Transfer of Files on Psychological Operations

[Ed Jewett]

DoD “Clarifies” Doctrine on Psychological Operations

January 19th, 2010
by Steven Aftergood

The Department of Defense has issued a new publication (pdf) to update and clarify its doctrine on “psychological operations.”

Psychological operations, or PSYOP, are intended to “convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator’s objectives.”
PSYOP is among the oldest of military disciplines, but the new DoD doctrine continues to wrestle with basic definitional issues.

It endorses a new, negative definition of the term “propaganda,” which had formerly been used in a neutral sense to refer to “Any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.”

From now on, propaganda will refer only to what the enemy does: “Any form of adversary communication, especially of a biased or misleading nature, designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.”

The new doctrine also dictates that the term “perception management” shall be eliminated from the DoD lexicon (pdf).

DoD acknowledges that PSYOP is limited by legal constraints, including statutes, international agreements, and national policies. Among other things, the DoD doctrine states, there is a “requirement that US PSYOP forces will not target US citizens at any time, in any location globally, or under any circumstances.” Yet in a near contradiction, the doctrine also states that “When authorized, PSYOP forces may be used domestically to assist lead federal agencies during disaster relief and crisis management by informing the domestic population.” Perhaps the PSYOP forces are supposed to inform the domestic population without “targeting” them.
Fundamentally, psychological operations are tethered to the reality of U.S.
government actions, for good or for ill. As the new doctrine notes, “Every activity of the force has potential psychological implications that may be leveraged to influence foreign targets.” But PSYOP cannot substitute for an incoherent policy or rescue a poorly executed plan.

See “Psychological Operations,” Joint Publication 3-13.2, Joint Chiefs of Staff, January 7, 2010: http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/jp3-13-2.pdf

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/01/psyop.html

[Ed Jewett]

New documents show longtime friendship between J. Edgar Hoover and Paul Harvey
By Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 23, 2010; C01


For the better part of six decades, Paul Harvey spun tales on the radio in his staccato baritone, entertaining up to 24 million listeners a day with folksy vignettes ending in unexpected twists.
And now, the rest of the story.
Previously confidential files show that Harvey, who died last February at 90, enjoyed a 20-year friendship with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, often submitting advance copies of his radio script for comment and approval. Harvey wrote Hoover and his deputies regularly. Hoover, in turn, helped Harvey with research, suggested changes in scripts and showered the broadcaster with effusive praise.
But the real twist, suitable for one of Harvey's signature "Rest of the Story" vignettes, is how they met -- on opposite sides of an espionage investigation.
The news is contained in nearly 1,400 pages of FBI files, released to The Washington Post in response to a one-year-old Freedom of Information Act request. The trove supplies new details about how America's No. 1 broadcaster came to befriend America's No. 1 G-man.
The records underscore that the men shared deeply conservative convictions and a hatred of communism. And Harvey's vast audience was of intense interest to the image-obsessed Hoover.
Harvey tried to be of service beyond the FBI as well, writing in 1956 to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who had made a name for himself by hunting down alleged Communists in the federal bureaucracy, with tips about "known Reds" at a Texas Air Force base. A senior FBI official added a handwritten notation to ensure that Harvey's letter would not be distributed outside the bureau's top brass: "No dissemination since identity of Harvey cannot be revealed."
An unlikely start
The Cold War beginning of the Harvey-Hoover bond was an incident from 1951, when Harvey was 32. The son of a police officer from Tulsa, Harvey had already made a name for himself as a radio and TV commentator in Chicago, specializing in human-interest stories and strong opinions delivered in shirt-sleeve English. He routinely hammered officials for being lax on security, in particular those in charge of the Argonne National Laboratory, which conducted nuclear testing 20 miles west of Chicago.
After wrapping up his television broadcast on the evening of Feb. 5, 1951, Harvey set out to prove his case -- and make some career-enhancing headlines for himself.
Harvey guided his black Cadillac Fleetwood toward Argonne, arriving sometime past midnight. He parked in a secluded spot, tossed his overcoat onto the barbed wire topping a fence, then scampered over.
Breaking the law in an act of participatory journalism, Harvey planned to scratch his signature on "objects that could not possibly have been brought to the site by someone else," according to a statement later given by an off-duty guard who accompanied him. The signature would stand as proof that Harvey had easily defeated the lab's security.
But seconds after Harvey hit the ground, security officers spotted him, documents show. Harvey ran until, caught in a Jeep's headlights, he tripped and fell. As guards approached, Harvey sprang to his feet and waved.
Guards asked whether Harvey realized he was in a restricted area. "Harvey replied no, that he thought he might be at the airport because of the red lights," one report says. Harvey told the authorities he had been headed to a neighboring town to give a speech when his car died.
On the drive to the lab's security office, an FBI memo says, "every once in a while, Harvey would remark that his car was stalled out there and he would like to have a push."
Under questioning, Harvey eventually dropped his cover story but refused to elaborate, saying he wanted to tell his tale before a congressional committee.
Guards searched his Cadillac and found a nickel-plated .380-caliber Colt automatic. It belonged to a naval intelligence officer whom Harvey had brought along as a witness.
The search also revealed a four-page, typewritten script for an upcoming broadcast. Harvey, it turned out, had planned from the outset to feed the nation a bogus account of his escapade: "I hereby affirm the following is a true and accurate account," the script began. "My friend and I were driving a once-familiar road, when the car stalled. . . . We started to walk. . . . We made no effort to conceal our presence. . . .
"Suddenly I realized where I was. That I had entered, unchallenged, one of the United States' vital atomic research installations. . . . Quite by accident, understand, I had found myself inside the 'hot' area. . . . We could have carried a bomb in, or classified documents out."
Word of the stunt soon made headlines. The U.S. attorney for Illinois empaneled a grand jury to consider an espionage indictment. The Atomic Energy Commission suggested privately that Harvey might avoid prosecution if he praised the commission's professionalism on the air, reports show. A member of Congress worked to kill the investigation, and Harvey went on the air to suggest he was being set up.
An FBI official noted in one memo that "this looks like a publicity stunt and I don't think we should carry the ball if we can avoid it." Agents conducted interviews, kept tabs on developments and sent updates to Hoover and his deputies in Washington. But the bureau avoided taking sides, apparently waiting to see whom public opinion would favor.
Two months after the incident, a federal grand jury officially declined to indict Harvey.
Nothing in Harvey's file suggests Hoover did anything to help. But Harvey appears to have been grateful for something.
Efforts on Friday to reach Harvey's son, Paul Harvey Jr., for comment were unsuccessful.
A friendship forms
In April 1952, Rep. Fred Busbey, an Illinois Republican and longtime friend of Harvey, asked the FBI if he could bring the broadcaster by to thank Hoover. "You will recall that Harvey has a history of emotional instability," said an FBI memo analyzing the request, adding that Harvey appeared to be rehabilitated and was now "very effectively anti-Communist."
Records of the Saturday morning meeting show that Harvey acknowledged he had acted foolishly. Harvey told those present that he had always considered Hoover a great American but that, seen in person, the director far exceeded his expectations.
So began a friendship that continued until Hoover's death in 1972. In the years that followed, Hoover autographed a photo for Harvey, who in turn devoted entire shows to Hoover's heroism and mailed Hoover copies of his commercial recordings on LPs.
Neither man was restrained in his praise of the other. "You were never in better form," Hoover gushed to Harvey about one of his broadcasts in May 1958, and again, in precisely the same words, in February 1959.
Harvey wrote to Hoover in January 1957, saying, "From some future pinnacle, if the Republic has survived, history will record that it was largely due to your vigilance."
In 1963, Harvey dropped by FBI headquarters for a publicity shot with Hoover. Harvey praised the director as "a champion of right-thinking people everywhere," and added that he appeared to be in excellent shape, as well.
A 1957 letter to Harvey from FBI Assistant Director Louis Nichols notes, "For a number of years, you have been kind enough to send me your daily copy."
"All of us in the FBI," Hoover wrote in one note, "count it as a great honor to have you as one of our closest friends."
When Clarence Kelley took over as director in 1973, Harvey's love affair with the bureau continued without pause. Harvey mailed Kelley a swatch of cloth in 1974 and asked him to sign it so it could be sewn into a quilt for his wife, Angel, that would bear the signatures of all the people she most admired.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...02_pf.html

[Ed Jewett]

Why Brian Ross of ABC News Needs to be Fired

Posted on January 25, 2010 by willyloman
Can the president kill U.S. citizens at will? Can the CIA? Do these questions deserve “mulling over” Mr. Ross?

by Scott Creighton
Brian Ross is at it again. Someone call Glenn Greenwald.
In an article posted on ABC News this morning, Brian Ross seems to be up to his old tricks, helping the dangerous imperialist agenda of yet another White House administration. This time, his facts are even hollower than the last while the implications are far more dangerous to our civil liberties and even our lives.
Right on the front page of ABC News is a headline which reads… U.S. Mulls Legality of Killing American al Qaeda “Turncoat”. The basic question seems to be whether or not President Obama can kill U.S. citizens at will. Even more distressing, they seem to be asking whether or not NSA types can assassinate U.S. citizens even without so much as a presidential order to do so. Can you say “plausible deniability”?
Effectively what we are talking about are “death squads”; official organizations carrying out extrajudicial killings of U.S. citizens who have been officially accused of committing no crimes what-so-ever.
As outrageous as this is, Brian Ross gives the matter an air of acceptability in his article, he doesn’t even seem to be questioning the legality of it all.
Not only that but the winner of the 2003 George Polk award for “journalistic integrity and investigative reporting”, by omitting certain very important facts from his story and openly contradicting already recognized facts that he himself reported on not 2 months ago, he appears to be aiding the administration in building an argument for the sanctioned killing of U.S. citizens.

According to the people who were briefed on the issue, American officials fear the possibility of criminal prosecution without approval in advance from the White House for a targeted strike against Awlaki. ABC News

The “possiblity” of criminal prosecutions for killing U.S. citizens “without approval in advance from the White House”? Why would Ross even consider the possibility that there wouldn’t be prosecutions and what difference does it make if Obama sanctioned it or not? A seated U.S. president does not have the authority to kill U.S. citizens just because he wants to. Period. End of story. But there is certainly no way that an agency (say like the CIA) has the authority do it acting on their own. What kind of bizzaro world is Brian Ross helping to set up here?
Let’s remember that Brian Ross has been a Vichy reporter embedded in the MSM for quite a while now. His collaboration with war-criminal regimes goes way back. Glenn Greenwald has done some of the most important real investigative journalism to help expose this propaganda expert for what he really is; a traitor. There’s just no other way to put it.
IN 2007, Brian Ross was a key supporter of the criminal Bush administration’s torture program by constantly lying over and over again about the details of the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah. He said it lasted 30 seconds. Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times. As Glenn Greenwald points out, Brian Ross had done same glossing over of the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from 2005 to 2008 claiming that he had given everything up after only two and a half minutes of torture when in fact Mohammed had been waterboarded waterboarded 183 times in one month alone. Not only that, but Ross then helped the criminal torture programs image by helping to spread the disinformation that these torture sessions prevented future attacks. He only made that claim on Fox News where he knew the audience would be a little more receptive, and he also prefaced the “factoid” by claiming “yes. That’s what we were told by sources.” No clarification as to who those “sources” were.
The importance and the effects of Brian Ross’s investigative reporting on the subject of torture was explained by Glenn Greenwald this way;

This claim that Mohammed lasted less than 3 minutes before confessing everything was repeatedly cited on CNN, MSNBC and by other news outlets and countless pundits as proof that (a) waterboarding works to save American lives; (b) it works almost immediately; and therefore © it is hard to call it “torture” since it only lasts for seconds. Indeed, Ross’ report was cited to bolster one of the central arguments made by those who insisted that waterboarding could not be “torture” because individuals are subjected to it for such a short duration. Yet all along, Ross’ report about Mohammed — like his report about Zubaydah – was based on nothing more than his mindless recitation of what unnamed Bush administration sources whispered to him about Mohammed’s interrogation treatment, and it was false from start to finish. Glenn Greenwald

But then, Brian Ross the journalist-collaborator had been spreading lies on behalf of the Bush administration for quite awhile prior to the torture scandal as well as refusing to name his White House sources when those outright lies were exposed. It’s one thing to deliberately report misinformation as news, but when that misinformation is exposed and the reason for it seems clear to be as a justification for an illegal war, a reporter’s right to protect his sources fades to the need to protect the American citizens from future harm. Yet ABC News and Brian Ross still refuse to this day to disclose who fed him lies to help justify an illegal war of aggression.

Using that method, Brian Ross, of course, was responsible for the widespread and completely false reports in October and November, 2001 that government tests on anthrax resulted in a finding of bentoninte, which — Ross breathlessy said over and over — was a key sign that the anthrax attacks came from Saddam Hussein. Glenn Greenwald

There are two vital questions that ABC News should answer:
(1) How can ABC News just let these Saddam-anthrax reports — as false as they were consequential — remain uncorrected and unexplained, even through today?
(2) More importantly, Ross claimed at the time, and there is no reason to doubt it, that these false reports — clearly designed to blame Iraq for the anthrax attacks in the eyes of Americans — were fed to him by “at least four well-placed sources.” Who were the well-placed, multiple sources feeding ABC News completely fictitious claims linking Saddam Hussein to the anthrax attacks, including false claims about the results of government tests? What possible justification is there for concealing the identity of those who manipulated ABC to disseminate these fictitious claims? Glenn Greenwald

Greenwald goes on to detail just how influential Brian Ross’s often repeated lies about Saddam’s connection to the anthrax attacks were. Not only did Ross run around parroting his “intel” on Fox News, but he was clearly very instrumental in getting progressive types to get behind the war as well. You see, if you are going to run a COINTELPRO program you can’t just target the right-wing pro-war crowd. That’s easy. The real challenge is that you have to garner support among the anti-interventionalists as well. That’s where “liberal” war-monger collaborators come into play. This is a key role to fill as evidenced by Brian Ross’s continued support of every single war possibility that comes across his desk. Including Iran. And of course Brian Ross went back to his same old bag of tricks to gin up support for that pending war as well.

