Think I'm kidding? I'm not. As my dad would have said, "This ain't funny." Take special note of the last paragraphs... and don't forget a radical neocon, SecDef Rumsfeld, master of black ops who thinks he can rule the world along with the viscious, hate-filled, master liar Cheney, runs this outfit.
From Truthout.org:
Go to Original
Pentagon Expanding Its Domestic Surveillance Activity
By Walter Pincus
The Washington Post
Sunday 27 November 2005
Fears of post-9/11 terrorism spur proposals for new powers.
The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.
The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts - including protecting military facilities from attack - to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.
The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.
The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department's push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public.
"We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview.
Wyden has since persuaded lawmakers to change the legislation, attached to the fiscal 2006 intelligence authorization bill, to address some of his concerns, but he still believes hearings should be held. Among the changes was the elimination of a provision to let Defense Intelligence Agency officers hide the fact that they work for the government when they approach people who are possible sources of intelligence in the United States.
Modifications also were made in the provision allowing the FBI to share information with the Pentagon and CIA, requiring the approval of the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, for that to occur, and requiring the Pentagon to make reports to Congress on the subject. Wyden said the legislation "now strikes a much fairer balance by protecting critical rights for our country's citizens and advancing intelligence operations to meet our security needs."
Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the data-sharing amendment would still give the Pentagon much greater access to the FBI's massive collection of data, including information on citizens not connected to terrorism or espionage.
The measure, she said, "removes one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." She said the Pentagon's "intelligence agencies are quietly expanding their domestic presence without any public debate."
Lt. Col. Chris Conway, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said that the most senior Defense Department intelligence officials are aware of the sensitivities related to their expanded domestic activities. At the same time, he said, the Pentagon has to have the intelligence necessary to protect its facilities and personnel at home and abroad.
"In the age of terrorism," Conway said, "the U.S. military and its facilities are targets, and we have to be prepared within our authorities to defend them before something happens."
Among the steps already taken by the Pentagon that enhanced its domestic capabilities was the establishment after 9/11 of Northern Command, or Northcom, in Colorado Springs, to provide military forces to help in reacting to terrorist threats in the continental United States. Today, Northcom's intelligence centers in Colorado and Texas fuse reports from CIFA, the FBI and other U.S. agencies, and are staffed by 290 intelligence analysts. That is more than the roughly 200 analysts working for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and far more than those at the Department of Homeland Security.
In addition, each of the military services has begun its own post-9/11 collection of domestic intelligence, primarily aimed at gathering data on potential terrorist threats to bases and other military facilities at home and abroad. For example, Eagle Eyes is a program set up by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which "enlists the eyes and ears of Air Force members and citizens in the war on terror," according to the program's Web site.
The Marine Corps has expanded its domestic intelligence operations and developed internal policies in 2004 to govern oversight of the "collection, retention and dissemination of information concerning U.S. persons," according to a Marine Corps order approved on April 30, 2004.
The order recognizes that in the post-9/11 era, the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity will be "increasingly required to perform domestic missions," and as a result, "there will be increased instances whereby Marine intelligence activities may come across information regarding U.S. persons." Among domestic targets listed are people in the United States who it "is reasonably believed threaten the physical security of Defense Department employees, installations, operations or official visitors."
Perhaps the prime illustration of the Pentagon's intelligence growth is CIFA, which remains one of its least publicized intelligence agencies. Neither the size of its staff, said to be more than 1,000, nor its budget is public, said Conway, the Pentagon spokesman. The CIFA brochure says the agency's mission is to "transform" the way counterintelligence is done "fully utilizing 21st century tools and resources."
One CIFA activity, threat assessments, involves using "leading edge information technologies and data harvesting," according to a February 2004 Pentagon budget document. This involves "exploiting commercial data" with the help of outside contractors including White Oak Technologies Inc. of Silver Spring, and MZM Inc., a Washington-based research organization, according to the Pentagon document.
For CIFA, counterintelligence involves not just collecting data but also "conducting activities to protect DoD and the nation against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, assassinations, and terrorist activities," its brochure states.
CIFA's abilities would increase considerably under the proposal being reviewed by the White House, which was made by a presidential commission on intelligence chaired by retired appellate court judge Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.). The commission urged that CIFA be given authority to carry out domestic criminal investigations and clandestine operations against potential threats inside the United States.
The Silberman-Robb panel found that because the separate military services concentrated on investigations within their areas, "no entity views non-service-specific and department-wide investigations as its primary responsibility." A 2003 Defense Department directive kept CIFA from engaging in law enforcement activities such as "the investigation, apprehension, or detention of individuals suspected or convicted of criminal offenses against the laws of the United States."
The commission's proposal would change that, giving CIFA "new counterespionage and law enforcement authorities," covering treason, espionage, foreign or terrorist sabotage, and even economic espionage. That step, the panel said, could be taken by presidential order and Pentagon directive without congressional approval.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the CIFA expansion "is being studied at the DoD [Defense Department] level," adding that intelligence director Negroponte would have a say in the matter. A Pentagon spokesman said, "The [CIFA] matter is before the Hill committees."
Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a recent interview that CIFA has performed well in the past and today has no domestic intelligence collection activities. He was not aware of moves to enhance its authority.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has not had formal hearings on CIFA or other domestic intelligence programs, but its staff has been briefed on some of the steps the Pentagon has already taken. "If a member asks the chairman" - Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) - for hearings, "I am sure he would respond," said Bill Duhnke, the panel's staff director.
--------
Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.
NOTE: Republican Senators, Warner and Roberts, are not trustworthy nor honest. They talk a good game, then make sure the truth never comes out. Consider the still missing 2nd half of the 9/11 committee reports for instance, wherein there was to be an investigation into just how the White House and neocons twisted the intelligence to enable BushCo to invade Iraq.
Wrap...
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Saturday, November 26, 2005
San Diego in sunstorm!!!
From Voice of San Diego.org
Hypothetical Weather Report: Sunstorms Bathe San Diego
By MICHAEL GRANT
Voice Guest Columnist
Thursday, Nov. 24, 2005
In The New York Times, the story would read like this:
Sunstorms Subside in SoCal. Residents reveal aggravation with cool, cloudy, even rainy, forecast for Thanksgiving Day.
SAN DIEGO, Nov. 24 -- Weather forecasters say the recent 10-day blizzard of "sunstorms" appears to be ending just in time for the long holiday weekend, and San Diegans are not very thankful for it.
"Look at that," said San Diego resident Marinda Robertson, gesturing at clouds streaming in from the Pacific Ocean across San Diego County, a coastal desert in the southwest corner of the United States, with a population of about two million. "Day before yesterday we had a huge sunstorm. I still don't know how I got to work. Now tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and it's supposed to rain. Go figure."
Residents of this county say they dread the approach of November, with typical southwestern U.S. weather patterns that contribute to conditions, which they describe as "severe," that create sunstorms.
"In the east," Robertson said, "this is the time of year when you start getting snowstorms. We read about them in the papers all the time, and see them on the TV news. 'Snowstorms paralyze New York; millions can't get to work.' But nobody ever reads about us and sunstorms."
"Monday was awful," said Kent Jacobs of La Mesa, an eastern San Diego suburb. Jacobs, like Robertson, was prowling supermarket aisles late Wednesday afternoon, looking for last-minute Thanksgiving items like clam juice and baking powder. "I went outside to get the paper just before dawn on Monday morning, and it was just so warm and crystal clear. Then I felt a little bit of east breeze, as balmy as the Bahamas. Right then I knew we were in for another one."
According to Robertson, Jacobs and others, such a dawn will, by 7:30, have developed into a full-blown sunstorm, with temperatures already approaching the 80s, clear sky and a light breeze out of the east.
"You have no idea how impossible it is to get out the door, get in the car and head for work in a sunstorm," Jacobs said. "Every bone in your body screams to be back on the veranda with a glass of iced tea."
"I have to literally carry my children to the car," said Robertson, a tanned, attractive woman wearing a cotton smock and mules. "Then walk them into the school, so they won't curl up on the grass and go to sleep. Then I have to drive 14 miles into San Diego in the teeth of a sunstorm that should have kept everybody home. Does anybody care?" she said, examining limes. "Heck no."
Robert Williams of La Jolla said the sunstorms had been raging for over a week.
"Can't remember when they started," Williams said. "I just know that by the end of last week, everyone was exhausted. A few people I know called in sick. Then Monday, when this new one blew in, well, I think we were starting to wonder how long we could go on.
"But, we do," said Williams, a research scientist at the famed Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "It's part of the price we have to pay for living in Southern California. And, we are a tough people. We get through it. I think we just feel angry because we don't get any credit for it. We would like to see a headline in The Times: 'Millions fight through raging sunstorm to get to work.'"
Meteorologist C.E. Sitchler of the National Weather Service said autumn patterns of high pressure over the Southwest, occasionally extending out over the ocean, are to blame.
"Typical November weather in San Diego County," Sitchler said. "We get some sunstorms in January and February, too, that stop people in their tracks. But it looks like this spell, at least, is over for the time being."
"Yeah, right," growled Marinda Robertson. "Just in time for a day we all get to stay home. They say it might even rain tomorrow, and on Friday, too."
In fact a slight chance of rain was in the official forecast, from a low-pressure system working its way from the Pacific over San Diego County and northern Baja California. The low was scheduled to exit into Arizona by Saturday. And what about, Sitchler was asked, next week?
"High pressure building back in on Sunday, clear and warmer on Monday," said the meteorologist, lowering his eyes.
Journalist, author and educator Michael Grant has been putting his spin on San Diego, and the city putting its spin on him, since 1972. His Web site is at www.michaelgrant.com.
Wrap...
Hypothetical Weather Report: Sunstorms Bathe San Diego
By MICHAEL GRANT
Voice Guest Columnist
Thursday, Nov. 24, 2005
In The New York Times, the story would read like this:
Sunstorms Subside in SoCal. Residents reveal aggravation with cool, cloudy, even rainy, forecast for Thanksgiving Day.
SAN DIEGO, Nov. 24 -- Weather forecasters say the recent 10-day blizzard of "sunstorms" appears to be ending just in time for the long holiday weekend, and San Diegans are not very thankful for it.
"Look at that," said San Diego resident Marinda Robertson, gesturing at clouds streaming in from the Pacific Ocean across San Diego County, a coastal desert in the southwest corner of the United States, with a population of about two million. "Day before yesterday we had a huge sunstorm. I still don't know how I got to work. Now tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and it's supposed to rain. Go figure."
Residents of this county say they dread the approach of November, with typical southwestern U.S. weather patterns that contribute to conditions, which they describe as "severe," that create sunstorms.
"In the east," Robertson said, "this is the time of year when you start getting snowstorms. We read about them in the papers all the time, and see them on the TV news. 'Snowstorms paralyze New York; millions can't get to work.' But nobody ever reads about us and sunstorms."
"Monday was awful," said Kent Jacobs of La Mesa, an eastern San Diego suburb. Jacobs, like Robertson, was prowling supermarket aisles late Wednesday afternoon, looking for last-minute Thanksgiving items like clam juice and baking powder. "I went outside to get the paper just before dawn on Monday morning, and it was just so warm and crystal clear. Then I felt a little bit of east breeze, as balmy as the Bahamas. Right then I knew we were in for another one."
According to Robertson, Jacobs and others, such a dawn will, by 7:30, have developed into a full-blown sunstorm, with temperatures already approaching the 80s, clear sky and a light breeze out of the east.
"You have no idea how impossible it is to get out the door, get in the car and head for work in a sunstorm," Jacobs said. "Every bone in your body screams to be back on the veranda with a glass of iced tea."
"I have to literally carry my children to the car," said Robertson, a tanned, attractive woman wearing a cotton smock and mules. "Then walk them into the school, so they won't curl up on the grass and go to sleep. Then I have to drive 14 miles into San Diego in the teeth of a sunstorm that should have kept everybody home. Does anybody care?" she said, examining limes. "Heck no."
Robert Williams of La Jolla said the sunstorms had been raging for over a week.
"Can't remember when they started," Williams said. "I just know that by the end of last week, everyone was exhausted. A few people I know called in sick. Then Monday, when this new one blew in, well, I think we were starting to wonder how long we could go on.
"But, we do," said Williams, a research scientist at the famed Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "It's part of the price we have to pay for living in Southern California. And, we are a tough people. We get through it. I think we just feel angry because we don't get any credit for it. We would like to see a headline in The Times: 'Millions fight through raging sunstorm to get to work.'"
Meteorologist C.E. Sitchler of the National Weather Service said autumn patterns of high pressure over the Southwest, occasionally extending out over the ocean, are to blame.
"Typical November weather in San Diego County," Sitchler said. "We get some sunstorms in January and February, too, that stop people in their tracks. But it looks like this spell, at least, is over for the time being."
"Yeah, right," growled Marinda Robertson. "Just in time for a day we all get to stay home. They say it might even rain tomorrow, and on Friday, too."
In fact a slight chance of rain was in the official forecast, from a low-pressure system working its way from the Pacific over San Diego County and northern Baja California. The low was scheduled to exit into Arizona by Saturday. And what about, Sitchler was asked, next week?
"High pressure building back in on Sunday, clear and warmer on Monday," said the meteorologist, lowering his eyes.
Journalist, author and educator Michael Grant has been putting his spin on San Diego, and the city putting its spin on him, since 1972. His Web site is at www.michaelgrant.com.
Wrap...
Bush/Cheney = Lies Incorporated...
via Raw Story:
Frank Rich on Iraq: 'What was not a lie?'
A column set to appear in Sunday's New York Times by Frank Rich explores a number of 'cover-ups' attributed to the Bush Administration about the war in Iraq in recent reports, RAW STORY has learned.
Among other examples, Rich covers the PDF briefing ten days after 9/11 that showed "scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with al-Qaida" which Murray Waas reported was kept from Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and last Sunday's LA Times story which described German intelligence officials as being "shocked" that President Bush and Colin L. Powell used "not proven" WMD intel in key prewar speeches.
