Friday, October 22, 2010

Media bites dog

Herbert suggested the current failure to protect our troops and end the war could be directly linked to the detachment most Americans feel toward the conflict.
Unlike wars of America’s past, no taxes have been raised to fund the wars in the Middle East, no rationing has taken place, and no one is required to fight in the conflict, Herbert said, adding most Americans tend to ignore the conflict exists.
Herbert said he approved of a draft during wartime, but said the ease with which the United States now enters conflicts eliminated the possibility of a draft. War, he said, should only be undertaken if no other options exist, and the American people deserve to know all other possible options had been eliminated.
"If we're going to send our young people into that kind of hell, there better be a damn good reason for it," Herbert said.

Oh look, media bites dog again. It's trashy Bob Herbert, as reported by Matt Huppert (Badger Herald), and he's something like three months sober, swearing he's off the Kool-Aid (at least while not in NYC) and wanting to talk about the wars. And that is a much safer topic than whatever the hell's happened to his forehead of late. It isn't, however, anything that passes for journalism or for accuracy.

The public has forgotten Iraq or is not effected by Iraq? The American people consume news. They do it in a variety of forms. They cannot know about that which is not covered. The media has walked away from Iraq. That includes the New York Times which no longer prints half their important Iraq stories -- instead they just toss them up on the website's blog. Some really important reporting, some really strong reporting. And it's largely unread (including by the editorial board -- or did everyone miss that this week?).

Bob says Americans have forgotten the war and that the answer is a draft. Really, Bob, because I'd argue the answer is coverage.

And then I'd ask, do we need to draft your sorry ass to get you to cover it?

Seems to me if you're going to a campus and hector people about their allegedly forgetting the Iraq War, you damn well better have been covering it recently. I'm looking at Bob's last ten columns. That takes up back to September 18th. Where's Iraq? He hasn't even written of Afghanistan.

But he wants to grand stand in front of college students and pontificate as though he's doing anything?

When did Bob Herbert last write about either war? August 31st (fifteen columns ago). The same day Barack gave his laughable speech (that did not end the Iraq War). That's not exactly shining a light on the wars, Bob.

His failure -- and that of his colleagues -- are why Americans have a difficult time following the wars. He should have been booed and I think I'm going to stress when we're speaking on campus for the rest of the month. I'm going to stress that when these journalists come to your campus and start finger pointing at the American people for not knowing what the journalists refuse to cover, you boo them. Even heckle them. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of a paid profession shirking their responsibilities and then blaming the results of their refusal to do their job on the American people.

Thank you to Bob Herbert for his arrogance. All week long I've been speaking on campuses about this media bites dog trend (the press blaming the people for not knowing about subjects the press refuses to cover) but we were lacking one element that really drove the point home. Bob Herbert having the nerve to say this to students' faces? That's the element we needed. Thank you, Bob, you'll the be the face of smug indifference and its lack of accountability.

The Peninsula reports that the US State Dept plans to hire another 7,000 security contractors/merenaries for Iraq. Mike Blount (Army Times) reports on members of the "Montana, Idaho and Oregon" National Guard members training at Camp Shelby as they prepare to to deploy to Iraq.

Meanwhile Gulf Daily News reports that Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa met with Iraq's Sunni vice president and member of the Iraqiya slate Tareq al-Hashemi. The meeting took place yesterday, as Nouri concluded his regional tour. Ernesto Londono (Washington Post) reports:

Little news emerged from Maliki's closed meetings in neighboring countries, making it hard to gauge whether his trip bolstered his standing among Sunni Arab leaders, who have long viewed him warily.
"How strengthened Maliki emerges from his tour will depend on whether he received the overt or tacit endorsement of his candidacy," said Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq expert with the International Crisis Group.


