Veto of Spending Bill Is Threatened

Here we go again.

The White House budget director warned on Saturday that President Bush was prepared to veto a $500 billion spending package being assembled in Congress if Democrats pushed for too much additional money for domestic programs.

Jim Nussle, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, accused Democrats of trying to tie money for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to what the president considers excessive spending for federal agencies and home-state projects.

“Instead of trying to leverage troop-funding for more pork-barrel spending, Congress ought to pass responsible appropriations bills and the funding for the troops our commanders say they need to build on their battlefield success,” Mr. Nussle said.

Democratic leaders accused the White House of responding hastily to news accounts of the proposal, which is being developed behind closed doors. They said Democrats were determined to devote more resources to national needs like homeland security and law enforcement.

This is absolutely absurd. The Republicans are all over themselves screaming about fiscal responsibility and taking care of the 'people's money' while in the same breath screaming for more unaccountable funds to be sent to the money pit in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is truly amazing that more people haven't caught on to their con by now.

It wasn't that long ago that the Republicans in Congress were spending money like there was no tomorrow. The bloated Highway Bill, passed in 2005, is a perfect example. Let's take a look back.

Even by the standards of Alaska, the land where schemes and dreams come for new life, two bridges approved under the national highway bill passed by the House last week are monuments to the imagination.

One, here in Ketchikan, would be among the biggest in the United States: a mile long, with a top clearance of 200 feet from the water -- 80 feet higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and just 20 feet short of the Golden Gate Bridge. It would connect this economically depressed, rain-soaked town of 7,845 people to an island that has about 50 residents and the area's airport, which offers six flights a day (a few more in summer). It could cost about $200 million.

The other bridge would span an inlet for nearly two miles to tie Anchorage to a port that has a single regular tenant and almost no homes or businesses. It would cost up to $2 billion.

Republicans screaming about the 'people's money'? Hardly! As Rep. Don Young (R) Alaska said at the time,

''I'd like to be a little oinker, myself,'' Mr. Young told a Republican lunch crowd here, taking mock offense at the suggestion that Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, directs more pork to their state than he does. ''If he's the chief porker, I'm upset.''

And did Bush go to the fainting couch protesting about the pork laden bill? Hardly! As he said at the time of the signing at a Caterpillar plant

"If we want people working in America, we got to make sure our highways and roads are modern," Mr. Bush said. "We've got to bring up this transportation system into the 21st century."

"I mean, you can't expect your farmers to be able to get goods to market if we don't have a good road system," he said. "You can't expect to get these Caterpillar products all around the United States if we don't have a good road system."

And the con job continues...

Shock Doctrine- US in Iraq for Years?

I read with interest bit no surprise yesterday that Bush and Iraqi PM al-Maliki had signed a long term 'agreement' committing American forces in Iraq for years. The stated purpose was to protect the government in Baghdad from internal coup plots and foreign enemies. The corrupt Iraqi government, no matter how unpopular, will be protected by its puppet masters in Washington for years to come.

Iraq's government, seeking protection against foreign threats and internal coups, will offer the U.S. a long-term troop presence in Iraq in return for U.S. security guarantees as part of a strategic partnership, two Iraqi officials said Monday.

The proposal, described to The Associated Press by two senior Iraqi officials familiar with the issue, is one of the first indications that the United States and Iraq are beginning to explore what their relationship might look like once the U.S. significantly draws down its troop presence.

In Washington, President Bush's adviser on the Iraqi war, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, confirmed the proposal, calling it "a set of principles from which to begin formal negotiations."

What really caught my attention in the whole story was this little detail:

U.S. troops and other foreign forces operate in Iraq under a U.N. Security Council mandate, which has been renewed annually since 2003. Iraqi officials have said they want that next renewal — which must be approved by the U.N. Security Council by the end of this year — to be the last.

The two senior Iraqi officials said Iraqi authorities had discussed the broad outlines of the proposal with U.S. military and diplomatic representatives. The Americans appeared generally favorable subject to negotiations on the details, which include preferential treatment for American investments, according to the Iraqi officials involved in the discussions.

That is the real story here. We are going to prop up a puppet government in Iraq, commit our armed forces for years and continue to pay taxpayer subsidized private armies all to make Iraq safe for U.S. companies in Iraq. Was this the intention all along? Grab a foothold in the Middle East to project U.S. power through the region and have access to the many resources that are there?

As a side, I am reminded once again of Naomi Klein, author of Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Take a look at this video and how it relates to what we see today.

Manufacturing Consent for World War 3

The role of the media in conjuring up support for war was on clear display in the run up to the Iraq War. Now, four years later, we see the same game being played in an ever building hostile environment with regards to Iran. The following piece, written by Michael Barker, is an excellent analysis of the role that the media plays in shaping public opinion on some of the most important issues of our day.

“When President Bush used an October 17 [2007] White House press conference to threaten that the escalating US confrontation with Iran posed a danger of ‘World War III’ his remark was passed over in silence by most of the media. Those that did report it seemed, for the most part, to accept the White House claim that the president was engaging in hyperbole and merely making a ‘rhetorical point.’” Bill Van Auken (2007).

The key role the mainstream media plays in manufacturing public consent for elite decision makers has a long and inglorious history that has wreaked havoc on progressive aspirations for the development a truly democratic globa l p olity. While the antidemocratic implications of Manufacturing Consent were first popularized in the late 1980s by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s (1988) classic book of the same title, the methods of manufacturing public consent were honed much earlier by communications researchers participating in the seminal (Rockefeller Foundation funded) Communications Group, and many of the founding fathers of mass communication research.[1] Given the high level of involvement of mass communications researchers in refining the means by which to manufacture consent, it is little wonder that recent studies provide ample evidence illustrating the US government’s ability to exploit the system-supportive tendencies of the mainstream media to justify overt wars and cover-up covert wars,[2] distract attention from their support (throughout the Cold War) of right-wing terrorist armies in every European country,[3] legitimize controversial ‘humanitarian’ interventions,[4] play down genocides in which their government is implicated, and manufacture public consent for economic sanctions that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.[5] More recent events (post 9/11) also demonstrate how a relentless propaganda campaign waged through the American media was able to persuade a significant proportion of the domestic population that the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq was both necessary and justified.[6]

Thus considering the historical willingness of the US media to propound antidemocratic elite propaganda, it is entirely predicable that the media would play an integral role in manufacturing the next perceived threat to international stability, that is, the Iranian ‘threat’. As Marjorie Cohn (2007) notes: “It’s déja vu. This time the Bush gang wants war with Iran. Following a carefully orchestrated strategy, they have ratcheted up the ‘threat’ from Iran, designed to mislead us into a new war four years after they misled us into Iraq.” John Pilger (2007) adds that this ‘threat’ is “entirely manufactured, aided and abetted by familiar, compliant media language that refers to Iran’s ‘nuclear ambitions’, just as the vocabulary of Saddam’s non-existent WMD arsenal became common usage.”