Excerpts from Rich's Sunday column:
Each day brings slam-dunk evidence that the doomsday threats marshaled by the administration to sell the war weren't, in Cheney-speak, just dishonest and reprehensible but also corrupt and shameless. The more the president and vice president tell us that their mistakes were merely innocent byproducts of the same bad intelligence seen by everyone else in the world, the more we learn that this was not so. The web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a PR operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House. The real point of the Bush-Cheney verbal fisticuffs this month, like the earlier campaign to take down Joseph Wilson, is less to smite Democrats than to cover up wrongdoing in the executive branch between 9/11 and shock and awe.
What these revelations also tell us is that Bush was wrong when he said in his Veterans Day speech that more than 100 congressional Democrats who voted for the Iraqi war resolution "had access to the same intelligence" he did. They didn't have access to the President's Daily Brief that Waas uncovered. They didn't have access to the information that German intelligence officials spoke about to The Los Angeles Times. Nor did they have access to material from a Defense Intelligence Agency report, released by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan this month, which as early as February 2002 demolished the reliability of another major source that the administration had persistently used for its false claims about Iraqi-Qaida collaboration.
The more we learn about the road to Iraq, the more we realize that it's a losing game to ask what lies the White House told along the way. A simpler question might be: What was not a lie? The situation recalls Mary McCarthy's explanation to Dick Cavett about why she thought Lillian Hellman was a dishonest writer: "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the."'
Wrap...
Frank Rich on Iraq: 'What was not a lie?'
A column set to appear in Sunday's New York Times by Frank Rich explores a number of 'cover-ups' attributed to the Bush Administration about the war in Iraq in recent reports, RAW STORY has learned.
Among other examples, Rich covers the PDF briefing ten days after 9/11 that showed "scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with al-Qaida" which Murray Waas reported was kept from Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and last Sunday's LA Times story which described German intelligence officials as being "shocked" that President Bush and Colin L. Powell used "not proven" WMD intel in key prewar speeches.
Excerpts from Rich's Sunday column:
Each day brings slam-dunk evidence that the doomsday threats marshaled by the administration to sell the war weren't, in Cheney-speak, just dishonest and reprehensible but also corrupt and shameless. The more the president and vice president tell us that their mistakes were merely innocent byproducts of the same bad intelligence seen by everyone else in the world, the more we learn that this was not so. The web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a PR operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House. The real point of the Bush-Cheney verbal fisticuffs this month, like the earlier campaign to take down Joseph Wilson, is less to smite Democrats than to cover up wrongdoing in the executive branch between 9/11 and shock and awe.
What these revelations also tell us is that Bush was wrong when he said in his Veterans Day speech that more than 100 congressional Democrats who voted for the Iraqi war resolution "had access to the same intelligence" he did. They didn't have access to the President's Daily Brief that Waas uncovered. They didn't have access to the information that German intelligence officials spoke about to The Los Angeles Times. Nor did they have access to material from a Defense Intelligence Agency report, released by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan this month, which as early as February 2002 demolished the reliability of another major source that the administration had persistently used for its false claims about Iraqi-Qaida collaboration.
The more we learn about the road to Iraq, the more we realize that it's a losing game to ask what lies the White House told along the way. A simpler question might be: What was not a lie? The situation recalls Mary McCarthy's explanation to Dick Cavett about why she thought Lillian Hellman was a dishonest writer: "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the."'
Wrap...
Friday, November 25, 2005
BushCo equals torture...
An author and former JAG officer says:
Then again, the Admin relies on illogical arguments. Another example is that they don't torture but will veto a bill that bans torture. The best response I've heard about the "ticking bomb" justification for torture is to deal with that rare instance after the fact. A reasonable court would forgive any authority who, attempting to save many lives, "broke the law" by torturing a terrorist for the location of an imminent attack. There is absolutely no reason to allow torture (or an exemption for the CIA) as a matter of course.
Such a veto -- confirming that the Admin is as vile as we know it is -- will play a large part in the undoing of the Bush/Cheney gang. How many reasonable people -- including Republicans -- would go along with torture? John McCain made the point very clearly when interrogated in North Vietnam and tortured to give the names of his fellow pilots recited names of the players on a pro football team.
And even if the Admin could find some acceptable justification for torture it is such a stomach turner that, like the standard for conflict of interest, it is the mere perception of wrongdoing that is reason enough for sanctions.
Wrap...
Then again, the Admin relies on illogical arguments. Another example is that they don't torture but will veto a bill that bans torture. The best response I've heard about the "ticking bomb" justification for torture is to deal with that rare instance after the fact. A reasonable court would forgive any authority who, attempting to save many lives, "broke the law" by torturing a terrorist for the location of an imminent attack. There is absolutely no reason to allow torture (or an exemption for the CIA) as a matter of course.
Such a veto -- confirming that the Admin is as vile as we know it is -- will play a large part in the undoing of the Bush/Cheney gang. How many reasonable people -- including Republicans -- would go along with torture? John McCain made the point very clearly when interrogated in North Vietnam and tortured to give the names of his fellow pilots recited names of the players on a pro football team.
And even if the Admin could find some acceptable justification for torture it is such a stomach turner that, like the standard for conflict of interest, it is the mere perception of wrongdoing that is reason enough for sanctions.
Wrap...
VT Teacher under BushCo gun...
From: TBO.com > News > AP
Nov 25, 1:06 PM EST
Vt. Teacher Accused of Anti-Bush Quiz
BENNINGTON, Vt. (AP)
A high school teacher is facing questions from administrators after giving a vocabulary quiz that included digs at President Bush and the extreme right.
Bret Chenkin, a social studies and English teacher at Mount Anthony Union High School, said he gave the quiz to his students several months ago. The quiz asked students to pick the proper words to complete sentences.
One example: "I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes." "Coherent" is the right answer.
Principal Sue Maguire said she hoped to speak to whomever complained about the quiz and any students who might be concerned. She said she also would talk with Chenkin. School Superintendent Wesley Knapp said he was taking the situation seriously.
"It's absolutely unacceptable," Knapp said. "They (teachers) don't have a license to hold forth on a particular standpoint."
Chenkin, 36, a teacher for seven years, said he isn't shy about sharing his liberal views with students as a way of prompting debate, but said the quizzes are being taken out of context.
"The kids know it's hyperbolic, so-to-speak," he said. "They know it's tongue in cheek." But he said he would change his teaching methods if some are concerned.
"I'll put in both sides," he said. "Especially if it's going to cause a lot of grief."
The school is in Bennington, a community of about 16,500 in the southwest corner of the state.
Wrap...
Nov 25, 1:06 PM EST
Vt. Teacher Accused of Anti-Bush Quiz
BENNINGTON, Vt. (AP)
A high school teacher is facing questions from administrators after giving a vocabulary quiz that included digs at President Bush and the extreme right.
Bret Chenkin, a social studies and English teacher at Mount Anthony Union High School, said he gave the quiz to his students several months ago. The quiz asked students to pick the proper words to complete sentences.
One example: "I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes." "Coherent" is the right answer.
Principal Sue Maguire said she hoped to speak to whomever complained about the quiz and any students who might be concerned. She said she also would talk with Chenkin. School Superintendent Wesley Knapp said he was taking the situation seriously.
"It's absolutely unacceptable," Knapp said. "They (teachers) don't have a license to hold forth on a particular standpoint."
Chenkin, 36, a teacher for seven years, said he isn't shy about sharing his liberal views with students as a way of prompting debate, but said the quizzes are being taken out of context.
"The kids know it's hyperbolic, so-to-speak," he said. "They know it's tongue in cheek." But he said he would change his teaching methods if some are concerned.
"I'll put in both sides," he said. "Especially if it's going to cause a lot of grief."
The school is in Bennington, a community of about 16,500 in the southwest corner of the state.
Wrap...
Good investigative journalism..on the internet...
A News Revolution Has Begun
By John Pilger
t r u t h o u t Perspective
Friday 25 November 2005
The Indian writer Vandana Shiva has called for an "insurrection of subjugated knowledge." The insurrection is well under way. In trying to make sense of a dangerous world, millions of people are turning away from the traditional sources of news and information and toward the world wide web, convinced that mainstream journalism is the voice of rampant power. The great scandal of Iraq has accelerated this. In the United States, several senior broadcasters have confessed that had they challenged and exposed the lies told about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, instead of amplifying and justifying them, the invasion might not have happened.
Such honesty has yet to cross the Atlantic. Since it was founded in 1922, the BBC has served to protect every British establishment during war and civil unrest. "We" never traduce and never commit great crimes. So the omission of shocking events in Iraq - the destruction of cities, the slaughter of innocent people and the farce of a puppet government - is routinely applied. A study by the Cardiff School of Journalism found that 90 per cent of the BBC's references to Saddam Hussein's WMDs suggested he possessed them and that "spin from the British and US governments was successful in framing the coverage." The same "spin" has ensured, until now, that the use of banned weapons by the Americans and British in Iraq has been suppressed as news.
An admission by the US State Department on 10 November that its forces had used white phosphorus in Fallujah followed "rumours on the internet," according to the BBC's Newsnight. There were no rumours. There was first-class investigative work that ought to shame well-paid journalists. Mark Kraft of insomnia.livejournal.com found the evidence in the March-April 2005 issue of Field Artillery magazine and other sources. He was supported by the work of film-maker Gabriele Zamparini, founder of the excellent site, http://thecatsdream.com .
Last May, David Edwards and David Cromwell of medialens.org posted a revealing correspondence with Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news. They had asked her why the BBC had remained silent on known atrocities committed by the Americans in Fallujah. She replied, "Our correspondent in Fallujah at the time [of the US attack], Paul Wood, did not report any of these things because he did not see any of these things." It is a statement to savour. Wood was "embedded" with the Americans. He interviewed none of the victims of American atrocities nor un-embedded journalists. He not only missed the Americans' use of white phosphorus, which they now admit, he reported nothing of the use of another banned weapon, napalm. Thus, BBC viewers were unaware of the fine words of Colonel James Alles, commander of the US Marine Air Group II. "We napalmed both those bridge approaches," he said. "Unfortunately, there were people there ... you could see them in the cockpit video ... It's no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect."
Once the unacknowledged work of Mark Kraft and Gabriele Zamparini had appeared in the Guardian and Independent and forced the Americans to come clean about white phosphorous, Wood was on Newsnight describing their admission as "a public relations disaster for the US." This echoed Menzies Campbell of the Liberal-Democrats, perhaps the most quoted politician since Gladstone, who said, "The use of this weapon may technically have been legal, but its effects are such that it will hand a propaganda victory to the insurgency."
The BBC and most of the British political and media establishment invariably cast such a horror as a public relations problem while minimizing the crushing of a city the size of Leeds, the killing and maiming of countless men, women and children, the expulsion of thousands and the denial of medical supplies, food and water - a major war crime.
The evidence is voluminous, provided by refugees, doctors, human rights groups and a few courageous foreigners whose work appears only on the internet. In April last year, Jo Wilding, a young British law student, filed a series of extraordinary eye-witness reports from inside the city. So fine are they that I have included one of her pieces in an anthology of the best investigative journalism.* Her film, "A Letter to the Prime Minister," made inside Fallujah with Julia Guest, has not been shown on British television. In addition, Dahr Jamail, an independent Lebanese-American journalist who has produced some of the best frontline reporting I have read, described all the "things" the BBC failed to "see." His interviews with doctors, local officials and families are on the internet, together with the work of those who have exposed the widespread use of uranium-tipped shells, another banned weapon, and cluster bombs, which Campbell would say are "technically legal."
Try these web sites: http://dahrjamail.com, http://zmag.org, http://antiwar.com, http://truthout.org, http://indymedia.org.uk, http://internationalclearinghouse.info, http://counterpunch.org, http://voicesuk.org. There are many more.
"Each word," wrote Jean-Paul Sartre, "has an echo. So does each silence."
Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and Its Triumphs, edited by John Pilger, is published by Vintage.
This article originally appeared in the Daily Standard.
Wrap...
By John Pilger
t r u t h o u t Perspective
Friday 25 November 2005
The Indian writer Vandana Shiva has called for an "insurrection of subjugated knowledge." The insurrection is well under way. In trying to make sense of a dangerous world, millions of people are turning away from the traditional sources of news and information and toward the world wide web, convinced that mainstream journalism is the voice of rampant power. The great scandal of Iraq has accelerated this. In the United States, several senior broadcasters have confessed that had they challenged and exposed the lies told about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, instead of amplifying and justifying them, the invasion might not have happened.
Such honesty has yet to cross the Atlantic. Since it was founded in 1922, the BBC has served to protect every British establishment during war and civil unrest. "We" never traduce and never commit great crimes. So the omission of shocking events in Iraq - the destruction of cities, the slaughter of innocent people and the farce of a puppet government - is routinely applied. A study by the Cardiff School of Journalism found that 90 per cent of the BBC's references to Saddam Hussein's WMDs suggested he possessed them and that "spin from the British and US governments was successful in framing the coverage." The same "spin" has ensured, until now, that the use of banned weapons by the Americans and British in Iraq has been suppressed as news.
An admission by the US State Department on 10 November that its forces had used white phosphorus in Fallujah followed "rumours on the internet," according to the BBC's Newsnight. There were no rumours. There was first-class investigative work that ought to shame well-paid journalists. Mark Kraft of insomnia.livejournal.com found the evidence in the March-April 2005 issue of Field Artillery magazine and other sources. He was supported by the work of film-maker Gabriele Zamparini, founder of the excellent site, http://thecatsdream.com .
Last May, David Edwards and David Cromwell of medialens.org posted a revealing correspondence with Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news. They had asked her why the BBC had remained silent on known atrocities committed by the Americans in Fallujah. She replied, "Our correspondent in Fallujah at the time [of the US attack], Paul Wood, did not report any of these things because he did not see any of these things." It is a statement to savour. Wood was "embedded" with the Americans. He interviewed none of the victims of American atrocities nor un-embedded journalists. He not only missed the Americans' use of white phosphorus, which they now admit, he reported nothing of the use of another banned weapon, napalm. Thus, BBC viewers were unaware of the fine words of Colonel James Alles, commander of the US Marine Air Group II. "We napalmed both those bridge approaches," he said. "Unfortunately, there were people there ... you could see them in the cockpit video ... It's no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect."
Once the unacknowledged work of Mark Kraft and Gabriele Zamparini had appeared in the Guardian and Independent and forced the Americans to come clean about white phosphorous, Wood was on Newsnight describing their admission as "a public relations disaster for the US." This echoed Menzies Campbell of the Liberal-Democrats, perhaps the most quoted politician since Gladstone, who said, "The use of this weapon may technically have been legal, but its effects are such that it will hand a propaganda victory to the insurgency."