I had what I consider to be an illuminating discussion this morning with Jeffrey Schneider, Senior Vice President of ABC News, concerning the story published (and broadcast) by ABC’s Brian Ross and Christopher Isham on Monday. That story claimed that “Iran has more than tripled its ability to produce enriched uranium in the last three months” and therefore “Iran could have enough material for a nuclear bomb by 2009.”
… My principal criticism of the ABC story was that it was exclusively predicated on what ABC vaguely described only as “sources familiar with the dramatic upgrade.” It did not include a single other piece of information about the identity of the “sources” who were making such dramatic, consequential, and potentially war-inflaming claims…
… Schneider began by explaining that decisions about the use of anonymous sources in a story such as this one are “approved at very high levels” at ABC News. The sources for this specific story are, he claimed, ones with whom ABC has a “long relationship” and are ones they “find credible.” He said that both ABC News itself and these specific reporters have proven “over a very long period of time” that they are reliable and credible journalists… Glenn Greenwald

Three remarkable instances (1. the justification of illegal torture, 2. the promotion of an illegal war of aggression against Iraq, and 3. the attempt to create an atmosphere conducive to the invasion of Iran) where ABC News acclaimed “journalist” Brian Ross deliberately spread false information and outright lies to the American public based on nothing more than his claim of “anonymous sources told me so”.
This is the resume of one Brian Ross; award winning “journalist” for ABC News as expertly exposed by a real journalist, Glenn Greenwald.
Now lets get back to todays article.
In todays article which is apparently attempting to legitimize the president’s authority to kill U.S. citizens at will, Brian Ross quotes the following sources: “a former U.S. official familiar with the case“, “One of the people briefed“, “ two people briefed by U.S. intelligence officials“, “law enforcement officials“.
Not one single source named in Brian Ross’s piece of “investigative journalism”. Not one. But I guess that is ok as that Jeffrey Scheider has already said that the use of such secretive sources is just fine and dandy with the ABC News leadership and it has been for quite sometime.
Perhaps even more damning is the fact that Mr. Ross seems to have forgotten how to do any investigations at all; well that is, aside from parroting what his secret sources tell him to parrot.
Forgotten in Mr. Ross’s article are a couple very important facts about the case of Anwar Awlaki. It would seem that Mr. Ross’s secret sources simply forgot them or perhaps they don’t fit in with the overall jest of the article that suggests there is some kind of debate as to whether or not a president can kill U.S. citizens at will. More amazing still is the fact that many of these facts that Mr. Ross seems to have forgotten, were actually reported on by Mr. Ross himself.
Those facts that Mr. Ross left out:
1. The President has already attempted to kill Anwar Awlaki.

A week after U.S. and Yemeni officials said the radical Yemen cleric Anwar Awlaki may have been killed in a U.S.-backed Christmas eve air strike, a Yemeni journalist says Awlaki has surfaced to proclaim, “I’m alive.” Brian Ross

The Yemeni government has confirmed that today’s US-backed air strike was aimed at assassinating US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, and officials speculated that he might have been slain in the attack. Raw Story

2. The attempted assassination killed 23 children and 17 women by mistake.

Along with the two U.S. cruise missile attacks, Yemen security forces carried out raids in three separate locations. As many as 120 people were killed in the three raids, according to reports from Yemen, and opposition leaders said many of the dead were innocent civilians. ABC News/Brian Ross

3. They didn’t miss Anwar Awlaki because of “legal questions” they missed him because he wasn’t there.

“He said the house that was attacked was two or three kilometers away from him and he was not there,” the journalist, Abdulelah Hider Shaea, told ABC News. Brian Ross

4. Anwar Awlaki is not “part of the leadership of the al Qaeda group in Yemen behind a series of terror strikes“.

Awlaki denies he is part of al Qaeda and told the Yemeni journalist… Brian Ross

Abdulelah Hider Shaea, a Yemeni journalist who studies Al Qaeda and knows Mr. Awlaki, denied in an interview that the imam was a member of Al Qaeda, saying instead that he served as an articulate window to jihadism for English speakers. New York Times

5. Emails between Maj. Hasan and Mr. Awlaki were reported to be harmless and in the scope of Maj. Hasan’s work at Ft. Hood

The intercepts “raised no red flags,” with no mention of threats or violence that would have triggered a U.S. terrorism investigation, senior investigative officials said Monday.
According to the FBI, investigators from one of its Joint Terrorism Task Forces determined “that the content of those communications was consistent with research being conducted by Maj. Hasan in his position as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Medical Center [in Washington].” CNN

Clearly these links are not to fringe news sites. They are to the New York Times, CNN, and mainly to Brian Ross and ABC News. There is no excuse for Brian Ross to have left mention of these facts out of an article dealing with such a controversial and potentially dangerous topic as this. Ross himself reported on many of this facts that he deliberately left out or contradicted in this new article.
All that said, the worst part is yet to come. The final sentance in Brian Ross’s yellow journalism piece reads as follows. I don’t need to expand on it any more than simply to quote it. Form your own opinions as to what is implied.

Hundreds of FBI and other federal agents will fan out this week as part of a secret operation to pursue leads about Americans with connections to Yemen that were previously dismissed as not significant, according to law enforcement officials. Brian Ross

[Ed Jewett]

John Kiriakou Unwittingly Exposes Brian Ross as an ABC News “Mockingbird”

Posted on January 27, 2010 by willyloman
by Scott Creighton
The other day I posted an article about why I think Brian Ross should be fired from ABC News.
Time and time again Brian Ross has not only ended up on the wrong side of every single important issue since 9/11, but he also has a disturbing tendency to rely almost exclusively on unnamed sources to support his arguments (arguments that are almost always on the side of the CIA backed imperialist agenda). 1. The Iraq connection with the anthrax attacks (wrong, Mr. Ross), 2. illegal use of torture as a justifiable and “useful” practice (wrong again, Mr. Ross), 3. Iran having enough material to make a nuclear weapon by 2009 (so, so wrong, Mr. Ross), and finally what I pointed out as his latest forray into his imperialist collaborations… 4. the president and possibly the CIA has the right to kill U.S. citizens at will (apparently this is a “law” that George W. Bush just made up after 9/11… but Mr. Ross fails to point out the root of this assumed presidential authority in his recent article).
You might start to think that Brian Ross is nothing more than the CIA’s man at ABC with all these pro-imperialist agenda positions Mr. Ross has been taking over the years. You think that might be possible? Is Brian Ross nothing more than a well-dressed over-paid Mockingbird? Inquiring minds want to know.

The following is an excert from the 1975 “Church Committee” or the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. It should be pointed out that Paul Harvey at the time of the committee’s investigations came out strongly against the committee and even claimed what they were doing was “treasonous activity”. It has since been revealed that Paul Harvey was very close to J. E. Hoover and even submitted his show scripts to Hoover in advance so that he could “review’ them. Paul Harvey, as it turns out, was just worried that he would be exposed as a CIA Mockingbird asset.

“The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets.”
Previously confidential files show that Harvey, who died last February at 90, enjoyed a 20-year friendship with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, often submitting advance copies of his radio script for comment and approval. Washington Post

Well, guess what? Back in 2007, when there was a huge call to investigate illegal torture conducted by the CIA, out came Brian Ross to repeatedly lie about the torture of certain high level detainees, grossly underestimating the duration of the abuses they endured (one of them, KSM, had been waterboarded more than 180 times in a month, to which Mr. Ross went around and reported he had only been tortured for 2 and a half minutes). His sources for this misinformation went unnamed.
But it turns out that not all of Brian Ross’s sources hid behind a veil of secrecy. One, John Kiriakou, was actually interviewed on the air by… Brian Ross in a prime-time ABC News special. And guess what? Kiriakou was lying. Totally, completely, lying. It was all bullshit. Who says so? Kiriakou does.

“What I told Brian Ross in late 2007 was wrong on a couple counts,” he writes. “I suggested that Abu Zubaydah had lasted only thirty or thirty-five seconds during his waterboarding before he begged his interrogators to stop; after that, I said he opened up and gave the agency actionable intelligence.” Foreign Policy

“I wasn’t there when the interrogation took place; instead, I relied on what I’d heard and read inside the agency at the time,” Kiriakou reportedly said.
“But after his one-paragraph confession, Kiriakou adds that he didn’t have any first hand knowledge of anything relating to CIA torture routines, and still doesn’t,”Stein continued. “And he claims that the disinformation he helped spread was a CIA dirty trick: “In retrospect, it was a valuable lesson in how the CIA uses the fine arts of deception even among its own.”
The CIA has since destroyed all videotapes of Abu Zubaydah’s interrogations. He was allegedly subjected to waterboarding at least 83 times. Raw Story

A couple months ago, an investigative journalist found out that Kiriakou wasn’t even in the same country when Zubaydah was detained and tortured and you would think that ABC News and Brian Ross would immediately retract the bullshit story for the good of the integrity of their prized “investigative journalist”.
But you you would be wrong.
Instead, they simply added a footnote to the Brian Ross article and removed the video of the phony interview. They did all this very quietly so as to allow most people who hadn’t seen the real story to continue with the fiction that Brian Ross helped establish.

Kiriakou’s insistence, however vague, that Zubaydah ”revealed information related to a planned terrorist attack” has to be taken with a soupçon of salt.
As Brian Stelter, a New York Times media reporter, wrote last April, Kiriakou ”was not actually in the secret prison in Thailand where Mr. Zubaydah had been interrogated but in the C.I.A. headquarters in Northern Virginia. He learned about it only by reading accounts from the field.”
ABC’s Ross had glossed over the glaring fact in its broadcast, saying only that Kiriakou himself “never carried out any of the waterboarding” — which got lost in the telling, in light of the main story line picked up by the rest of the media.
ABC has now removed the video of its Kiriakou interview from its site. But the headline, large photo of the CIA man, and story remain, with its opening paragraph, “A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.” You have to dig deep to find that none of it is true. Foreign Policy

There is no excuse for what Kiriakou has done. The damage to America’s national identity irreperable. No one will believe that CIA shill anymore (though he did go to work for John Kerry afterward). And though his revelation is important for the historical accuracy of that period, perhaps the most important aspect of this story is Brian Ross.
The fact that Ross always seems to end up with “secret sources” or those that lie outright while he is defending CIA positions in the left-wing branch of the media is something that cannot be ignored.

“And he claims that the disinformation he helped spread was a CIA dirty trick: “In retrospect, it was a valuable lesson in how the CIA uses the fine arts of deception even among its own.”

It’s called Project Mockingbird and it was exposed many years ago. Mockingbird was the name of the program the CIA operated using respected journalists in the main stream media to spread their lies and misinformation to the public in order to garner support for whatever imperialist agenda they happen to be working on at the time.

Starting in the early days of the Cold War (late 40′s), the CIA began a secret project called Operation Mockingbird, with the intent of buying influence behind the scenes at major media outlets and putting reporters on the CIA payroll, which has proven to be a stunning ongoing success. The CIA effort to recruit American news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda… M. Louise

They first developed the tactic in other nations as they would pay reporters and other media figures to spread lies and disinformation in order to help create an atmosphere of regime change among the population; regime change that would always favor U.S. corporations and banks. Many dictators and fascist regimes have been put in place this way all across the world and many innocent civilians have paid the ultimate price. Our man in Iran, the Shah, was instilled in this fashion in 1953 and there are many other examples.
I don’t think we need much more evidence that Brian Ross of ABC News is a modern day version of a Mockingbird asset on the CIA payroll so I stand by my original conclusion; Brian Ross should be fired by ABC News and then forced to turn over every single source he has ever used to promote CIA backed falsehoods to the people of America.

“The people who succeeded and did well were those who didn’t stand up, who didn’t write the big stories, who looked the other way when history was happening in front of them, and went along either consciously or just by cowardice with the deception of the American people.” Robert Parry

If it is found through his emails or other private communications that Brian Ross was aware of this misinformation he was selling to the people of America and subsequently took pay-offs for services rendered, then he should be arrested and put on trial. For treason.
You see, Mockingbird is a tactic used by the CIA to covertly undermine targeted democracies. If in fact, Project Mockingbird is still being used in the U.S. and I don’t think there is any question of this, that means they are doing it in order to undermine our democracy. That’s treason.
We should make an example of Brian Ross. If you want to get your country back, you first need to take some control of the media. The best way to do that is to show these talking heads that there is a downside to promoting misinformation to the public. If the investigation goes well and it bears fruit, perhaps we should take it one step further and bring charges against ABC News. If corporations have the same rights as people now, they should also face the same penalties for committing crimes. Imagine using the recent Supreme Court ruling against them; turning the table on them. Expose ABC News as a CIA Project Mockingbird asset and then charge the corporation with treason. Just a thought.

[Ed Jewett]

Paid Lying – What Passes For Major Media Journalism
November 9th, 2009

By Stephen Lendman


Today’s major media journalism is biased, irresponsible, sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It’s misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation, readership, viewers, or listeners, and on vital issues lie about or suppress uncomfortable truths to provide unqualified support for state and/or corporate interests – to the detriment of the greater good that’s always sacrificed for profits and imperial aims.

As a result, major media sources produce a daily propaganda diet and what Project Censored calls “junk food news,” and get most people to believe it. In their landmark book, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky explained the “propaganda model” that controls the public message by “filter(ing)” disturbing truths, “leaving (behind) only the cleansed residue fit to print” or air.

Today the media is in crisis and a free and open society at risk at a time fiction substitutes for fact, news is carefully controlled, dissent marginalized, and on-air and print journalists support powerful interests as paid liars, or what famed journalist George Seldes (1890 – 1995) called “prostitutes of the press.”

As a result, imperial wars are called liberating ones. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good. Major topics go unaddressed or are misrepresented. Government and business interests are endorsed wholeheartedly. America is always called “beautiful.” Beneficial social change is considered heresy. The market works best, we’re told, so let it, and patriotism means supporting lawlessness and corporate outlaws by shopping till we drop.

The New York Times – Its Lead Role in Distorting and Suppressing Truth

For many decades, The Times has been the closest thing in America to an official ministry of information and propaganda masquerading as real news, commentary and analysis.

Its unmatched clout once got media critic Norman Solomon to call its front page “the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA;” most everywhere, in fact, because its reports are widely circulated and followed globally.

The Paper of Record has a long history of:

– supporting the powerful;

– backing corporate interests;

– endorsing imperial wars;

– supporting CIA efforts to topple elected governments, assassinate independent leaders, prop up friendly dictators, secretly fund and train paramilitary death squads, practice sophisticated forms of torture, and menace democratic freedoms at home and abroad. For decades, in fact, some Times’ foreign correspondents were covert Agency assets. Others today likely are as well as other prominent fourth estate members.