It is then unfortunate to note that international attention is now firmly fixated on the Iranian ‘threat.’ Furthermore, given the success of the Bush administration’s most recent propaganda offensives, which have led to the destruction and ongoing occupation of both Afghanistan and Iraq, there is little reason to doubt that the American government does not have similar plans for Iran. In an earlier study I documented how the ostensibly democratic US-based National Endowment of Democracy has funnelled money to Iranian groups and media projects in an attempt to overthrow the Iranian government from within. However, in an attempt to counter the US government’s ongoing propaganda initiatives, this article will review how the mass media is manufacturing public consent for yet another illegal war by examining the work of radical mass media critics.

Mediating the Path to World War III

“…we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.” President Bush, October 17, 2007.

(For a useful commentary on this statement, see Cuban Missile Crisis Redux)

Judging by the ongoing discussions in both the mainstream and alternative (progressive) media, it is apparent that, one way or the other, the US (and its coalition of willing cronies) has its sights firmly set on bringing regime change to Iran. So far, for the most part, the alternative media has focused on the nuclear threat posed by the Middle East’s most dangerous lawbreaker, Israel. The mainstream media, however, has persistently and erroneously portrayed Iran as the ‘real’ nuclear threat. Even Britain’s so-called liberal media is demonstrating its ability to manufacture consent for elite interests, with the BBC recently devoting an entire (Israeli-made) documentary to the issue of the Iranian problem, ironically titled Will Israel bomb Iran? This is not really surprising, as the governments guilty of involvement are heavily reliant on the mainstream media’s willingness to legitimize their ‘war on terror’, which in turn, could turn out to be the catalyst for an illegal and catastrophic foreign intervention in Iran (and thereby a catalyst for a global war).

In a manner which is eerily reminiscent of the mainstream media’s focus on Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, Dmitriy Sedov (2007) notes that in Iran’s case the media similarly “never stop[s] debating the issue of the ‘Iranian atomic bomb’”. Indeed John Pilger (2007) points out that “[w]e are being led towards perhaps the most serious crisis in modern history as the Bush-Cheney-Blair ‘long war’ edges closer to Iran for no reason other than that nation’s independence from rapacious America.” However, as Pilger notes, despite the proximity of this crisis:

“…there is a surreal silence, save for the noise of ‘news’ in which our powerful broadcasters gesture cryptically at the obvious but dare not make sense of it, lest the one-way moral screen erected between us and the consequences of an imperial foreign policy collapse and the truth be revealed.”

This phenomenon was well documented by Edward S. Herman (2006), who as early as March last year wrote:

“Today’s big news is the possibility that Iran, the Little Satan, might some day acquire a nuclear weapon: the administration says so, the media say so, and now three times as many people regard Iran as the U.S.’s greatest menace than four months ago and 47 percent of the public agrees that Iran should be bombed if needed to prevent its acquiring any nuclear weapon capability.”

In August 2007, Noam Chomsky pointed out that “[w]ithout irony, the Bush administration and the media charge that Iran is ‘meddling’ in Iraq”. Unfortunately:

“…Washington’s propaganda framework is reflexively accepted, apparently without notice, in US and other Western commentary and reporting, apart from the marginal fringe of what is called ‘the loony left.’ What is considered ‘criticism’ is skepticism as to whether all of Washington’s charges about Iranian aggression in Iraq are true. It might be an interesting research project to see how closely the propaganda of Russia, Nazi Germany, and other aggressors and occupiers matched the standards of today’s liberal press and commentators.

…

“The rhetoric about Iran has escalated to the point where both political parties and practically the whole US press accept it as legitimate and, in fact, honorable, that ‘all options are on the table,’ to quote Hillary Clinton and everybody else, possibly even nuclear weapons. ‘All options on the table’ means that Washington threatens war.”

War, Propaganda, the Corporate Media, and the BBC?

Herman (2006) outlines Twelve Principles of Propaganda Used in Setting the Stage for War in Iran, which in summary (without his accompanying evidence) are (1) that the US “has the legal and moral right” to lead the international community in stopping Iran’s nuclear program, (2) that countries targeted by US foreign policy elites should not be allowed the right to defend themselves, (3) to exaggerate the dangers posed by Iran’s eventual development of nuclear weapons, (4) to engage in “unrelenting demonization” of the said target, (5) to exclude any discussion of US relations with countries more deserving of the “demon status” that has been ascribed to Iran (also see here), (6) to underplay/ignore historical actions/relationships with Iran “that might show both hypocrisy and the fraudulence of the claimed threat”, (7) to underplay/ignore recent US actions that “might appear incompatible with its harsh stand opposing Iran’s pursuing any nuclear program” (8) that the US does not need to apply the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to its own actions, but can still “alter the terms of the NPT as it applies to its target”, (9) that “if the target cannot prove a negative, the severity of the threat to U.S. ‘national security’ requires that Iran be bombed and that there be a change in regime to one that can be trusted (like that of the Shah of Iran, or Sharon, or Musharraf)”, (10) to manipulate the “mechanisms of international regulation linked to the UN to serve the war and goal of regime change” – for a detailed treatment of this subject, see Herman and David Peterson (2007) (11) to maintain that the need to deal with the “Iran threat is based on a universal worry, and does not reflect U.S. power and the attempts to appease that power”, and (12) to dismiss any other hidden geostrategic interests that the U.S. may be pursuing in the Middle East. (Of course, as part and parcel of these propaganda principles the media also routinely engage in distributing outright disinformation.) Just a few months after Herman’s prescient analysis, Herman and Peterson (2006) concluded that:

“…the mainstream media have followed the party line on the Iran ‘crisis’ and failed almost without exception to note the problems and deal with matters raised in the alternative frames. Remarkably, despite their acknowledged massive failures as news organizations and de facto propaganda service for the Bush administration in the lead up to the Iraq invasion, with the administration refocusing on the new dire threat from Iran it took the mainstream media no time whatsoever to fall into party-line formation-from which they have not deviated.”

