The terror factor

Tom Regan of the CS Monitor rounds up reports on the recent chaos in Afghanistan and Iraq, where bombings and kidnappings continue to wreak havoc.

More on the Israeli spy story

Iran-Contra II? The Israeli spy story continues to evolve. The FBI investigation has centered on Larry Franklin, but it looks like he's the small fish in this drama.

One strain of this story suggests that he's been baited or "flipped" by investigators in order to flesh out other actors navigating between the US and Israel over both nations' policies towards Iran, in particular. Another string of news suggests that the Franklin investigation might have been leaked by someone in the Pentagon in order to preempt a deeper investigation and signal to varying players in the neocon circus to quit their scheming and cover up their tracks.

Juan Cole and Laura Rozen have a bunch of excellent posts up on scandal. Check in with them for a close reading of events.

Additionally, Justin Raimondo and Karen Kwiatkowski, two of the most active ringers of the neocon alarm bell, weigh in with their own unique takes.

The Bush Air Guard Fix

Greg Palast:

In 1968, former Congressman George Herbert Walker Bush of Texas, fresh from voting to send other men’s sons to Vietnam, enlisted his own son in a very special affirmative action program, the ‘champagne’ unit of the Texas Air National Guard. There, Top Gun fighter pilot George Dubya was assigned the dangerous job of protecting Houston from Vietcong air attack.

This week, former Lt. Governor Ben Barnes of Texas 'fessed up to pulling the strings to keep Little George out of the jungle. "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas Air Guard - and I'm ashamed."

The story is even juicier, so read all of Palast's piece.

The March to Nowhere

Tom Englehardt recounts his experience at the protest in NYC this past weekend.

Also check in with the NYC IMC for a wrap up of what went down on the weekend and to see how NYC takes to a whole bunch of Republicans in town for the rest of the week.

An exposé of dishonest media coverage

Jean Shaoul of the WSWS reviews the Glasgow University Media Group’s new book, Bad News from Israel.

Ong

Here's an interesting profile of Walter Ong, one of the pioneering scholars in media studies.

(via arts & letters daily)

Israeli spy at the Pentagon

According to CBS News, the FBI is investigating an Israeli spy at the Pentagon:

60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports the FBI believes it has "solid" evidence that the suspected mole supplied Israel with classified materials that include secret White House policy deliberations on Iran.

At the heart of the investigation are two people who work at The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington.

The FBI investigation, headed up by Dave Szady, has involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that CBS News was told document the passing of classified information from the mole, to the men at AIPAC, and on to the Israelis.

CBS sources say that last year the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran while it was, "in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were still debating the policy."

This put the Israelis, according to one source, "inside the decision-making loop" so they could "try to influence the outcome."

The case raises another concern among investigators: Did Israel also use the analyst to try to influence U.S. policy on the war in Iraq?

This is absolutely delicious.

We can only hope this investigation opens up a broader discussion of the Office of Special Plans, the forged Niger uranium docs, and that pesky neocon-Israeli connection.

Hell, maybe we'll even find out what Mossad was doing in the US around 9/11...

A peaceful intifada?

Fatah is supposedly going to use a high-profile visit to the West Bank by Gandhi's grandson to kick off a targeted program of non-violent resistance to gain a stronger hand in the Palestinians' struggle with Israel.

This is the type of initiative that should have been launched after the first intifada; unfortunately, if history is any guide, Arafat is not capable of leading anything of this sorts.

GOP deters minority vote, says report

A new report from the NAACP and People for the American Way contends that "recent events suggest the Republican Party is mounting a campaign to keep African Americans and other minority voters away from the polls this November," according to the Washington Post.

Mass dead

Even though an apparent cease fire has been reached, Rahul Mahajan is trying to figure out how many people have been killed in Najaf over the past few weeks.

He approximates the death toll as being "in the neighborhood of 600 to 1000 Iraqis," more or less "the same scale as the killing in Fallujah."

Glitches galore

In an article for In These Times, crusading journalist Bev Harris explains what's wrong with electronic voting machines and what needs to be done about them.

More poor, uninsured

The AP reports that, according to new figures released by the Census Bureau, the "number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million last year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million" in what was "the third straight annual increase for both categories."

Is "democracy" still democratic?

If you enjoy reading Arundhati Roy as much as I do, you'll want to check out the speech she gave in San Franciso in mid-August.

(via ddjangoWIrE)

The Enablers

Sam Parry documents how the Bushies are once again being allowed to play the press on Iraq and the Swift Boat stuff.

War crimes?