March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. The Guardian's editorial board noted in August, "These elections were hailed prematurely by Mr Obama as a success, but everything that has happened since has surely doused that optimism in a cold shower of reality." 163 seats are needed to form the executive government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance -- this coalition still does not give them 163 seats. They are claiming they have the right to form the government. In 2005, Iraq took four months and seven days to pick a prime minister. It's seven months and fifteen days and counting.

The Toledo Blade editorial board weighs in: "Perhaps most troubling is the fact that, seven months after national elections were held, a government is still not in place. Former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's party finished first and incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's finished second, neither with a majority of seats in parliament. Mr. al-Maliki has declined to leave office and is still seeking support among other parties and abroad, including in Iran, to remain in power in spite of his electoral defeat. He added the party of anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr to his tentative coalition, but that still didn't give him enough seats in the 325-member parliament to form a government."

TV notes. On PBS' Washington Week, Charles Babington (AP), Doyle McManus (Los Angeles Times), Karen tumulty (Washington Post) and Kate Zernike (New York Times) join Gwen around the table. Gwen now has a weekly column at Washington Week and the current one is "Never Let Them See You Sweat: Notes from the Florida Campaign Trail."
This week, Bonnie Erbe will sit down with Karen Czarnecki, Melinda Henneberger, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Tara Setmayer to discuss the week's news on the latest broadcast of PBS' To The Contrary. And this week's To The Contrary online extra is on sexual exploits. this week's To The Contrary online is extra is on cyber bullying. Need To Know is PBS' new program covering current events. This week's hour long broadcast airs Fridays on most PBS stations: "The business of third-party administrators who help employers process and challenge unemployment claims; the minerals that help fund the rebels in Congo. Also: journalist Michael Hudson ("The Monster") on the home-foreclosure fraud scandal." Turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers:





The 99ers
Even after an extension of unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, many of those about to go off the program are in a quandary. Scott Pelley talks to some of them in California's Silicon Valley. | Watch Video

Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall brings Lara Logan and "60 Minutes" cameras back to the forests of Tanzania, where she began her love affair with chimpanzees 50 years ago, to remind the public that chimps are endangered. | Watch Video

Top Gear
A quirky British television show about cars has become a hit almost everywhere but the U.S. Steve Kroft reports on "Top Gear," whose witty humor, outrageous speed, destructive vehicle stunts and car reviews attract an estimated weekly worldwide audience of 350 million according to the BBC. | Watch Video

60 Minutes, Sunday, Oct. 24, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Radio note. The Diane Rehm Show begins airing on most NPR stations (and streaming online) this morning at 10:00 a.m. EST. For the first hour (domestic), Diane is joined by panelists Naftali Bendavid (Wall St. Journal), John Dickerson (CBS News, Slate) and Susan Page (USA Today) while, for the second hour (international), Diane's joined by panelists Tom Gjelten (NPR), James Kitfield (National Journal) and Elise Labott (CNN).





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The continued quest for inclusion

You just watch in open mouthed astonishment yesterday evening. I'm referring to the network news. Let's start with CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

Katie Couric: An update on Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It is the law once again after a federal appeals court put a temporary hold on a judge's order that struck it down. So for now, gays are again barred from serving openly in the military. But today Defense Secretary Robert Gates put out new guidelines that will make it tougher to discharge gays who violate Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

That was the complete 'report.' A good thing, as Katie informed at the top of the show, that this broadcast featured less commercials to provide more news because otherwise there wouldn't have been time for the news. What the federal appeals court did was not to consider Judge Virginia Phillips' decision that Don't Ask, Don't Tell was unconstitutional, they tossed aside her injunction barring any discharges during the appeals process. That's a distinction that's not really being made. As for Robert Gates, I swear I'm getting tired of this nonsense. In the snapshot today, we'll go into what Gates was supposed to do and wonder, "Did he finally do it?" A question that the news outlets should be asking -- should have already been asking -- but apparently lay offs have not allowed them to pay attention.