Like many media scholars who study the US media system, the noticeable contrast between the US media environment and other slightly more democratic media outlets overseas leads Herman (2006) to highlight the existence of dissenting voices in the British media: thus he notes that “[t]he ‘Drumbeat sounds familiar’ to Simon Tisdall in the London Guardian (March 7, 2006), but not to the servants of power in the U.S. media.”[7] However, even though some parts of the British media – like the Guardian and BBC – are often rated highly by American media analysts for their progressive credentials, some British-based researchers actually surmise that these so-called Left-orientated media outlets still serve to manufacture public consent for elite interests by setting distinct boundaries on the limits of acceptable dissent (see http://www.medialens.org).[8] On this point, Medialens writers David Edwards and David Cromwell (2007) suggest that: “There are glimmers of conscience in the [British] libera l p ress where journalists just cannot help but notice the echoes of 2002-2003 ahead of the Iraq catastrophe”, but Edwards and Cromwell still conclude that “the key point is that the liberal media are fully participating in the demonisation of Iran”.

As early as January 2005, Medialens drew attention to the BBC’s role in the propaganda offensive against Iran, while by February 2006, Medialens led off a follow-up article by noting that Timothy Garton Ash writing in the ‘liberal’ broadsheet the Guardian wrote: “Now we face the next big test of the west: after Iraq, Iran.” Furthermore, just a few months later Medialens demonstrated how the BBC had distorted an Amnesty International press release in their ongoing efforts to demonise Iran, and concluded their article by asking the following poignant questions:


“Why did the BBC decide to focus so prominently and heavily on Iran – a country under serious threat of attack by the United States and perhaps Britain? Why would the BBC choose to isolate and highlight the sins of an official enemy, thereby boosting the government’s propaganda campaign? Is this innocent, or are more cynical forces at work here?”

(Click here to read more about this case and to read the BBC’s response to Medialens.)


Of course a group like Medialens which has limited resources can only ever hope to document a smaller proportion of the British (‘liberal’) media’s servility to power, but nonetheless they have produced another two media-alerts this year concerning British media coverage of Iranian affairs, these being Iran in Iraq: The Art of Instant Forgetting (see related FAIR article), and Pentagon Propaganda Occupies the Guardian’s Frontpage (also see their follow-up article). For another recent discussion of the warmongering role of the British ‘liberal’ media, see Britain’s Channel Four Propaganda Machine Now Churning for Iran War, which describes the grilling that Channel Four presenter, Jon Snow, gave to President Ahmadinejad in September 2007.

Similarly, British-based Media Workers Against the War (MWAW) have highlighted the BBC’s role in building the case for a war on Iran, and have even held protests outside of their broadcasting studios. In June 2006, MWAW noted that BBC Radio Four’s flagship current affairs programme, Today, “paid lip service of [sic] ‘balance’ while presenting the debate over Iran in such a way as to legitimise a US military response”. Again, this news should not be overly surprising, as earlier academic studies have already concluded that the BBC had “displayed the most pro-war agenda of any [British] broadcaster” in the lead-up to Iraq’s destruction.[9]

In another MWAW (2007) report, this time pertaining to the media coverage of the recent so-called ‘hostage’ crisis, a journalist from the Financial Times described how his newspaper purposely chose to use the word detainees not hostages to describe the 15 British navy personnel recently held in Iran for 13 days. Crucially this thoughtful journalist was most concerned about how the broadsheets switched from using the word “detainees/captives” to “hostages” “after George W. Bush demanded on March 31 that ‘The Iranians must give back the hostages’”. Again this revelation should not be surprising to any scholars familiar with the vital role the so-called liberal media plays in supporting illegal foreign interventions.[10] So it should be expected that Anthony DiMaggio’s (2007) examination of the media coverage of the detainment crisis (in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post) led him to conclude that as Herman and Chomsky’s “propaganda model suggests, American reporters have faithfully taken to the role of an unofficia l p ropaganda arm for the state”.

More News on the March Towards War

More recently DiMaggio (2007), in another excellent article, has demonstrated how the Washington Post exhibited “a pattern of deception, one-sidedness, and manipulation” in its (mis)reporting on Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons. In his review of “over 230 Post news stories, 31 editorials, and 58 op-eds from 2003 through 2007” he demonstrated:

“…that assertions suggesting Iran may or is developing nuclear weapons appeared twice as often as claims or assertions that Iran is not or may not be developing such weapons. The paper’s op-eds and editorials are even more slanted, as 90% of editorials and 93% of op-eds suggest Iran is developing nuclear weapons, as opposed to 0% of editorials and 16% of op-eds suggesting Iran may not be developing such weapons. Belligerent rhetoric is also used far more often in regards to the Iranian ‘threat’ (of which there is no evidence of to date) than to the far larger U.S. and Israeli military threat to Iran (which has been announced vocally and shamelessly over and over throughout the American and Israeli press). Belligerent terms are applied twice as often in regards to Iranian development of nuclear weapons. Such terms, portray Iran as a ‘threat,’ and discuss the ‘fear’ invoked by a potentially nuclear armed Iran, as well as the ‘danger’ of such a development – as contrasted with similar references to a U.S. ‘threat,’ to the ‘fear’ of a U.S. or Israeli attack, or the ‘danger’ both countries pose to Iran.”

DiMaggio’s research also determined that while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was mentioned in the majority of the Washington Post’s editorials (and 29% of the time in its op-eds), “the IAEA’s actual conclusion that there is ‘no evidence’ Iran is developing nuclear weapons” is reported in just one editorial and one op-ed. He goes on to note that:

“References to the fact that it was the U.S. itself that originally supported Iranian uranium enrichment show up in just 1% of the Post’s news stories, and in just 3% of all op-eds, and none of the paper’s editorials. The same goes for admissions that the United States is undertaking a similar project of enriching its own uranium for use in a new generation of American nuclear weapons (the major distinction, however, is that the U.S. openly admits to its project, while Iran has admitted to no such program). The very activity that U.S. leaders are condemning Iran for secretly pursuing is arrogantly advocated and pursued by the United States (the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons on civilians), although one wouldn't know any of this from looking at the coverage.”

With the release of the IAEA’s most recent (nine page report) released in mid-November, Farideh Farhi (2007) discussed the “interestingly partial way various news organizations and governments end up interpreting or representing the report to audiences they are sure will not read the reports themselves.” Farhi critiques the misreporting of the New York Times, Associated Press, and the Washington Post, and concludes his piece by noting that a BBC piece titled Mixed UN Nuclear Report for Iran although with some shortcomings was at least able to give “a relatively accurate description of the issues involved.” In fact, as the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) illustrated in May 2007, there are at least “twenty reasons to oppose sanctions and military intervention in Iran”, and:

“Contrary to the myth created by the western media, it is not Iran, but the US and its European allies which are defying the overwhelming majority of the international community, in that, they have resisted the call to enter into direct, immediate and comprehensive negotiations with Iran without any pre-conditions.”