The Times management is also comfortable with:

– Washington and corporate lawlessness;

– an unprecedented and growing wealth gap;

– Wall Street banksters looting the federal treasury;

– a private banking cartel controlling the nation’s money;

– unmet human needs and increasing poverty, hunger, homelessness, and despair for growing millions in a nation run by rogue politicians who don’t give a damn as long as they’re re-elected;

– a de facto one-party state;

– deep corruption at the highest government and corporate levels;

– democracy for the select few alone;

– sham elections; and

– a deepening social decay symptomatic of a declining state, yet The Times management won’t use its clout to expose and help reverse it.

Of course, the same applies throughout the corporate media, the only variance being audience size, the ability to influence it, and the special impact of TV news and talk radio to arouse their faithful. Plus their power of round-the-clock persuasive repetition.

Examples of Journalism, New York Times Style

After a Washington staged February 29, 2004 middle-of-the-night coup ousted democratically elected Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, The Times March 1 editorial lied by:

– stating he resigned;

– saying sending in Marines to abduct him “was the right thing to do;”

– claiming they only came after “Mr. Aristide yielded power;”

– blaming him for “contribut(ing) significantly to his own downfall (because of his) increasingly autocratic and lawless rule….;” and

– accusing him of manipulating the 2000 legislative elections and not “deliver(ing) the democracy he promised.”

In fact, he’s a beloved democrat first elected in 1990 with 67% of the vote, ousted by a US-supported coup months later, returned to Haiti in 1994, then, because he couldn’t succeed himself in 1996, ran in 2000 and was overwhelmingly re-elected with 92% of the vote. Today in exile, the great majority of Haitians want him back but paramilitary occupiers, under orders from Washington, won’t let him.

Following Hugo Chavez’s December 1998 election, The Times Latin American reporter, Larry Roher, wrote:

Regional “presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders (concerned about the) specter (they) thought they had safely interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on horseback known as the caudillo (strongman)” taking power.

Ever since, Times writers consistently:

– turned a blind eye to Venezuelan democracy;

– bashed Chavez as “divisive, a ruinous demagogue, provocative (and) the next Fidel Castro;”

– said he “militarized the government, emasculated the country’s courts, intimidated the media, eroded confidence in the economy, and hollowed out Venezuela’s once-democratic institutions:” common conditions during decades of pre-Chavez rule that columnist Roger Lowenstein falsely said exist now in:

– calling him anti-capitalist for sharing his nation’s oil wealth with the people by providing essential social services, and for lifting the most needy out of poverty; and

– denouncing his making foreign investors pay their fair share.

Lowenstein backed the aborted April 2002 coup by calling Chavez’s ouster a “resignation,” then saying Venezuela “no longer (would be) threatened by a would-be dictator.”

Post-/911, the Times played the lead role in taking the nation to war by highlighting the “day of terror” and saying the “President Vows to Exact Punishment for ‘Evil.’ “

In the run-up to the Iraq war, Judith Miller was a weapon of mass deception with her daily front page Pentagon press release columns masquerading as real news, later exposed as manipulative lies, but they worked.

Following the September 15, 2009 Goldstone Commission report, a same day Neil MacFarquhar column suggested that Israel’s “disproportionate attack” followed Hamas provocations, so perhaps it was justified. While The Times gave Judge Goldstone op-ed space, it:

– published scathing letters denouncing his “one-sidedness” and a September 18 piece saying “the Obama administration said (today) that a United Nations report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza was unfair to Israel and did not take adequate account of ‘deplorable’ actions by the militant group Hamas in the conflict last winter.”

The paper then imposed a near-blackout on its news and editorial pages to bury the story and kill it through silence – never mind its importance in documenting clear evidence of Israeli war crimes against a civilian population.

National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting (PBS)

Founded in 1970 as an independent, private, non-profit member organization of US public radio stations, NPR promised to be an alternative to commercial broadcasters by “promot(ing) personal growth rather than corporate gain (and) speak with many voices, many dialects.”

Having long ago abandoned its promise, and given its substantial corporate and government funding, NPR is indistinguishable from the rest of the corporate media, just as corrupted, and consider its former head, Kevin Klose.

He was president from December 1998 – September 2008 and CEO from 1998 – January 2009. Earlier he was US propaganda director as head of the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television, and the anti-Castro Radio/TV Marti, so he fit easily into his new role.

On January 5, 2009, Vivian Schiller succeeded him as president and CEO. Her official bio says she was previously with “The New York Times Company where she served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of NYTimes.com.”

She’ll oversea “all NPR operations and initiatives, including the organization’s critical partnerships with our 800+ member stations, and their service to the more than 26 million people who listen to NPR programming every week.” Most don’t know they’re getting the same corporate propaganda and “junk food news” or that
NPR calls itself “public” to conceal its real agenda, and why critics call it “National Pentagon or Petroleum Radio” with good reason.

Created by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) calls itself “a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress…and is the steward of the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,100 locally-owned and-operated public television and radio stations nationwide, and is the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and program development for public radio, television and related online services.”

Like NPR, it’s heavily corporate and government funded and provides similar services for them. Under George Bush, former Voice of America director Kenneth Tomlinson was chairman of CPB’s Board of Governors until an internal 2005 investigation forced him out for repeatedly braking the law.

On September 16, 2009, a CPB press release announced that “The board of directors (of the CPB) today elected Dr. Ernest Wilson III (as) chairman and re-elected….CEO Beth Courtney (as) vice-chair.”

Wilson previously held senior policy positions as Director of International Programs and Resources on the National Security Council. He was also Policy and Planning Unit Director for the US Information Agency and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Beth Courtney is a George Bush appointee, a past chairman of the board of America’s Public Television Stations and present CPB vice chairman. Currently she also serves on the boards of Satellite Educational Resources Consortium, the Organization of State Broadcasting Executives, the National Forum for Public Television Executives, and the National Educational Telecommunications Association along with other appropriate credentials for her re-appointment.

In its May/June 2004 “Extra” report, FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) asked “How Public Is Public Radio? Writers Steve Rendall and Daniel Butterworth quoted past head Kevin Klose saying:

“All of us believe our goal is to serve the entire democracy, the entire country.”

Not according to FAIR on “every on-air source quoted in June 2003 on four of (NPR’s) news shows: All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday.” Each guest was classified “by occupation, gender, nationality, and partisan affiliation.” Combined, 2,334 sources from 804 stories were quoted.

FAIR found that NPR relies on the same dominant sources as the major media that include government officials, professional experts, and corporate representatives nearly two-thirds of the time.

Spokespeople for public interest groups accounted for 7% of total sources, and ordinary people appeared mostly in “one-sentence soundbites.”

Male guests outnumbered women about 4 – 1, and those quoted most often came from the same elite categories as men.

Overall, NPR represents the same dominant interests as the major commercial media – conservative, pro-business, pro-war, pro-Israel, and very much against the public interest while pretending to support it.

FAIR analyzed PBS’s flagship NewsHour guest list and drew similar conclusions. Like NPR, it’s ideologically right and usually censors progressive content and public interest programming. In a 1990 NewsHour evaluation, FAIR compared its content to ABC’s Nightline and found that it presented “an even narrower segment of the political spectrum.” It then conducted an October 2005 – March 2006 analysis of all of its programs, got similar results, and determined that NewHour is even more ideologically right than NPR that tilts far in that direction itself.

FAIR concluded that NPR and NewsHour content “overwhelmingly represent those in power rather than the public” they’re obliged to serve. While masquerading as public programming, they betray their listeners and viewers by offering the same propaganda and “junk food news” as the dominant corporate media. Considering their funding sources, what else would they do.

An October 6 NPR story is typical of most others. It charged Hugo Chavez with “Targeting Opponents For Arrest.” Reporter Juan Forero claimed “dozens of university students” went on hunger strike outside OAS headquarters in Caracas on September 28 along with others “across the country….in support of Julio Cesar Rivas, a student who was arrested during an anti-government demonstration in August….”

Rivas is the coordinator and founder of Juventud Activa de Venezuela Unida (United Active Youth of Venezuela – JAVU). Earlier, he was part of a staged, violent street protest against Venezuela’s new Education Law. The government says JAVU acts as “shock troops” in opposition protests and is liberally funded by the National Endowment of Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI), and US Agency or International Development (USAID) to disrupt internal Venezuelan affairs. It’s a familiar scheme, repeated numerous times in the past, to discredit and disrupt the Chavez government in hopes of eventually ousting it.

JAVU has about 80,000 members in most Venezuelan states, and its blog site calls for bringing down the government and supporting the Honduran military coup.

Rivas was released on September 29, but must appear for trial. He’s a Washington-funded provocateur, charged with resisting arrest, instigating crime, conspiracy, inciting rebellion, damaging public property, and using “generic” weapons.

While in custody, Venezuela Public Defender Gabriela Ramirez assured him in person that his full constitutional rights will be protected. Street protests still continue and have been countered by pro-Chavez ones calling for “peace and tolerance.” According to the Federation of Bolivarian students’ Carlos Sierra:

Opposition “students are being used and manipulated by the top leadership of the irrational opposition, which, via the (dominant) media, send them to generate violence and terrorism in the country” much like on previous occasions.

But according to NPR’s Forero, Rivas was “sent to one of Venezuela’s most infamous prisons” where other government opponents are held as political prisoners. Chavez “has been jailing dozens of key opponents – some of them students, some of them veteran politicians” in citing unnamed “human rights groups and constitutional experts (claiming) Venezuela is increasingly singling out and imprisoning its foes in politically motivated witch hunts.”

Forero didn’t mention that Rivas fomented violence. Others arrested also broke the law. No one is a political prisoner, and all Venezuelans get fair and equitable trials, unlike in America where real political arrests, prosecutions and convictions happen regularly against innocent targeted victims – a topic NPR and PBS won’t touch except to vilify them publicly on-air.

Nor do they report truthfully on Occupied Palestine. On October 12, 2009, on NPR’s Morning Edition, reporter Renee Montagne practically extolled Israeli racism in stating:

“There is a new enemy for some Israelis: romance between Jewish women and Arab men, (so) vigilantes have banded together to fight it.” She means from “Jewish settlements” that “have sprung up (in) traditionally Arab” East Jerusalem, but won’t admit they’re on stolen Palestinian land.

NPR’s Sheera Frankel joined a patrol, implied Arabs are inferior to Jews, and suggested they pose a danger to Jewish women and girls. She described vigilantes on the lookout for “Arab-Jewish couples (to) break up their dates,” suggesting it’s the right thing to do, but never questioning the legitimacy of settlements, vigilante violence in East Jerusalem, its lawless disregard for the law, or great harm to innocent people. Instead she called “mixed couples a growing epidemic” of miscegenation – typical of NPR’s racism and one-sided support for Israel.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)

The WSJ is Dow Jones & Company’s flagship publication, now a News Corp. one since Rupert Murdoch bought it in August 2007. Stating its ideology up front, it says it supports “free markets and free people” as well as “free trade and sound money; against confiscatory taxation and the ukases (edicts) of kings and other collectivists; and for individual autonomy against dictators, bullies and even the tempers of momentary majorities.”

In October 2007, FAIR bemoaned the Murdock takeover because of his “penchant for using his holdings as vehicles for his personal (views) and business interests.” Earlier FAIR and the Columbia Journalism Review criticized its editorial page for inaccuracy, extreme bias, and dishonesty.

The Journal is unapologetic in saying its philosophy “make(s) no pretense of walking down the middle of the road. Our comments and interpretations are made from a definite point of view….We oppose all infringements on individual rights, whether (from) private monopoly, labor union monopoly or from an overgrowing government.(We’re) not much interested in labels but if we were to choose one, we would say we are radical.”

Radical can be revolutionary and beneficial when it backs fundamental progressive change and reform. Webster defines it as:

“marked by a considerable departure from the usual and traditional: extreme; tending or disposed to make extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions; of, relating to, or constituting a political (or perhaps business) group associated with views, practices, and policies of extreme change; (or) advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs” such the radical right represented by the WSJ’s management and editorial writers.

Critics agree that they’re on the far right extremist fringe, a supporter of voodoo economics, tax cuts for the rich, a staunch defender of executive privilege, and disdainful of anything to the left of their views as witnessed daily by some of the most outlandish, one-sided, pro-business commentaries countenancing no alternatives, with the rarest of rare exceptions showing up to make the paper look fair, which it’s not.

Consider editorial board member Mary O’Grady in her weekly Americas column on “politics, economics and business in Latin America and Canada.” Her extremism is unmatched. Her style is agitprop; her space a truth-free zone; her language hateful and vindictive; her tone malicious and slanderous; her style bare-knuckled thuggishness; and her material calculating, mendacious, and shameless. Yet she’s a WSJ regular and an award-winning op-ed writer, but surely no journalist according to Webster’s definition:

“writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation.”

O’Grady fails on both counts. She’s a kind of print version of Fox News’ Glenn Beck, who promotes himself on glennbeck.com looking arrogant in a uniform reminiscent of the Nazi SS.

Consider O’Grady’s support for the Washington-backed June 28 Honduran coup ousting a democratically elected president. It was followed by months of mass arrests, disappearances, killings, targeting the independent media, suspending the Constitution, declaring martial law, and threatening the Brazilian embassy’s sovereignty where President Manuel Zelaya took refuge after returning.

In one of her many pro-coup articles, O’Grady (on July 13) headlined “Why Honduras Sent Zelaya Away.” In a “perfect world,” according to her, he “would be in jail in his own country right now, awaiting trial. The Honduran attorney general (part of the coup regime) has charged him with deliberately violating Honduran law and the Supreme Court (stacked with pro-coup justices) ordered his arrest in Tegucigalpa on June 28,” the day of the coup.

“But the Honduran military whisked him out of the country, to Costa Rica,” to save itself the embarrassment of jailing a democratically elected leader whose lawful actions were endorsed by the majority of Hondurans wanting progressive constitutional change and a president willing to give it to them.

Yet according to O’Grady, “Mr. Zelaya’s detention was legal, as was his official removal from office by Congress….Besides eagerly trampling the constitution, Mr. Zelaya had demonstrated that he was ready to employ the violent tactics of ‘chavismo’ to hang onto power. The decision to pack him off immediately was taken in the interest of protecting both constitutional order and human life.”