The BBC and most of the British political and media establishment invariably cast such a horror as a public relations problem while minimizing the crushing of a city the size of Leeds, the killing and maiming of countless men, women and children, the expulsion of thousands and the denial of medical supplies, food and water - a major war crime.
The evidence is voluminous, provided by refugees, doctors, human rights groups and a few courageous foreigners whose work appears only on the internet. In April last year, Jo Wilding, a young British law student, filed a series of extraordinary eye-witness reports from inside the city. So fine are they that I have included one of her pieces in an anthology of the best investigative journalism.* Her film, "A Letter to the Prime Minister," made inside Fallujah with Julia Guest, has not been shown on British television. In addition, Dahr Jamail, an independent Lebanese-American journalist who has produced some of the best frontline reporting I have read, described all the "things" the BBC failed to "see." His interviews with doctors, local officials and families are on the internet, together with the work of those who have exposed the widespread use of uranium-tipped shells, another banned weapon, and cluster bombs, which Campbell would say are "technically legal."
Try these web sites: http://dahrjamail.com, http://zmag.org, http://antiwar.com, http://truthout.org, http://indymedia.org.uk, http://internationalclearinghouse.info, http://counterpunch.org, http://voicesuk.org. There are many more.
"Each word," wrote Jean-Paul Sartre, "has an echo. So does each silence."
Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and Its Triumphs, edited by John Pilger, is published by Vintage.
This article originally appeared in the Daily Standard.
Wrap...
Thursday, November 24, 2005
White House Press Corps enrages Craigslist...
From the Independent in the UK:
Entrepreneur taps mistrust of media for new venture
By David Usborne in New York
Published: 23 November 2005
The internet entrepreneur Craig Newmark, whose Craigslist site provided a hugely successful free alternative to classified advertising, has trained his sights on the old-fashioned newspaper industry.
Mr Newmark - whose craigslist.org is the seventh-most visited internet site in America, just after eBay - has diverted millions of dollars of advertising revenue away from newspapers.
At a seminar at the Said Business School at Oxford University this week, Mr Newmark rehearsed his new media paradigm: the combination of improving Web technology and a popular groundswell of distrust for reporters - especially, he says, because of ill- informed reporting of the Iraq war and its build-up - means that ordinary people are ready to take over the newsroom.
Mr Newmark said that he expects to launch a project in the coming weeks to harness the "wisdom of the masses" that has fuelled his advertising site and apply it to daily journalism.
The success of Craigslist means that when Mr Newmark talks, the newspaper business would do well to listen. In the San Francisco area alone, it is reckoned he has denied local newspapers about $50m (£29m) in classified advertising revenue annually. The site makes a modest income, charging only for recruitment ads in big markets like New York. Everything else is free. There are sites for almost every major US city and 35 international cities including London.
While he has yet to discuss the specifics of his next venture, he has hinted at an interactive website on which users could decide which parts of the news really matter to them and even report some of it themselves.
"Things need to change," he said. "The big issue in the US is that newspapers are afraid to talk truth to power. The White House press corps don't speak the truth to power - they are frightened to lose access they don't have anyway."
Some observers expect Mr Newmark to make a bid for wikipedia.com, an encyclopedia site that explicitly invites users to contribute with their own definitions and descriptions. Mr Newmark may have it in mind to transform the site into a huge cyber-based community news forum. "I do think professional and citizen journalism will blur together," he predicts, "because we will find that some amateurs are as talented as a professional journalist."
The White House press corps seems to enrage him especially. "No one is taking their job seriously there," he recently remarked. "Now it could be that they could be under a directive to not do so. We don't know. I've spoken to a lot of journalists who are very frustrated."
Part of the problem lies with the newspapers themselves. The race for dollars, he insists, has obscured the race for truth. "They're being run as profit centres, and they're trying to get pretty high profit margins. As a result, investigative reporting has been seen as a problem."
Wrap...
Entrepreneur taps mistrust of media for new venture
By David Usborne in New York
Published: 23 November 2005
The internet entrepreneur Craig Newmark, whose Craigslist site provided a hugely successful free alternative to classified advertising, has trained his sights on the old-fashioned newspaper industry.
Mr Newmark - whose craigslist.org is the seventh-most visited internet site in America, just after eBay - has diverted millions of dollars of advertising revenue away from newspapers.
At a seminar at the Said Business School at Oxford University this week, Mr Newmark rehearsed his new media paradigm: the combination of improving Web technology and a popular groundswell of distrust for reporters - especially, he says, because of ill- informed reporting of the Iraq war and its build-up - means that ordinary people are ready to take over the newsroom.
Mr Newmark said that he expects to launch a project in the coming weeks to harness the "wisdom of the masses" that has fuelled his advertising site and apply it to daily journalism.
The success of Craigslist means that when Mr Newmark talks, the newspaper business would do well to listen. In the San Francisco area alone, it is reckoned he has denied local newspapers about $50m (£29m) in classified advertising revenue annually. The site makes a modest income, charging only for recruitment ads in big markets like New York. Everything else is free. There are sites for almost every major US city and 35 international cities including London.
While he has yet to discuss the specifics of his next venture, he has hinted at an interactive website on which users could decide which parts of the news really matter to them and even report some of it themselves.
"Things need to change," he said. "The big issue in the US is that newspapers are afraid to talk truth to power. The White House press corps don't speak the truth to power - they are frightened to lose access they don't have anyway."
Some observers expect Mr Newmark to make a bid for wikipedia.com, an encyclopedia site that explicitly invites users to contribute with their own definitions and descriptions. Mr Newmark may have it in mind to transform the site into a huge cyber-based community news forum. "I do think professional and citizen journalism will blur together," he predicts, "because we will find that some amateurs are as talented as a professional journalist."
The White House press corps seems to enrage him especially. "No one is taking their job seriously there," he recently remarked. "Now it could be that they could be under a directive to not do so. We don't know. I've spoken to a lot of journalists who are very frustrated."
Part of the problem lies with the newspapers themselves. The race for dollars, he insists, has obscured the race for truth. "They're being run as profit centres, and they're trying to get pretty high profit margins. As a result, investigative reporting has been seen as a problem."
Wrap...
Burying Able-Danger..More important than Watergate..
From the Sacramento Bee:
A 9/11 tip-off: Fact or fancy?
Debate still swirls around claims that secret military program ID'd hijackers a year before attacks.
By James Rosen --
Bee Washington Bureau
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, November 24, 2005
Story appeared on Page A1 of The Bee
WASHINGTON - It's either the grandest conspiracy since the JFK assassination and the grassy knoll or much ado about nothing.
Able Danger, a top-secret military program set up in 1999 to probe the al-Qaida terrorist network, is rekindling fierce debate about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Military intelligence officers and contractors who ran the clandestine mission, a computer data-mining operation within the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, claim that more than a year before the attacks, Able Danger identified four of the plot's 19 hijackers and produced a chart that fingered ringleader Mohamed Atta, displayed a photo of him and contained the names of up to 60 al-Qaida operatives around the globe.
Those claims contradict the findings of the 9/11 commission set up by Congress, which in its final report last year spread blame for the attacks across the government but concluded that none of the 19 hijackers, some of whom had lived in the United States for months before Sept. 11, was identified until after the tragedy.
Kristen Breitweiser, a New Jersey woman whose husband died in the World Trade Center's south tower, said she and other relatives of some of the 2,986 Sept. 11 victims have met with the military officers who worked on Able Danger, which the Pentagon ended in early 2001.
"It's very upsetting to hear people tell you that your husband and the father of your children didn't have to die because we had information to stop the attacks," Breitweiser said in an interview.
Part of the problem in untangling the Able Danger web is that the computer-based program was designed to search open source documents - everything in the public domain - for patterns and links among al-Qaida terrorists, but the program as a whole was classified.
So, while at least some of its original material was public, it became secret after entering an Able Danger database.
Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a Bronze Star recipient and former Able Danger operative who first came forward with details of the program, says Pentagon lawyers thwarted the team's attempts to pass on their findings to the FBI before the attacks. And he claims that after the attacks, staff members of the 9/11 panel met with him and other Able Danger officers, but then failed to adequately pursue their leads.
The 9/11 commission may not have 'connected the dots' as completely as they could and should have - and that is my concern and the concern of others working this issue," Shaffer said in an e-mail to Sept. 11 family members before the Pentagon issued a gag order two months ago, forbidding him and other former Able Danger officers from discussing the program publicly.
Navy Capt. Scott Philpott, who led the Able Danger mission, said in a statement before the Pentagon gag order: "My story is consistent. Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000."
After initial refusals to comment, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that Able Danger existed. Army Maj. Eric Kleinsmith told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21 that he had complied with orders to destroy 2.4 terabytes of computer data produced by Able Danger - 2,400 gigabytes, or about one-quarter the size of all the books in the Library of Congress.
Kleinsmith and other Pentagon officials have cited privacy laws, which they say prohibit the government from maintaining secret files on U.S. citizens or noncitizens in the country on legal visas.
Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican with extensive foreign affairs experience, has taken up the Able Danger officers' cause. Calling Able Danger "the most important story of my lifetime," Weldon last Friday sent Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a letter signed by 246 lawmakers, split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats, demanding that the program's officers and contractors be allowed to testify in open congressional hearings.
"Further refusal ... can only lead us to conclude that the Department of Defense is uncomfortable with the prospect of members of Congress questioning these individuals about the circumstances surrounding Able Danger," the letter stated. "This would suggest not a concern for national security, but rather an attempt to prevent potentially embarrassing facts from coming to light."
In a speech on the House floor last month, Weldon said the Able Danger saga is more important than the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon.
"I am not a conspiracy theorist, but there is something desperately wrong," he said. "There is something outrageous at work here. This is not a third-rate burglary of a political campaign headquarters. This involved what is right now the covering-up of information that led to the deaths of 3,000 people, changed the course of history, led to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and has disrupted our country, our economy and people's lives."
Weldon also accuses the Pentagon of engaging in a smear campaign against Shaffer, 42, since the colonel went public, by revoking his security clearance, suspending him and leaking alleged details from his personnel file to reporters and congressional aides. Among the slurs, Weldon says, are claims that Shaffer was having an affair with a Weldon aide - which Shaffer's attorney vehemently denies, that he sought reimbursement for personal cell phone calls, and even that he stole pens from a U.S. embassy where his father was based when Shaffer was 15 years old.
"There is something desperately wrong when a military officer (Shaffer) risks his life in Afghanistan time and again, embedded with our troops under an assumed name with a false beard and a false identity ... gets castigated, gets ridiculed, gets some low-life scum at the Pentagon spreading malicious lies about this individual," Weldon told fellow lawmakers.
In response to a request by Rep. Duncan Hunter, a San Diego-area Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the Defense Department's inspector general is investigating the alleged smear campaign against Shaffer.
In the Senate, Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, accused the Pentagon of possible "obstruction of the committee's activities" after the Defense Department forbade Shaffer, Philpott and other Able Danger analysts from testifying before the panel. Specter and Pentagon officials are negotiating conditions for an open hearing.
"The American people are entitled to some answers," Specter said. "It is not a matter of attaching blame. It is a matter of correcting errors so that we don't have a repetition of 9/11."
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, meanwhile, has heard closed-door testimony from Able Danger members and Pentagon employees, and it is nearing completion of a report.
Weldon is an unlikely Pentagon antagonist. Since first being elected to the House in 1986, he has been a defense hawk, consistently pushing for larger Pentagon budgets and new programs. Weldon speaks Russian, has led dozens of congressional delegations to Russia and the former Soviet Union, and has traveled to Libya, North Korea and other countries to deliver stern messages to dictators.
Weldon's crusade on Able Danger, though, has drawn derision in some quarters, even from some current or former lawmakers who have known him for years.
"By the way he talks about Able Danger these days, you'd think it would have prevented Pearl Harbor," said Timothy Roemer, a former Indiana Republican congressman and member of the 9/11 commission.
Lee Hamilton, a former Indiana Democratic lawmaker who co-chaired the 9/11 panel, said he worked closely with and respects Weldon because the two shared interests in defense and intelligence matters.
But he said the commission investigated the Able Danger officers' claims exhaustively and could not find evidence to support them.
"We've asked for that chart repeatedly," Hamilton said in an interview. "The Pentagon cannot produce it, the White House cannot produce it, and Weldon cannot produce it."
Breitweiser said she is confident additional facts about Able Danger will emerge.
"As more and more information is coming out, more and more Americans are questioning how this attack could have happened," Breitweiser said. "We're finding out we are not being told the truth. A lot of information was known, and the attacks could have been prevented."
ABLE DANGER: WHAT'S THE TRUTH?
This timeline is based partly on assertions by Rep. Curt Weldon and five military intelligence officers who say they participated in Able Danger. Pentagon officials have corroborated some of the assertions, declined to comment on others, and denied others:
* Fall 1999: A top-secret military program called Able Danger is created. Twenty military intelligence officers and other team members begin using open source computer data-mining to track al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.
* January/February 2000: Able Danger identifies a Brooklyn cell of al-Qaida, including Mohamed Atta, later named as the leader of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and three other hijackers. The program eventually identifies members of five al-Qaida cells around the world.
* July/August 2000: Defense Intelligence Agency employees destroy all or some of the 2.4 terabytes - 2,400 gigabytes - of data collected by Able Danger.
* October 2000: Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, an Able Danger member, meets with the DIA deputy director and offers him a computer disc with information about al-Qaida and Atta, but the DIA official declines to accept the disc.
* January 2001: Able Danger leaders brief Gen. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on their findings.
* Spring 2001: Able Danger program is abandoned.
* Sept. 11, 2001: Al-Qaida operatives hijack four commercial jets, kill 2,986 people in New York, Washington and western Pennsylvania.
* Sept. 25, 2001: Rep. Curt Weldon and other lawmakers meet at the White House with deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley. Weldon later says he showed Hadley a chart developed more than a year earlier by Able Danger diagramming 60 members of al-Qaida around the world and including Atta and the Brooklyn cell. Hadley later says he recalls seeing a chart at some point but doesn't remember when or exactly what it showed.