A couple of months later, in July 2007, CASMII went on to criticise the Financial Times over the publication of an article that made “unfounded allegations about Iranian government’s complicity with Al-Qaeda launching terrorist operations in Iraq, using Iranian territory.” (The article in question was titled Al-Qaeda linked to operations from Iran.)

Finally, in September 2007, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the US to address the United Nations General Assembly, the corporate media was on form again, ready to leap at any opportunity to vigorously thump the drum for war: indeed media analyst Deepa Kumar (2007) described the treatment of Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York as “xenophobic and hysterical”.[11] Ironically, in sharp contrast to the harsh treat Ahmadinejad’s visit provoked from the US media, Edward S. Herman (2007) reminds us that:

“In February 1955, the Shah of Iran was a guest at Columbia [University] receiving an honorary Doctor of Laws degree and he, like Musharraf, was greeted deferentially by Grayson Kirk and gave a well-received speech featuring an accolade to the U.S. ‘policy of peace backed by strength.’ The New York Times also noted that the Shah was ‘impressed by the desire of Americans for a secure and enduring peace’ (‘Shah Praises U.S. For Peace Policy,’ NYT, February 5, 1955). This was, of course, just a few months after the United States had overthrown the elected government of Guatemala via a proxy army and had installed a regime of permanent terror.”

Concluding Thoughts

In the case of the mainstream media’s recent coverage of Iranian issues it is perhaps uncontroversial to suggest that the media are conforming to Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s (1988) Propaganda Model by demonstrating their willingness to manufacture of mass consent for elite interests. Of course, this democratic deficit of the mainstream media is particularly noticeable to any regular readers/viewers of the alternative press, as the latter’s stories are almost unrecognizable when contrasted with their mainstream counterparts. That said, like the mainstream media’s coverage of Iranian issues, the alternative media has concentrated almost all of its energy into analysing the ongoing (and potential nuclear) military operations in the Middle East.[12] This is problematic because military threats and interventions (both overt and covert) are only one among many instruments available to the imperial architects of US foreign policy to promote regime change in Iran. As discussed earlier, a relative newcomer to the armoury of foreign policy elites is the use of democracy itself as a tool of foreign policy, a tool which is arguably one of the most potent weapons in the war of ideas waged by policy elites against progressive activists. Nevertheless despite the minimal coverage of such ‘democratic’ tactics, World War III still lurks on the horizon, and as Jean Bricmont (2007) summarised this September:

“All the ideological signposts for attacking Iran are in place. The country has been thoroughly demonized because it is not nice to women, to gays, or to Jews. That in itself is enough to neutralize a large part of the American ‘left’. The issue of course is not whether Iran is nice or not – according to our views – but whether there is any legal reason to attack it, and there is none; but the dominant ideology of human rights has legitimized, specifically in the left, the right of intervention on humanitarian grounds anywhere, at any time, and that ideology has succeeded in totally sidetracking the minor issue of international law.”

To work to defeat the propaganda war (not to mention the military war) on Iran, it is essential that citizens around the world develop the know-how to see through the propaganda veil that has been cast over Iranian affairs. For example. to counter the influence of best-selling authors like neoconservative-linked Azar Nafisi – (in)famous for writing Reading Lolita in Tehran – concerned citizens would do well to help publicise more honest books dealing with Iranian affairs like Fatemeh Keshavarz’s (2007) recent book Jasmine and Stars: Reading More than Lolita in Tehran. (See interview with the author here, and also read Hamid Dabashi’s (2006) important critique of Nafisi’s work). However, at the end of the day it is vital that al l p eople, with even a passing interest in the foreign affairs of their elected governments, work to create a media that can support democratic principles, not undermine them. This can be done in a number of ways but of course providing financial support for independent media outlets is a must. This is because as Robert McChesney (1997) points out: “regardless of what a progressive group’s first issue of importance is, its second issue should be media and communication, because so long as the media are in corporate hands, the task of social change will be vastly more difficult, if not impossible, across the board.”[13]

Michael Barker is a doctoral candidate at Griffith University, Australia. He can be reached at Michael.J.Barker [at] griffith.edu.au and some of his other articles can be found here.

Endnotes

[1] Barker, M.J. (Submitted) ‘The Liberal Foundations of Media Reform? Creating Sustainable Funding Opportunities for Radical Media Reform’, Global Media Journal.

[2] Herman, E. S. and N. Chomsky (1988) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books; Keeble, R. (1997) Secret State, Silent Press: New Militarism, the Gulf and the Modern Image of Warfare. Bedfordshire, U.K.: John Libbey Media Faculty of Media University of Luton; Molwana, H., G. Gerbner and H. I. Schiller (1992) Triumph of the Image: The Media’s War in the Persian Gulf : A Global Perspective. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

[3] Also see Danielle Ganser’s online articles Secret Warfare: Operation Gladio and NATO's Stay-Behind Army, and Terrorism in Western Europe: An Approach to NATO’s Secret Stay-Behind Armies.

[4] Hammond, P. and E. S. Herman (2000) Degraded Capability: The Media and the Kosovo Crisis. London: Pluto Press; Robinson, P. (2000) ‘The Policy-Media Interaction Model: Measuring Media Power During Humanitarian Crisis’, Journal of Peace Research, 37(5): 613-633.

[5] Herring, E. (2004) ‘Power, Propaganda and Indifference: An Explanation of the Maintenance of Economic Sanctions on Iraq Despite Their Human Cost’, pp. 34-56 in T. Y. Ismael & W. W. Haddad (eds) Iraq: The Human Cost of History. London: Pluto Press.

[6] Friel, H. and R. A. Falk (2004) The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy. London: Verso; Kumar, D. (2006) ‘Media, War, and Propaganda: Strategies of Information Management During the 2003 Iraq War’, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 3(1): 48-69; Miller, D. (2004) Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq. London: Pluto.

[7] Writing for the US-based mediawatchdog FAIR, Norman Solomon has been busily documenting the US media propaganda war against Iran, see Nuclear Fundamentalism and the Iran Story (5/5/05), The Iran Crisis: “Diplomacy” as a Launch Pad for Missiles (2/6/06), Media Tall Tales for the Next War (9/26/06). Also see FAIR’s Buying the Bush Line on Iran Nukes: Despite uncertainty, U.S. journalists take sides (September/October 2005), Won't Get Fooled Again? NYT, networks offer scant skepticism on Iran claims (2/2/07), and NYT Breaks Own Anonymity Rules: Paper pushes Iran threat with one-sided array of unnamed officials (2/16/07).