In fact, Zelaya neither espoused or practiced violence, and his call for a public June 28 vote on whether to hold a referendum for a new Constitutional Convention at the same time as the November elections lawfully asked for a “yes” or “no” on one question:

“Do you think that the November 2009 general elections should include a fourth ballot box (the other three were for candidates) in order to make a decision about the creation of a National Constitutional Assembly that would approve a new Constitution?”

According to Article 5 of the 2006 Honduran “Civil Participation Act,” government officials may hold non-binding inquiries (referenda) to determine popular support for proposed measures. Gauging sentiment for a National Constituent Assembly for a new Constitution is legal.

Yet in her June 28 article titled, “Honduras Defends Its Democracy,” O’Grady falsely claimed Zelaya planned “a constitutional rewrite (following) a national referendum” only the Congress can approve. In fact, Zelaya called for a vote to assess public sentiment, pro or con, on whether Hondurans want a Constitutional Convention, an act no different from a public opinion poll that’s perfectly legal or should be anywhere. But according to O’Grady, Zelaya “decided he would run the referendum himself.” It’s typical O’Grady truth reversal that earns her weekly space on the WSJ’s op-ed page.

The BBC’s Long Tradition As An Imperial Tool

State-owned and funded, it’s tradition is long, unbroken, and disturbing as the world’s largest and most influential broadcaster reaching global audiences in 32 languages. From inception in 1925, it’s been reliably pro-government and pro-business, or as its founder Lord Reith wrote the establishment: “They know they can trust us not to be really impartial.” Neither he or his successors disappointed on topics mattering most, including war and peace, corporate crimes, US-UK duplicity, labor rights, democratic freedoms, human and civil rights, social justice, and Western imperialism.

They’re consistently distorted, suppressed, marginalized or ignored throughout decades of misreporting despite claiming “honesty (and) integrity (is) what the BBC stands for (because it’s) free from political influence and commercial pressure.”

As a propaganda service, its record is uncompromisingly anti-union, pro-business, and dependably safe for Whitehall and its allies. It moralizes Western aggression, bashes independent democratic leaders, and cheerleads for the powerful at the expense of providing real news and information for millions believing BBC is credible. For over eight decades, it’s record is solid and predictable – betraying the public trust to reliably serve the powerful. The tradition continues.

Prominent TV Demagogues

Among the many, consider a select few. For example, CNN’s Lou Dobbs, “Mr. Independent” he calls himself. Critics use more descriptive terms, yet according to his loudobbs.tv.cnn.com bio:

He’s “anchor and managing editor of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight (and also anchor of) a nationally syndicated financial news radio report, The Lou Dobbs Financial Report….” In addition, he writes a weekly CNN.com commentary, is an author and award-winning “journalist,” most recently in 2005 when “the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded (him) the Emmy for Lifetime Achievement” for serving the usual special interests nightly on prime time TV.

In June 2004, he also won “the Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration from the Center for Immigration Studies for his ongoing series ‘Broken Borders,’ which examines US policy towards illegal immigration.” Little wonder in an August 2006 article, this writer called him CNN’s Vice President of Racism. He’s also a paid liar and in America wins awards.

In May 2008, a Media Matters Action Network report titled, “Fear & Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News” highlighted undocumented Latino hatemongering by Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly, and Glenn Beck, each claiming:

– an alleged connection between undocumented Latinos and crime; in fact, clear evidence shows they’re no more likely to break laws than American citizens;

– how they exploit social services and don’t pay taxes; in fact, undocumented immigrants are ineligible, without proof of legal status, for Medicaid, food stamps, State Children’s Health Insurance (SCHIP) and welfare; they do pay income, payroll, property, sales and other taxes and are entitled to public education; according to the National Academy of Sciences, immigrants provide a net annual gain of up to $10 billion to US GDP; according to Rand Corp. economist James P. Smith, the “net present value of the gains from those immigrants who arrived since 1980 would be $333 billion.”

– the “reconquista” myth about a supposed Mexican plot to take over the US Southwest; and

– an epidemic of Latino voter fraud that, according to Dobbs’ incessant drumbeat, puts America’s “democracy absolutely in jeopardy.”

He also propagates the myth that undocumented Latinos caused an increase in US leprosy (or Hansen’s disease). In an on-air April 2005 report (among others), correspondent Christine Romans quoted “medical lawyer” Dr. Madeleine Cosman saying:

“We have some enormous problems with horrendous diseases that are being brought into America by illegal aliens (including) leprosy….” Romans added that, according to Cosman, “there were about 900 (US) cases of leprosy for 40 years. There have been 7,000 in the past three years.”

According to a May 2007 “60 Minutes” report, the National Hansen’s Disease Program (NHDP) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported that “7,000 is the number of leprosy cases over the last 30 years, not the past three, and nobody knows how many of those cases involve illegal immigrants.” NHDP added that from 2002 – 2005 (the timeline of Cosman’s claim), only 398 cases occurred. To that, Dobbs responded: “If we reported it, it’s a fact.”

Founded in 1971, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is internationally known for its activism against hate groups and scoring legal victories against white supremacists. It says Dobbs regularly features inaccurate racist reports and features anti-immigrant hatemongers like:

– Glenn Spencer, head of the anti-immigration American Patrol, whose web site highlights anti-Mexican vitriol and the idea that Mexico plans a secret takeover of the Southwest;

– Joe McCutchen, head of the anti-immigration Protect Arkansas Now group, that Dobbs calls “a terrific group of concerned, caring Americans;”

– Paul Streitz, co-founder of Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Control, who once denounced Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. for “turning New Haven into a banana republic;”

– Barbara Coe, leader of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform who routinely calls Mexicans “savages;” and

– Chris Simcox, co-founder of the Minuteman Project and a leading anti-immigration figure.

SPLC explains that Dobbs “doggedly explores and supports the anti-immigration movement (and) won’t report salient negative facts about anti-immigration leaders he approves of….”

Instead, he falsely claims that:

– “just about a third of the prison population in this country is estimated to be illegal aliens;”

– states have been “overwhelmed by criminal illegal aliens;” and

– US borders are “unprotected” allowing “criminal illegal aliens (to) murder police officers.”

In 2007 alone, the connection between illegal immigration and crime was discussed on 94 episodes of Lou Dobbs Tonight, and dozens more focused on an “army of invaders,” immigrants not paying taxes, draining social services, and threatening our white Anglo-Saxon culture.

CNN reporters Casey Wian, Bill Tucker, Kitty Pilgrim and others present a steady diet of subtle and overt racism to incite viewers to believe it. Through constant repetition, it propagates the myth, and according to the Media Matters Action Network report:

Dobbs “is hailed by the entire spectrum of immigration opponents, from the reasonable to the unreasonable. And the degree to which extremist elements see (him) as an ally indicates at the very least that they believe he is helping their cause” because they feel he’s a populist crusader.

Yet according to a July 30 New York Observer report, recent Nielsen data showed that after Dobbs began reporting (on July 15) that Barack Obama’s birth certificate was fraudulent (an apparent stunt to increase ratings), his viewership dropped significantly – 15% overall and 27% in the valued 25 – 54 age category.

Fox News Channel (FNC)

When it debuted in 1996, one of its on-air hosts said:

The “Channel was launched (because) something was wrong with news media….somewhere bias found its way into reporting….Fox….is committed to being fair and balanced (covering) stories everybody is reporting – and….stories….you will see only on Fox.”

Later the Columbia Journalism Review said several former Fox employees “complained of ‘management sticking their fingers’ in the writing and editing stories to cook the facts to make a story more palatable to right-of-center tastes.” But it hasn’t hurt ratings.

As of Q 1 2009, FNC was the second highest rated cable channel in prime time total viewers. CNN ranked 17th and MSNBC 24th. The O’Reilly Factor has been #1 rated on cable news for 100 consecutive months and gained 27% more viewers year-over-year. Glenn Beck increased 90% over the previous year. Overall, FNC topped CNN and MSNBC combined in prime time total audience.

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) said “Fox’s signature political news show, Special Report with Brit Hume (now with Bret Baier) was originally created as a daily one-hour update devoted to the 1998 Clinton sex scandal.” In the past year, it gained 39% more viewers.

As for accuracy and being “fair and balanced,” FAIR (in summer 2001) called FNC “The Most Biased Name in News,” yet according to Murdoch in March 2001:

“I challenge anybody to show me an example of bias in Fox News Channel.”

In FAIR’s Seth Ackerman article and later ones, FNC’s blatant manipulation of the news is exposed. For example, Bret Baier’s “Political Grapevine” is a right-wing “hot sheet” featuring a “series of gossipy items culled from other right-wing” sources. It and other reports are blatantly partisan propaganda against “liberal media bias,” progressives, environmentalists, anti-war activists, civil rights groups, and others to the left of their views.

According to FAIR, the commentary on political punditry programs like The O’Reilly Factor, the Sean Hannity Show, and The Beltway Boys is so slanted that it’s like watching “a Harlem Globetrotters game (knowing) which side is supposed to win.”

FNC’s Bill O’Reilly

His official bio calls The O’Reilly Factor “a unique blend of news analysis and hard hitting investigative reporting dropped each weeknight into ‘The No Spin Zone.” He also hosts a syndicated radio show, writes a weekly column carried in over 300 newspapers, and authored several books that according to New York Times writer Janet Maslin were “either (done) with a collaborator or (O’Reilly) was born with a ghostwriter’s gift for filling space with platitudes….” With good reason, Maslin called him “one of the most controversial human beings in the world….”

In an October 2008 report titled “Smearcasting,” FAIR called him an “Islamophobe” for spreading “fear, bigotry and misinformation” along with 11 other popular figures, including Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin (another FNC regular), David Horowitz, and Pat Robertson.

After 9/11, FAIR said O’Reilly proposed attacking a list of Muslim countries “if they did not submit to the US – starting with Afghanistan.”

On air he said:

“The US should bomb the Afghan infrastructure to rubble – the airport, the power plants, their water facilities and the roads….If they don’t rise up against this primitive country, they starve, period.”

Iraq must also be destroyed he said, and “the population made to endure yet another round of intense pain.” As for Libya, “Nothing goes in, nothing goes out….Let them eat sand.”

FAIR called his penchant for attacking Muslim countries “an O’Reilly trademark”, and “his disregard for Muslim civilians is matched by the anti-Muslim sentiments he frequently expresses on both his nationally syndicated radio show, the Radio Factor,” reaching 3.5 million listeners, and his top-rated FNC show.

Some of his hateful comments include saying:

– areas of London are “just packed with just dense Muslim neighborhoods, which breed this kind of contempt for Western society. Why do they let them in;”

– “We’re at war with Muslim fanatics. So all young Muslims should be subject to (special) scrutiny, (saying it’s not racial, just) “criminal profiling;”

– “the most unattractive women in the world are probably in Muslim countries;” and

– in Iraq, he blamed killing on Islam: “They’re all Muslims, and they’re doing what they do. They’re killing each other. And they’re killing Americans.”

O’Reilly is equally racist about Latino immigrants with frequent comments like:

“The extreme elements in this country want open borders, blanket amnesty, and entitlement for foreign nationals who have come here illegally, and generally want to change the demographics in the USA so political power can be assumed by the left. That is the end game.” He also argues that “Low-skilled immigrant labor costs the taxpayers today $19,000 to (subsidize) people who are using the hospitals (and) the education system….These are rock-solid stats,” but O’Reilly won’t say from where.

They’re blatantly false and may be from a May 2007 Robert Rector/Christine Kim (right-wing think tank) Heritage Foundation paper titled, “The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to State and Local Taxpayers.”

O’Reilly spreads daily misinformation, innuendo, and hateful demagoguery to millions of his daily faithful. Like the others above, they’re paid liars delivering what passes for today’s major media journalism. It’s why so much of the public is misinformed and the reason more hate groups than ever proliferate.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), they numbered 926 in 2008, up from 602 in 2000 and are “animated by the national immigration debate.” Since Obama took office, they’re also driven by their hatred of a black president, exacerbated by a growing economic crisis that’s easy to blame on the undocumented and a non-white head of state.

These groups are ideologically vicious and extremely dangerous when motivated by racist right-wing media commentators reaching far larger audiences than more saner voices drowned out. It’s more evidence of social decay and the urgent need for change.

The Right-Wing Media Attack ACORN

Founded in 1970, ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) “is the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low and moderate income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in about 75 cities across the country.”

As the nation’s preeminent community organizing group, it backs a living wage, opposes predatory lending and foreclosures, supports affordable housing, better public schools, welfare reform, voting rights, rebuilding New Orleans, and other social and economic justice issues.

For many months as a result, right-wing extremists have tried to discredit its successes online and through the media. Led by Fox News, Lou Dobbs, and others, it’s accused of financial corruption, massive voter fraud, and other indiscretions, mostly fabricated to destroy the group’s credibility, cut off its funding, and harm other community organizing efforts. However, compared to corporate fraud and abuse scandals, ACORN’s occasional missteps are minor, insignificant, and undeserving of inflammatory media headlines.

Nonetheless recent news stories featured false accusations that ACORN engages in prostitution nationwide. The supposed evidence came from two right-wing filmmakers (Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe) posing as prostitute and pimp, conveniently videotaped for airing. In prime time especially, Fox News, Lou Dobbs and others featured it nightly.

On September 14, Dobbs reported “another pimp and prostitute scandal at the left-wing activist organization ACORN. For the third time, ACORN workers for the left-wing advocacy group (got) caught on hidden camera breaking the law. Now calls from Congress to investigate and cut off public funding are growing.”

According to Fox News Bill O’Reilly, “With more than 30 criminal ‘convictions’ on its resume, the organization cannot be trusted.” Based on no credible evidence, other FNC reports accuse ACORN of “operat(ing) as a criminal enterprise,” including prostitution, running a prostitution ring, filing false documents with taxing and other government authorities, bank fraud, violating immigration laws, transporting women and children to America for immoral purposes, and impairing the welfare of minors.

More evidence of reprehensible innuendo, distortion, deceit, and misinformation from major media paid liars. It’s why web sites like this one gain followers.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen.blogspot.com.