* Nov. 15, 2002: Over opposition from President Bush, Congress sets up a high-level commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks.
* Oct. 21, 2003: Three staffers of the 9/11 commission, along with an unnamed "representative of the executive branch," meet with Shaffer and two other Able Danger members at a U.S. air base in Afghanistan. Shaffer later claims that he told the 9/11 staffers that Able Danger had located, at least a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, four of the al-Qaida members who later carried out the hijackings and attacks, including ringleader Atta; 9/11 commission aides will dispute Shaffer's version of the meeting, saying the Able Danger operatives didn't cite Atta or other hijackers.
* July 22, 2004: After a 20-month probe, the 9/11 commission releases a report on the 2001 attacks. The report casts blame broadly across the government for underestimating the threat from al-Qaida and makes sweeping recommendations for change, but doesn't cite Able Danger or its findings, even to refute them.
* Aug. 12, 2005: Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the leaders of the 9/11 commission, release a statement on Able Danger, citing the 9/11 panel's conclusion that Able Danger "did not turn out to be historically significant" and provided no strong documentation of its members' claims.
* August/September 2005: Weldon meets with military officers involved with Able Danger, who describe their findings.
* Sept. 1, 2005: At a Defense Department briefing, Pentagon officials for the first time acknowledge the previous existence of Able Danger and say at least some Able Danger data had been destroyed.
* Sept. 21, 2005: Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearing on Able Danger. Defense Department prohibits Able Danger officers from testifying.
* September/October 2005: Senate Intelligence Committee hears closed-door testimony on Able Danger and promises to release a report on the program.
- Bee Washington bureau
About the writer:
The Bee's James Rosen can be reached at (202) 383-0014 or jrosen@mcclatchydc.com.
Wrap...
A 9/11 tip-off: Fact or fancy?
Debate still swirls around claims that secret military program ID'd hijackers a year before attacks.
By James Rosen --
Bee Washington Bureau
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, November 24, 2005
Story appeared on Page A1 of The Bee
WASHINGTON - It's either the grandest conspiracy since the JFK assassination and the grassy knoll or much ado about nothing.
Able Danger, a top-secret military program set up in 1999 to probe the al-Qaida terrorist network, is rekindling fierce debate about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Military intelligence officers and contractors who ran the clandestine mission, a computer data-mining operation within the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, claim that more than a year before the attacks, Able Danger identified four of the plot's 19 hijackers and produced a chart that fingered ringleader Mohamed Atta, displayed a photo of him and contained the names of up to 60 al-Qaida operatives around the globe.
Those claims contradict the findings of the 9/11 commission set up by Congress, which in its final report last year spread blame for the attacks across the government but concluded that none of the 19 hijackers, some of whom had lived in the United States for months before Sept. 11, was identified until after the tragedy.
Kristen Breitweiser, a New Jersey woman whose husband died in the World Trade Center's south tower, said she and other relatives of some of the 2,986 Sept. 11 victims have met with the military officers who worked on Able Danger, which the Pentagon ended in early 2001.
"It's very upsetting to hear people tell you that your husband and the father of your children didn't have to die because we had information to stop the attacks," Breitweiser said in an interview.
Part of the problem in untangling the Able Danger web is that the computer-based program was designed to search open source documents - everything in the public domain - for patterns and links among al-Qaida terrorists, but the program as a whole was classified.
So, while at least some of its original material was public, it became secret after entering an Able Danger database.
Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a Bronze Star recipient and former Able Danger operative who first came forward with details of the program, says Pentagon lawyers thwarted the team's attempts to pass on their findings to the FBI before the attacks. And he claims that after the attacks, staff members of the 9/11 panel met with him and other Able Danger officers, but then failed to adequately pursue their leads.
The 9/11 commission may not have 'connected the dots' as completely as they could and should have - and that is my concern and the concern of others working this issue," Shaffer said in an e-mail to Sept. 11 family members before the Pentagon issued a gag order two months ago, forbidding him and other former Able Danger officers from discussing the program publicly.
Navy Capt. Scott Philpott, who led the Able Danger mission, said in a statement before the Pentagon gag order: "My story is consistent. Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000."
After initial refusals to comment, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that Able Danger existed. Army Maj. Eric Kleinsmith told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21 that he had complied with orders to destroy 2.4 terabytes of computer data produced by Able Danger - 2,400 gigabytes, or about one-quarter the size of all the books in the Library of Congress.
Kleinsmith and other Pentagon officials have cited privacy laws, which they say prohibit the government from maintaining secret files on U.S. citizens or noncitizens in the country on legal visas.
Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican with extensive foreign affairs experience, has taken up the Able Danger officers' cause. Calling Able Danger "the most important story of my lifetime," Weldon last Friday sent Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a letter signed by 246 lawmakers, split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats, demanding that the program's officers and contractors be allowed to testify in open congressional hearings.
"Further refusal ... can only lead us to conclude that the Department of Defense is uncomfortable with the prospect of members of Congress questioning these individuals about the circumstances surrounding Able Danger," the letter stated. "This would suggest not a concern for national security, but rather an attempt to prevent potentially embarrassing facts from coming to light."
In a speech on the House floor last month, Weldon said the Able Danger saga is more important than the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon.
"I am not a conspiracy theorist, but there is something desperately wrong," he said. "There is something outrageous at work here. This is not a third-rate burglary of a political campaign headquarters. This involved what is right now the covering-up of information that led to the deaths of 3,000 people, changed the course of history, led to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and has disrupted our country, our economy and people's lives."
Weldon also accuses the Pentagon of engaging in a smear campaign against Shaffer, 42, since the colonel went public, by revoking his security clearance, suspending him and leaking alleged details from his personnel file to reporters and congressional aides. Among the slurs, Weldon says, are claims that Shaffer was having an affair with a Weldon aide - which Shaffer's attorney vehemently denies, that he sought reimbursement for personal cell phone calls, and even that he stole pens from a U.S. embassy where his father was based when Shaffer was 15 years old.
"There is something desperately wrong when a military officer (Shaffer) risks his life in Afghanistan time and again, embedded with our troops under an assumed name with a false beard and a false identity ... gets castigated, gets ridiculed, gets some low-life scum at the Pentagon spreading malicious lies about this individual," Weldon told fellow lawmakers.
In response to a request by Rep. Duncan Hunter, a San Diego-area Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the Defense Department's inspector general is investigating the alleged smear campaign against Shaffer.
In the Senate, Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, accused the Pentagon of possible "obstruction of the committee's activities" after the Defense Department forbade Shaffer, Philpott and other Able Danger analysts from testifying before the panel. Specter and Pentagon officials are negotiating conditions for an open hearing.
"The American people are entitled to some answers," Specter said. "It is not a matter of attaching blame. It is a matter of correcting errors so that we don't have a repetition of 9/11."
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, meanwhile, has heard closed-door testimony from Able Danger members and Pentagon employees, and it is nearing completion of a report.
Weldon is an unlikely Pentagon antagonist. Since first being elected to the House in 1986, he has been a defense hawk, consistently pushing for larger Pentagon budgets and new programs. Weldon speaks Russian, has led dozens of congressional delegations to Russia and the former Soviet Union, and has traveled to Libya, North Korea and other countries to deliver stern messages to dictators.
Weldon's crusade on Able Danger, though, has drawn derision in some quarters, even from some current or former lawmakers who have known him for years.
"By the way he talks about Able Danger these days, you'd think it would have prevented Pearl Harbor," said Timothy Roemer, a former Indiana Republican congressman and member of the 9/11 commission.
Lee Hamilton, a former Indiana Democratic lawmaker who co-chaired the 9/11 panel, said he worked closely with and respects Weldon because the two shared interests in defense and intelligence matters.
But he said the commission investigated the Able Danger officers' claims exhaustively and could not find evidence to support them.
"We've asked for that chart repeatedly," Hamilton said in an interview. "The Pentagon cannot produce it, the White House cannot produce it, and Weldon cannot produce it."
Breitweiser said she is confident additional facts about Able Danger will emerge.
"As more and more information is coming out, more and more Americans are questioning how this attack could have happened," Breitweiser said. "We're finding out we are not being told the truth. A lot of information was known, and the attacks could have been prevented."
ABLE DANGER: WHAT'S THE TRUTH?
This timeline is based partly on assertions by Rep. Curt Weldon and five military intelligence officers who say they participated in Able Danger. Pentagon officials have corroborated some of the assertions, declined to comment on others, and denied others:
* Fall 1999: A top-secret military program called Able Danger is created. Twenty military intelligence officers and other team members begin using open source computer data-mining to track al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.
* January/February 2000: Able Danger identifies a Brooklyn cell of al-Qaida, including Mohamed Atta, later named as the leader of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and three other hijackers. The program eventually identifies members of five al-Qaida cells around the world.
* July/August 2000: Defense Intelligence Agency employees destroy all or some of the 2.4 terabytes - 2,400 gigabytes - of data collected by Able Danger.
* October 2000: Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, an Able Danger member, meets with the DIA deputy director and offers him a computer disc with information about al-Qaida and Atta, but the DIA official declines to accept the disc.
* January 2001: Able Danger leaders brief Gen. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on their findings.
* Spring 2001: Able Danger program is abandoned.
* Sept. 11, 2001: Al-Qaida operatives hijack four commercial jets, kill 2,986 people in New York, Washington and western Pennsylvania.
* Sept. 25, 2001: Rep. Curt Weldon and other lawmakers meet at the White House with deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley. Weldon later says he showed Hadley a chart developed more than a year earlier by Able Danger diagramming 60 members of al-Qaida around the world and including Atta and the Brooklyn cell. Hadley later says he recalls seeing a chart at some point but doesn't remember when or exactly what it showed.
* Nov. 15, 2002: Over opposition from President Bush, Congress sets up a high-level commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks.
* Oct. 21, 2003: Three staffers of the 9/11 commission, along with an unnamed "representative of the executive branch," meet with Shaffer and two other Able Danger members at a U.S. air base in Afghanistan. Shaffer later claims that he told the 9/11 staffers that Able Danger had located, at least a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, four of the al-Qaida members who later carried out the hijackings and attacks, including ringleader Atta; 9/11 commission aides will dispute Shaffer's version of the meeting, saying the Able Danger operatives didn't cite Atta or other hijackers.
* July 22, 2004: After a 20-month probe, the 9/11 commission releases a report on the 2001 attacks. The report casts blame broadly across the government for underestimating the threat from al-Qaida and makes sweeping recommendations for change, but doesn't cite Able Danger or its findings, even to refute them.
* Aug. 12, 2005: Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the leaders of the 9/11 commission, release a statement on Able Danger, citing the 9/11 panel's conclusion that Able Danger "did not turn out to be historically significant" and provided no strong documentation of its members' claims.
* August/September 2005: Weldon meets with military officers involved with Able Danger, who describe their findings.
* Sept. 1, 2005: At a Defense Department briefing, Pentagon officials for the first time acknowledge the previous existence of Able Danger and say at least some Able Danger data had been destroyed.
* Sept. 21, 2005: Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearing on Able Danger. Defense Department prohibits Able Danger officers from testifying.
* September/October 2005: Senate Intelligence Committee hears closed-door testimony on Able Danger and promises to release a report on the program.
- Bee Washington bureau
About the writer:
The Bee's James Rosen can be reached at (202) 383-0014 or jrosen@mcclatchydc.com.
Wrap...
Diebold voting machines and 2006...
You know what CA's Repub SecState, Bruce McPherson, did? Said he was gonna hold a meeting open to the public to have comments on Diebolds. And what did he do? He set a tape recorder with a mic in an empty room for comments...with nobody there. And when people yelled, he sent two aides in. Which pissed everybody off. Thus...
THE QUESTION:
Is it possible to issue a restraining order that will prevent the CA SecState, McPherson, from certifiying the Diebold voting machines from being used in the 2006 election?
THE ANSWER:
A restraining order could perhaps be sought, but it would have to be based first on a formal civil action (on a complaint properly filed) that alleged all the reasons why the Diebold machines are untrustworthy, subject to unchecked voter fraud and manipulation by officials and others against them, and why simple "oversight" (of the kind usually used to monitor elections) would not be effective.
That suit would best be brought by some group with standing, such as one of the major parties (i.e., The Democratic Party) or the League of Women Voters or the like, but could be brought (a harder row) by concerned voters.
First step would be to talk to one or more politically active attorneys experienced in voters' rights litigation and see what they say about a class action of some kind to stop their use. In connection with a well-pleaded suit, a temporary restraining order (TRO) could be sought to prevent the use of the machines until the whole matter and all issues are fully litigated and ruled upon by the court. An imminent and irreperable damage would have to be pleaded to be successful.
My suggestion: talk first to local and state Democratic party people--what do their lawyers say about such an action? Then, if they are unresponsive or evasive, find out who has fought for civil rights of workers, minorities, etc. and see if you can talk to an attorney there and get some feedback. Good luck, and don't wait for someone else to do it.
Wrap...
THE QUESTION:
Is it possible to issue a restraining order that will prevent the CA SecState, McPherson, from certifiying the Diebold voting machines from being used in the 2006 election?
THE ANSWER:
A restraining order could perhaps be sought, but it would have to be based first on a formal civil action (on a complaint properly filed) that alleged all the reasons why the Diebold machines are untrustworthy, subject to unchecked voter fraud and manipulation by officials and others against them, and why simple "oversight" (of the kind usually used to monitor elections) would not be effective.
That suit would best be brought by some group with standing, such as one of the major parties (i.e., The Democratic Party) or the League of Women Voters or the like, but could be brought (a harder row) by concerned voters.
First step would be to talk to one or more politically active attorneys experienced in voters' rights litigation and see what they say about a class action of some kind to stop their use. In connection with a well-pleaded suit, a temporary restraining order (TRO) could be sought to prevent the use of the machines until the whole matter and all issues are fully litigated and ruled upon by the court. An imminent and irreperable damage would have to be pleaded to be successful.
My suggestion: talk first to local and state Democratic party people--what do their lawyers say about such an action? Then, if they are unresponsive or evasive, find out who has fought for civil rights of workers, minorities, etc. and see if you can talk to an attorney there and get some feedback. Good luck, and don't wait for someone else to do it.
Wrap...
Stolen election in 2004...again in 2006, 2008?