One of the key charges against John Kerry by Bush's Swift Boat allies is that Kerry has accused Vietnam vets of being war criminals and rapists since he has testified about and spoken out against the atrocities of that war, with some implying that such things are not to be mentioned in public. Or, worse, that such crimes never really happened.

As David MacMichael stresses in a response to a particular Washington Post article on the war crimes brouhaha, this is patently absurd and the press corps would do well by pointing out that atrocities were far from uncommon in Vietnam, something that seems to be getting lost in this pseudo-debate about what happened 30+ years ago.

Both sides of the story...

Objectivity, explained.

Can the ethnic cleansing in Sudan be stopped?

Samantha Power, who you might recall penned a rather damning piece on the Clinton administration's handling of the Rwandan massacre for the Atlantic Monthly a few years ago, has turned her sights towards the situation in Darfur in an extended article for the New Yorker.

Another case study of the propaganda model

One tortured apology isn't good enough for Howie Kurtz, apparently. He's now written a rejoinder to criticism of the Washington Post's Iraq mea culpa from last week. In it, Kurtz argues that while Post reporters got some things right, the editors at the paper did a poor job balancing out stories that supported the administration's case for war with those that shed a skeptical light on their claims.

This is undoubtedly true, but not the crux of what Kurtz is trying to say. His main point is that the structural problems of journalism and the framing of the administration's case essentially preordained the fact that the press would fail.

Perhaps most amazingly, he seems to take solace in this since the Post's failures were thus due to the "limitations of journalism" rather than the paper's "political leanings." I find this much more disturbing, though. Kurtz is basically admitting that journalists could not develop a counternarrative to US government propaganda since they did not have enough "credible sources" saying something to contradict the government.

Well, maybe I've been absent for a few weeks, but isn't it the journalist's job to cultivate sources that enhance, contradict, or redefine whatever story he or she is working on? And if one source is dominating the framing of a certain story, isn't it also the journalist's job to seek out sources that could produce an alternative to the narrative being offered, or at least a different angle? Isn't that what a "free press" is supposed to do?

In theory, journalists are not supposed to be merely stenographers for the government or the powerful. With this revised admission, Kurtz is saying this was an impossibility in the Iraq case. In other words, the Post was so heavily dependent on government sources that it functioned as the propaganda arm of the state. Nevertheless, since the Post didn't succumb to ideologically tinted coverage, the paper should be absolved of most, but not all, blame.

The ramifications of this sort of logic are stunning. Chomsky and Herman must be smiling, somewhere.

Warlords, or not

John Pilger, writing in the New Statesman:

We have debated lesser evilism so often on both sides of the Atlantic that it is surely time to stop gesturing at the obvious and to examine critically a system that produces the Bushes and their Democratic shadows. For those of us who marvel at our luck in reaching mature years without having been blown to bits by the warlords of Americanism, Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal, and for the millions all over the world, who now reject the American contagion in political life, the true issue is clear.

For Pilger, the issue is not whether Bush or Kerry wins this year, but whether or not the imperial project that has reaped countless victims over the past 500 years is allowed to continue, unabated, as it has under Democratic and Republican administrations past.

Back from the dead

What's below is a collection of material that summarizes, in very broad detail, some of the more important stories that I've missed. This material skews largely towards Iraq issues, as usual, but is nowhere near as comprehensive as the last time I played catch up after a long, blog-free stretch.

I'm going to try to resume blogging now on a regular basis, although that may be difficult to accomplish. We'll see what happens...

* Salon's Eric Boehlert details how scrutiny of Iraq has tailed off sharply in the American media following the June 28 transfer of sovereignty, what Matthew Yglesias and Paul Krugman have characterized as the "Afghanizing" of press coverage.

* Mass delusion: More than half of the American people still believe Iraq had WMD and about half believe Iraq was "either closely linked with al-Qaida before the war (35 percent) or was directly involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on this country (15 percent)," according to a new PIPA poll. These figures have dipped slightly over the past year, but still remain disconcertingly high.

* What the hell is the US doing in Najaf? Gary Leupp can't get over the stupidity of recent moves against the Imam Ali Shrine.

* "The U.S. military has spent most of the $65 billion that Congress approved for fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is scrambling to find $12.3 billion more from within the Defense Department to finance the wars through the end of the fiscal year," the Washington Post reported in late July. In related money news, there are at least 27 separate criminal investigations into the handling of Iraq's funds and approximately $8.8 billion of this money is now missing.

* Tom Engelhardt peers behind the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on faulty Iraq intelligence, which reserved nearly all of its criticism for the CIA, conveniently letting the Bush administration off the hook for the role it played in driving the nation to war.