[Ed Jewett]

The Layman’s Guide to Mind Control

Catherine and The Solari Report,
February 4, 2010 at 3:02 pm




“Your greatest weapon is in your enemy’s mind.”
-The Buddha
Who controls your mind? Is it you? Or is it someone who wants to control you or profit at your expense?

• Are your opinions determined by your assessment of the important facts in a given situation? Or are they manipulated by subtle broadcast techniques spawned by billions of dollars of research on how to get you to act against your own best interest?
  
• Are you spending years and thousands of dollars getting an education that gives you an accurate picture of how the world works? Or are you learning a history created by the “winners” – a history that was intentionally designed to serve the future control of a hidden oligarchy at your expense?
  
• Do you keep choosing leaders that have been credentialed and promoted by private interests to engineer the destruction of your rights and the theft of your assets? Why?
  
• Are your thinking and your ability to act deteriorating as a result of intentional promotion of destructive agendas by means of vaccines, processed foods, water fluoridation, pharmaceuticals and chemtrails? Are you lured by false promises of financial reward, inclusion, and social prestige into promoting these and other harmful substances or pretending they are not a problem?
  
• When you choose vendors for your business, is it because they offer the best services with integrity or because they use entrainment and subliminal programming on phone calls without your knowledge? Does their understanding of your business reflect trap doors that they have illegally included in the software programs they sold you or high tech eavesdropping of your internal meetings? Have they planted someone in your business who works for them to “manage” your opinions from the inside?
  

• When your children consume violence on TV and in video games, are they being entertained? Could it be that they are being programmed with the same methods that the intelligence community has used to train assassins to be comfortable with killing?
  
• Were you persuaded to support gun control as a consequence of school shootings by children? Have you considered that some or all of those children may have been “Manchurian candidates,” programmed for covert operations? Indeed, the history of using children for assassination and covert operations is centuries old, including by American military and intelligence agencies.
  
• When you moved your mother from a government subsidized rent-controlled apartment to government assisted living managed by the same property manager and real estate investment fund, was it because her mental acuity had deteriorated simply as part of the aging process? Or was it due to poisons or electromagnetic weaponry arranged by the landlord with the help of a private security firm to increase profitability per elderly tenant by engineering an accelerated deterioration?
  

Mind control is one of those topics often excluded from polite conversation. It requires us to face the fact that we and the people we love are being manipulated by something that our current education and social status - and even local law enforcement - may not be able to protect us from. It is a topic that can be overwhelming, even terrifying.
Yet the first step toward protecting ourselves is to be able to understand our environment, make decisions clearly, and act in our own best interest - even organize with others to do so.
As unnerving as learning about it can be, mind control is a topic essential to your health and safety. To protect yourself, you must protect your mind and maintain an accurate map of the world around you – including the ways that others are trying to use your mind as a weapon against you.
The good news is that learning about mind control also involves discovering your mind’s extraordinary power - a positive step towards using your mental powers to serve your purpose and act in the highest and best interest of all concerned.

[Ed Jewett]

Media Disinformation in America

You Can Say Anything You Want — As Long As It Doesn't Have Any Effect

by William Blum

Global Research, February 7, 2010
The Anti-Empire Report - 2010-02-06

"In America You Can Say Anything You Want — As Long As It Doesn't Have Any Effect." - Paul Goodman

Progressive activists and writers continually bemoan the fact that the news they generate and the opinions they express are consistently ignored by the mainstream media, and thus kept from the masses of the American people. This disregard of progressive thought is tantamount to a definition of the mainstream media. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy; it's a matter of who owns the mainstream media and the type of journalists they hire — men and women who would like to keep their jobs; so it's more insidious than a conspiracy, it's what's built into the system, it's how the system works. The disregard of the progressive world is of course not total; at times some of that world makes too good copy to ignore, and, on rare occasions, progressive ideas, when they threaten to become very popular, have to be countered.

So it was with Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Here's Barry Gewen an editor at the New York Times Book Review, June 5, 2005 writing of Zinn's book and others like it:

There was a unifying vision, but it was simplistic. Since the victims and losers were good, it followed that the winners were bad. From the point of view of downtrodden blacks, America was racist; from the point of view of oppressed workers, it was exploitative; from the point of view of conquered Hispanics and Indians, it was imperialistic. There was much to condemn in American history, little or nothing to praise. ... Whereas the Europeans who arrived in the New World were genocidal predators, the Indians who were already there believed in sharing and hospitality (never mind the profound cultural differences that existed among them), and raped Africa was a continent overflowing with kindness and communalism (never mind the profound cultural differences that existed there).

One has to wonder whether Mr. Gewen thought that all the victims of the Holocaust were saintly and without profound cultural differences.

Prominent American historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. once said of Zinn: "I know he regards me as a dangerous reactionary. And I don't take him very seriously. He's a polemicist, not a historian."

In the obituaries that followed Zinn's death, this particular defamation was picked up around the world, from the New York Times, Washington Post, and the leading American wire services to the New Zealand Herald and Korea Times.

Regarding reactionaries and polemicists, it is worth noting that Mr. Schlesinger, as a top advisor to President John F. Kennedy, played a key role in the overthrow of Cheddi Jagan, the democratically-elected progressive prime minister of British Guiana (now Guyana). In 1990, at a conference in New York City, Schlesinger publicly apologized to Jagan, saying: "I felt badly about my role thirty years ago. I think a great injustice was done to Cheddi Jagan." [1] This is to Schlesinger's credit, although the fact that Jagan was present at the conference may have awakened his conscience after 30 years. Like virtually all the American historians of the period who were granted attention and respect by the mainstream media, Schlesinger was a cold warrior. Those like Zinn who questioned the basic suppositions of the Cold War abroad, and capitalism at home, were regarded as polemicists.

One of my favorite Howard Zinn quotes: "The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or de-emphasis of important data. The definition of 'important', of course, depends on one's values." [2] A People's History and his other writings can be seen as an attempt to make up for the omissions and under-emphases of America's dark side in American history books and media.

Haiti, Aristide, and ideology

It's a good thing the Haitian government did virtually nothing to help its people following the earthquake; otherwise it would have been condemned as "socialist" by Fox News, Sarah Palin, the teabaggers, and other right-thinking Americans. The last/only Haitian leader strongly committed to putting the welfare of the Haitian people before that of the domestic and international financial mafia was President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Being of a socialist persuasion, Aristide was, naturally, kept from power by the United States — twice; first by Bill Clinton, then by George W. Bush, the two men appointed by President Obama to head the earthquake relief effort. Naturally.

Aristide, a reformist priest, was elected to the presidency, then ousted in a military coup eight months later in 1991 by men on the CIA payroll. Ironically, the ousted president wound up in exile in the United States. In 1994 the Clinton White House found itself in the awkward position of having to pretend — because of all their rhetoric about "democracy" — that they supported the democratically-elected Aristide's return to power. After delaying his return for more than two years, Washington finally had its military restore Aristide to office, but only after obliging the priest to guarantee that after his term ended he would not remain in office to make up the time lost because of the coup; that he would not seek to help the poor at the expense of the rich, literally; and that he would stick closely to free-market economics. This meant that Haiti would continue to be the assembly plant of the Western Hemisphere, with its workers receiving starvation wages, literally. If Aristide had thoughts about breaking the agreement forced upon him, he had only to look out his window — US troops were stationed in Haiti for the remainder of his term. [3]

On February 28, 2004, during the Bush administration, American military and diplomatic personnel arrived at the home of Aristide, who had been elected to the presidency once again in 2002, to inform him that his private American security agents must either leave immediately to return to the United States or fight and die; that the remaining 25 of the American security agents hired by the Haitian government, who were to arrive the next day, had been blocked by the United States from coming; that foreign and Haitian rebels were nearby, heavily armed, determined and ready to kill thousands of people in a bloodbath. Aristide was then pressured into signing a "letter of resignation" before being kidnaped and flown to exile in Africa by the United States. [4] The leaders and politicians of the world who pontificate endlessly about "democracy" and "self-determination" had virtually nothing to say about this breathtaking act of international thuggery. Indeed, France and Canada were active allies of the United States in pressing Aristide to leave. [5]

And then US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in the sincerest voice he could muster, told the world that Aristide "was not kidnaped. We did not force him onto the airplane. He went onto the airplane willingly. And that's the truth." [6] Powell sounded as sincere as he had sounded a year earlier when he gave the UN his now-famous detailed inventory of the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons that Saddam Hussein was preparing to use.

Howard Zinn is quoted above saying "The chief problem in historical honesty is not outright lying. It is omission or de-emphasis of important data." However, that doesn't mean the American mainstream media don't create or perpetuate myths. Here's the New York Times two months ago: "Mr. Aristide, who was overthrown during a 2004 rebellion ..." [7] Now what image does the word "rebellion" conjure up in your mind? The Haitian people rising up to throw off the shackles put on them by a dictatorship? Or something staged by the United States?

Aristide has stated that he was able to determine at that crucial moment that the "rebels" were white and foreign. [8] But even if they had been natives, why did Colin Powell not explain why the United States disbanded Aristide's personal security forces? Why did he not explain why the United States was not protecting Aristide from the rebels, which the US could have done with the greatest of ease, without so much as firing a single shot? Nor did he explain why Aristide would "willingly" give up his presidency.

The massive US military deployment to Haiti in the wake of the earthquake has been criticized in various quarters as more of an occupation than a relief mission, with the airport in the capital city now an American military base, and with American forces blocking various aid missions from entering the country in order, apparently, to serve Washington's own logistical agenda. But the large military presence can also serve to facilitate two items on Washington's political agenda — preventing Haitians from trying to emigrate by sea to the United States and keeping a lid on the numerous supporters of Aristide lest they threaten to take power once again.

That which can not be spoken

"The purpose of terrorism is to provoke an overreaction," writes Fareed Zakaria, a leading American foreign-policy pundit, editor of Newsweekmagazine's international edition, and Washington Post columnist, referring to the "underwear bomber", Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and his failed attempt to blow up a US airliner on Christmas day. "Its real aim is not to kill the hundreds of people directly targeted but to sow fear in the rest of the population. Terrorism is an unusual military tactic in that it depends on the response of the onlookers. If we are not terrorized, then the attack didn't work. Alas, this one worked very well." [9]

Is that not odd? That an individual would try to take the lives of hundreds of people, including his own, primarily to "provoke an overreaction", or to "sow fear"? Was there not any kind of deep-seated grievance or resentment with anything or anyone American being expressed? No perceived wrong he wished to make right? Nothing he sought to obtain revenge for? Why is the United States the most common target of terrorists? Such questions were not even hinted at in Zakaria's article.

At a White House press briefing concerning the same failed terrorist attack, conducted by Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan, veteran reporter Helen Thomas raised a question:

Thomas: "What is really lacking always for us is you don't give the motivation of why they want to do us harm. ... What is the motivation? We never hear what you find out on why."

Brennan: "Al Qaeda is an organization that is dedicated to murder and wanton slaughter of innocents. ... [They] attract individuals like Mr. Abdulmutallab and use them for these types of attacks. He was motivated by a sense of religious sort of drive. Unfortunately, al Qaeda has perverted Islam, and has corrupted the concept of Islam, so that [they're] able to attract these individuals. But al Qaeda has the agenda of destruction and death."

Thomas: "And you're saying it's because of religion?"

Brennan: "I'm saying it's because of an al Qaeda organization that uses the banner of religion in a very perverse and corrupt way."

Thomas: "Why?"

Brennan: "I think ... this is a long issue, but al Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland."

Thomas: "But you haven't explained why." [10]

American officials rarely even make the attempt to explain why. And American journalists rarely press them to explain why; certainly not like Helen Thomas does.

And just what is it that has such difficulty crossing the lips of these officials? It is the idea that anti-American terrorists become anti-American terrorists to retaliate for what the United States has done to countries or people close to them or what Israel has done to them with unequivocal American support.

Osama bin Laden, in an audiotape, also commented about Abdulmutallab: "The message we wanted you to receive through him is that America shall not dream about security until we witness it in Palestine." [11]

We have as well the recent case of Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor-turned-suicide bomber, who killed seven CIA employees at a base in Afghanistan December 30. His widow later declared: "I am proud of him. ... My husband did this against the U.S. invasion." Balawi himself had written on the Internet: "I have never wished to be in Gaza, but now I wish to be a ... car bomb that takes the lives of the biggest number of Jews to hell." [12]

It should be noted that the CIA base attacked by Balawi was heavily involved in the selection of targets for the Agency's remote-controlled aircraft along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, a program that killed more than 300 people in the previous year. [13]

There are numerous examples of terrorists citing American policies as the prime motivation behind their acts [14], so many that American officials, when discussing the newest terrorist attack, have to tread carefully to avoid mentioning the role of US foreign policy; and journalists typically fail to bring this point home to their reader's consciousness.

It works the same all over the world. In the period of the 1950s to the 1980s in Latin America, in response to a long string of hateful Washington policies, there were countless acts of terrorism against US diplomatic and military targets as well as the offices of US corporations.

The US bombing, invasion, occupation and torture in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bombing of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, and the continuing Israeli-US genocide against the Palestinians have created an army of new anti-American terrorists. We'll be hearing from them for a terribly long time. And we'll be hearing American officials twist themselves into intellectual and moral knots as they try to avoid confronting these facts.

In his "State of the Union" address on January 27, President Obama said: "But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know."

Well, ending America's many wars would free up enough money to do anything a rational, humane society would want to do. Eliminating the military budget would pay for free medical care for everyone. Free university education for everyone. Creating a government public works project that could provide millions of decently-paid jobs, like repairing the decrepit infrastructure and healing the environment to the best of our ability. You can add your own favorite projects. All covered, just by ending the damn wars. Imagine that.


Notes

The Nation, June 4, 1990, pp.763-4

"Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian" (1993), p.30

http://killinghope.org/bblum6/haiti2.htm

Statement of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, March 5, 2004, from exile in the Central African Republic, Pacific News Service (San Francisco); David Swanson, "What Bush Did to Haiti", January 18, 2010; William Blum, "Rogue State", pp.219-20)

Miami Herald, March 1, 2004

CNN, March 1, 2004

New York Times, November 27, 2009

Aristide statement, op. cit.

Newsweek, January 18, 2010, online January 9

White House press briefing, January 7, 2010

ABC News, January 25, 2010

Associated Press, January 7, 2010

Washington Post, January 1, 2010

Rogue State, chapter 1, "Why do terrorists keep picking on the United States?"; this chapter ends in 2005; some later examples can be provided by the author.