Citizens in the Rain
By Robert C. Koehler
Tribune Media Services
"Where there is a free press the governors must live in constant awe of the opinions of the governed." - Lord Macaulay (one of many stirring quotes on the sacred role of the Fourth Estate adorning the lobby of the Chicago Tribune)
My fantasy of the mainstream media actually doing their job, and living up to the words they carve in marble to describe their own importance, is an 80-point (Terri Schiavo- or even Pope John Paul II-sized) headline running across the top of tomorrow's paper: ELECTION RESULTS IN DOUBT.
That would stop a few hearts. But the nation's major newspapers, even as they struggle with declining readership, have no intention of being quite that relevant to their readers - no intention, it appears, even to begin the process of looking into the hornets' nest of vote fraud allegations abuzz in meticulously researched reports on electronic voting (see uscountvotes.org) or the voluminous Conyers Report on what happened in Ohio on Nov. 2 (see truthout.org/Conyersreport.pdf).
Isn't our democracy at stake? Doesn't that matter?
"If John Kerry and the Ohio Democratic Party and all the other folks who had the most to gain from the election were making this challenge, I would get interested. But when the people with the most at stake don't step up, I'm suspicious."
So Don Wycliff, the Chicago Tribune's public editor, wrote to me in an e-mail exchange a few days ago, explaining why he, if not the Tribune itself, had no intention of investigating the issue with any seriousness.
It followed a strange breach in the Tribune's deathly silence on the irregularities of the 2000 and 2004 elections, which came about after readers began bombarding the Tribune with mail suggesting they run a column I had written, "The Silent Scream of Numbers," addressing these irregularities and reporting on a national election-reform conference in Nashville last month.
My column didn't run, but Wycliff wrote a column, "When Winning Isn't Everything," dismissing their concerns and telling them to ponder the moral leadership of Richard Nixon, who patriotically swallowed his close defeat in 1960 without complaint. In others words, shut up and get over it.
Wycliff was speaking only for himself, not "the media," but because his column was one of the few pieces to appear in a major publication even acknowledging that a huge number of Americans are distraught at mounting evidence of large-scale disenfranchisement in 2004 (and no guarantee that 2006 and 2008 will be any different), his words, by default, have special resonance. They stand in for the prejudices of the media as a whole.
Of all my objections to what he wrote, his contention that Kerry has the most at stake in all this is the most dispiriting, and most reflects the wrongheaded, "horse race" coverage of elections the media have shoved down our throats for as long as I can remember.
In his column, Wycliff even used a sports analogy, pointing out that "it's not the pregame prognostication and expert opinions that count, but the numbers on the scoreboard after the contest has actually been played." The Bush team won; the Kerry team lost. And the voters must be the equivalent of sports fans then, either jubilant or disappointed when the game is over, but couch potatoes either way, not participants.
Anyone else just a little bit offended? As one of the hundred or so readers who responded to the column (and cc'd me) put it, "Winning isn't everything, but fair elections are everything."
Nearly a week after Wycliff's column ran, the Tribune has printed only one letter in response to it - and this letter was about Nixon. It didn't have a word to say about the 2004 election. So much for my naïve optimism that an actual debate would ensue on the pages of the Trib.
Once again I quote exit-poll analyst Jonathan Simon: "When the autopsy of our democracy is performed, it is my belief that media silence will be given as the primary cause of death."
The stakes are getting higher and higher. Could it be we can't have election reform without media reform? The "respectable press" refuses to confer the least legitimacy on the citizens who are questioning this election and demanding accountability in the voting process.
How do we make them care? How do we make them look for themselves? How do we make them stand outside with us in the rain, waiting to cast our ballot for democracy?
Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at www.commonwonders.com.
Wrap...
By Robert C. Koehler
Tribune Media Services
"Where there is a free press the governors must live in constant awe of the opinions of the governed." - Lord Macaulay (one of many stirring quotes on the sacred role of the Fourth Estate adorning the lobby of the Chicago Tribune)
My fantasy of the mainstream media actually doing their job, and living up to the words they carve in marble to describe their own importance, is an 80-point (Terri Schiavo- or even Pope John Paul II-sized) headline running across the top of tomorrow's paper: ELECTION RESULTS IN DOUBT.
That would stop a few hearts. But the nation's major newspapers, even as they struggle with declining readership, have no intention of being quite that relevant to their readers - no intention, it appears, even to begin the process of looking into the hornets' nest of vote fraud allegations abuzz in meticulously researched reports on electronic voting (see uscountvotes.org) or the voluminous Conyers Report on what happened in Ohio on Nov. 2 (see truthout.org/Conyersreport.pdf).
Isn't our democracy at stake? Doesn't that matter?
"If John Kerry and the Ohio Democratic Party and all the other folks who had the most to gain from the election were making this challenge, I would get interested. But when the people with the most at stake don't step up, I'm suspicious."
So Don Wycliff, the Chicago Tribune's public editor, wrote to me in an e-mail exchange a few days ago, explaining why he, if not the Tribune itself, had no intention of investigating the issue with any seriousness.
It followed a strange breach in the Tribune's deathly silence on the irregularities of the 2000 and 2004 elections, which came about after readers began bombarding the Tribune with mail suggesting they run a column I had written, "The Silent Scream of Numbers," addressing these irregularities and reporting on a national election-reform conference in Nashville last month.
My column didn't run, but Wycliff wrote a column, "When Winning Isn't Everything," dismissing their concerns and telling them to ponder the moral leadership of Richard Nixon, who patriotically swallowed his close defeat in 1960 without complaint. In others words, shut up and get over it.
Wycliff was speaking only for himself, not "the media," but because his column was one of the few pieces to appear in a major publication even acknowledging that a huge number of Americans are distraught at mounting evidence of large-scale disenfranchisement in 2004 (and no guarantee that 2006 and 2008 will be any different), his words, by default, have special resonance. They stand in for the prejudices of the media as a whole.
Of all my objections to what he wrote, his contention that Kerry has the most at stake in all this is the most dispiriting, and most reflects the wrongheaded, "horse race" coverage of elections the media have shoved down our throats for as long as I can remember.
In his column, Wycliff even used a sports analogy, pointing out that "it's not the pregame prognostication and expert opinions that count, but the numbers on the scoreboard after the contest has actually been played." The Bush team won; the Kerry team lost. And the voters must be the equivalent of sports fans then, either jubilant or disappointed when the game is over, but couch potatoes either way, not participants.
Anyone else just a little bit offended? As one of the hundred or so readers who responded to the column (and cc'd me) put it, "Winning isn't everything, but fair elections are everything."
Nearly a week after Wycliff's column ran, the Tribune has printed only one letter in response to it - and this letter was about Nixon. It didn't have a word to say about the 2004 election. So much for my naïve optimism that an actual debate would ensue on the pages of the Trib.
Once again I quote exit-poll analyst Jonathan Simon: "When the autopsy of our democracy is performed, it is my belief that media silence will be given as the primary cause of death."
The stakes are getting higher and higher. Could it be we can't have election reform without media reform? The "respectable press" refuses to confer the least legitimacy on the citizens who are questioning this election and demanding accountability in the voting process.
How do we make them care? How do we make them look for themselves? How do we make them stand outside with us in the rain, waiting to cast our ballot for democracy?
Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at www.commonwonders.com.
Wrap...
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Wretched Pombo strikes again...
Katharine Mieszkowski
Unbearable
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112305EB.shtml
Officials say grizzly bears in Yellowstone are thriving enough to be taken off the Endangered Species Act list. But if Congress passes a new bill engineered by Richard Pombo - the most virulently anti-environmental Congress member in the country - the act that helped preserve the bears may be headed for extinction.
Wrap...
Unbearable
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/112305EB.shtml
Officials say grizzly bears in Yellowstone are thriving enough to be taken off the Endangered Species Act list. But if Congress passes a new bill engineered by Richard Pombo - the most virulently anti-environmental Congress member in the country - the act that helped preserve the bears may be headed for extinction.
Wrap...
Streisand on Scheer & LA Times...
Yaaaayyyy! Barbra!!!
From LA Times, Letters to the Editor:
November 23, 2005
LETTERS
Singing the Op-Ed blues
Re "Times Plans New Op-Ed Lineup,"
Nov. 11
The greater Southern California community is one that not only proudly embraces its diversity, but demands it. Your decision to fire Robert Scheer is a great disservice to the spirit of our community.
It seems that your new leadership, especially Publisher Jeff Johnson, is entirely out of touch with your readers and their desire to be exposed to views that stretch them beyond their own paradigms. So although the number of contributors to your Op-Ed pages may have increased, in firing Scheer and hiring columnists such as Jonah Goldberg, the gamut of voices has undeniably been diluted. I suspect this may ultimately decrease the number of readers of those same pages.
My greatest fear is that the underlying reason for Scheer's termination is part of a larger trend toward the corporatization of our media, a trend that we, as American citizens, must fervently battle for the sake of our swiftly diminishing free press.
BARBRA STREISAND
Santa Monica
Wrap...
From LA Times, Letters to the Editor:
November 23, 2005
LETTERS
Singing the Op-Ed blues
Re "Times Plans New Op-Ed Lineup,"
Nov. 11
The greater Southern California community is one that not only proudly embraces its diversity, but demands it. Your decision to fire Robert Scheer is a great disservice to the spirit of our community.
It seems that your new leadership, especially Publisher Jeff Johnson, is entirely out of touch with your readers and their desire to be exposed to views that stretch them beyond their own paradigms. So although the number of contributors to your Op-Ed pages may have increased, in firing Scheer and hiring columnists such as Jonah Goldberg, the gamut of voices has undeniably been diluted. I suspect this may ultimately decrease the number of readers of those same pages.
My greatest fear is that the underlying reason for Scheer's termination is part of a larger trend toward the corporatization of our media, a trend that we, as American citizens, must fervently battle for the sake of our swiftly diminishing free press.
BARBRA STREISAND
Santa Monica
Wrap...
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Some very interesting books coming...
From Publishers Lunch Weekly:
DEBUT:
Margaret Lazarus Dean's THE TIME IT TAKES TO FALL, about a young girl coming of age in the 1980s in Florida, where her father works for NASA on the space shuttle Challenger, to Marysue Rucci at Simon & Schuster, at auction, by Julie Barer at Barer Literary (NA). jbarer@barerliterary.com
MYSTERY/CRIME:
TREASON author Don Brown's three-book Naval JAG series, combining the legal thriller with an insider's look at the military judicial process, to Karen Ball at Zondervan, in a very nice deal, by Steve Laube at the Steve Laube Agency (world).steve@stevelaube.com
Kaitlyn Dunnett's KILT DEAD, featuring a professional Scottish dancer who returns to her roots following a career-ending injury only to find herself suspected of murder, to John Scognamiglio at Kensington, in a pre-empt, in a three-book deal, by Meg Ruley and Christina Hogrebe at Jane Rotrosen Agency.
CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULTS:
TREASON author Don Brown's three-book Naval JAG series, combining the legal thriller with an insider's look at the military judicial process, to Karen Ball at Zondervan, in a very nice deal, by Steve Laube at the Steve Laube Agency (world).steve@stevelaube.com
Kaitlyn Dunnett's KILT DEAD, featuring a professional Scottish dancer who returns to her roots following a career-ending injury only to find herself suspected of murder, to John Scognamiglio at Kensington, in a pre-empt, in a three-book deal, by Meg Ruley and Christina Hogrebe at Jane Rotrosen Agency.
UK:
John Ajvide Lindqvist's (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN) and (THE HANDLING OF THE UNDEAD), to Text Publishing in Australia, by Leonhardt & Hoier (UK & Commonwealth).anneli@leonhardt-hoier.dk
PAPERBACK:
Lambda Award-winning author of Valencia and Rent Girl, Michelle Tea's ROSE OF NO MAN'S LAND, a coming-of-age tale about a lonely, gender-bending fourteen year-old girl lost in the wild kingdom of mall culture, to Tina Pohlman at Harcourt, in a very nice deal, in a pre-empt, by Amy Rennert at the Amy Rennert Agency on behalf of MacAdam/Cage.
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Founder of the movement to restore the constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state and distinguished US Air Force Academy graduate Mikey Weinstein's HEATHEN FLIGHT: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military, about how the author brought events at the Academy to international awareness, how this situation impacts our nation, particularly in a time of war against an enemy that already sees us as invading Christian crusaders, to Thomas Dunne at St. Martin's, by William Clark at William Clark Associates(NA).
MEMOIR:
Journalist Edward Kosner's ARROWS TO TOYLAND: The Making and Unmaking of an Editor, about the author's years at Newsweek, Esquire, New York magazine, and the New York Daily News, to John Oakes at Thunder's Mouth, in a nice deal, by Amanda Urban at ICM (NA).
NARRATIVE:
Adam Gollner's THE FRUIT HUNTERS, combining food, science, business, and travel to present an in-depth approach to fruit production in this globalist age, to Sarah McGrath at Scribner, in a pre-empt, by Michelle Tessler at Tessler Literary Agency (US).michelle@tessleragency.com
RELIGION/SPIRITUALITY:
The late Walter Martin, Jill Martin Rische, and Kurt Van Gorden's THE KINGDOM OF THE OCCULT, a companion volume on all things occult to KINGDOM OF THE CULTS (reported to have over 800,000 copies in print), to Wayne Kinde at Thomas Nelson, by Steve Laube at the Steve Laube Agency (world).steve@stevelaube.com
SPORTS:
Mike Sokolove's SUPERSTARS OF SUBURBIA, an exploration of the bizarre world of youth sports and its impact on kids and their athletic futures, to David Rosenthal at Simon and Schuster, by Heather Schroder at ICM (world).hschroder@icmtalent.com
Wrap...
DEBUT:
Margaret Lazarus Dean's THE TIME IT TAKES TO FALL, about a young girl coming of age in the 1980s in Florida, where her father works for NASA on the space shuttle Challenger, to Marysue Rucci at Simon & Schuster, at auction, by Julie Barer at Barer Literary (NA). jbarer@barerliterary.com
MYSTERY/CRIME:
TREASON author Don Brown's three-book Naval JAG series, combining the legal thriller with an insider's look at the military judicial process, to Karen Ball at Zondervan, in a very nice deal, by Steve Laube at the Steve Laube Agency (world).steve@stevelaube.com
Kaitlyn Dunnett's KILT DEAD, featuring a professional Scottish dancer who returns to her roots following a career-ending injury only to find herself suspected of murder, to John Scognamiglio at Kensington, in a pre-empt, in a three-book deal, by Meg Ruley and Christina Hogrebe at Jane Rotrosen Agency.
CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULTS:
TREASON author Don Brown's three-book Naval JAG series, combining the legal thriller with an insider's look at the military judicial process, to Karen Ball at Zondervan, in a very nice deal, by Steve Laube at the Steve Laube Agency (world).steve@stevelaube.com
Kaitlyn Dunnett's KILT DEAD, featuring a professional Scottish dancer who returns to her roots following a career-ending injury only to find herself suspected of murder, to John Scognamiglio at Kensington, in a pre-empt, in a three-book deal, by Meg Ruley and Christina Hogrebe at Jane Rotrosen Agency.
UK:
John Ajvide Lindqvist's (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN) and (THE HANDLING OF THE UNDEAD), to Text Publishing in Australia, by Leonhardt & Hoier (UK & Commonwealth).anneli@leonhardt-hoier.dk
PAPERBACK:
Lambda Award-winning author of Valencia and Rent Girl, Michelle Tea's ROSE OF NO MAN'S LAND, a coming-of-age tale about a lonely, gender-bending fourteen year-old girl lost in the wild kingdom of mall culture, to Tina Pohlman at Harcourt, in a very nice deal, in a pre-empt, by Amy Rennert at the Amy Rennert Agency on behalf of MacAdam/Cage.
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Founder of the movement to restore the constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state and distinguished US Air Force Academy graduate Mikey Weinstein's HEATHEN FLIGHT: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military, about how the author brought events at the Academy to international awareness, how this situation impacts our nation, particularly in a time of war against an enemy that already sees us as invading Christian crusaders, to Thomas Dunne at St. Martin's, by William Clark at William Clark Associates(NA).
MEMOIR:
Journalist Edward Kosner's ARROWS TO TOYLAND: The Making and Unmaking of an Editor, about the author's years at Newsweek, Esquire, New York magazine, and the New York Daily News, to John Oakes at Thunder's Mouth, in a nice deal, by Amanda Urban at ICM (NA).
NARRATIVE:
Adam Gollner's THE FRUIT HUNTERS, combining food, science, business, and travel to present an in-depth approach to fruit production in this globalist age, to Sarah McGrath at Scribner, in a pre-empt, by Michelle Tessler at Tessler Literary Agency (US).michelle@tessleragency.com
RELIGION/SPIRITUALITY:
The late Walter Martin, Jill Martin Rische, and Kurt Van Gorden's THE KINGDOM OF THE OCCULT, a companion volume on all things occult to KINGDOM OF THE CULTS (reported to have over 800,000 copies in print), to Wayne Kinde at Thomas Nelson, by Steve Laube at the Steve Laube Agency (world).steve@stevelaube.com
SPORTS:
Mike Sokolove's SUPERSTARS OF SUBURBIA, an exploration of the bizarre world of youth sports and its impact on kids and their athletic futures, to David Rosenthal at Simon and Schuster, by Heather Schroder at ICM (world).hschroder@icmtalent.com
Wrap...
BushCo policies cut American's throats...
From American Progress:
What's Hurting GM Is Hurting America
Autoworkers in the Rust Belt and around North America suffered a rough blow this Thanksgiving week: General Motors announced plans yesterday to cut 30,000 manufacturing jobs (25,000 in the United States) and close a dozen plants, one day after Ford Motors announced 4,000 more job cuts. The GM layoffs are the company's most substantial "since a huge restructuring in 1991 when 74,000 jobs were lost," and the largest single round of U.S. layoffs in almost three years, "since Kmart said it would cut 37,000 jobs in January 2003."
As Paul Krugman writes, the signs of decline in Detroit are a "reminder of how far we have come from the days when hard-working Americans could count on a reasonable degree of economic security." GM's move is the latest sign of a fundamental shift away from the progressive vision of an "opportunity society," where every hard-working person can realize his or her goals through education, decent work, and fair pay. Replacing this society is not President Bush's empty vision of an "ownership society," but the tough realities of greater job uncertainty, lower wages, higher health care costs, and a shrinking middle class.
Critically, these changes are not simply dictates of the market. Rather, they are in large part the result of specific policy decisions that have left American workers and businesses unprepared for the dynamic changes occurring in the global economy.
THE DISAPPEARING OPPORTUNITY NATION:
General Motors, once "an unassailable symbol of the nation's industrial might," is now a shadow of its former self, "and the post-World War II promise of blue-collar factory work being a secure path to the American dream has faded with it." But GM is not unique, and neither are the hardships of its workers. The forces affecting GM employees are simply "extreme versions of what's occurring across the American labor market," the Los Angeles Times notes, "where such economic risks as unemployment and health costs once broadly shared by business and government are being shifted directly onto the backs of American working families."
Americans are owning more, indeed -- more risk, more debt, and higher health care costs. Detroit families are now aware that the good life auto work has afforded their families for generations, "and for hundreds of thousands of other families in Michigan and elsewhere across the country, is ending." Said one imperiled autoworker, Jerry Roy: "People survive somehow, regardless of what happens. I mean, it's sad, I could cry all night, but I'll figure out a way to get by - somehow."
UNDERCUTTING AMERICAN WORKERS:
Even as the U.S. workforce faces greater vulnerability, the Bush administration has taken aim programs designed to help workers find new employment opportunities. President Bush sought to chop half a billion dollars out of federal job training funding in the most recent budget. Federal job training programs, including dislocated-worker training programs, would have been cut by $200 million. Federal aid to states for job training, which includes funding to help veterans re-enter the workforce, would have lost $300 million in funds.
Bush has also neglected the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, one of the primary safety nets in place for workers displaced by trade. His administration "has tightened the eligibility requirements for TAA, denying many workers even the modest resources available under that program," and "pursued policies that leave many workers who qualify for TAA benefits without access to this program." At the same time, he has pushed to privatize or cut vital programs like Social Security and Medicaid when they are more important than ever, "now that workers in the world's richest nation can no longer count on the private sector to provide them with economic security."
THE HEALTH CARE CRISIS:
A leading cause of General Motors layoffs is our country's health care crisis. "GM's problem," the New York Times reports, "at least in terms of its costs, is the enormous price of health care benefits for hundreds of thousands of retirees. G.M. is the largest private provider of health care, covering more than a million Americans." The trouble isn't that autoworkers have had too good a deal on health insurance -- it's that "most Americans have had too bad a deal."
As Robert Kuttner writes, "Somehow, the rest of the industrial world can provide health coverage for everyone and only spend an average of about 10 percent of its national income," while America spend 15 percent and leaves over 46 million people without health insurance.
One innovative way to start to address the auto industry's problem: health care for hybrids. American Progress has proposed a plan, now embraced by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) as the Competitiveness and Accountability Act, that would "offer automakers the following deal: If they invest substantially in fuel-efficient technology, Congress will relieve them of the health insurance burden of their retirees." (American Progress also has a systemic plan to provide affordable health insurance to all Americans.)
Wrap...
What's Hurting GM Is Hurting America
Autoworkers in the Rust Belt and around North America suffered a rough blow this Thanksgiving week: General Motors announced plans yesterday to cut 30,000 manufacturing jobs (25,000 in the United States) and close a dozen plants, one day after Ford Motors announced 4,000 more job cuts. The GM layoffs are the company's most substantial "since a huge restructuring in 1991 when 74,000 jobs were lost," and the largest single round of U.S. layoffs in almost three years, "since Kmart said it would cut 37,000 jobs in January 2003."
As Paul Krugman writes, the signs of decline in Detroit are a "reminder of how far we have come from the days when hard-working Americans could count on a reasonable degree of economic security." GM's move is the latest sign of a fundamental shift away from the progressive vision of an "opportunity society," where every hard-working person can realize his or her goals through education, decent work, and fair pay. Replacing this society is not President Bush's empty vision of an "ownership society," but the tough realities of greater job uncertainty, lower wages, higher health care costs, and a shrinking middle class.
Critically, these changes are not simply dictates of the market. Rather, they are in large part the result of specific policy decisions that have left American workers and businesses unprepared for the dynamic changes occurring in the global economy.
THE DISAPPEARING OPPORTUNITY NATION:
General Motors, once "an unassailable symbol of the nation's industrial might," is now a shadow of its former self, "and the post-World War II promise of blue-collar factory work being a secure path to the American dream has faded with it." But GM is not unique, and neither are the hardships of its workers. The forces affecting GM employees are simply "extreme versions of what's occurring across the American labor market," the Los Angeles Times notes, "where such economic risks as unemployment and health costs once broadly shared by business and government are being shifted directly onto the backs of American working families."
Americans are owning more, indeed -- more risk, more debt, and higher health care costs. Detroit families are now aware that the good life auto work has afforded their families for generations, "and for hundreds of thousands of other families in Michigan and elsewhere across the country, is ending." Said one imperiled autoworker, Jerry Roy: "People survive somehow, regardless of what happens. I mean, it's sad, I could cry all night, but I'll figure out a way to get by - somehow."
UNDERCUTTING AMERICAN WORKERS:
Even as the U.S. workforce faces greater vulnerability, the Bush administration has taken aim programs designed to help workers find new employment opportunities. President Bush sought to chop half a billion dollars out of federal job training funding in the most recent budget. Federal job training programs, including dislocated-worker training programs, would have been cut by $200 million. Federal aid to states for job training, which includes funding to help veterans re-enter the workforce, would have lost $300 million in funds.
Bush has also neglected the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, one of the primary safety nets in place for workers displaced by trade. His administration "has tightened the eligibility requirements for TAA, denying many workers even the modest resources available under that program," and "pursued policies that leave many workers who qualify for TAA benefits without access to this program." At the same time, he has pushed to privatize or cut vital programs like Social Security and Medicaid when they are more important than ever, "now that workers in the world's richest nation can no longer count on the private sector to provide them with economic security."
THE HEALTH CARE CRISIS:
A leading cause of General Motors layoffs is our country's health care crisis. "GM's problem," the New York Times reports, "at least in terms of its costs, is the enormous price of health care benefits for hundreds of thousands of retirees. G.M. is the largest private provider of health care, covering more than a million Americans." The trouble isn't that autoworkers have had too good a deal on health insurance -- it's that "most Americans have had too bad a deal."
As Robert Kuttner writes, "Somehow, the rest of the industrial world can provide health coverage for everyone and only spend an average of about 10 percent of its national income," while America spend 15 percent and leaves over 46 million people without health insurance.
One innovative way to start to address the auto industry's problem: health care for hybrids. American Progress has proposed a plan, now embraced by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) as the Competitiveness and Accountability Act, that would "offer automakers the following deal: If they invest substantially in fuel-efficient technology, Congress will relieve them of the health insurance burden of their retirees." (American Progress also has a systemic plan to provide affordable health insurance to all Americans.)
Wrap...
Monday, November 21, 2005
OUT! say Iraqis...and BushCo says...????
From Dissent blog:
Iraq Leaders Demand Timetable
The Bush Administration will most likely not honor the demand, but this is the first -- or at least the most overt -- time the Iraqi leaders have stood up to their occupiers:
Iraqi leaders, meeting at a reconciliation conference in Cairo, urged an end to violence in the country and demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq.
In a final statement, read by Arab League chief Amre Moussa, host of the three-day summit, they called for "the withdrawal of foreign troops according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces." No date was specified.
"The Iraqi people look forward to the day when the foreign forces leave Iraq, when it's armed and security forces will be rebuilt and when they can enjoy peace and stability and get rid of terrorism," the leaders said in the statement. The session was broadcast live from the Egyptian capital by al-Jazeera.
On a cynical note, it will interesting to see how the demand plays out on the political stage. But more importantly, this could be a sign of hope for the future of Iraq and its people.
posted by Dionysus at 5:07 PM
Wrap...
Iraq Leaders Demand Timetable
The Bush Administration will most likely not honor the demand, but this is the first -- or at least the most overt -- time the Iraqi leaders have stood up to their occupiers:
Iraqi leaders, meeting at a reconciliation conference in Cairo, urged an end to violence in the country and demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq.
In a final statement, read by Arab League chief Amre Moussa, host of the three-day summit, they called for "the withdrawal of foreign troops according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces." No date was specified.
"The Iraqi people look forward to the day when the foreign forces leave Iraq, when it's armed and security forces will be rebuilt and when they can enjoy peace and stability and get rid of terrorism," the leaders said in the statement. The session was broadcast live from the Egyptian capital by al-Jazeera.
On a cynical note, it will interesting to see how the demand plays out on the political stage. But more importantly, this could be a sign of hope for the future of Iraq and its people.
posted by Dionysus at 5:07 PM
Wrap...
2006: Begin again...Throw 'em all out!
From Information Clearing House:
Incumbents Out
by Charley Reese
by Charley Reese
Next year, we should all go to the polls and vote against every single incumbent running for re-election, regardless of his or her party or so-called philosophy.
Can you understand what a shock it would be if all 435 members of the U.S. House and the third of the Senate that will be running were defeated? Washington would never be the same again, and that, on its face, would be a good thing.
I know most folks feel about their congressional representative or senator the way most parents feel about their child's school. The school system is a mess, but my kid's school is pretty good. Congress has a bunch of scoundrels, but my representative is a pretty good person.
Well, he or she might be. That's not the point. The point is that the present House and Senate of these United States have neglected the common good. They are literally making a mess of what was once and could be again a great country. They're bankrupting it. They are allowing the manufacturing base to be stolen by cheap foreign labor. They won't guard the borders. They have, in fact, sold out the American people to all the lobbyists who hover over them like a swarm of locusts. They let us get into wars we shouldn't be in. They refuse to provide the vigorous oversight the Constitution authorizes. They even refuse to act like an independent branch of government. The Republican Party has, in effect, imposed on us the parliamentary system, where the legislature becomes the lap dog of the executive branch.
Throw 'em all out. Doing that would even help solve the federal-debt problem. Tossing out a representative or senator before he or she becomes vested in that pearl-of-the-universe retirement system they voted themselves would save taxpayers millions of dollars.
