Monitoring what the American Media Prints, Misses, and Omits
posted by Devlin Buckley at 10:41 PM
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posted by Devlin Buckley at 7:16 PM
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posted by Devlin Buckley at 10:58 PM
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Once again, as the truth regarding one of the many ‘massacres’ in Iraq creeps into the public spotlight, the Pentagon has announced the useless steps it will take in order to ‘solve’ the problem.
As most Americans now know, after a Marine was killed by a roadside bomb in the Iraqi town of Haditha, his brothers-in-arms reportedly went on a violent rampage, murdering 24 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women, children, and elderly.
In order to prevent this from happening in the future, the Department of Defense has decided to give all
The Marines in Haditha, however, were not ethically or morally challenged and it was not a lack of training or experience that pushed them over the edge.
After repeatedly witnessing their fellow Marines torn apart by roadside bombs, the men of Kilo Company simply snapped. Their actions were horrible and inexcusable, but nonetheless, they were the result of psychological trauma—brought on by the nature of the war.
Antonio Castaneda, a reporter with the Associated Press, met with Kilo Company prior to the incident. In a June 1st article, entitled “Marine rage just below surface,” he noted that the 3rd Battalion was “clearly...a select group, nurtured within the military’s finest institutions and trained to lead an important mission. ... They also seemed sensitive to local concerns.”
In other words, these guys are not a group of ‘bad apples’ with poor morals. They are well-trained Marines; but they are also human beings, and there is no training that can fully prepare any sane individual to repetitively watch their best friends get ripped apart by explosives.
In an all too familiar situation, Castaneda described the Marines reaction to an earlier attack that occurred just a few miles from the Haditha site:
“... A Marine officer later described to me the rage that immediately consumed his unit, swelled by the knowledge that local residents likely saw the men who planted the bomb that killed their friends. ... I’ve heard other Marines talk about the temptation to seek reckless vengeance, often fueled by exasperation toward an unhelpful Iraqi public either too fearful of insurgents or spiteful toward the Americans. On that day in August, the powerful, raw emotion that sought revenge was quelled. But, if investigators are right, the rage in Haditha wasn’t contained for much longer.”
Marines are patrolling areas where the civilians perceive them as occupiers, the insurgents view them as targets, and their continued presence makes the situation worse with every passing day.
The origin of the massacre in Haditha is the war itself, not a lack of ethical values on the part of a few individual Marines.
Such manifestations of rage are inevitable consequences of war, which is exactly why Haditha was not the first, nor the last atrocity to be committed in
While the men of Kilo Company face the possibility of the death penalty, the men who conspired to illegally instigate this war are being permitted to send more Marines to die and kill in their place, so you can expect more Hadithas.
posted by Devlin Buckley at 7:58 AM
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“BLITZER (voiceover): ... Kennedy cites the early exit polls showing Kerry was winning
Kennedy lays much of the blame on Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who is now running for governor. Blackwell refused to respond to Kennedy's allegations, and he declined our offer to be interviewed. He's previously denied similar allegations, saying election glitches shouldn't cause the outcome to be questioned.
And there's a noteworthy skeptic about allegations that the
And a Democratic National Committee study of the
Joining us now from
Exit polls are indeed an exact science. While they cannot be used to determine exact results, they can be used to determine results within a certain margin of error.
As Kennedy noted in his article, election results have recently been thrown out in the
Blitzer smears Kennedy for using exit polls as a source, but he never mentions that on Election Day 2004, the polls varied beyond the margin of error in ten of the eleven battleground states. The final results were off by 6.7 percent in
So right off the bat, Blitzer has completely distorted the truth and given the viewer a false impression of the facts. But he doesn't stop there.
He proceeds to use his misleading statements to transition into a quote by Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who believes “election glitches shouldn't cause the outcome to be questioned.” Of course, if all you watch is CNN and Wolf Blitzer, you’ll think Blackwell is correct.
Blitzer keeps going: “And there's a noteworthy skeptic about allegations that the
Blitzer reiterates this talking point later on, and Kennedy actually gets a chance to respond:
KENNEDY: Well, you know what, Wolf? You're right about that. And I think that's a big problem, that the Democrats backed down too easy on this.
John Kerry has said to me that at the -- at -- during the time -- during the narrow window of time when he had an opportunity to protest this election, he didn't do it, because his attorneys told him that at that point, they didn't have the facts that they needed to make the case.
John has looked at the facts that I produced in this article and particularly the issue about the 12 counties, rural counties where the votes were shifted from Kerry, where 80,000 votes were shifted from Kerry to Bush, and said that his opinion has changed as a result of that.
posted by Devlin Buckley at 3:37 AM
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Despite the Bush Administration’s adamant and continual denunciation of terrorism, the Department of Defense—under Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld’s orders—is using a terrorist organization to orchestrate attacks and collect intelligence inside Iran, according to numerous former and current military, intelligence, administration, and United Nations officials.