[8] McKiggan, M. 2005. Climate Change and the Mass Media: A Critical Analysis. Unpublished MSc thesis, Southampton University.

[9] Cited in Pilger, J. (2003) ‘The BBC and Iraq: Myth and Reality’, New Statesman, December 4, 2003; Wells, M. (2003) ‘Study Deals a Blow to Claims of Anti-War Bias in BBC News’, The Guardian, July 4, 2003.

[10] Edwards, D. and D. Cromwell (2006) Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media. London: Pluto Press; Friel, H. and R. A. Falk (2004) The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy. London: Verso; Klaehn, J. (2005) Filtering the News: Essays on Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model. Montreal: Black Rose Books.

[11] It is also not so surprising that amongst the protestors (which the media called a “large anti-Iran protest movement”) based outside of Columbia University during Ahmadinejad’s visit “were in fact anti-war protestors demanding an end to US threats directed against Iran.”

[12] Some progressive commentators like Gabriel Kolko (2007) argue that a war with Iran is unlikely.

[13] McChesney, R. W. (1997) Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy. New York: Seven Stories Press, p.71.

Obey, Murtha Say Bush Can Get Iraq Money

I am so tired of hearing Republican shrieks that Democrats are somehow tying the Pentagon's hands by not passing a war spending bill. The troops will do without, they cry. Nothing could be further from the truth.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) and Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the Defense subcommittee on Appropriations, said President Bush can receive all $200 billion in new funding he wants to pay for the Iraq war next year, as long as he agrees to their demands to set a non-binding "goal" for withdrawing most U.S. combat troops by Dec. 2008.

The two senior Democrats also repeatedly slammed Pentagon officials for claiming that the Defense Department may have to shut down some military depots, and lay off civilian employees, if the Iraq funding bill is not enacted soon. Murtha called the charge "despicable," and he angrily yelled at a reporter at one point during today's press conference, asking "Do you believe the Pentagon?"

Obey said the "bridge fund" passed by the House before it left for a two-week recess includes "three simple requests" that must be met before he agrees to any release any of Iraq funding - more training and better equipment for troops before they are deployed to Iraq; adoption of the Army Field Manual's prohibition on torture by all U.S. government agencies; and "the president produce a plan to end our military involvement in Iraq by the end, not this year, but next year. That is another 14 months. That is more than 400 days. That is hardly a precipitous withdrawal."

There you go. The money is there but it doesn't pass the Republican 100% approval test. Last week, the House passed a $50 billion bill that would keep operations afloat for several more months, but sets a goal of bringing most troops home by December 2008. After Bush threatened to veto the measure, Senate Republicans blocked it.

Just who is obstructing here? The Democrats who passed a funding bill with non-binding measures attached, or the Republicans, who perceive any challenge to Bush as somehow akin to treason?

The War Profiteers- Enough is Enough

There is a must read article in this months Vanity Fair entitled The People vs. the Profiteers. The story told is an amazing look inside the world of the for-profit war machine and the often horrific actions taken by some of the largest defense contractors in Iraq. Here is but one example that the article makes note of:

Consider the case of Grayson's client Bud Conyers, a big, bearded 43-year-old who lives with his ex-wife and her nine children, four of them his, in Enid, Oklahoma. Conyers worked in Iraq as a driver for Kellogg, Brown & Root. Spun off by Halliburton as an independent concern in April, KBR is the world's fifth-largest construction company. Before the war started, the Pentagon awarded it two huge contracts: one, now terminated, to restore the Iraqi oil industry, and another, still in effect, to provide a wide array of logistical-support services to the U.S. military.

In the midday heat of June 16, 2003, Conyers was summoned to fix a broken refrigerated truck—a "reefer," in contractor parlance—at Log Base Seitz, on the edge of Baghdad's airport. He and his colleagues had barely begun to inspect the sealed trailer when they found themselves reeling from a nauseating stench. The freezer was powered by the engine, and only after they got it running again, several hours later, did they dare open the doors.

The trailer, unit number R-89, had been lying idle for two weeks, Conyers says, in temperatures that daily reached 120 degrees. "Inside, there were 15 human bodies," he recalls. "A lot of liquid stuff had just seeped out. There were body parts on the floor: eyes, fingers. The goo started seeping toward us. Boom! We shut the doors again." The corpses were Iraqis, who had been placed in the truck by a U.S. Army mortuary unit that was operating in the area. That evening, Conyers's colleague Wallace R. Wynia filed an official report: "On account of the heat the bodies were decomposing rapidly.… The inside of the trailer was awful."

It is not unheard of for trucks in a war zone to perform hearse duty. But both civilian and U.S.-military regulations state that once a trailer has been used to store corpses it can never again be loaded with food or drink intended for human consumption. According to the U.S. Army's Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, "Contact with whole or part human remains carries potential risks associated with pathogenic microbiological organisms that may be present in human blood and tissue." The diseases that may be communicated include aids,hepatitis, tuberculosis, septicemia, meningitis, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human variant of mad cow.

It only gets worse...

But when Bud Conyers next caught sight of trailer R-89, about a month later, it was packed not with human casualties but with bags of ice—ice that was going into drinks served to American troops. He took photographs, showing the ice bags, the trailer number, and the wooden decking, which appeared to be stained red. Another former KBR employee, James Logsdon, who now works as a police officer near Enid, says he first saw R-89 about a week after Conyers's grisly discovery. "You could still see a little bit of matter from the bodies, stuff that looked kind of pearly, and blood from the stomachs. It hadn't even been hosed down. Afterwards, I saw that truck in the P.W.C.—the public warehouse center—several times. There's nothing there except food and ice. It was backed up to a dock, being loaded."

As late as August 31, 11 weeks after trailer R-89 was emptied of the putrefying bodies, a KBR convoy commander named Jeff Allen filed a mission log stating that it had carried 5,000 pounds of ice that day. This ice, Allen wrote, was "bio-contaminated." But to his horror, on that day alone, "approx 1,800 pounds [were] used."

This is but one example of many of how the privatization of war has been nothing short of a disaster. Slogans that echo from the past such as "Duty, Honor, Country" have been replaced with "Profit, Profit and More Profit". It is the height of insanity for a country to depend on the actions of a private company unrestrained by any type of law to do its war bidding. Private mercenaries have no oath other than to their company. The company has no oath other than to its shareholders.

Americans from all sides of the political divide should be against such the privatization of our armed forces and we owe it to our men and women in uniform to speak out against it. Our military, once the greatest and well run in the world, is slowly dying the death of a thousand cuts.

Sunday Matinee- Iraq For Sale

This for all of you 'fiscal conservatives' who care about the 'people's money'...