While Katie and company gave more time to the 'breaking news' of teen drivers (one had problems backing her cup out of a parking space) than to Don't Ask, Don't Tell, they did give it a few seconds. That's more than you can say for her competitors. ABC World News with Diane Sawyer had time for such IT-CHANGED-MY-LIFE! "news" as a man teaching a dog 'to pray' but not for Don't Ask, Don't Tell. NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams didn't have time either and I'm sure they had mindless fluff as well but Williams tends to tailor all the stories so they move seamlessly.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell will not survive another 17 years. It will be gone before then. And this struggle for equality is an important story. When people look back they need to take note of how the networks covered the issue. This is a major story that impacts how we see ourselves, how we see our country -- "we" is all of us. This is not a "gay only story." This is an American story and another chapter in the continuing saga of the struggle for inclusion and full equality. But it's treated as a minor issue -- one that you can cover only when nothing else is going on -- by the network evening news.

As well as being part of the larger history of American inclusion struggles, it's also the story of individuals who are punished for who they love or who they're suspected of loving. In Denver, Hendrik Sybrandy (KWGN -- link has text and video) reports on Luiza Fritz, a sergeant discharged from the army for being gay -- and not only was she thrown out of the army due to her sexuality, the army's billing her $15,000 -- a portion of her signing bonus. Or take Sara Story's KLTV (text and video) report from Tyler, Texas on Troy Carlyle who was also kicked out of the service and became "the first person to be court-martialed under Don't Ask, Don't Tell." He states, "Everything I had worked for was reduced in that one moment to the fact that I was gay. Not to my performance, not to my talent, not to my leadership skills, but that I was gay."

These are not isolated stories. And in the very near future, these American stories will be party of American history, you just apparently can't discover these stories on the network news. But again, a man who trains his dog to assume the prayer position on his pasty bare leg is news.

PBS' The NewsHour did what the others couldn't or wouldn't, they treated the struggle for inclusion as the news story it is (link has text, video and audio options).

They started with Kwame Holman reporting on what had changed in the last 24 hours. They zoomed in on Lt Dan Choi as one face in the struggle. They offered exclusionist Tony Perkins
and his words on maintaining Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Then Margaret Warner spoke with Time magazine's Mark Thompson who had actually done the work required -- as had Margaret Warner. We'll note this section of the exchange:

MARGARET WARNER: So, on Dec. 1, which was the deadline, or at least when Secretary Gates told Congress he'd have something, will they have just the results of the poll and some sort of outlines, or are they going to have a full policy recommendation laid out about how exactly they'd implement it?

MARK THOMPSON: I think it will be a full menu of options, saying, this is the best way forward, this is how we should do it.

MARGARET WARNER: But, I mean, will they say, we can do it, or is there some pushback now from the service chiefs?

MARK THOMPSON: Well, no, their -- Well, the sense is, No. 1, their mission is not -- their mission is only how we should do it if the law changes, not should it be changed. So, they're going to look for the best path to undo don't ask, don't tell. There is some sense that the service chiefs, especially the Marines and the Army, the ground force guys, are slow-rolling this thing. They don't want it to move out fast. They want it to take a long time. I mean, it's interesting. The papers filed with the courts have said, we have to train everybody before we do this. Meanwhile, you talk to the generals in Afghanistan who are saying, my lord, we have more important things to worry about. This is the last thing on our minds. So, there is some sort of disconnect there.

MARGARET WARNER: So, is that why you're saying it might take -- they might be saying it will take us a year to roll it out? Because there are so many things that would have to be changed, everything from partner benefits to training, sensitivity training?

MARK THOMPSON: Yes, that's the military's mindset. I mean, when RAND studied this issue in 1993, the think tank, they said the way to do this is to do it immediately and do it with leadership. Don't stretch it out. Don't turn it into a taffy pull, which is what it has become. And that's allowed all sorts of polarization to occur. And we're sort of reaping the fruits of that right now.