Based in
During the first stages of the 2003 invasion, US forces destroyed two MEK bases and confiscated a considerable stockpile of the group’s weaponry, by one count: 300 tanks, 250 armored personnel carriers, 250 artillery pieces, and 10,000 small arms.
The MEK was officially expelled from
In 2004, they became the first terrorist organization to be granted “protected” status by the
The MEK captives were supposedly being confined to a
According to Raw Story, “Although the specifics of what the MEK is being used for remain unclear, a UN official close to the Security Council explained that the newly renamed MEK soldiers are being run instead of military advance teams, committing acts of violence in hopes of staging an insurgency of the Iranian Sunni population.”
Suspected US-sponsored MEK operations include the string of terrorist bombings that killed at least 12 people and injured 90 others in
The vehicle pictured above was destroyed during the pre-election attacks
(Photo: AP / Iran TV)
As early as January of 2005 the MEK were “launching raids” from
“[Undersecretary of Defense Intelligence Stephen] Cambone and those guys made MEK members swear an oath to Democracy and resign from the MEK and then our guys incorporated them into their unit and trained them,” one intelligence official told Raw Story. “These guys are nuts,” he said.
In addition to carrying out attacks, US-trained MEK units are also reportedly being sent into
According to former and current intelligence officials interviewed by UPI, the MEK units are entering
“Both covert groups are tasked by the Bush administration with planting sensors or ‘sniffers’ close to suspected Iran nuclear weapons development sites that will enable the Bush administration to monitor the progress of the program and develop targeting data, these sources said,” according to UPI.
“There is an urgent need to obtain this information, at least in the minds of administration hawks,” one administration official reportedly said.
While ‘gathering’ intelligence in the past, the MEK has been known to use deception to advance their own agenda—in some cases conspiring with their American supporters.
According to The New York Times, for instance, the MEK “rattled the Iranian government and the arms control community in 2002 when it revealed the existence of two secret Iranian nuclear facilities.” The MEK’s information, however, according to a CIA official interviewed by Iran Press Service (IPS), was actually given to the group by sources within the Pentagon that were seeking to legitimize the MEK.
In October of 2004 the MEK once again falsely took credit for exposing a ‘secret’ Iranian uranium processing plant. Far from being secret, the plant had been disclosed to the IAEA two years earlier.
Current and former senior national-security officials told Newsweek that “all the major revelations MEK publicly claims to have made regarding nuclear advances in
“Except the information...given to them by the Americans, all other material the Mojahedeen gave to the media are open secrets,” said a former MEK leader, according to IPS.
“All the information the Mojahedeen provides the western media is pure lies and fabricated to discredit the Iranian regime and help the
‘Covert infrastructure’
A “long-time CIA operator” interviewed by UPI revealed even more regarding the US-sponsored operations inside
“The
“It's a covert infrastructure for material support,” one administration official said, according to UPI. This official said the “network would be able to move money, weapons and personnel around inside
A former CIA officer interviewed by The Guardian commented, “They are bringing a lot of the old war-horses from the Reagan and Iran-contra days into a sort of kitchen cabinet outside the government to write up policy papers on
Saddam’s ‘crimes’
The Pentagon and the Bush Administration’s use of the MEK is ironically similar to the tactics once used by the regime of Saddam Hussein—tactics the administration actually condemned while attempting to build support for war against Iraq.
In fact, the White House pointed to Saddam Hussein’s support for the MEK as evidence that
“
Legality
The Bush Administration’s reported use of the MEK for special operations—in addition to being hypocritical—may also be illegal.
As the Associated Press reported in February of 2005, “as soon as the State Department created a list of terror organizations in 1997, it named the MEK, putting it in a club that includes al-Qaida and barring anyone in the United States from providing material support [to the group].”
Moreover, in August of 2003, the US Treasury Department officially designated the MEK and its affiliates as “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” entities, “effectively freezing all [of their] assets and properties and prohibiting transactions between
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s reported plan to “convert” the MEK fighters and make them swear an oath to democracy was apparently implemented in order to give the Pentagon a legal justification for using the group against
Even if such a justification were to hold up in court, military and intelligence officials, according to Raw Story, say the operations bypass congressional oversights.
An article by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh from January of last year suggests how the Pentagon may be avoiding such standard legal restrictions:
“The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and
Military and intelligence sources, as Raw Story reported, “say no Presidential finding exists on MEK ops. Without a presidential finding, the operation circumvents the oversight of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.”
“The Pentagon doesn’t feel obligated to report any of this to Congress,” a former high-level intelligence official said, according to Hersh. “They’re not even going to tell the cincs,” he said, referring to the American military commanders-in-chief.
“They are doing whatever they want, no oversight at all,” another intelligence official told Raw Story.
According to Raw Story, “Congressional aides for the relevant oversight committees would not confirm or deny allegations that no Presidential finding had been done. One Democratic aide, however, wishing to remain anonymous for this article, did say that any use of the MEK would be illegal.”
