Esfahan would result in three million people killed by radiation within two weeks. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/25/8529/
The NY Times has done no analysis of administration plans to attack Iran. It did not carry the report of the Union of Concerned Scientists. What attack being planned? NY Times readers don't have to worry about such things.
-----------
"We have to make clear to the Iraqis that they have been given the greatest gift that a human being can give another human being – the gift of freedom. And it is up to them to decide how they will use that precious gift that has been paid for with the blood and sacrifice and treasure of the United States of America."
That was Hillary Clinton on March 17. No national media took her to task for the utterly stupid and heartless suggestion that the people of Iraq, with a million dead and five million homeless should be thanking America. What next for Hillary, a thank you from Vietnam for the three million dead we left in that country? Until the US media exposes our politicians for the empire building rhetoric that is their stock in trade, the worldwide bloodshed will continue. And Hillary is one of the "peace" candidates we should all be so excited about.
-----------
The UN is to halt food handouts for up to 800,000 Palestinians from today because of a severe fuel shortage in Gaza brought on by an Israeli economic blockade.
John Ging, the director of operations in Gaza for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which supports Palestinian refugees, said there had been a “totally inadequate” supply of fuel from Israel to Gaza for 10 months until it was finally halted two weeks ago. “The devastating humanitarian impact is entirely predictable,” he said.
A shortage of diesel and petrol means UN food assistance to 650,000 Palestinian refugees will stop today, and aid from the World Food Programme for another 127,000 Palestinians due in the coming days will also be halted. “The collective punishment of the population of Gaza, which has been instituted for months now, has failed,” said Robert Serry, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/23/8490/
Such UN quotes never made it into the NY Times. "Collective punishment" has not been used by the NY Times in at least two months.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
FANTASY LAND: US Media
KABUL - The Afghan government plans to investigate whether the United States used depleted uranium during its invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and if it might be linked to malformed babies born afterwards.
Parts of Afghanistan, particularly the mountainous region of Tora Bora in the east — the suspected hideout of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden — came under heavy U.S. bombing in late 2001 when the Taliban regime was ousted. Depleted uranium is a heavy metal used in some weapons that can pierce armour. It has small levels of radioactivity associated with it.
Cases of malformed babies delivered in the heavily bombed Afghan areas have come to light, Faizullah Kakar, Afghan deputy public health minister for technical affairs said on Saturday, citing an unnamed U.S. expert.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/20/8401/
Depleted uranium? NY Times readers just don’t know what that even is. The one serious story the NY Times printed about it in the last four years was a letter to the editor (June, 2006).
-----------
Carter calls Gaza blockade a crime and atrocity
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called the blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity on Thursday and said U.S. attempts to undermine the Islamist movement Hamas had been counterproductive.
Speaking at the American University in Cairo after talks with Hamas leaders from Gaza, Carter said Palestinians in Gaza were being "starved to death," receiving fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa.
"It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. it's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on," Carter said.
Israel has been blockading Gaza most of the time since Hamas took control of the impoverished coastal strip in June last year, allowing only basic supplies to enter.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080417/pl_nm/palestinians_carter_dc
That was Reuters. The NY Times buried Carter’s quote towards the end of a long article entitled: “Palestinian Official Says Talks With Israelis Yield Little.” The story left out any reference to “crime,” and failed to describe the the cause of all that suffering. Israeli blockade of Gaza? What blockade?
-----------
Exposed: The Great GM Crops Myth
Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study - carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt - has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.
The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/20/8405/
Genetically modified food a giant industry scam? Not to readers of the NY Times. The story never made it into print, although the fact that Monsanto’s earnings more than doubled appeared in the business section. In fact, the NY Times has often championed the potential of GM foods, especially in its supposedly unbiased Science Section. One might think the newspaper would at least print irrefutable evidence to the contrary.
-----------
Pentagon Institute Calls Iraq War ‘a Major Debacle’ with Outcome ‘in Doubt’
WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq has become “a major debacle” and the outcome “is in doubt” despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon’s premier military educational institute.
The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush’s projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.
The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/18/8368/
For the NY Times, there is no “major debacle” as long as the story doesn’t get printed. Omissions like this are not made by mistake. The NY Times often leaves out stories critical of the Iraq occupation, no matter how well documented.
Parts of Afghanistan, particularly the mountainous region of Tora Bora in the east — the suspected hideout of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden — came under heavy U.S. bombing in late 2001 when the Taliban regime was ousted. Depleted uranium is a heavy metal used in some weapons that can pierce armour. It has small levels of radioactivity associated with it.
Cases of malformed babies delivered in the heavily bombed Afghan areas have come to light, Faizullah Kakar, Afghan deputy public health minister for technical affairs said on Saturday, citing an unnamed U.S. expert.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/20/8401/
Depleted uranium? NY Times readers just don’t know what that even is. The one serious story the NY Times printed about it in the last four years was a letter to the editor (June, 2006).
-----------
Carter calls Gaza blockade a crime and atrocity
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called the blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity on Thursday and said U.S. attempts to undermine the Islamist movement Hamas had been counterproductive.
Speaking at the American University in Cairo after talks with Hamas leaders from Gaza, Carter said Palestinians in Gaza were being "starved to death," receiving fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa.
"It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. it's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on," Carter said.
Israel has been blockading Gaza most of the time since Hamas took control of the impoverished coastal strip in June last year, allowing only basic supplies to enter.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080417/pl_nm/palestinians_carter_dc
That was Reuters. The NY Times buried Carter’s quote towards the end of a long article entitled: “Palestinian Official Says Talks With Israelis Yield Little.” The story left out any reference to “crime,” and failed to describe the the cause of all that suffering. Israeli blockade of Gaza? What blockade?
-----------
Exposed: The Great GM Crops Myth
Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.
The study - carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt - has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.
The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/20/8405/
Genetically modified food a giant industry scam? Not to readers of the NY Times. The story never made it into print, although the fact that Monsanto’s earnings more than doubled appeared in the business section. In fact, the NY Times has often championed the potential of GM foods, especially in its supposedly unbiased Science Section. One might think the newspaper would at least print irrefutable evidence to the contrary.
-----------
Pentagon Institute Calls Iraq War ‘a Major Debacle’ with Outcome ‘in Doubt’
WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq has become “a major debacle” and the outcome “is in doubt” despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon’s premier military educational institute.
The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush’s projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.
The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/18/8368/
For the NY Times, there is no “major debacle” as long as the story doesn’t get printed. Omissions like this are not made by mistake. The NY Times often leaves out stories critical of the Iraq occupation, no matter how well documented.
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