A Progressive on the Prairie

I blogged below about the media's hesitancy to call things as they are when it comes to the White House. Today's New York Times is a perfect example.

In an article about the August 6, 2001, presidential briefing, the Times reports Bush was told al Queda "planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack planes." The article goes on to note that this "appears to contradict the White House's repeated assertions that the briefing the president received about the Qaeda threat was 'historical' in nature." Come on! The person making the "repeated assertions" was Condi Rice under oath before the 9-11 Ccommission.

Here is Rice's exact testimony before the 9-11 Commission:

• "[T]his was a historical memo."
  
  
• The PDB "was not a particular threat report. And there was historical information in there about various aspects of al-Qaida's operations."
  
  
• "It was historical information based on old reporting."
  
  
• "This was a historic memo -- historical memo prepared by the agency because the president was asking questions about what we knew about the inside."
  
  
• "The president was told this is historical information. I'm told he was told this is historical information and there was nothing actionable in this."
  
  
• "It is just not the case that the August 6th memorandum did anything but put together what the CIA decided that they wanted to put together about historical knowledge about what was going on and a few things about what the FBI might be doing."
  
  
• "[The] August 6th [PDB] is most certainly an historical document that says, Here's how you might think about Al Qaida."

If the current media reports about the content of the briefing are right, there is little doubt Rice misled or attempted to mislead the 9-11 Commission. No doubt White House lawyers will say her testimony was accurate because the memo did not deal with "a particular threat," i.e., that terrorists were going to hijack planes and fly them into buildings in New York City. But at least now we know why the White House fought so hard to avoid having Rice testify under oath. The question that remains is why the mainstream media isn't being specific about who made these patent misstatements.
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I just finished Karen Armstrong's memoir, The Spiral Staircase. (By coincidence, the book section in today's Guardian has an excellent biographical piece about her. And Powell's has an interview here.) Armstrong is a British woman who left the convent after seven years and the book details her struggles in coming to terms with a society she thought she rejected and a religiosity she thought she embraced. While the book itself is well-written, the final chapter, "To Turn Again," may be the best and most meaningful explication of religion I've ever read -- and I'm about as irreligious as you can get. While it could probably stand alone as an essay, the preceding chapters truly help bring better understanding of what she says in the final chapter.

While only part of the theme of the chapter, I found the following particularly relevant in light of what has happened over the last couple years and what is currently going on in Iraq:

What is vital to all of the [religious] traditions, however, is that we have a duty to make the best of the only thing that remains to us -- ourselves. Our task now is to mend our broken world; if religion cannot do that, it is worthless. And what our world needs now is not belief, not certainty, but compassionate action and practically expressed respect for the sacred value of all human beings, even our enemies.

*** The September [11] apocalypse was a revelation -- an "unveiling" of a reality that had been there all the time but which we had not seen clearly enough before: we live in one world. What happens in Gaza or Afghanistan today will have repercussions in New York or London tomorrow. We in the First World cannot continue to isolate ourselves in our wealth and good fortune. If we do that, those who feel dispossessed or excluded will come to us, in a terrible form. The study of other people's religious beliefs is now no longer merely desirable, but necessary for our very survival. . . . . Nothing excuses the atrocities of that fateful day, but the Buddhists are right to remind us that the laws of karma are always a factor in human life: our deeds have consequences that we could never have predicted at the time.

Although I've read parts of her other work, this book will send me back to her prior books. While probably unachievable at any time in the foreseeable future (if ever), the ideas and concepts Karen Armstrong expresses in the final chapter of this book serve as worthy goals for all. Karen Armstrong has taken a significant place on my list of "heroes."
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The LA Times, the New York Times and others take issue with a US Marshal erasing reporters' digital recordings of a speech by Justice Scalia at a high school. The fact this was done is offensive in and of itself. Yet as the LA Times notes, "Alone among the justices, Scalia forbids television cameras when he speaks in public, and he usually tries to clear the room of reporters. He strictly insists, usually in advance, that his words not be recorded."

Granted, Supreme Court justices do not hold elected office. The fact remains, though, they are public officials and public servants. Why should Scalia be able to declare his public appearances "off limits"? Seems the press should have been raising a stink about this for some time.


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The Washington Post confirms what I predicted on April 2 about US media coverage of Sibel Edmonds. She is the former FBI translator who, according to The Independent, claims there were intelligence reports in the spring and summer of 2001 that al Qaeda planned to fly hijacked airplanes into US skyscrapers.

The Independent's story received respectful, extensive treatment from news sites on every continent, ranging from Cronica de Hoy (in Spanish) in Mexico City to Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung (in German) to the Khaleej Times in the Persian Gulf to the New Zealand Herald in the South Pacific.

Edmonds's story has been almost uniformly ignored in the U.S. daily press. Her allegations have been detailed in the online magazine Salon and several liberal sites are playing them up. The Independent's story was mentioned briefly on Monday in Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing blog on washingtonpost.com. Tim Russert briefly quizzed the Republican and Democratic heads of the 9/11 commission about Edmonds during Sunday's "Meet the Press" program on NBC. Former Clinton White House aide Paul Begala mentioned it last week on CNN's "Crossfire." But the only U.S. newspaper to give Edmonds any extended coverage was the Washington Times. In January, a page-one New York Observer article on Edmonds's complaints about lax security in the FBI's translation office did not include the allegations that first appeared in the Independent.

Clearly, what we have here are two different standards of journalism: one American, one nearly global. The question is where does this difference come from?