Keith Olbermann- Bush and the Cost of War

This excellent commentary by Keith Olbermann on the outright hypocrisy of George Bush on the issue of 'fiscal responsibility' highlights one of the reasons that Olbermann's show has skyrocketed in the ratings.

As a side, how in the hell can 'conservatives' that care so much about taxpayer money and government waste lie silent while the country is being bankrupted by this crew?

2007 Deadliest Year for Troops in Iraq

We've really turned the corner....it's safer now....we won..... Oh, and CNN reports that 2007 was the deadliest year for troops in Iraq....

Cancer in Iraq Vets

We've been down this road before. Veterans falling ill to exposure to a host of chemicals and toxic substances during wartime. During Vietnam it was 'Agent Orange', back in the early 90's it was 'Gulf War Syndrome', and today it now appears that Iraq Vets are suffering from symptoms of exposure due to depleted uranium. Although this is a very serious issue, little mention is made by our traditional media. I came across this article which sheds light on this topic:

Cancer in Iraq vets raises possibility of toxic exposure

by Carla McClain

After serving in Vietnam nearly 40 years ago — and receiving the Bronze Star for it — the Tucson soldier was called back to active duty in Iraq.

While there, he awoke one morning with a sore throat. Eighteen months later, Army Sgt. James Lauderdale was dead, of a bizarrely aggressive cancer rarely seen by the doctors who tried to treat it.

As a result, his stunned and heartbroken family has joined growing ranks of sickened and dying Iraq war vets and their families who believe exposures to toxic poisons in the war zone are behind their illnesses — mostly cancers, striking the young, taking them down with alarming speed.

The number of these cancers remains undisclosed, with military officials citing patient privacy issues, as well as lack of evidence the cases are linked to conditions in the war zone. The U.S. Congress has ordered a probe of suspect toxins and may soon begin widespread testing of our armed forces.

"He got so sick, so fast"

Jim Lauderdale was 58 when his National Guard unit was deployed to the Iraq-Kuwait border, where he helped transport arriving soldiers and Marines into combat areas.

He was a strong man, say relatives, who can't remember him ever missing a day of work for illness. And he developed a cancer of the mouth, which overwhelmingly strikes smokers, drinkers and tobacco chewers. He was none of those.

"Jim's doctors didn't know why he would get this kind of cancer — they had no answers for us," said his wife, Dixie.

"He got so sick, so fast. We really think it had to be something he was exposed to over there. So many of the soldiers we met with cancer at Walter Reed (Army Medical Center) complained about the polluted air they lived in, the brown water they had to use, the dust they breathed from exploded munitions. It was very toxic."

As a mining engineer, Lauderdale knew exactly what it meant when he saw the thick black smoke pouring nonstop out of the smokestacks that line the Iraq/Kuwait border area where he was stationed for three months in 2005.

"He wrote to me that everyone was complaining about their stinging eyes and sore throats and headaches," Dixie said. "For Jim to say something like that, to complain, was very unusual.

"One of the mothers on the cancer ward had pictures of her son bathing in the brown water," she said. "He died of kidney cancer."

Stationed in roughly the same area as Lauderdale, yet another soldier — now fighting terminal colon cancer — described the scene there, of oil refineries, a cement factory, a chlorine factory and a sulfuric acid factory, all spewing unfiltered and uncontrolled substances into the air.

"One day, we were walking toward the port and they had sulfuric acid exploding out of the stacks. We were covered with it, everything was burning on us, and we had to turn around and get to the medics," said Army Staff Sgt. Frank Valentin, 35.

Not long after, he developed intense rectal pain, which doctors told him for months was hemorrhoids. Finally diagnosed with aggressive colorectal cancer — requiring extensive surgery, resulting in a colostomy bag — he was given fewer than two years to live by his Walter Reed physicians.

He is now a couple of months past that death sentence, but his chemo drugs are starting to fail, and the cancer is eating into his liver and lungs. He spends his days with his wife and three children at their Florida home.

"I don't know how much time I have," he said.

Suspect: depleted uranium

None of these soldiers know for sure what's killing them. But they suspect it's a cascade of multiple toxic exposures, coupled with the intense stress of daily life in a war zone weakening their immune systems.

"There's so much pollution from so many sources, your body can't fight what's coming at it," Valentin said. "And you don't eat well or sleep well, ever. That weakens you, too. There's no chance to gather your strength. These are kids 19, 20 and 21 getting all kinds of cancers. The Walter Reed cancer ward is packed full with them."

The prime suspect in all this, in the minds of many victims — and some scientists — is what's known as depleted uranium — the radioactive chemical prized by the military for its ability to penetrate armored vehicles. When munitions explode, the substance hits the air as fine dust, easily inhaled.

Last month, the Iraqi environment minister blamed the tons of the chemical dropped during the war's "shock and awe" campaign for a surge of cancer cases across the country.

However, the Pentagon and U.S. State Department strongly deny this, citing four studies, including one by the World Health Organization, that found levels in war zones not harmful to civilians or soldiers. A U.N. Environmental Program study concurs, but only if spent munitions are cleared away.

Returning solders have said that isn't happening.

"When tanks exploded, I would handle those tanks, and there was DU everywhere," said Valentin. "This is a big issue."

The fierce Iraq winds carry desert sand and dust for miles, said Dixie Lauderdale, who suspects her husband was exposed to at least some depleted uranium. Many vets from the Gulf War blame the chemical used in that conflict for their Gulf War syndrome illnesses.

Congress orders study

As the controversy rages, Congress has ordered a comprehensive independent study, due in October, of the health effects of depleted uranium exposure on U.S. soldiers and their children. And a "DU bill" — ordering all members of the U.S. military exposed to it be identified and tested — is working its way through Congress.

"Basically, we want to get ahead of this curve, and not go through the years of painful denial we went through with Agent Orange that was the legacy of Vietnam," said Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., a co-sponsor of the bill.

"We want an independent agency to do independent testing of our soldiers, and find out what's really going on. These incidents of cancer and illness that all of us are hearing about back in our districts are not just anecdotal — there is a pattern here. And yes, I do suspect DU may be at the bottom of it."

What's happening today — growing numbers of sickened soldiers who say they were exposed to it amid firm denials of harm from military brass — almost mirrors the early stages of the Agent Orange aftermath. It took the U.S. military almost two decades to admit the powerful chemical defoliant killed and disabled U.S. troops in the jungles of Vietnam, and to begin compensating them for it.

Doctors flabbergasted

Whatever it was that struck Jim Lauderdale did a terrifying job of it.