Six years in the House or Senate is enough for any citizen. Don't get fooled by the so-called value of experience. The experience they gain is the same as whores and thieves. Inexperience can be a virtue, and experience can be a vice.
And, for heaven's sakes, don't worry that you might replace your incumbent with someone less qualified. The probability of finding people who could be more incompetent and neglectful of their duty than the present crop of politicians ranges between zero and minus one.
These nabobs and bloviators can't even write a lucid law. I listened to them debate the other day, and what they were arguing about was an editorial statement they wanted to insert into a bill. A bill should not have any editorial statements in it.
We are a nation of 290 million people. In Washington, 435 members of the House, 100 senators, one vice president (if there is a tie in the Senate), one president and nine Supreme Court justices make all the laws and rules and regulations that govern us.
Are you telling me we can't find 100 good men and women to replace the ones who have failed in their duty? That the present 435 members of the House represent the best people available in the United States? God forbid. We have not sunk that low. You could pick 535 men and women from any small city in America, pick them at random, and you'd have a vastly improved federal legislature.
You can walk down any street in America and find more common sense, good will, competence and concern for the public good than you can find in Washington.
Let's face it, folks: We have allowed our political system to deteriorate to the point where it attracts incompetents, crooks and mountebanks. Public office is the only place where many of these people can hope to make a decent living. Ask yourself if you had ever heard of your representative before he or she got into politics. In most cases, the answer will be no. We no longer attract leaders; we manufacture office-seekers.
Well, we have the power. Just takes turning out, ignoring the lobbyist-paid-for campaign ads and voting against the incumbents. Do your representative and senator a favor. Bring them home to the folks they claim to love.
November 19, 2005
Charley Reese [send him mail] has been a journalist for 49 years.
© 2005 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
Wrap...
Incumbents Out
by Charley Reese
by Charley Reese
Next year, we should all go to the polls and vote against every single incumbent running for re-election, regardless of his or her party or so-called philosophy.
Can you understand what a shock it would be if all 435 members of the U.S. House and the third of the Senate that will be running were defeated? Washington would never be the same again, and that, on its face, would be a good thing.
I know most folks feel about their congressional representative or senator the way most parents feel about their child's school. The school system is a mess, but my kid's school is pretty good. Congress has a bunch of scoundrels, but my representative is a pretty good person.
Well, he or she might be. That's not the point. The point is that the present House and Senate of these United States have neglected the common good. They are literally making a mess of what was once and could be again a great country. They're bankrupting it. They are allowing the manufacturing base to be stolen by cheap foreign labor. They won't guard the borders. They have, in fact, sold out the American people to all the lobbyists who hover over them like a swarm of locusts. They let us get into wars we shouldn't be in. They refuse to provide the vigorous oversight the Constitution authorizes. They even refuse to act like an independent branch of government. The Republican Party has, in effect, imposed on us the parliamentary system, where the legislature becomes the lap dog of the executive branch.
Throw 'em all out. Doing that would even help solve the federal-debt problem. Tossing out a representative or senator before he or she becomes vested in that pearl-of-the-universe retirement system they voted themselves would save taxpayers millions of dollars.
Six years in the House or Senate is enough for any citizen. Don't get fooled by the so-called value of experience. The experience they gain is the same as whores and thieves. Inexperience can be a virtue, and experience can be a vice.
And, for heaven's sakes, don't worry that you might replace your incumbent with someone less qualified. The probability of finding people who could be more incompetent and neglectful of their duty than the present crop of politicians ranges between zero and minus one.
These nabobs and bloviators can't even write a lucid law. I listened to them debate the other day, and what they were arguing about was an editorial statement they wanted to insert into a bill. A bill should not have any editorial statements in it.
We are a nation of 290 million people. In Washington, 435 members of the House, 100 senators, one vice president (if there is a tie in the Senate), one president and nine Supreme Court justices make all the laws and rules and regulations that govern us.
Are you telling me we can't find 100 good men and women to replace the ones who have failed in their duty? That the present 435 members of the House represent the best people available in the United States? God forbid. We have not sunk that low. You could pick 535 men and women from any small city in America, pick them at random, and you'd have a vastly improved federal legislature.
You can walk down any street in America and find more common sense, good will, competence and concern for the public good than you can find in Washington.
Let's face it, folks: We have allowed our political system to deteriorate to the point where it attracts incompetents, crooks and mountebanks. Public office is the only place where many of these people can hope to make a decent living. Ask yourself if you had ever heard of your representative before he or she got into politics. In most cases, the answer will be no. We no longer attract leaders; we manufacture office-seekers.
Well, we have the power. Just takes turning out, ignoring the lobbyist-paid-for campaign ads and voting against the incumbents. Do your representative and senator a favor. Bring them home to the folks they claim to love.
November 19, 2005
Charley Reese [send him mail] has been a journalist for 49 years.
© 2005 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
Wrap...
Sunday, November 20, 2005
BushCo's incredible hypocracy re. torture...
NY Times Editorial:
November 21, 2005
Editorial
Accountability Begins at Home
It is hard to think of a more dangerous situation in Iraq right now than to have disenchanted Sunni Arabs believe that the police forces are in the control of Shiite gunmen who can detain and torture Sunnis at will. So the Bush administration made a good start by insisting on an immediate investigation of all Iraqi detention centers after the discovery of what looked like a Shiite militia-run torture chamber in the heart of Baghdad.
Doing that meant brushing aside objections by the Interior Ministry, run by a powerful Shiite leader, and putting a scratch in the thin veneer of Iraqi self-governance. But it is vital to show support for ordinary, law-abiding Sunnis. That vulnerable community has seen enough of its human and political rights trampled by elements of the ruling Shiite coalition. Unless the administration ensures that those rights are fully respected, neither the Dec. 15 elections nor the constitutional revisions that are supposed to follow have much chance of creating any semblance of a unified, democratic Iraq.
Still, it's painful to think of how much easier this would all be if it were not for America's tarnished reputation when it comes to torture. It would be much easier for the Bush administration to counter calls by Sunnis and others outside Iraq for an international investigation. It's deeply distressing (although by now, sadly, not surprising) that the Bush administration remains oblivious to its own failures in this area, and to how much of the moral high ground the United States government lost by refusing to deal honestly with the abuse of prisoners by American forces.
There was a distinctly hollow ring to last week's talk by American officials of a zero-tolerance policy on the abuse of detainees in Iraqi-run prisons. Back at the ranch, Vice President Dick Cheney is still trying to legalize torture at C.I.A. prisons around the world; President Bush is still threatening to veto the entire Pentagon budget if Congress dares to impose actual rules on the handling of prisoners at military detention camps; and the officials behind the policies that led straight from the doctrine of legalized torture to the horrors of Abu Ghraib continue to be promoted, instead of being held accountable.
It took just a few days for the United States to demand a full investigation of Iraqi prisons. Washington immediately recognized that the Iraqi government could not investigate itself alone and assigned the Justice Department and the F.B.I. to help. This same administration, however, has spent the last 18 months obstructing the Senate's inquiries into Abu Ghraib and other aspects of the prison abuse mess, and has used the Republican leadership in Congress to block any outside investigations. It has narrowed the scope of its own inquiries to shield the civilian and military leadership.
We're happy the administration pressed for a full accounting of abuse of Iraqis by Iraqis. Now, about the abuse of Iraqis by Americans ...
Wrap...
November 21, 2005
Editorial
Accountability Begins at Home
It is hard to think of a more dangerous situation in Iraq right now than to have disenchanted Sunni Arabs believe that the police forces are in the control of Shiite gunmen who can detain and torture Sunnis at will. So the Bush administration made a good start by insisting on an immediate investigation of all Iraqi detention centers after the discovery of what looked like a Shiite militia-run torture chamber in the heart of Baghdad.
Doing that meant brushing aside objections by the Interior Ministry, run by a powerful Shiite leader, and putting a scratch in the thin veneer of Iraqi self-governance. But it is vital to show support for ordinary, law-abiding Sunnis. That vulnerable community has seen enough of its human and political rights trampled by elements of the ruling Shiite coalition. Unless the administration ensures that those rights are fully respected, neither the Dec. 15 elections nor the constitutional revisions that are supposed to follow have much chance of creating any semblance of a unified, democratic Iraq.
Still, it's painful to think of how much easier this would all be if it were not for America's tarnished reputation when it comes to torture. It would be much easier for the Bush administration to counter calls by Sunnis and others outside Iraq for an international investigation. It's deeply distressing (although by now, sadly, not surprising) that the Bush administration remains oblivious to its own failures in this area, and to how much of the moral high ground the United States government lost by refusing to deal honestly with the abuse of prisoners by American forces.
There was a distinctly hollow ring to last week's talk by American officials of a zero-tolerance policy on the abuse of detainees in Iraqi-run prisons. Back at the ranch, Vice President Dick Cheney is still trying to legalize torture at C.I.A. prisons around the world; President Bush is still threatening to veto the entire Pentagon budget if Congress dares to impose actual rules on the handling of prisoners at military detention camps; and the officials behind the policies that led straight from the doctrine of legalized torture to the horrors of Abu Ghraib continue to be promoted, instead of being held accountable.
It took just a few days for the United States to demand a full investigation of Iraqi prisons. Washington immediately recognized that the Iraqi government could not investigate itself alone and assigned the Justice Department and the F.B.I. to help. This same administration, however, has spent the last 18 months obstructing the Senate's inquiries into Abu Ghraib and other aspects of the prison abuse mess, and has used the Republican leadership in Congress to block any outside investigations. It has narrowed the scope of its own inquiries to shield the civilian and military leadership.
We're happy the administration pressed for a full accounting of abuse of Iraqis by Iraqis. Now, about the abuse of Iraqis by Americans ...
Wrap...
Former CIA Bob Baer's book...to film....
Recently, I posted about Baer's book, so heavily redacted by the CIA people, that the publisher decided to print it as is...redactions and all. Obviously, producer Gaghan bought the film rights early, because now it's already in film. Here, from Foxnews.com is the film story with new title:
Clooney’s New Movie: ‘Fahrenheit 411’
Saturday, November 19, 2005
By Roger Friedman
George Clooney
Syriana: Clooney’s CIA Movie Is ‘Fahrenheit 411’
Basically, in "Syriana," writer/director Stephen Gaghan (the Oscar-winning adapter of "Traffic"), former CIA agent Bob Baer, and producers George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh have made a thriller for people who read The Financial Times. It’s also a companion piece in many ways to a great movie Clooney starred in several years ago, "Three Kings." Shot in Morocco and Dubai, "Syriana" may be an eye opener to westerners who don’t give much thought to world events.
Syriana was screened Friday night at Cinema 2, a sort of bunker movie theater in a basement, while upstairs in Cinema 1 Clooney’s "Good Night and Good Luck" was doing sold out business. Upstairs: the paying public. Downstairs: as much media elite as could fit in a room, with Robin and Marsha Williams, Patricia Clarkson, Mike Myers, Amy Irving, Nora Ephron, Jason Lewis, Catherine Crier and Lisa Bloom of Court TV, plus lots of editor/writer types and quite a few Academy voters.
ABC News chief David Westin moderated a panel after the screening with Clooney, Gaghan, and Baer fielding questions.
It was the first totally finished print, Gaghan told us, completed last Tuesday at 2:30pm. The last thing he did was pick the font for the closing credits. (It’s from a restaurant in Venice called Axe and pronounced ah-shay.) He started working on the film in 2001, and did a massive amount of travel and research with the help of former CIA agent Baer, upon whose book, "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism," the movie is largely based.
In case you’re interested in this: the CIA has not seen the movie nor approved the script because Baer didn’t write it. They did vet his book, in which you will find many redacted pages with big, black markings covering sensitive material.
Syriana is a thriller but it can be a bit confusing. The basic story is that an oil company has set up shop in the Gulf, just as a merger is going through. The local royal Arab family is in the middle of a succession as the Emir (king) is about to step aside for one of his two sons: an idiot, and a sensitive, forward thinker. (Guess who gets the job.) Clooney plays a CIA agent who’s a little over the hill and washed up. But he’s onto the fact that the government and the oil companies are trying to stay in control through the manipulation of who becomes king.
There are murders and international intrigue, as well as two subplots. One involves Matt Damon as an American derivatives trader living in Geneva with his beautiful wife (Amanda Peet) and their two very cute little boys. The other is about two young Arab men looking for work and being courted by fringe terrorist groups. Damon is so good that he is likely to get a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his work. Of Clooney’s whole "Ocean’s 11" posse, Damon is easily the most talented.
"He’s it, the real thing," Clooney said when we talked about Damon.
Damon is a standout, but there are plenty of "smaller" roles played by terrific actors including Tom McCarthy, Chris Cooper, Christopher Plummer, Mazhar Munir, Jeffrey Wright, Tim Blake Nelson (who has a funny speech explaining the historical importance of corruption) and the memorable Alexander Siddig (as the smart prince). Indeed, the actors are so uniformly good from the start that they all seem very real, as does the situation. This is ‘Fahrenheit 411’, meaning full of urgent information that rings true in every scene. Liberals and conservatives all have to put gas in their cars. One look at the prices, and you know that "Syriana" is not far off base.
Clooney was there with an unidentified blonde who sat in the back during the Q&A with a black hat pulled down to hide her face. He gained 30 pounds to play a fictionalized Bob Baer. On screen he looks and feels bloated, sporting a gray beard and effecting almost a waddle. His character is no joke, though. He’s Jack Lemmon from "The China Syndrome," a whistle blower who wakes up too late to realize his whole life has been a sham. It’s Clooney’s best and most coherent work on the big screen, and should get him a Best Actor nomination and lots of rave reviews.
Syriana is not always easy to follow. Sometimes I felt like I needed a study guide. But Gaghan has made such an engrossing film that you can actually suspend disbelief and just go with it. Once you’re in, you’re in, too. I don’t know if it will make money or be a Best Picture candidate, but Syriana is the most intelligent movie of 2005 so far, and incredibly satisfying.
One note though: I would change that poster and ad showing a blind-folded, bearded man. It’s a huge turn-off. It looks like a torture documentary or a prisoner of war saga. Warner Bros. would do well to sell Syriana as a thriller soap opera with intrigue, a la "Three Days of the Condor," and make sure to put Damon and Peet’s pictures in there with Clooney’s.