* In an article for In These Times meant to implicitly rebut the Senate report, David Sirota and Christy Harvey explode the notion that Bush's Iraq lies and missteps were due to "intelligence failures." In contrast to the narrative of getting dragged along by bureaucratic inertia, Sirota and Harvey revisit in detail how the administration led the charge to war with unsubstantiated and exaggerated claims that were meant to register high on the scare scale.

* "The biggest story of the Iraq war is about the torture of Iraqi children," avers William Rivers Pitt. And yet, this story is getting hardly any attention in the media outside of Seymour Hersh's valiant efforts to spread the word.

* On a related front, Lila Rajiva has written a four-part article on Iraqi women and torture well worth reading.

* "Reading through the memoranda written by Bush administration lawyers on how prisoners of the 'war on terror' can be treated is a strange experience," observes Anthony Lewis in the NYRB. "The memos read like the advice of a mob lawyer to a mafia don on how to skirt the law and stay out of prison."

* According to an article published in the British medical journal The Lancet, American military doctors knew of, were complicit with, and attempted to cover up the torture at Abu Ghraib. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that Army investigations are creeping up the chain of command in apportioning responsibility for the prison abuse. Considering this, can we once and for all bury the "few bad apples" explanation?

* Last month, the US Army released an internal review of its detainee policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, which identified 94 cases of abuse. As one would expect, the report was an absolute whitewash.

* Jane's has reported that the US enlisted Israeli security personnel to interrogate detainees in Iraq. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski says she has evidence of this, too.

* The Sydney Morning Herald reported in July that Iyad Allawi, the current Prime Minister of Iraq, personally executed up to six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station on or around June 20. The US media has done an excellent job since of ignoring this story.

* The Washington Post has come out with their own Iraq apology to mirror the NY Times'. Well, sort of. More accurately, as Mike Whitney puts it, the mea culpa is meant as "a blanket disclaimer that absolves them of all accountability."

* Tom Engelhardt runs down a list of those Iraq stories that are MIA in the media.

* The LA Times reports that the iconic image of Saddam Hussein's statue toppling in Firdus Square on April 9, 2003 was an Army pysops project. Nice to know that the mainstream media is up on its toes. It's only 15 months late on this story...

* "We now know that the public was misled over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. But we have also been misled over the even more emotive issue of Iraq's mass graves," asserts Brendan O'Neill in the Guardian. Presumably, he's talking about those "bad" mass graves, not the "good" ones...

* The Asia Times Online ran an excellent, 7-part series by Nir Rosen on life inside the Fallujan resistance. Rosen also published a condensed version of his findings in a complementary New Yorker article.

* Larry Diamond, a Hoover Institute fellow, explains "What Went Wrong in Iraq" in Foreign Affairs. Nothing he says is new or terribly insightful, but the article centralizes and summarizes a good amount of useful information.

* "There is no elegant solution to our Iraqi debacle," says Scott Ritter, sounding the "Vietnam alarm" on Iraq. "It is no longer a question of winning but rather of mitigating defeat." He contends the longer US troops stay on the ground, the worse things will get.

* "The same techniques used to get up the Iraq war are now being applied by the political Right in the United States, including President Bush, to Iran," notes Juan Cole. "These include innuendo, guilt by association, vague fears, and hyped capabilities. If Bush gets a second term, it seems very likely that his administration will make war on Iran." See also: Regime change in Iran if Bush wins?

* Cole also examines the outing of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, an apparent Al Qaeda operative who had been "flipped" and was providing intelligence for the United States.

* So the 9/11 Commission finally published its complete, authoritative report (searchable version, here). While full of bureaucratic details that spread blame so far and wide as to wholly dissipate it, the report contained nary a mention of how particular foreign policy stances foment animosity towards the US. It also says hardly anything about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the Iraq war.

* Jim Lobe of IPS and Brian Whitaker of the Guardian contend that a recent poll of Arab opinion suggests that the US needs to dramatically change its foreign policy if it wishes to win the battle for "hearts and minds" in the Middle East.

* The New Republic detailed the pressure being put on Pakistan by the Bush administration to apprehend a number of "high-value" Al Qaeda leaders before the November election. Alas, the magazine's predicted "July surprise" never happened. Perhaps we'll have to wait until October.

* Some of George Bush's military records, thought to be mysteriously destroyed, finally popped up, but still don't do anything to resolve the gaps in his service record. Considering the publicity rampage those Swift Boaters are on, I find it remarkable that Dubya continues to get a free ride on this issue.