His possible answers don't accord with mine. First, I think that unless it's sex or Americans getting killed (note the coverage of the Americans who died in Fajulla compared to the 40+ Iraqis who died in the mosque shelling this week), it ain't gonna play. Second, the media demonstrated full well in the work-up to Iraq that it simply is afraid to take a hard look at or challenge the Bush Administration. The media can't resist sex in the White House. Outright falsehoods regarding national security and issues of war and peace are another thing, particulary when there is an administration in power that has no hesitancy to punish and attack critics.
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That's the title of an interesting column by Maureen Farrell at BuzzFlash.com. It analyzes whether another major terrorist attack on US soil could result in the suspension of the election. You might call it hysteria or overreaction but for the fact it is filled with links to various legitimate sources. (Via Cursor).
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Crumble may be too nice a word for what's developing in Iraq. Because so much is happening, here's a couple random thoughts and links.

• I am not a big Bill Moyers fan. I do, though, recommend his new column on AlterNet. His comments that terrorism is worth fighting but the foot soldiers shouldn't be the only ones paying the price harkens back to my earlier comments on The Great Dissipation. Some of his ideas go beyond what I think reasonable or possible, but overall a good point.
  
  
• It seems Colin Powell is the latest in the Bush Administration delegated to tell us that criticizing the liar-in-chief is unpatriotic. See also the general review at Liberal Oasis. Powell criticized Ted Kennedy's recent comments that Iraq is "George Bush's Vietnam." Powell says Kennedy "should be a little more restrained and careful in his comments because we are at war." I find this ironic in light of the fact Bush just claimed how much "we love freedom." If, as Bush now claims (post hoc because there were no WMDs or terrorism links), this war is to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq, maybe he and his minions should remember that critics are simply exercising rights for which our soldiers are supposedly dying in Iraq.
  
  To Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, Cheney and Perle, to name a few: People are dying and our civil liberties are being trashed because you lied and misled a nation. You don't give a damn about Iraq or freedom. All you care about is having and remaining in power. The fact American soldiers and Iraqis have to die along the way doesn't bother you at all (except your fear that the body count adversely affects the election). There is a special place in hell reserved for all of you.
  
  
• The Onion perfectly encapsulates the ongoing debate over Iraq. (Via Atrios).
  

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If the news reports of firing missiles into or bombing at or near a mosque filled with people are accurate, we may have done more to obliterate any hopes for success in Iraq than we can recover from. An AP story indicates "Shiite-inspired violence spread to nearly all of the country." Remember, the Shiites are the majority population in this country and were the ones most repressed by Saddam's Sunni-dominated government. Thus, they must been the ones Cheney was referring to before the war when he said "there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to [invade]."

Final judgment must, of course, await not only the accuracy of the reports but knowledge of the surrounding circumstances and who was in the mosque: worshippers (as the AP story and The Guardian indicate) or combatants (which an earlier NY Times article on another mosque indicates is entirely possible). There is no doubt how this will play in the Arab world, though. As Jessica Stern points out in a Salon article (subscription or free "day pass" required), even lesser actions reinforce the idea we are embarked on a new Crusade against Islam. (Stern article via Orcinus).

As Sick of Bush and Warblogging.com have noted, this at least eliminates one of the liar-in-chief's lies. He has done well being a "uniter, not a divider" of the Shia and Sunni in Iraq. Too bad they're uniting in hatred of America and to kill our troops.


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This isn't "journalism" so I won't contend that what appears here will be balanced. It should, though, at least be fair enough to point out potential errors. Josh Marshall notes there may be a legitimate reason for Bush's "Who are you talking to?" remark to a news reporter yesterday. It appears the reporter may have had a phone to his ear at the time.
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A few items catching my attention today:


• When an AP reporter calls him "Sir," instead of "Mr. President," the liar-in-chief says, "Who are you talking to?
  
  
• UN weapons inspector Hans Blix says the costs of the war in Iraq outweighed the benefits of removing Saddam. He also says, "Bush declared war as a part of the U.S. war on terror, but instead of limiting the effects of terror, the war has laid the foundation for even more terror."
  
  
• David Kay, our hand-picked weapons inspector, says he realized within days that Saddam didn't have WMDs.
  
  
• Insightful comment at the Whiskey Bar. Billmon points out that the recent decline in Bush's recent poll numbers may have more to do with gasoline prices than what's going on in Iraq.
  

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Following a suggestion by Left I on the News, I downloaded a couple Democracy Now! programs to listen to over the weekend. I'm glad I did. If those two shows are any indication of its ongoing quality, Air America has a long way to go. Just take the March 31 program as an example.

First, there was an interview with the FBI translator who claims there was plenty of info prior to 9-11 that al Queda was planning on striking with airplanes. Yet even more interesting ws an interview with Robert Fisk, chief middle east correspondent for the London Independent. Not only was this as the news about Fallujah was developing, it contained what to me was a highly fascinating insight into the "private security" forces at work in Iraq. Fisk reported meeting with an American named Jeff who worked for one of these entities. According to him,

At night the U.S. troops [in Baghdad's secure "green zone"] are protected by ample security men. In other words, mercenaries are now paid to protect American troops. Outside of these mercenary forces are Iraqis who are armed and paid by the Americans. So, what you have is a kind of double sandbag. You have first of all Iraqis with weapons defending the Americans. Then security service men or security company men or mercenaries, if you like, and then after that, the Americans. It seems that the intention is to save American lives. And use the hired men and indeed Iraqis as sandbags.

Leave it to the Bushies to hire Iraqis and Americans to hold down the military death toll in an election year. And will you hear about this in the mainstream U.S. media? Never.

There are no area stations carrying the program. You can, however, listen on streaming audio from various radio affiliates. Or it provides its own link to archives of for both radio and TV. Give it a listen.


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