So the 'end' of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (this is the point being made in yesterday's snapshot, by the way) may be about as real as the Barack's 'end' of the Iraq War August 31st.


The following community sites updated last night:


And we'll close with this from Sherwood Ross' "Some Young Lawyers Still Want to Help The Underdogs" (OpEdNews):

While the public may generally believe lawyers have chosen their profession "for the money," in fact many pick law as a career from a burning desire to help the underdog.
"Just like Superman and Batman they come to the rescue of people in great distress, to battle evil, well-armed opponents in the name of justice and to aid widows and orphans against Wall Street villains and greedy finance companies," says Michael Coyne, associate dean of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover(MSLAW).
In interviews he conducted with law students on the Comcast show "Educational Forum," to air at 11 a.m. October 24th, 2010, Coyne says, "I want you to meet today's lawyers, the next generation of leaders, and learn why people turn to the law, how the face of law school has changed and how law schools must change to remain relevant."


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thomas friedman is a great man






oh boy it never ends



















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Thursday, October 21, 2010

I Hate The War

On September 24th, US Spc John Carrillo Jr. and Pfc Gebrah P. Noonan were shot dead while serving in Iraq. A third US soldier was injured in the shooting and he or she has not been identified at present. US Spc Neftaly Platero's name has been floated in the press as the shooter. Yesterday, USF issued the following:

BAGHDAD – A U.S. service member, Spc. Neftaly Platero, is in pre-trial confinement, in connection with the shooting and killing of two service members and injury of another here Thursday.
The incident remains under investigation.
"Our condolences go out to the families of those service members whose lives were lost. We are saddened by this tragic incident," said Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan.


"Not someone that you'd think would do this," Guy Womack tells Jessica Willey (ABC 13 out of Houston, Texas) of his client, Platero. Willey notes that Womack spent a couple of hours with the soldier "and none of it was asking his client whether he did it."

Womack maintains that there is no hard evidence against his client. He states that John Carrillo Jr. was shot dead on or near his bed with Gebrah P. Noonan shot dead on or near his bed. Between their two beds was a third bed. The third bed contained the soldier who was reported wounded and who has not been identified thus far. Womack states that the three were found in the room and that his client was found outside the room (after the shooting).

Womack also states, "Well I don't need to know what he thinks happened, I need to know what the government thinks happened and what the evidence suggests. And, right now, most of the scenarios you can come up with from looking at the evidence would exclude him as being a shooter."

Womack, a former Lt Col in the Marines, found infamy in some circles when, acting as Abu Ghraib criminal Charles Graner's defense, he stated, "Don't cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year. Is that torture?" Graner received a ten year sentence after being found guilty. Guy Womack & Associates is the firm Womack runs with his son Geoff Womack.

In other news of deaths, Dr. David Kelly died in 2003 after being publicly revealed as the source for a BBC News report that Tony Blair and his minions "sexed up" the intelligence to push for war with Iraq. The inquest into his death including medical files that were supposed to remain kept from the public for 70 years. That detail only came to light this year when a group of doctors publicly questioned the inquest's finding of suicide. In a few hours, the records that were to have been kept secret are scheduled to be released. BBC News reports on it here and the Guardian reports on it here. The Independent of London continues its recent pattern of self-disgrace with a six-sentence 'report' by Tom Peck which includes this sentence: "Dr Kelly committed suicide in July 2003 after it was disclosed that he had been speaking to journalists about his work as a weapons inspector in Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

Tom Peck apparently doesn't know journalism anymore than he knows what happened to Kelly. A reporter for a news outlet -- not a columnist, a reporter -- deals in facts. He can say the inquest ruled it to be suicide. He can not say -- when the ruling itself is being questioned -- that it was suicide and be reporting.

But apparently the editors wave everything through these days at the Independent of London -- a paper that's making the Daily Mail look like a bastion of journalistic integrity.

It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)

Last week, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4428. Tonight it's [PDF format warning] 4429.



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