Speaking with The Asia Times about the reported operations, retired Air Force colonel Sam Gardiner said, “The president hasn't notified the Congress that American troops are operating inside
Pentagon’s priorities
In 2003 the
In exchange for the MEK captives, Iran was reportedly willing to hand over Zarqawi, along with al-Qaeda spokesman Suleiman abu Gaith and Osama bin Laden’s third oldest son Saad bin Laden, but according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, “the Bush administration ultimately rejected this exchange, bowing to neoconservatives at the Pentagon who hoped to use the Mujaheddin-e Khalq against Tehran.” [5]
In an article published by antiwar.com in August of 2004, Juan Cole, president of the US Middle East Studies Association (MESA), wrote that “[Larry] Franklin, [Harold] Rhode and [Michael] Ledeen conspired with [Manucher] Ghorbanifar and [the Italian intelligence agency] SISMI to stop that trade.” [6]
Cole commented, “Since high al-Qaeda operatives like Saif al-Adil and possibly even Saad bin Laden might know about future operations, or the whereabouts of bin Laden, for Franklin and Rhode to stop the trade grossly endangered the
Lobbying
The MEK, in addition to gaining the support of the Bush Administration and the Department of Defense, has conducted a fairly successful lobbying campaign in
The Iran Policy Committee (IPC), which has been described as a “spin off” of the highly influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), serves as the MEK’s primary support group in Washington. [7]
The MEK’s lobbying ability is actually “very weak and would be completely ineffectual were it not for the support of the pro-Israel lobby,” a former MEK leader recently told The Asia Times. He said “if you need 1,000 lobbying units to influence
“We knew which members of Congress were influenced by AIPAC, so when we needed signatures we'd go to these congressmen first,” the former MEK leader revealed.
According to Front Page Magazine, “MEK supporters roam the halls of Congress asking unsuspecting twenty-something aides if their Member will sign a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter calling for freedom and democracy in
Coincidently, in 2002 150 members of Congress reportedly signed a letter advocating the group’s removal from the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.
House Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Co), according to The New York Sun, has compared the MEK to “America’s Founding Fathers,” while Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) told The Hill that the MEK “loves the
“In fairness to those on the Hill, I don’t think they have any idea who these people are,” State Department spokesman Greg Sullivan said, according to The Hill. He said the MEK’s
“I don't give a shit if they are undemocratic,” Representative Gary Ackerman (D-NY) told the The Village Voice in December of 2001. He said, “OK, so the [MEK] is a terrorist organization based in
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
1. This is not the only example of the Pentagon’s support for the MEK undermining the Iraqi government’s attempts at sovereignty. In the summer of 2005, for example, as part of a new cooperative counterterrorism effort between Iraq and Iran, the Iraqi government promised to prevent MEK from attacking Iranian interests. Such attacks, however, reportedly were, and still are, being launched on behalf of the
2. While most reports have placed the Department of Defense in charge of the MEK operations, former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter reported in June 2005 that the MEK units were working for the CIA's Directorate of Operations.
3. Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counterterrorism official, has corroborated the reports of the MEK being used for intelligence gathering purposes.
4. This April, Hersh reported that “American combat troops have been ordered into
“‘Force protection’ is the new buzzword,” one former senior intelligence official told Hersh. This former official, as Hersh notes, was referring to the fact that these clandestine activities are being broadly classified as “military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight.”
5. Ignatius’ account of the botched MEK/al-Qaeda deal has been corroborated by Flynt Leverett, a former senior CIA official who recently discussed the issue with Time magazine and The American Prospect.
6. Ghorbanifar, a central figure in the Iran-contra affair along with Ledeen, has admitted to having secret discussions with Rhode and Franklin regarding regime change in
7. The IPC consists of former military and intelligence officials, most of whom now work in the private sector and four of whom also work as military analysts for Fox News. In addition, the MEK’s former
Interestingly, in December of 2004, Sasan Fayazmanesh, a professor of economics at Fresno State University, wrote an article for Counterpunch in which he commented on the MEK’s activities: “Every few weeks these Chalabi-like, men-in-black characters-and also Fox News commentators-come up with some ‘top secret satellite photos’ showing non-existent nuclear weapons sites in Iran (how a US designated terrorist organization gets top secret satellite photos is, of course, beyond one's imagination).”
8. The MEK’s supporters, operating under a number of fronts, have funneled out more than $204,000 in campaign contributions in an attempt to get their terrorist designation lifted, Front Page Magazine reported.
It should be noted that the article’s author, Kenneth R. Timmerman, is the founder of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI), which shares the goal of “revolution” in
posted by Devlin Buckley at 2:54 AM
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Sensenbrenner: "I think that we want to make sure that when the next Congressman is investigated for illegal activity that the procedure done by the Justice Department is right..."
posted by Devlin Buckley at 2:49 AM
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