* Bush's boys aren't the only ones to call Kerry a hypocrite on Vietnam. Robert Jensen thinks JFK II is one, as well, but for very different reasons than the Swifties. Factor into this equation the memes revived by the Iraq war and it's no wonder that the ghosts of Vietnam again walk the streets of Washington, as Christian Appy observes.

* James Ridgeway of the Village Voice says there's little difference between the policy platforms of the Republican and Democratic parties this election year, except on social issues. Damn if he ain't right.

* The International Court of Justice has ruled that the apartheid wall/separation barrier being built by Israel in the West Bank is illegal and should be dismantled. Of course, Israel has pretty much ignored the crystal clarity of the decision, a move that might be met with sanctions.

* Massoud A. Derhally argues that the Bush administration would do well to take note that the "road to peace in the Middle East isn't through Baghdad - it's through East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank," particularly as Israel continues throwing up the wall in the face of overwhelming international opposition and outrage.

* In late July, Chris McGreal of the Guardian reported that Israel was rapidly expanding settlements even while professing a desire to withdraw from Gaza. Then, just last week, the Israeli government issued permits for 1,001 new settlement homes in the West Bank. Make no mistake, withdrawal from Gaza is explicitly linked with expansion in the West Bank.

* More Israelis have been killed by terrorism in the last four years than in the preceding 53, according to statistics tabulated by the chief of Israel's security service.

* Gideon Levy wonders aloud what would it be like if the tables were reversed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

* In the Guardian, Greg Philo summarizes the findings of research conducted by the Glasgow University Media Group on television coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

* Newsday's Samson Mulugeta has written another good primer on the crisis in Sudan. To keep track of the developments on the ground, periodically check in with the Darfur Information Center.

* Hugo Chavez won his referendum in Venezuela last week. Mark Weisbrot breaks down what this means for the US.

* Dave Zirin notes that 150 workers died in the rush to build the Olympic facilities in Greece and the Iraqi national soccer team has rejected Dubya's dream to turn their Olympic success into fodder for his political gain.

* Ted C. Fishman chronicled the potential impact of China's accelerating economic development in a July cover story for the NY Times Magazine.

* Newsweek floated the idea that the Presidential election could be cancelled or postponed in the face of a terrorist attack in mid-July and last week Ritt Goldstein of IPS reported that Congress is bandying about ideas how the executive branch could curtail the voting rights of certain individuals in the face of a terrorist threat or assault.

* Ray McGovern is perturbed by the repeated trial balloon of "pre-election threats" cited by the Bush administration. You should be, too.

* After a decontextualized investigation by the Miami Herald found widespread faults with Florida's infamous felon voter purge list, state election officials decided to scrap the list entirely.

* A Justice Department survey has found that approximately seven million adults in the United States, nearly 3.2% of the population, were either incarcerated, on probation, or on parole last year.

* Ron Reagan has penned "The Case Against George W. Bush" in Esquire.

* Matt Bai of the NY Times Magazine explains how the establishment Left is trying to build its own political infrastructure to counter the sort of network the Right has constructed over the past 30 years.

* Marcia Angell unveils the truth about the pharmaceutical industry in the NYRB.

* "So if neo-cons were not big democracy boosters during their period of greatest influence under Reagan," Jim Lobe wonders, "when did they get religion?"

* UPI's Greg Guma looks at the trend of privatizing war.

* In a stunning essay that straddles political philosophy and critical pedagogy, Henry Giroux links the growth of neoliberal ideology with the demise of democracy.

* Baruch Kimmerling reviews Samuel Huntington's much discussed book, Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity, and, in a later essay, draws parallels between Huntington's concerns and those of the American Eugenics movement.

* John Chuckman says Fahrenheit 9/11 is "at its heart a thoroughly conservative document, a fact which generally has gone unnoticed except in Robert Jensen's acute review, 'A Stupid White Movie.' Worse, it explains virtually nothing about events it claims to examine."

* Karen Kwiatkowski reviews the documentary Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire, what's been called the film Michael Moore should have made instead of F9/11.

* Tony Judt looks back at Edward Said's "irreplaceable" legacy in The Nation as we approach the first anniversary of his death.

* Some of those notrious Fox News memos have popped up online and in Robert Greenwald's new film, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism.

* Another Greenwald documentary, Uncovered: The Whole Truth About The Iraq War, is available for viewing online.

* Here's an excerpt from Dan Briody's new book, The Halliburton Agenda.

Back soon

Yeah, I'm still alive. Blogging will resume soon. Promise.