Sent to Walter Reed with oral cancer in April 2005, he underwent his first extensive and disfiguring surgery, removing half his tongue to get to tumors in the mouth and throat. A second surgery followed a month later to clear out more of those areas.

Five months later, another surgery removed a new neck tumor. Then came heavy chemotherapy and radiation.

Shortly after, he had a massive heart attack, undergoing another surgery to place stents in his arteries. Two weeks later, the cancer was back and growing rapidly, forcing a fourth surgery in January 2006.

By this time, much of his neck and shoulder tissue was gone, and doctors tried to reconstruct a tongue, using tissue from his wrist. He couldn't swallow, so was fed through a tube into his stomach.

Just weeks later, four external tumors appeared on his neck — "literally overnight," his wife said.

Suffering severe complications from the chemo drugs, Lauderdale endured 39 radiation treatments, waking up one night bleeding profusely through his burned skin. The day after his radiation ended, new external tumors erupted at the edge of the radiation field, flabbergasting his doctors.

"As this aggressive disease grew though chemoradiation, it was determined at this point there was no chance for cure," his oncologist wrote then.

By then, the cancer had spread to his lungs and spine and, most frightening of all, "hundreds and thousands" of tumors were erupting all over his upper body, his wife said.

"The doctors said they'd never seen anything like it — that this happens in only 1 percent of cases," she said.

Efforts to contact his doctors at Walter Reed were unsuccessful, but a leading head-and-neck cancer specialist at the Arizona Cancer Center reviewed the course of Lauderdale's disease.

"This a a very wrenching case," said Dr. Harinder Garewal. "This is unusually aggressive behavior for an oral cancer. I would agree it happens in only 1 percent of cases."

When oral cancer occurs in nonsmokers and non-drinkers, it tends to be more aggressive, he said.

"My feeling is the immune system for some reason can't handle the cancer," he said.

Jim Lauderdale died on July 14, 2006, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Dixie and their two grown children still feel the raw grief of loss, but not anger, she said.

"But I am convinced something very wrong is happening over there. Is anyone paying attention to this? Is the cancer ward still full?" she asked. "I would hate to see another whole generation affected like this, but I'm very afraid it will be."

Countdown to Iraq- or is it Iran?

Listening to the news this morning, one thing became crystal clear. The calls for action in regards to Iran are growing more with each passing day. The media, who were all dead wrong about Iraq, seems to have no collective memory of the mistakes that were made before that disaster and are ready for the next adventure.

I had planned to write extensively about this but instead would like to share this movie with you which shows the many deceptions and outright falsehoods in the buildup to the war in Iraq. We must be careful not to repeat the same mistakes again.

The Forgotten War of Afghanistan

While everyone focuses their attention on Iraq and increasingly Iran, the levels of violence in Afghanistan has spiked to its highest level since 2001. Attacks alone have risen 20 percent. The AP reports on a particularly gruesome suicide attack on a police bus that killed 13 people.

"The bombing, which ripped the roof off the bus, was the second to target a bus in Kabul in four days. It came as insurgents turned up attacks against Afghanistan's security forces during a year of record violence.Four children were among the 13 people killed in Tuesday's suicide attack by a man wearing a pakul — an Afghan hat commonly seen in the country's north — and a shawl around the upper half of his body called a chador, said Amin Gul, who owns a metalworking shop next to the blast site.

'When the bus came, an old man got on, then a woman with two children, then the guy wearing the chador entered, and then a big boom,' said Gul, who witnessed the attack.

The seats in the front of the bus were covered in blood and small body parts, and workers washed blood from nearby trees after the attack. Ten people were wounded in the bombing, Health Minister Mohammad Amin Fatemi said."

Many years, lives and taxpayer dollars later, Afghanistan today shows no true sign of progress. The US has shown support for Karzai's offers to talk with the Taliban, poppy production has skyrocketed and many farmers have taken to growing marijuana, and the United States is once again back to the tired 'Most Wanted Poster' gig. The current policy, unfortunately, offers little to no real chance in succeeding and has actually brought the conflict around full circle. Go figure.

The Costs of War

I had planned to do a post about the upcoming battle between Congress and the White House over the SCHIP, or State Children’s Health Insurance Program. I know how bad our health care system is today and totally support expanding this program that will cover more of our nation's children.

While researching, I always like to read those opinions that don't mesh with my own so I searched several sites to get an idea of exactly why some people oppose this. Unbelievable! The majority of those opposed to this plan to increase coverage state that their primary reason is due to fiscal concern. This comment is typical:

"So we should all march lock step toward socialism because "It is for the children"?

Perhaps we should be more concerned about "Doing it to the children" as we burden future generations with an unbearable tax burden so that we can feel good.
"
They will be so tax poor that they will beg for the government to take care of them.

Or how about the illegal immigration angle brought to you by House Republican Leader John Boehner:

"Illegal immigrants are about to get an unexpected boost thanks to the Democratic Congress,'' Boehner (R-Ohio) warns. "The Democrats’ bill to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) not only provides health benefits to adults and upper-income kids, but it is crafted in a way to allow S-CHIP and Medicaid benefits for illegal immigrants who have broken our laws.''

Now suffice to say that these same individuals utter nary a peep about the TWO BILLION DOLLARS a week spent to keep the Iraq fiasco alive. Nothing is said about documented waste and fraud. Nothing...NOTHING! But try and put some money here at home that millions of our citizens need--well, you're just a socialist or some crap like that.

Let me refresh your memory on Iraq spending with this great article. Read and weep.

What's Up With Leash Girl- Lynndie England?

Remember her? The infamous ex- Abu Ghraib guard known for her love of leashes and asspiles? She's got a new life and a new job! As the Guardian explains:

"KEYSER, W.Va. (AP) Lynndie England, one of the most recognizable figures of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, has a new role as a volunteer member of this Eastern Panhandle city's recreation board.

England, 24, contributed her knowledge of computers, electronics and graphics for Keyser's Strawberry Festival, which helped her land the unpaid position, said Roy Hardy, the England family's attorney.

``When (council members) saw how hard she worked for the festival, they didn't hesitate to put her on the board,'' said Hardy, who is also a board member. ``If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't have been able to pull off (the Strawberry Festival). She was an absolute asset.''

England, who now works in Hardy's law firm as a legal assistant, was released in March from a military prison in San Diego after serving half her 36-month sentence. She was convicted of six counts involving prisoner mistreatment. Eleven U.S. soldiers have been convicted of crimes at the prison near Baghdad.

England was in several images taken in late 2003 by U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib. One shows her holding a naked prisoner on a leash, while in others she posed with a pyramid of naked detainees and pointed at the genitals of a prisoner while a cigarette hung from the corner of her mouth.

