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Truth
and Freedom, Slip-Sliding Away
June
30, 2004
By Sheila Samples
So, what's up with the New York Times? Looks like
being publicly ridiculed for dumping the WMD crap too close
to the house and then tracking it in on the rug in those critical
months before attacking Iraq would have taught it something.
It's a new experience for those of us who once revered the
Times as the epitome of solid journalism to read it
now with a grain of salt, and even then we can't keep the
truth from slip-sliding away. Does this country's "newspaper
of record" not have fact checkers? Editors? Considering that
nobody seems to care about the truth anymore, figuring out
if Times reporters are liars or ignorant - or both
- is getting to be a real head-scratcher.
For example, last week, the Senate voted on an Amendment
to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2005, authored by New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg. The
purpose of the Lautenberg Amendment was to "Express the sense
of Congress on media coverage of the return to the United
States of the remains of deceased members of the Armed Forces
from overseas."
Sounds simple enough. However, for Times reporter
Sheryl Stolberg, expressing the "sense" of the 108th Congess
proved to be a formidable task. Can't fault her for that,
since very little oozing out of that august body makes sense
anymore.
Stolberg reported,
"Two Republicans, Senators Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and John
McCain of Arizona, voted in favor of permitting news photographers
to have access to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where
coffins containing the war dead from Iraq arrive."
If Stolberg had bothered to check, she would have discovered
that there was no formal debate on whether the bodies
of slain Americans would continue to be concealed from the
public. The debate consisted of a couple of "cover your ass"
comments made for the Senate record, such as that of John
(sound-bite) McCain, who said, "These caskets that arrive
at Dover are not named; we just see them." Then, before joining
Snowe and the rest of his Republican cohorts in voting to
keep the ban on photos of flag-draped coffins, McCain added
inanely, "I think we ought to know the casualties of war."
Stolberg then went on to reveal, "The 54-to-39 vote came
after little formal debate, with 7 Democrats joining 47 Republicans
to defeat the provision."
Accordng to the official vote tally that evidently escaped
Stolberg's attention, the shameful
score was 52-38, with eight turncoat Democrats voting
to censor the news and continue to hide the real cost of war
from unpatriotic, prying eyes. Those eight are Evan Bayh (D-IN),
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), John Breaux (D-LA), Mary Landrieu (D-LA),
Carl Levin (D-MI), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Ben Nelson (D-NE),
and Mark Pryor (D-AR). The Defense Authorization bill is a
pork-fest that at least these eight noble characters could
not resist. Wonder if Stolberg was the least bit interested
in what might have lured them across the great idealogical
divide? The $250 million for Arkansas projects is especially
rank, considering that Pryor had just gotten his own amendment
to "recognize the sacrifice of American military personnel
injured in combat and to help families track their whereabouts"
passed as part of the Defense bill.
Stolberg might have compared Pryor's interest in American
soldiers from injury to death to Republicans' intense interest
in American babies from conception to birth. Seems like Americans
are only items of Congressional interest until the moment
they arrive in this world or the moment they leave it. After
that - the just-born and the just-dead seem to be on their
own.
Stolberg also failed to mention that four Democrats - or
three Democrats and Zell Miller (Idiot-GA) teamed up with
six Republicans and chose not to vote on this crucial issue
at all. Opting out with Miller were Hillary Clinton (D-NY),
John Kerry (D-MA) and Chris Dodd (D-CT). Dodd also had an
amendment approved to reimburse troops for protective equipment
purchased with personal funds. Of course, it could just be
me, but it looks like if someone offered up an amendment to
properly equip our men and women before we sent them onto
a bloody battlefield, and to properly honor them after they
were killed on that battlefield, there would be no need for
either a Pryor or a Dodd Amendment.
I don't mean to ramp on Stolberg. She's but a small cog in
a gargantuan propaganda machine comprised primarily of her
newspaper, the Washington Post, the editorial pages
of the Wall Street Journal, and the corporate-owned
electronic media that decides what Americans believe. They
get away with it because, as George Orwell said, Americans
believe what they are told they believe. We are conditioned
to accept without question each day's version of the news
even though it contradicts what we may have seen a few days
earlier.