Clooney, you might like to know, also told me after the screening that the recent blow up he had in London was considerably different than the way it was portrayed in the British press and consequently, in our tabloids. "It was just a guy who was a jerk," he said of the photographer who cornered him in an alley. "I thought about hitting him, but I didn’t."
Wrap...
Clooney’s New Movie: ‘Fahrenheit 411’
Saturday, November 19, 2005
By Roger Friedman
George Clooney
Syriana: Clooney’s CIA Movie Is ‘Fahrenheit 411’
Basically, in "Syriana," writer/director Stephen Gaghan (the Oscar-winning adapter of "Traffic"), former CIA agent Bob Baer, and producers George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh have made a thriller for people who read The Financial Times. It’s also a companion piece in many ways to a great movie Clooney starred in several years ago, "Three Kings." Shot in Morocco and Dubai, "Syriana" may be an eye opener to westerners who don’t give much thought to world events.
Syriana was screened Friday night at Cinema 2, a sort of bunker movie theater in a basement, while upstairs in Cinema 1 Clooney’s "Good Night and Good Luck" was doing sold out business. Upstairs: the paying public. Downstairs: as much media elite as could fit in a room, with Robin and Marsha Williams, Patricia Clarkson, Mike Myers, Amy Irving, Nora Ephron, Jason Lewis, Catherine Crier and Lisa Bloom of Court TV, plus lots of editor/writer types and quite a few Academy voters.
ABC News chief David Westin moderated a panel after the screening with Clooney, Gaghan, and Baer fielding questions.
It was the first totally finished print, Gaghan told us, completed last Tuesday at 2:30pm. The last thing he did was pick the font for the closing credits. (It’s from a restaurant in Venice called Axe and pronounced ah-shay.) He started working on the film in 2001, and did a massive amount of travel and research with the help of former CIA agent Baer, upon whose book, "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism," the movie is largely based.
In case you’re interested in this: the CIA has not seen the movie nor approved the script because Baer didn’t write it. They did vet his book, in which you will find many redacted pages with big, black markings covering sensitive material.
Syriana is a thriller but it can be a bit confusing. The basic story is that an oil company has set up shop in the Gulf, just as a merger is going through. The local royal Arab family is in the middle of a succession as the Emir (king) is about to step aside for one of his two sons: an idiot, and a sensitive, forward thinker. (Guess who gets the job.) Clooney plays a CIA agent who’s a little over the hill and washed up. But he’s onto the fact that the government and the oil companies are trying to stay in control through the manipulation of who becomes king.
There are murders and international intrigue, as well as two subplots. One involves Matt Damon as an American derivatives trader living in Geneva with his beautiful wife (Amanda Peet) and their two very cute little boys. The other is about two young Arab men looking for work and being courted by fringe terrorist groups. Damon is so good that he is likely to get a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his work. Of Clooney’s whole "Ocean’s 11" posse, Damon is easily the most talented.
"He’s it, the real thing," Clooney said when we talked about Damon.
Damon is a standout, but there are plenty of "smaller" roles played by terrific actors including Tom McCarthy, Chris Cooper, Christopher Plummer, Mazhar Munir, Jeffrey Wright, Tim Blake Nelson (who has a funny speech explaining the historical importance of corruption) and the memorable Alexander Siddig (as the smart prince). Indeed, the actors are so uniformly good from the start that they all seem very real, as does the situation. This is ‘Fahrenheit 411’, meaning full of urgent information that rings true in every scene. Liberals and conservatives all have to put gas in their cars. One look at the prices, and you know that "Syriana" is not far off base.
Clooney was there with an unidentified blonde who sat in the back during the Q&A with a black hat pulled down to hide her face. He gained 30 pounds to play a fictionalized Bob Baer. On screen he looks and feels bloated, sporting a gray beard and effecting almost a waddle. His character is no joke, though. He’s Jack Lemmon from "The China Syndrome," a whistle blower who wakes up too late to realize his whole life has been a sham. It’s Clooney’s best and most coherent work on the big screen, and should get him a Best Actor nomination and lots of rave reviews.
Syriana is not always easy to follow. Sometimes I felt like I needed a study guide. But Gaghan has made such an engrossing film that you can actually suspend disbelief and just go with it. Once you’re in, you’re in, too. I don’t know if it will make money or be a Best Picture candidate, but Syriana is the most intelligent movie of 2005 so far, and incredibly satisfying.
One note though: I would change that poster and ad showing a blind-folded, bearded man. It’s a huge turn-off. It looks like a torture documentary or a prisoner of war saga. Warner Bros. would do well to sell Syriana as a thriller soap opera with intrigue, a la "Three Days of the Condor," and make sure to put Damon and Peet’s pictures in there with Clooney’s.
Clooney, you might like to know, also told me after the screening that the recent blow up he had in London was considerably different than the way it was portrayed in the British press and consequently, in our tabloids. "It was just a guy who was a jerk," he said of the photographer who cornered him in an alley. "I thought about hitting him, but I didn’t."
Wrap...
To read USA news, go to foreign media....
From Agence France Press via Yahoo News via Raw Story.... Damned interesting to have to wait until foreign media publishes the USA news we should know about, and our own media does not. Ever wonder why? Pretty simple...the huge corporations own the media, but unions are fighting back by using the internet. Take a look at www.workingamerica.org Read on, and take notice of the corporate threat in the last couple of paragraphs:
US corporate excess under fire as unions go on the attack
Sun Nov 20, 5:01 AM ET
US unions, weakened by public apathy and internal splits, are fighting back with an online database that accuses corporate supremos of lining their own pockets while grinding down their employees.
Business leaders are deeply unhappy at the online initiative of the AFL-CIO workers' federation, accusing union bosses of taking a cheap shot when complex issues are at stake.
But the AFL-CIO affiliate behind the site, Working America, says there is nothing cheap about the pay packages on offer to the favoured few while millions of blue-collar Americans fret about losing their jobs and benefits.
"The public should be able to question the outrageous pay of CEOs at a time when jobs are being outsourced every day and their health and safety is endangered every day," Working America deputy director Robert Fox told AFP.
The site at www.workingamerica.org has information on more than 60,000 US companies, detailing their violations of health and safety legislation, their outsourcing of jobs overseas and the pay deals for chief executives.
The group says it had to fight hard to prise health and safety data out of the government, resorting to the Freedom of Information Act only to find the data was kept on reel-to-reel computer tapes or decades-old IBM cartridges.
"It's been virtually impossible for normal people to gain access to this kind of information, certainly not on an easily accessible site like this," Fox said.
Citing a study by compensation consultant Pearl Meyer and Partners for The New York Times, the AFL-CIO says that in 2004, the average CEO of a major company received 9.84 million dollars in total compensation.
The average shop-floor worker, in contrast, earned 27,485 dollars.
The highest paid CEO of last year, according to Working America, was Yahoo's Terry Semel, who earned 109.3 million dollars in salary, stock options and perks.
For that kind of money, the AFL-CIO said, more than 53,000 uninsured workers could gain health coverage or just under 27,000 working mothers could receive daycare for their children for one year.
The site's new "Jobtracker" function names 71 companies in Michigan, in the US industrial heartland, that have outsourced jobs to cheaper bases and another 1,951 that have violated health and safety regulations in the state.
Employers' groups are scathing about the database. They note the AFL-CIO has been losing members for decades and earlier this year, suffered a split when seven of its unions formed a rival group called the Change to Win Coalition.
"It's a desperate act by a desperate group that's slowly disappearing and slowly losing relevance," said Pat Cleary, senior vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers.
"They've been on this anti-business beat for 20 years or so and it's not resonated with the public yet, so I don't think it will start to resonate any time soon," he added.
About 12.5 percent of US workers were union members in 2004, according to government statistics, down from about one-third a half-century ago. In the private sector, unions represent only about eight percent of employees.
University of Maryland business professor Peter Morici said the unions were shooting themselves in the foot.
"It's unfortunate that the AFL-CIO has resorted to mudslinging at corporate leaders instead of espousing a coherent view of what it intends to do to safeguard American workers' jobs," he said.
"If they continue down this road, all they're going to do is encourage more American companies to up stake and outsource their jobs overseas."
Working America is unapologetic. "We want to shine a spotlight on behaviour that damages the quality of life of American workers," Fox said.
Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse.
Wrap...
US corporate excess under fire as unions go on the attack
Sun Nov 20, 5:01 AM ET
US unions, weakened by public apathy and internal splits, are fighting back with an online database that accuses corporate supremos of lining their own pockets while grinding down their employees.
Business leaders are deeply unhappy at the online initiative of the AFL-CIO workers' federation, accusing union bosses of taking a cheap shot when complex issues are at stake.
But the AFL-CIO affiliate behind the site, Working America, says there is nothing cheap about the pay packages on offer to the favoured few while millions of blue-collar Americans fret about losing their jobs and benefits.
"The public should be able to question the outrageous pay of CEOs at a time when jobs are being outsourced every day and their health and safety is endangered every day," Working America deputy director Robert Fox told AFP.
The site at www.workingamerica.org has information on more than 60,000 US companies, detailing their violations of health and safety legislation, their outsourcing of jobs overseas and the pay deals for chief executives.
The group says it had to fight hard to prise health and safety data out of the government, resorting to the Freedom of Information Act only to find the data was kept on reel-to-reel computer tapes or decades-old IBM cartridges.
"It's been virtually impossible for normal people to gain access to this kind of information, certainly not on an easily accessible site like this," Fox said.
Citing a study by compensation consultant Pearl Meyer and Partners for The New York Times, the AFL-CIO says that in 2004, the average CEO of a major company received 9.84 million dollars in total compensation.
The average shop-floor worker, in contrast, earned 27,485 dollars.
The highest paid CEO of last year, according to Working America, was Yahoo's Terry Semel, who earned 109.3 million dollars in salary, stock options and perks.
For that kind of money, the AFL-CIO said, more than 53,000 uninsured workers could gain health coverage or just under 27,000 working mothers could receive daycare for their children for one year.
The site's new "Jobtracker" function names 71 companies in Michigan, in the US industrial heartland, that have outsourced jobs to cheaper bases and another 1,951 that have violated health and safety regulations in the state.
Employers' groups are scathing about the database. They note the AFL-CIO has been losing members for decades and earlier this year, suffered a split when seven of its unions formed a rival group called the Change to Win Coalition.
"It's a desperate act by a desperate group that's slowly disappearing and slowly losing relevance," said Pat Cleary, senior vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers.
"They've been on this anti-business beat for 20 years or so and it's not resonated with the public yet, so I don't think it will start to resonate any time soon," he added.
About 12.5 percent of US workers were union members in 2004, according to government statistics, down from about one-third a half-century ago. In the private sector, unions represent only about eight percent of employees.
University of Maryland business professor Peter Morici said the unions were shooting themselves in the foot.
"It's unfortunate that the AFL-CIO has resorted to mudslinging at corporate leaders instead of espousing a coherent view of what it intends to do to safeguard American workers' jobs," he said.
"If they continue down this road, all they're going to do is encourage more American companies to up stake and outsource their jobs overseas."
Working America is unapologetic. "We want to shine a spotlight on behaviour that damages the quality of life of American workers," Fox said.
Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse.
Wrap...
How the neocons control the media...
Asia Times
Front Page
Nov 19, 2005
Rise of the 'patriotic journalist'
By Robert Parry
Editor's note:
September 11, 2001 and subsequent events threw into sharp focus the shortcomings of the media in the United States. In fact, contrary to popular belief, the media had been been in a steep decline for decades prior to the terrorist attacks, as veteran US journalist Robert Parry documents in the article below. The apex for the "skeptical journalists" came in the mid-1970s when the press followed up exposure of Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal and disclosure of the Vietnam War's Pentagon Papers with revelations of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) abuses, such as illegal spying on Americans and helping Chile's army oust an elected government. There were reasons for this new press aggressiveness. After some 57,000 US soldiers had died in Vietnam during a long war fought for murky reasons, many reporters no longer gave the government the benefit of the doubt. The press corps' new rallying cry was the public's right to know, even when the wrongdoing occurred in the secretive world of national security. But this journalistic skepticism represented an affront to government officials who had long enjoyed a relatively free hand in the conduct of foreign policy.
The Wise Men and the Old Boys - the stewards of the post-World War II era - now faced a harder time lining up public consensus behind any action. This national security elite, including then-CIA director George H W Bush, viewed the post-Vietnam journalism as a threat to America's ability to strike at its perceived enemies around the world. Yet, it was from these ruins of distrust - the rubble of suspicion left behind by Watergate and Vietnam - that the conservative-leaning national security elite began its climb back, eventually coming full circle, gaining effective control of what a more "patriotic" press would tell the people, before stumbling into another disastrous war in Iraq.
(cont reading at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GK19Aa01.html
Wrap...
Front Page
Nov 19, 2005
Rise of the 'patriotic journalist'
By Robert Parry
Editor's note:
September 11, 2001 and subsequent events threw into sharp focus the shortcomings of the media in the United States. In fact, contrary to popular belief, the media had been been in a steep decline for decades prior to the terrorist attacks, as veteran US journalist Robert Parry documents in the article below. The apex for the "skeptical journalists" came in the mid-1970s when the press followed up exposure of Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal and disclosure of the Vietnam War's Pentagon Papers with revelations of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) abuses, such as illegal spying on Americans and helping Chile's army oust an elected government. There were reasons for this new press aggressiveness. After some 57,000 US soldiers had died in Vietnam during a long war fought for murky reasons, many reporters no longer gave the government the benefit of the doubt. The press corps' new rallying cry was the public's right to know, even when the wrongdoing occurred in the secretive world of national security. But this journalistic skepticism represented an affront to government officials who had long enjoyed a relatively free hand in the conduct of foreign policy.
The Wise Men and the Old Boys - the stewards of the post-World War II era - now faced a harder time lining up public consensus behind any action. This national security elite, including then-CIA director George H W Bush, viewed the post-Vietnam journalism as a threat to America's ability to strike at its perceived enemies around the world. Yet, it was from these ruins of distrust - the rubble of suspicion left behind by Watergate and Vietnam - that the conservative-leaning national security elite began its climb back, eventually coming full circle, gaining effective control of what a more "patriotic" press would tell the people, before stumbling into another disastrous war in Iraq.
(cont reading at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GK19Aa01.html
Wrap...
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