William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir, and Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at http://www.killinghope.org

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...&aid=17457

[Ed Jewett]

Web Sites Being Blocked
Censoring the Internet: Moves to silence dissent?
By Barry Napier Wednesday, February 10, 2010

I know for a fact that access to my own website is blocked by many colleges and libraries in the UK, who put me on their ‘proscribed’ list for my non-PC views. But, at least there are other ways to access it. I can put up with this kind of childish game… but there now appears to be a different, deadly-serious game afoot – the complete silencing of dissent on the internet.

It is almost impossible to see dissent displayed in other media, who tend to stick to popularist and government lines. In this way, the current social movement is determined not by the people but by small bullying groups with vested interests. Right now these are leftist, immoral, anti-religionist, Marxist and Fascist. The few are intimidating and controling everyone else.

Until now, the internet has been a refuge, the only place you will find alternative views and opposition to enforced opinions. We have seen this most recently in the matter of climate change, though there are other nasty movements that are opposed on the internet.
Web Sites Being Blocked

Reports are flying around on the internet - until they are stopped - that many sites providing dissident views are not just being blocked but may also be closed down. Some years ago, Asian sites providing blatantly awful sexual images and really bad sexual text, were closed down by Singapore authorities, because youngsters could access the internet and be badly affected. Frankly, I agreed with this. I also agree with those who say such sites should be placed in a special hard-to-reach section of the internet, where access can only be provided to those who deliberately seek-out such disgusting stuff, by going through a process of registration. Yes, this is a form of censorship, but there cannot be total free speech. Everyone knows that, because some things are just too vile to be given ready access. Jihad sites promoting head-chopping are just one example.

But, when it comes to voicing legitimate views about politics and religion, etc., there should be no ban. Only those who wish to tighten their grip with fake theories will resort to controlling the internet for these reasons! They are afraid of alternative views and want to retain power, so they clamp down with false legal prerogatives. The wolves are trying to silence the lambs!

It is now claimed that the printed media, through governments, are considering the ban of all sites publishing political and socially inconvenient material that could take away support from them. There is talk of an ‘Internet 2’ being installed, to replace the current internet. The UN would never admit to it, but given its Marxist structure and intentions, it is not beyond imagination for it to act that way. This isn’t ‘conspiracy theory’ – it is based on hard facts already known to us about the UN, Obama and other politicians like Gordon Brown, who try their very best to omit any opposition from the media.
Free Speech Sites Blocked

In the first week of February, Infowars.com and PrisonPlanet.com were blocked to readers in New Zealand. The block was removed when the sites made formal complaints. The blocking was done by ISPs using Asia Netcom for international traffic. (infowars.com 8th Feb).

The site receives regular emails from readers, who say the Infowar site is blocked to them. The reason given is ‘hate speech’ or ‘offensive material’. These are the same ‘reasons’ given for blocking my own site in the UK, by academic and library sites, by local councils, by ISPs (Internet Service Providers), and also by routers (who act as go-betweens). Yet, like similar sites, all I am doing is providing alternatives to current social and political propaganda!

A major railway station in the UK, St Pancras, used by millions of international travellers every year, blocks Prison Planet and Infowars and other political sites. MySpace also blocks such sites. And I have known Google to block mention of my name and work on many occasions, depending on the topic! Most of the time these blocks are not known to the websites who are blocked. Many months or even years can elapse before they discover large sections of surfers are precluded from reading their material. Very often, a complaint will resolve the situation… but this is not the point. The point is that websites with valid opinions and views are being censored because owners of ISPs and major sites do not like what is being said.

Time Warner subscribers in California were also barred from reading Infowars and Prison Planet material until readers complained. The UK’s Tiscali blocked the sites after the 7/7 bombings in London, though everyone had a right to be horrified and disgusted by Islamic extremism, and to say so publicly. As Infowars said “the fact that ISPs can selectively block certain websites at the flick of a switch, gives us a frightening preview of what a Chinese-style government regulated internet would look like, which is exactly what influential insiders are calling for.” It is what Obama wants. The UK Labour Party wants the same thing. So does the EU and UN.
Microsoft Involved?

At a Davos Economic Forum, the Chief Research and Strategy Officer for Microsoft said that ‘the Internet needed to be policed by means of introducing licenses similar to drivers’ licenses – in other words, government permission to use the web.’ (blog.seattlepi.com) Yes, it is easy to say that this is only theorizing… but Obama is presently slamming the US with his socialist ‘theorizing’, which is destroying the country as a whole!

Google is very pro-green (because of the financial rewards). Though I have requested instant updates when my name or my books are mentioned on the internet, I get nothing routinely about them! Instead, I have to do searches. This applies in particular to anti-green material I produce.

Laws are being formulated in the UK, Australia and US, to ban anything government considers to be ‘undesirable for public consumption’. In the UK, for example, anyone who even queries the normality or morality of homosexuality can be hauled before the courts. The same applies if anyone mentions Islam in a poor light. In both cases, expressing a legitimate opinion is called ‘hate speech’ and the law is used to full effect! The same can easily be done for political and religious material. Socialists cannot stand alternatives to their party thinking. And it is socialists who want bans on the internet. Do I have any respect for socialism? Nope. None at all.

Cass Sunstein has called on Obama to ban internet sites that host non-socialist views, or, a tax, on anything government does not like (Prison Planet, Jan 14th, 2010). As I keep on saying, this is outright Marxism and Fascism in operation. It is going on under your noses… but who will stand and fight? You might think banning a website is no great shakes. But, wait until the same laws are used against you if you say something in the street. Wait for the single-party country as a form of police control! Then, it will be too late.

Laughably, Sunstein wants to ban ‘conspiracy theorizing’. But, if he does that, the theories will prove to be real! In the Infowars site’s comments section, someone said that if Infowars wants to stop Sunstein barring views he doesn’t like, then it is no better than Sunstein. Hardly. Sunstein et al want to ban what does not serve them well, and that promotes only a socialist outlook. People like us only want to ban the banners from banning! Rather different.
Digital Economy Bill (HL) 2009-2010

This UK Bill is currently waiting to be ratified and has just been through the House of Lords for approval. Bear in mind that the Labour government wants to put chains on the internet, to stop anti-socialist material being published. Part of the governments slyness is to allow as many immigrants into the UK as possible (most of them Muslim), because polls show that 80% of them invariably vote for Labour, who are pro-immigration. The hatefulness within Islam does not concern greedy MPs, who only want to keep their seats and therefore their unearned incomes and expenses. Anything that will remove opposition is an acceptable activity!

In the White Paper, ‘Digital Britain’, published June 2009, government wants to extend the role of the government media watchdog, Ofcom, so that it can report on the ‘communications infrastructure and media content’. It also talks about ISPs actively stopping copyright infringement, when it is really the job of those who are infringed. The Bill would also allow the Secretary of State to intervene in internet domain name registration.

As I have said before, don’t just look at the exact wording of laws. Look at their potential to make that wording into huge precedents. Generally, the looser the wording, the more opportunity there is to create precedent. The tighter the language used, the less opportunity there is to make any changes. It is the very words of a law that allow further changes to society to be made.
Obama and the Internet

Obama hates the internet, because it is the one thing he cannot presently control. “The Obama administration has moved quietly to cede control of the Web from the United States to foreign powers.” (Newsmax, 31st Jan., 2010).

“The key to the control America has over the internet is through the management of the Domain Name System (DNS) and the giant servers that service the internet.” (Newsmax). Notice the inclusion of domain names in the proposed new UK law? Domain names are managed through the IANA (The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). Without an IAN nobody could operate on the internet, or even receive or send emails.

I wonder who this proposed ‘foreign power’ might be? Oh, you’ll never guess! It is the UN!! “The ‘international community’… want an international body such as the United Nations… to manage all aspects of the internet on behalf of all nations.” In ordinary language that means socialism will control anything it does not like, such as anti-socialism, including religious, political, freedom and morality sites.
Media Moguls

We all know that paper news is dwindling as the internet assumes poll place in providing news and comments. So, when a major media hitter such as Rupert Murdoch says “The current days of the internet will soon be over”, we should ask why he should say it.

In other reports I have told of the biggest media companies taking control of all media output. It is already part of UN structure and the structure of the environmental scam. Now, readers of news on some established media sites, such as newspapers, have to pay a fee to read items. It is but a short step for the moguls, who are real forces behind any government, to push for control of the internet. Whether this is under the flag of the UN or any other organisation does not really matter, because the real power is in the hands of big money.

Fees to read articles on the biggest newspaper websites are already proposed by Murdoch and other owners, so we can expect not to access their pages unless we pay fees. This will happen sometime in the next few months or so. (prisonplanet.com 7th May 2009). In this way, the moguls can easily control not just readership, but also dissemination of information.
Silencing Opinion

YouTube has been systematically pruning its site, so that user-contributions are marginalized and big-time media offerings are put on show (income!). Therefore, if these big-timers don’t like certain user-videos, they will be pulled, as is now happening. In particular, anything seen as anti-Muslim is banned or pulled. Same will soon happen with anti-green.

As readership of physical publications dwindles and internet readership grows, the big media companies and papers will charge for access to their newspapers online. But, by doing this they will lose readers! It does not really matter, though, because they will just find other ways to increase revenue. They will also call unanimously for world-control of the internet. Because they are the faceless few behind the financing of everything, they will then control internet content and boost their own incomes. Easy. That is why they want a phasing out of the present system, to be replaced by ‘Internet 2’.

This is socialism in action. It is the silencing of opinion, views and even truth. Money, and the power it engenders, rules. What you say doesn’t count. The recent Superbowl ad by Audi, spoofing Green Police, was funny on a very superficial level… but not to those of us who see it as a very real parody of something already happening in the world today. What better way to get socialist rule accepted? Humour has often been used to ‘soften the edges’ of immorality, social thuggery and economic disaster. But, it isn’t funny.
South Carolina Legislation

Under the title ‘South Carolina Code of Laws (unannotated) Current Through the End of the 2009 Session’, we have ‘Title 23 – Law Enforcement and Public Safety’. (scstatehouse.gov).

Chapter 29 deals with the ‘Subversive Activities Registration Act’. Section 23-29-20 defines what is covered by the Act. It includes organisations that want to overthrow the government by force or unlawful means. Seems okay, except that what is meant by ‘unlawful means’ and ‘force’ becomes crucial. Such organisations include those funded from overseas. This works well with Islamic terrorism… but what about websites that oppose government? The possibility of these being included will be seen in the exact wording of the law. If it is vague at points, or if ‘unlawful means’ and ‘force’ are not fully described, then the possibility (or probability) of a precedent to include websites is a very real threat. Yes, it is the old ‘precedent’ problem again.

Section 23-29-30 claims that freedom of speech is not included amongst those groups to be affected by the law. However, the paragraph that deals with this talks of the freedom “guaranteed by the Constitution”. When looking at this we must acknowledge that Obama cares nothing for the Constitution and has even said he wants to be rid of it. He has not allowed the people to gain legitimate access to his birth certificate nor to any other of his files. So, what trust can we place in this South Carolina legislative language?

The new law seems fine. And so it would be in normal days when there is freedom of information and expression. But, where Obama has a Czar who wants to silence opposition, there is plenty of room for speculation and fear of total socialist clamp-down. It is what Obama has so far done the best: no real political progress, only real oppression and repression. Once the Carolina bill is passed, it will be relatively simple to alter the definitions of one or two vital words, so that websites can be obliterated and taken to court.

Yes, these are my own conclusions. Yes, they are not fully based on what is, universally, but on what could come to be (though the reality is already seen in the UK). As I have said before, just join the dots! Otherwise – and if we don’t speak out – publications such as Canada Free Press may not be around for much longer, much to the delight of all who want to remove our freedoms.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/19880

[Ed Jewett]

The Lobbying-Media Complex

By Sebastian Jones

February 12, 2010 "The Nation" -- President Obama spent most of December 4 touring Allentown, Pennsylvania, meeting with local workers and discussing the economic crisis. A few hours later, the state's former governor, Tom Ridge, was on MSNBC's Hardball With Chris Matthews, offering up his own recovery plan. There were "modest things" the White House might try, like cutting taxes or opening up credit for small businesses, but the real answer was for the president to "take his green agenda and blow it out of the box." The first step, Ridge explained, was to "create nuclear power plants." Combined with some waste coal and natural gas extraction, you would have an "innovation setter" that would "create jobs, create exports."

As Ridge counseled the administration to "put that package together," he sure seemed like an objective commentator. But what viewers weren't told was that since 2005, Ridge has pocketed $530,659 in executive compensation for serving on the board of Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power company. As of March 2009, he also held an estimated $248,299 in Exelon stock, according to SEC filings.

Moments earlier, retired general and "NBC Military Analyst" Barry McCaffrey told viewers that the war in Afghanistan would require an additional "three- to ten-year effort" and "a lot of money." Unmentioned was the fact that DynCorp paid McCaffrey $182,309 in 2009 alone. The government had just granted DynCorp a five-year deal worth an estimated $5.9 billion to aid American forces in Afghanistan. The first year is locked in at $644 million, but the additional four options are subject to renewal, contingent on military needs and political realities.

In a single hour, two men with blatant, undisclosed conflicts of interest had appeared on MSNBC. The question is, was this an isolated oversight or business as usual? Evidence points to the latter. In 2003 The Nation exposed McCaffrey's financial ties to military contractors he had promoted on-air on several cable networks; in 2008 David Barstow wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning series for the New York Times about the Pentagon's use of former military officers--many lobbying or consulting for military contractors--to get their talking points on television in exchange for access to decision-makers; and in 2009 bloggers uncovered how ex-Newsweek writer Richard Wolffe had guest-hosted Countdown With Keith Olbermann while working at a large PR firm specializing in "strategies for managing corporate reputation."

These incidents represent only a fraction of the covert corporate influence peddling on cable news, a four-month investigation by The Nation has found. Since 2007 at least seventy-five registered lobbyists, public relations representatives and corporate officials--people paid by companies and trade groups to manage their public image and promote their financial and political interests--have appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Fox Business Network with no disclosure of the corporate interests that had paid them. Many have been regulars on more than one of the cable networks, turning in dozens--and in some cases hundreds--of appearances.