It's baffling how easily the Bush administration manipulated
the media to control public opinion in the prelude to the
war on Iraq. Especially the Times, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning
propagandist Judith Miller worked in tandem with now discredited
Iraqi exile and Pentagon informer Ahmed Chalabi to present
a blatant dis-infomercial campaign - a tangle of truth, lies
and anonymous assertions about hidden WMD, impending danger
and Iraqi-Al Qaeda ties - to "sell" the war to the American
people. It worked. In fact, it was such a bloody, roaring
success that Miller was back at her post just a month after
the initial assault, digging up chemical and biological weapons
under Iraqi rose bushes and elaborately quoting at length
an unnamed "scientist" that she cheerfully admitted she was
not allowed to interview.
In her infamous April 21, 2003 article,
"Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is
Said to Assert," Miller went into great detail about specific
chemicals that "the scientist" had unearthed, as well as information
"about Iraqi weapons cooperation with Syria, and with terrorist
groups, including Al Qaeda..." This was a Times scoop
of such magnitude that all other US media picked it up and
ran with it, totally ignoring Miller's brazen admission that,
"...this reporter was not permitted to interview the scientist
or visit his home. Nor was she permitted to write about the
discovery of the scientist for three days, and the copy was
then submitted for a check by military officials..."
But the really really good news is that Miller's military
controllers "permitted" her to see the scientist from a distance,
and she was able to verify the discovery of WMD by revealing
that, "clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap, he
pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical
precursors and other weapons material were buried." Well,
that settles it then. However, since Miller freely admits
she was not allowed to talk to this it-could-be-anybody-especially-if-he-works-for-the-CIA
scientist, is this not merely a case of "she said he said?"
It is a fallacy that the American people don't like to be
lied to by their leaders. We love it. Thrive on it. Die for
it. Remember Poppy's 1991 incubator babies - Iraqi troops
amassed on the Saudi border? Remember the millions who died,
not just during the war, but as a result of relentless bombing
and cruel sanctions for 12 long years until Junior could get
back in there and finish the job? Remember who was secretary
of defense back then?
I do. I worked with the media during Poppy's war and there
was no better manipulator in complete control of the media
than defense secretary Dick Cheney. Cheney literally "scrubbed"
the truth about that war, and the media were allowed to publish
only content and photos released by the Pentagon.
If we do not consider the human cost of war, we might understand
the media's position, for - unless you are Judith Miller -
how can you cover a war if you are denied access? Cheney understands
this and, in the lead-up to Junior's global fiasco, had improved
his "system" to where journalists were required not only to
attend "boot camp" to accustom them to military discipline,
but to "embed" with specific units during the war. We know
now that journalists routinely suppress information that casts
the US conduct of the war in an unfavorable light. We know
that military censors "vet" stories, and that "pooled" coverage
- the same controlled story - hits the airwaves and newsstands
simultaneously.
History is a stern teacher, and I'm sure Cheney shudders
when he remembers the mostly unvarnished media coverage of
Vietnam. Cheney was then, and remains now, determined that
such "bad press" will not be repeated. So far, he's been pretty
successful at forcing the media to black out reports on the
slaughter of Iraqi civilians and to limit their coverage to
handouts from Pentagon press briefings and stories that blame
any carnage on the Iraqis themselves.
So, that's what's up with the New York Times, as
well as with its battalions of mainstream wannabes. It's what's
up with an immoral, power-mad administration and, sadly, with
far too many members of the U.S. Congress. It's what happens
to democracy when all the stops are pulled out - when checks
and balances are trashed and when nothing is as cool as a
coup.
It's time for Americans to stand up and, in November, go
to the polls and retrieve the freedoms we so foolishly let
slip away. Does anyone really believe after watching this
gang in action for the last three-and-a-half years that the
madness will stop itself? It should be obvious by now that
- if we keep assuming the position - Bush, his corporate media
buds and our self-serving Congress are gonna keep screwing
us.
And - as someone who knows about these things pointed out
recently - they'll do it simply because they can.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma freelance writer and a former
US Army Public Information Officer. She will accept praise
and atta-boys at: rsamples@sirinet.net.
Complaints and death threats should be directed to her cousin,
Junior Samples, at BR-549.
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