For lobbyists, PR firms and corporate officials, going on cable television is a chance to promote clients and their interests on the most widely cited source of news in the United States. These appearances also generate good will and access to major players inside the Democratic and Republican parties. For their part, the cable networks, eager to fill time and afraid of upsetting the political elite, have often looked the other way. At times, the networks have even disregarded their own written ethics guidelines. Just about everyone involved is heavily invested in maintaining the current system, with the exception of the viewer.

While lobbyists and PR flacks have long tried to spin the press, the launch of Fox News and MSNBC in 1996 and the Clinton impeachment saga that followed helped create the caldron of twenty-four-hour political analysis that so many influence peddlers call home. Since then, guests with serious conflicts of interest have popped up with alarming regularity on every network. Just examine their presence in coverage of the economic crash and the healthcare reform debate, two recent issues that have engendered massive cable coverage.

As the recession slammed the country in late 2008 and government bailouts followed, lobbyists and PR flacks took to the air with troubling regularity, advocating on behalf of clients and their interests while masquerading as neutral analysts. One was Bernard Whitman, president of Whitman Insight Strategies, a communications firm that specializes in helping "guide successful lobbying, communications and information campaigns through targeted research." Whitman's clients have included lobbying firms like BGR Group and marketing/PR firms like Ogilvy & Mather, which in turn have numerous corporate clients with a vested interest in shaping federal policies. Whitman is a veteran of the Clinton era and when making television appearances continues to be identified for work he did almost a decade earlier.

According to its website, Whitman Insight Strategies has worked for AIG to "develop, test, launch, and enhance their consumer brand," and continues to assist the insurance giant "as it responds to ongoing marketplace developments." Whitman Strategies has also posted more than 100 clips of Bernard Whitman's television appearances on a YouTube account. During a September 18, 2008, Fox News appearance to discuss Sarah Palin, Whitman proceeded to lambaste John McCain for proposing to "let AIG fail," saying that this demonstrated "just how little he understands the global economy today."

On March 25, 2009, in the midst of a scandal over AIG's executive bonuses, Whitman appeared on Fox News again. "The American people were understandably outraged about AIG," he began. "Having said that, we need to move beyond anger, frustration and hysteria to really get down to the brass tacks of solving this economy," he advised the public. In neither instance was Whitman's ongoing work for AIG mentioned.

Another person with AIG ties is Ron Christie, now at the helm of his own consultancy. While working at Republican-leaning firm DC Navigators, now Navigators Global, from 2006 through September 2008, Christie was registered to lobby on behalf of the insurance giant, lobbying filings show. During that period, AIG shelled out $590,000 to DC Navigators.

On September 18, 2008, Christie went on Hardball to discuss the government's response to AIG's near implosion days earlier. He was introduced only as a Republican strategist. As Chris Matthews mocked a presidential press conference on the financial crisis held earlier that day, Christie interrupted to say President Bush was "smart to have gotten a former person from Goldman Sachs who is a very bright man, who understands the markets and liquidity." Christie was referring to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who had once been the chair and CEO of Goldman Sachs and who played a pivotal role in the AIG bailout. "This is not a political sideshow. This is putting the right person in his administration to deal with this crisis," Christie said.

Bigger players were on AIG's payroll, too: shortly after receiving its first bailout, in 2008, AIG hired PR mega-firm Burson-Marsteller to handle "controversial issues." In April 2009, B-M hired former White House press secretary Dana Perino, already an established TV pundit. A month later she was picked up as a contributor to Fox News, where she has had occasion to discuss the economic meltdown.

This past July, for example, Perino joined a roundtable on Fox Business Network's Money for Breakfast, which briefly noted her affiliation with B-M but neglected to mention its link to AIG. When a fellow guest commented that AIG had been "highly regulated" before the crash, Perino pounced, suggesting that current financial reform efforts demonstrate how "Washington has a tendency to overreact in a crisis." When Gary Kalman of USPIRG suggested that regulations had, in fact, been rolled back for decades, Perino scoffed, "I don't think there are many business people who would actually agree with that."

(Whitman, Christie and Perino did not return requests for comment.)

Another conflict of interest plagued the televised debate over how to reform healthcare. Terry Holt, once a spokesman for the Republican National Committee and for House minority leader John Boehner, has also been, on and off since 2003, a lobbyist for the health insurance trade group America's Health Insurance Plans. When he and three other Republican operatives formed communications and lobbying firm HDMK in 2007, one of their first clients was AHIP.

On March 5, 2009, Holt, introduced simply as a Republican, told MSNBC anchor David Shuster that the Obama administration was "going to, you know, cut Medicare benefits for something like 11 million seniors to start this big healthcare reform project." By October AHIP was running ads in several states against the health reform bill that asked, "Is it right to ask 10 million seniors on Medicare Advantage for more than their fair share?"

Holt also made several appearances to discuss healthcare policy on CNN, where his affiliation with insurers was cited on several occasions, starting in September, though not during a September 14 appearance on The Situation Room, when Holt discussed healthcare reform efforts. The network subsequently experienced a small scandal in October when blogger Greg Sargent revealed that political analyst Alex Castellanos, a frequent commentator on CNN, had been helping craft attack ads for AHIP--including the one that referred to the "10 million seniors" losing Medicare benefits--while discussing healthcare policy on air, identified only as a Republican strategist.

When I interviewed Holt recently, he told me that there was one occasion when his work for AHIP was not mentioned on CNN, and that afterward, a producer contacted him to discuss his work for the trade group. Holt said that he believes that cable appearances "operate best with maximum transparency."

"When you're addressing the public, it's a reasonable expectation that they be fully aware of your perspective--where you're coming from--and I see my obligation as informing the news organization that's asking me to appear or to comment about my standing and letting them be the judge," he said.

Democratic lobbyists and corporate consultants have also made appearances to discuss health reform with no reference to their pharmaceutical or insurance company clients. On September 24, 2009, Dick Gephardt appeared on MSNBC's Morning Meeting, where he labeled the public option "not essential." Gephardt was asked by host Dylan Ratigan to discuss healthcare reform in light of his experience as a Congressman during the Clinton effort in 1993 and now simply as "an observer through this process." There was no mention of his work advising insurance and pharmaceutical interests through his lobbying firm Gephardt Government Affairs, nor any mention that Gephardt is a lobbyist for NBC/Universal.

Likewise, Tom Daschle dropped by MSNBC on May 12 and July 2, 2009, and NBC's Meet the Press on August 16, 2009. At each appearance he discussed healthcare reform with no mention of his work on behalf of lobbying firm Alston & Bird, which advises insurer UnitedHealth Group. Only during a December 8 appearance on MSNBC's Dr. Nancy was Daschle finally confronted, albeit with kid gloves, about how his simultaneous work for lobbying firms on behalf of health insurers and meetings with administration officials on healthcare reform appeared to be at odds. "I certainly want to be appreciative of perception, so we're going to take great care in how we go forward," Daschle promised. A month later, on January 11, the former Senate majority leader returned to MSNBC to discuss healthcare with Andrea Mitchell. In the nearly ten-minute interview, his insurance work went unmentioned.

As of this writing, healthcare and financial reform legislation have largely stalled. And although it would be foolish to argue that Daschle's TV appearances sank the public option or that Dana Perino's punditry fatally wounded a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, there can be no doubt that there is a cumulative effect from hundreds of appearances by dozens of unidentified lobbyists and influence peddlers that helps to drive press coverage and public opinion.

Janine Wedel, an anthropologist in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University and author of the new book Shadow Elite, told me in a recent interview that while these influence peddlers are not necessarily unethical, they "elude accountability to governments, shareholders and voters--and threaten democracy."

"When there's a whole host of pundits on the airwaves touting the same agenda at the same time, you get a cumulative effect that shapes public opinion toward their agenda," she said.

Frequent television news commentators are also often given access to policy-makers, who may find that they are meeting with not just a TV pundit but also a paid lobbyist. This past March, for example, the White House held an exclusive "communications message meeting" for high-profile Democratic strategists with top presidential aide David Axelrod. Of the eighteen attendees, almost all television regulars, a third were lobbyists or public relations flacks, such as Kelly Bingel, a lobbyist for AHIP and a partner at mega-firm Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, and Rich Masters, a partner at PR/lobbying outfit Qorvis Communications, where he works on behalf of trade group Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

Ultimately, no matter how often or how cleverly lobbyists and PR operatives have used cable news appearances to their business advantage, it is hard to fault them for the practice. In many cases, they have made no attempt to hide their work for corporate clients; some, like Terry Holt, have gone out of their way to inform producers and bookers of the work they're doing on behalf of clients.

This leaves final responsibility in the hands of the cable news networks that invite lobbyists and corporate flacks on the air and fail to identify their affiliations. This past fall Aaron Brown, host of CNN's NewsNight from 2001 until 2005, when the network pushed him out, and currently a professor of journalism at Arizona State University, told me that he didn't think the problem was a lack of standards but a lack of enforcement. Bookers--"young, inexperienced people under a lot of pressure"--are unlikely to ask guests about potential conflicts of interest. "I think they're often derelict in vetting," says Brown.

For Brown, though, the lack of disclosure is symptomatic of larger problems in cable journalism, rooted in the shift to putting numerous analysts and strategists on television as an easy, inexpensive way to fill time. It's "a lot cheaper than sending a correspondent to Afghanistan," he says.

"What I find unconscionable about this is that it's not like a struggling newspaper is looking for an inexpensive way to do journalism because they have no money. These are highly successful profit centers for the corporations that they're spawned from," Brown said.

Jeff Cohen, who helped found the nonprofit group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), echoes some of Brown's critiques. Cohen worked for MSNBC for several months in 2002 and published a book in 2006, Cable News Confidential, about the experience. When I asked him why men like Gephardt and McCaffrey could go on television with no reference to their consulting and lobbying, Cohen explained that, based on his experience at MSNBC, "these regulars get introduced the way they want to be introduced.

"This is the key: Gephardt will always be the former majority leader of the House. Period.... These guys know they won't be identified by what they do now but instead by what their position was years or decades ago," Cohen said.

Some of this has changed in recent months, with CNN starting to identify the industries some analysts work for. For its part, Fox News has long identified the lobbying or PR firms of some--though not all--guests, but the network does not give viewers any information about the kinds of clients these firms represent. (CNN would not return calls, and Fox News did not provide comment.)

Then there's MSNBC, the cable network with the most egregious instances of airing guests with conflicts of interest. Only on MSNBC did Todd Boulanger, a Jack Abramoff-connected lobbyist working for Cassidy and Associates, go on a TV rehabilitation tour with no identification of his work, all while he was under investigation for corruption (he pleaded guilty in January 2009). Only on MSNBC was a prime-time program, Countdown, hosted by public relations operative Richard Wolffe and later by a pharmaceutical company consultant, former Governor Howard Dean, with no mention of the outside work either man was engaged in. And MSNBC has yet to introduce DynCorp's Barry McCaffrey as anything but a "military analyst."

When I spoke with MSNBC in mid-January, the network seemed eager to prove it is fixing the problem. David McCormick, the ombudsman for NBC News, deals with questions about standards and practices at MSNBC. (Both organizations use the same policies-and-guidelines booklet, which McCormick helped develop; CNBC has more stringent disclosure requirements as a result of SEC rules.) McCormick told me that the issue of conflict of interest has been on his mind of late. He said that MSNBC intended to contact its guests and brief them on its disclosure policies, adding that "trust is a huge part of the business" and that the network relies on guests "to let us know of any potential conflicts."

"We've been talking to our folks for a number of years about the importance of transparency and letting the viewers in on where folks--it could be contributors, analysts or experts that we don't pay--fit into the mosaic of a story," said McCormick. "Are we perfect about it? No."

In fact, potential conflicts of interest have been a topic of concern for more than a decade. An October 1998 copy of the "NBC News Policies and Guidelines" devotes an entire chapter to "Guests/Analysts/Experts/Advocates." It states:

It is essential that our viewers understand the particular perspective of all guests, analysts and experts (whether paid or not) who appear on our programs....
 Our viewers need all relevant information so they can come to their own conclusions regarding the topic at hand. It is not enough to say: "John Doe of XYZ Foundation."...Likewise, it may not be enough to say Jane Doe, NBC consultant or analyst.... Disclosure may be made in copy or visually. But it must be done in a clear manner.

McCormick told me that financial conflicts of interest were "in the same category as ideological or political interests," but also suggested that MSNBC's practice of posting information about guests on its website was an adequate way to air potential conflicts of interest. McCormick emphasized that this reform was "a work in progress."

A few days later, on January 22, I happened to catch MSNBC's Morning Joe. Mark Penn, identified only as a Clinton administration pollster and Democratic strategist, was suggesting that the Obama administration put healthcare reform on ice. Unmentioned: Penn's role as worldwide CEO of Burson-Marsteller, which has an entire healthcare division devoted to helping clients like Eli Lilly and Pfizer "create and manage perceptions that deliver positive business results."

At times, it begins to seem as though the problem is beyond fixing, an unfortunate but unavoidable reality of our media and political landscape, in which the lines between public service and corporate advancement are so blurred. It is clear that the pressure applied on the networks so far has not resulted in systemic change. Even in the aftermath of increasing scrutiny--particularly after David Barstow's Pulitzer Prize-winning exposés in the Times--General McCaffrey continues to appear on television without any caveats about his work for military contractors. As Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald has observed, none of the networks involved in the scandal have ever bothered to address Barstow's findings on air, and they noticeably omitted Barstow's name from coverage of the 2009 Pulitzers. "It's almost like a mysterious black hole that this issue, which is enormous, is getting no attention from the offenders themselves," the Society for Professional Journalists' ethics committee chair Andy Schotz told me recently.

Jay Rosen, a media critic and journalism professor at New York University, has a different take. "More disclosure is good--I'm certainly in favor of that--but why are these people on at all?" asks Rosen. "They have views and can manufacture opinions around any event at any time."

Rosen echoes something Brown mentioned to me. Watching cable news cover the 2008 election with more analysts crammed at one table than ever before--as if to ask, "How many people can we put on the set at one time?"--Brown said he was "amazed how little they had to offer." He went on, "We live in a time where there are no shortages of opinions and an incredible deficit of facts."

For an accompanying slideshow of the talking heads that are leading double lives as paid lobbyists for corporations, click here (link no longer active): http://www.thenation.com/slideshow/2010030...ndits_slideshow


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...e24667.htm

[Ed Jewett]

Combating the Disinformation, Psyops, and Cover-ups of the US Military

A Scrape in the Teflon US Military Propaganda: Interview with Captain Eric H. May
by Kim Petersen and B.J. Sabri / February 24th, 2010
Few people have heard of the Battle of Baghdad. They might remember Mohammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, Iraq’s information minister, warning of a surprise awaiting U.S. troops if they attacked Saddam International Airport. Later, al-Sahhaf claimed that the Iraqi Republican Guard had slaughtered U.S. troops and was in control of the entire airport. His claims, according to one intelligence officer, were true, but were countered by a US military-media campaign of evasions and distortions which switched the subject from the airport to Private Jessica Lynch and ridiculed al-Sahhaf as “Baghdad Bob.”
What came to be called the Battle of Baghdad Cover-Up (BOBCUP), was an illegal deception of the American people, as well as a desecration of the military men who had fought and died only to be pushed into the memory hole by Big Brother Bush. Captain Eric H. May, a former U.S. Army intelligence and public affairs officer, responded by investigating and confirming BOBCUP, which he reported to an Army Inspector General and to a corporate media that were both cowed and complicit. Realizing that the entire US establishment was dedicated to waging a criminal global war and erecting an oppressive homeland state, Capt. May honored his military oath “to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” He formed and assumed command of a cyber intelligence group, which he named Ghost Troop to honor the unacknowledged ghosts from the Battle of Baghdad. Before long the unit swelled to several hundred members, including veterans of all services, as well as a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and a U.S. ambassador.
Initially, Ghost Troop’s mission was to penetrate the propaganda of the corporate media, government, and military; and to provide essential information being withheld to the American people. Shortly after the Madrid bombing of 3/11, 2004, Capt. May and his chief officers determined that Madrid had been a “false flag” terrorist act carried out by the pro-war Spanish government in an attempt to turn the war weary Spanish people into hawks. They reasoned that the 9/11 attacks, which achieved the same purpose in the USA, were also false flag terrorism. Finally, they agreed that the U.S. government was routinely telling the public that there “was going to be another 9/11″ because it meant to administer it. With grim humor, Ghost Troop began to refer to this future false flag as “9/11-2B.” Using their military and media savvy to frustrate the 9/11-2B false flag became their second mission, and consumed most of their efforts.
Those who know Capt. May well consider his unique mission of conscience to be the stuff of legend. The Lone Star Iconoclast in Central Texas has long demanded that Congress investigate his uncanny ability to warn the Internet about false flag dangers: he has forecast petrochemical refinery explosions in Southeast Texas, each of which may have been a foiled terror attack, six times. He exposed a US WMD team that had infiltrated the Texas City refinery area in February 2006. Publisher W. Leon Smith credits him with saving the Republic by his leadership of Ghost Troop to prevent 9/11-2B.1
There is a growing movement in the 9/11 “truth” and patriot movements to press for Congress to award him the nation’s highest military honor. Shortly after the publication of the Iconoclast editorial, Dr. James H. Fetzer, the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and a close collaborator and friend of the captain’s gave voice to many with his glowing accolade: “This is a completely brilliant and fully justified recommendation, which I wholeheartedly support. I have not admired anyone during my life as much as I have Captain May. He is a superb analyst and remarkable human being.”
Capt. May was a vibrant, fit man — a martial arts expert — when he began to lead Ghost Troop. He was constantly under threat from the military, the FBI and various national police and intelligence agencies. He was mysteriously stricken with ALS, commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease, subsequent to his dissidence. Despite the advanced condition of the disease, Capt. May, now a paralyzed disabled veteran, was good enough to partake in the following interview.2
***** Kim Petersen: I first became acquainted with you when you responded to Dissident Voice pulling an article on damning revelations about US military atrocities in Iraq made by a purported Army Ranger, Jesse Macbeth. However, Iraq Veterans Against the War disavowed backing Macbeth, and the veracity of Mr. Macbeth’s claims of service in the US Army were questioned. Lacking substantiation of Mr. Macbeth’s claims DV pulled the article. Other media outlets followed suit. You decried this as a “hideous failure of American journalism.” Do you still see Macbeth as a victim of “swiftboating”?
Captain May: In a word, yes. Jesse Macbeth is a perfect example of a crucial dissident voice who had both courage and a vital message. An Arab-American radio show host, Dr. Hesham Tillawi of Arab Voices asked me to review the Macbeth tape just before the swiftboat attacks began, and it seemed absolutely credible to me, a veteran of four decades of military service. Macbeth was specific in terminology, tactics and training. He was also specific about Middle East geography, lifestyle, habits and attitude. There had already been two local Arizona mainstream media stories about him — neither previously challenged — as a war veteran. He had already been drawing benefits from the Veterans Administration without difficulty, meaning that the military considered him much more than a training washout, the story with which they later attacked him.
When Iraq Veterans Against the War failed to support him, it was because an IVAW administrator, Amanda Braxton, a lifelong civilian, had been buffaloed by the best swiftboating attack since the presidential election of 2004. It was led by men whose records in special operations, propaganda and Republican war rallying made them seem more like mercenaries than media. When I interviewed Braxton, she admitted that she had been frightened into turning on Macbeth. Further, she mentioned that his IVAW cohorts had never doubted that he was a war veteran. This was the best evidence of all that he was on the level.
Given my familiarity with the military system, I made calls all the way to the top level of the Army requesting confirmation from the official record supporting swiftboater claims that Macbeth had never seen the war — and found that the Army was trying to dodge any comment about him. Yes, Macbeth was swiftboated because his message was that we were using SS-style tactics against Middle Eastern Muslims — something the Middle East is well aware of. The alternative media chickened out on a crucial story, allowing the mainstream media and political establishment to cover it up. I wrote an article about it before moving on to other critical stories:
“Updating a War Crime Witness: Jesse Macbeth,” Ghost Troop Archive, June 2006.
KP: I had heard about the Battle of Baghdad at the airport from my colleague BJ Sabri, where reportedly US troops had suffered many losses, but you are the first person I know to have reported about it online. You wrote that it was kept from public consciousness, “hidden under the distraction story of Private Jessica Lynch.” The Battle of Baghdad still has not emerged into public consciousness. Why do you think this is so?
Capt.: In Ghost Troop, we never left the cover-up unchallenged. In early April of 2007, as the fourth anniversary of the Battle of Baghdad approached, The Lone Star Iconoclast published an interview with me updating my research on the cover-up. A few days later Al Jazeera published an interview with Iraqi General Al-Rawi, who had commanded Saddam’s forces at the airport. A few weeks later the U.S. Congress held hearings about media and military failure to report the truth from Iraq and Afghanistan, especially in the cases of Pvt. Jessica Lynch and Cpl. Pat Tillman. I believe that Ghost Troop and the Iconoclast gave Al Jazeera and Congress the encouragement they needed to do as much as they did. I believe that the continuing cover-up by the mainstream and alternative media goes far to demonstrate that they are in large part controlled by the same pro-war establishment that has orchestrated everything from 9/11 to the present to turn the American dream of security into the Muslim nightmare of invasion.
BJ Sabri: There were many published emails that you wrote where you defend the right for information and to find out the truth, at least about the Battle of Baghdad; now, if that is the case, and since you were a material witness to history, and since many accounts confirm that the United States used a neutron bomb to the end the battle that cost the US military dearly, I ask you a very precise question: Did the United States use such a neutron bomb in Iraq?
Capt.: When the Battle of Baghdad occurred, I was at home in Texas, my active duty military days behind me, watching events on CNN. At that point I knew that something catastrophic had happened in Saddam International Airport, but I had no idea that it was something nuclear. Over the next couple of years I received many reports from both Arab and Western witnesses that we had used a neutron warhead. It wasn’t until I reached the anti-war Camp Casey outside George W. Bush’s Texas headquarters in Crawford in 2005 that I spoke with numerous witnesses together. They included Army and Marine veterans of the Battle of Baghdad, Arab witnesses and journalists. All their accounts, taken together, convinced me that the neutron warhead was employed. Gen. Al-Rawi confirmed the nuke in his Al Jazeera interview:
“US accused of using neutron bombs,” Al Jazeera, 4/9/2007.
BJ: You say, “War is just homicide on a national scale.” Homicide against whom: U.S. military personnel, who are the aggressors or the Iraq nation — military, and civilians — who were attacked without casus belli? Still, homicide sounds ordinary in these circumstances, why not use a precise term such as premeditated mass murder, in which both aggressors and aggressed suffered unnecessary death? In addition, whether homicide or mass murder, it seems that the criminals who planned and carried it out will go unpunished. Does this mean the United States government and military are above the law?
Capt.: I realize that my phrase “war is just homicide on a national scale” is cold-blooded, but it is a professional military man’s first premise in understanding or discussing the phenomenon. I accept your objection that I don’t offer human judgments as to who is involved in self-defense and in aggression, with its implication that such judgments must be made. I’ve been forthright elsewhere in my moral evaluation of the “Global War on Terror,” admitting that we Americans have been duped into war crime, and calling for punishment of our leaders:
“Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld: Geneva Conventions now, Nuremberg Principles later,” Al Jazeerah, 7/3/2006.
BJ: In your email, you write, “I am pleased to see that the anti-war is joining the infowar …” You sound like an anti-war activist. Are you really an anti-war military man? If you are anti-war, why did you take part in such war that you may have been privy to as being based on pretexts?
Capt.: I was no longer a serving soldier at the time of 9/11 or the ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. For the most part I accepted the official propaganda. It wasn’t until realizing the cover-up of the Battle of Baghdad that I became interested in analyzing the wars or the policies behind them. I was never an anti-war military man until after I examined the post-9/11 wars in the Middle East.
My comrade in the antiwar, former Marine Corps Major William B. Fox, wrote a well researched article about my intellectual and ethical awakening:
“Captain Courageous and the Quicksand War,” The Lone Star Iconoclast, 3/26/2008.
BJ: I read somewhere in the wealth of information you provided, how you imagined George W. Bush should articulate his message to the nation about the course of war. Because you put words in his mouth, you, nevertheless, injected your personal feelings about the imperialist wars “by American definition, patriotic.” What do you think now about the endless wars of what many experts contend is a Zionist-controlled United States government?
Capt.: You are referring to “Cavalrymen and Cowards,” which was a philippic I directed at Bush shortly after the Battle of Baghdad cover-up. At that point I still had no judgment about whether or not the war in Iraq was legal or illegal. I was chiding him for not having enough guts to admit facts. It’s likely that Bush himself read my words, since I interviewed with his team about becoming his speechwriter before he became president, when he was still the governor of Texas and we shared some acquaintances.
As far as those experts who consider the United States to be Golem, mindlessly carrying out proxy wars for Zionists, at this stage of my development I would call myself one of them. Until we awaken as a nation to Israel’s machinations and manipulations against our own interests, we are in great danger ourselves, and represent a great danger to the rest of the world.
KP: Nine/11 provided a pretext for the so-called War on Terror, and Ghost Troop has been vigilant in defending against another 9/11. Does an Obama government affect the need for such vigilance?
Capt.: Not in the least. In his first year in office, Obama has demonstrated conclusively that he is a puppet for the war cabal. He needs another 9/11-style event to re-energize the dictatorial Homeland and the imperial Global War, which are nothing more than euphemisms for “Vaterland” and “World War.”
In Ghost Troop we use an operational codename for this required next 9/11: We call it “9/11-2B” — the 9/11 that the establishment assures us is going “to be.” Just this month Obama’s intelligence officials were projecting 9/11-2B in 3 to 6 months. The way we look at it, that means this puppet president wants to set up such an attack before the Congressional elections of next fall. His recent emphasis on beefing up our cyber security is an indicator that 9/11-2B will entail an attack on the Internet, the sole remaining free media, and the greatest impediment to totalitarian rule of the United States.
BJ: Going back to the issue of how you think George W. Bush should articulate his message to the nation. You stated in your article “Philippic contra George W. Bush” that he should say, “We will not rest until the mission for which they gave their lives is accomplished. We will not stop until we have vanquished tyranny and terror abroad, and brought our heroes home. That will be our tribute to the fallen. God Bless America, Garry Owen, and goodnight.” To me, you kept George Bush’s essence, but just embellished the rhetoric. Can you explain?
Now, you put words in his mouth (meaning that you, in turn, articulated your own political vision and projected it into Bush’s mind). Since you injected personal feelings about U.S. imperialist war in Iraq “by America’s definition: patriotic,” what do you think now about the endless wars?
Capt.: In the philippic against Bush I attacked him as a lying coward, and to drive the point home I wrote the words that I would have written for him had I been his speechwriter at the time of the Battle of Baghdad — which I nearly was. I was writing rhetoric, putting the best face on the facts as I then believed them to be. Please bear in mind that I was writing a historic document here by slamming the most powerful man on earth at a time when he had shown himself to be tyrannical and murderous. People who write philippics — which can only earn the name “philippic” when published to a murderous tyrant — have good reason to worry that the bold act will cost them their lives, and I believe it nearly cost me mine. A couple of days after I wrote it, political dissidents in the U.S. and UK began to be assassinated, which was the topic of a recently published article about them and me:
“Captain Courageous Witnessed: Dr. Kelly Assassinated!,” Al Jazeerah, 12/10/2009.
BJ: Do you really think that these wars are about tyranny and terror? In wider sense, do you think it is about time that the American people stop following what their rulers incite them to do in the names of causes that actually do not exist except on a propagandistic level?
Capt.: I do think that these wars are about tyranny and terror: the tyranny and terror emerging from the efforts of Western psychopaths who have taken over the reins of power. They intend to do far worse deeds than they have done. The only way we can stop them is by doing what you suggest: awakening the American people to the perils of being misled by perfidious leaders and an evil establishment. I am proud to be, like you, among the dissident voices engaged in this historic struggle, in which we have transformed the Internet into the printing press of the New American Revolution.

1. “Captain Eric H. May Deserves Congressional Medal of Honor,” The Lone Star Iconoclast, 2 February 2010. [↩]
   
2. Introduction with assistance of Capt. May. [↩]
   

Kim Petersen is co-editor of Dissident Voice. B. J. Sabri is an Iraqi-American antiwar activist.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/02/combat...l-complex/