The photos were among several that sparked outrage and severely damaged America's image in the Muslim world.

England blamed the abuse on reputed ringleader Pvt. Charles Graner Jr., whom she said took advantage of her love and trust while deployed in Iraq. Graner received the harshest sentence, a 10-year prison term.

England and Graner were members of the 372nd Military Police Company based in western Maryland. She is from Fort Ashby, near Keyser."

I have so many issues with this story. First, how can a 'woman' who essentially helped destroy America's image abroad serve just 18 months in jail? That is an outrage. Second, she's working as a legal assistant? What! And finally, in her new role on the city's recreation board, what kind of 'games' do you think good ol' Lynndie will come up with?

Strawberries, anyone? Sometimes truth is indeed stranger than fiction!

It's August- Time For A Vacation!

On the heels of the interim report which gave the Iraqi government failing marks in showing progress, the Iraqi Parliament proceeds with plans to take a vacation the whole month of August. A whole month! Predictably, there is silence from the White House on this issue.

Add to this the recent Webb Amendment, shot down by Senate Republicans, which would have given our own soldiers much needed rest in between deployments and you don't have to be a genius to realize that all this talk of 'Support The Troops' is utter garbage (unless there is a nice photo-op, of course!). Our men and women in uniform, sent into the meatgrinder that is Iraq, have been neglected, and deserve this country's support.

Bob Schieffer of CBS News wrote a great column entitled "Baghdad Is Too Hot For Its Leaders?' offering a great perspective on this issue. He writes:

"I am still not sure that I believe it: The Iraqi parliament is going on vacation during the month of August.

The White House offers the lame excuse that, after all, Baghdad is hot in August – sometimes 130 degrees.

May I ask a follow-up?

How much hotter do you suppose it is if you are a wearing a helmet, full body armor, carrying ammunition and walking foot patrols through Baghdad?

The last I heard, that is how American troops are spending their August in Iraq.

For me, this does it.

God help the Iraqi people because there is not much America can do to help a government that leaves Americans dying in the streets while the parliament escapes to cooler climes.

Does this mean we should pull out immediately?

No. A sudden withdrawal could set the entire region aflame. The truth is there are no good options left. But from here on, we need to put aside the dream of building a democracy in Iraq and focus solely on what is in our national interest.

It won't be pretty, but for all our good intentions, about all we can do now is try to contain this mess, pull our troops back from the middle of this civil war, and concentrate instead on the terrorist threat that this country faces around the world.

As for what kind of government Iraq needs, let their parliament figure it out. They can get right on it when the Baghdad weather turns cooler."

Take a look at the response from Tony Snow on this issue- it's pathetic!

The Cost of War- 12 Billion Dollars a Month

I have written several times in this blog about the economy today and how that it has affected me personally, hence the title of it. I have seen the good times and, more recently, the not-so-good times. The people of this country, as a whole, are suffering and being slowly strangled in a web of debt and despair. About the only ones to prosper in this economy are the super rich, the CEO's, the ones who don't worry about how they are going to pay their next light bill or how they can save more on their next grocery store run.

In the bigger picture, signs of the country's decay can be seen everywhere. Crumbling roads and bridges, lack of basic public services, small towns decimated by job loss when the only factory in town moves overseas...the list goes on and on.

Meanwhile, in the nation's capitol, such petty concerns are not that important. The politicians, when not patting themselves on the back or giving themselves the latest pay raise, continue to spend (borrowed) money like drunken sailors. This story illustrates this point clearly:

"Congressional analysts say the boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month. All told, Congress has appropriated $610 billion in war-related money since Sept. 11, 2001. That's roughly the same amount that was spent on the war in Vietnam, taking inflation into account. Iraq alone has cost $450 billion. The figures come from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers. For the 2007 budget year, CRS says, the $166 billion appropriated to the Pentagon represents a 40 percent increase over 2006. If Congress approves President Bush's pending request for another $147 billion for the budget year starting October first, the total bill for the war on terror would reach more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars."

Three-quarters of a trillion dollars. Makes you feel good, huh? While many of us here worry every single day about every penny that we have, this country has spent $610 billion (borrowed) dollars in war-related money in only six years! This is outrageous. And the kicker is that every single year, the money Congress appropriates to the Pentagon skyrockets while we 'little people' are told that our public services must be cut because they need to be frugal with the 'people's money'.

The sad reality is that the decline in the overall state of the nation and economy have taken place in small incremental baby steps and many do not realize just what has been lost, stolen or plundered. Add to that the many who have been brainwashed for the last twenty five years or more that government is bad and has no role in providing for its citizens and you find a population that is apathetic in many ways.

In the real world, people can't just live on credit cards and spend, spend, spend. Well, government can't survive on borrowed money forever, either. If this out of control spending is not reigned in, we are going to suffer a financial hangover like never seen before...

Turkish Troops on Iraq Border

Not a good sign...

State of the Media- Part 4

Does it ever end? Everyday it seems that our 'prestigious' media figures find some way to create a new low in journalism. The latest one to do so is the so-called journalist Bill O'Reilly.

The backdrop to this story begins with a poll done by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. When studying the coverage of the Iraq War, they found that Fox 'News' ranked far behind both CNN and MSNBC in coverage in the first quarter of this year. Ironic considering that this is the same network that provided non-stop wall to wall coverage of this back in 2003. Now that the war is not so popular, well...silence. In fact, Fox 'News' gave Anna Nicole Smith twice the coverage that Iraq received. Try explaining that to one of the soldiers sweating it out today.

Anyways, back to the story. On his radio program, Bill O'Reilly had the usual tired excuses ready. He denounced what he called the Project for Excellence in Left Wing Journalism and called their study nothing more than an attempt to embarrass Bush. Oh the horror! He went on to say:

"Now the reason that CNN and MSNBC do so much Iraq reporting is because they want to embarrass the Bush administration. Both do. And all their reporting consists of is here’s another explosion. Bang. Here’s more people dead. Bang. […]
They’re not doing it to inform anybody about anything. The terrorists are going to set off a bomb every day because they know CNN and MSNBC are going to put it on the air. That’s a strategy for the other side. The terrorist side. So I’m taking an argument that CNN and MSNBC are actually helping the terrorists by reporting useless explosions.
Do you care if another bomb went off in Tikrit? Does it mean anything? No! It doesn’t mean anything".

Listen here.

It doesn't mean anything? No big deal? Try telling that to the Iraqi people who live this tragedy day after day. This is madness! To allow some nut job a spot on national airwaves during prime time to spout such insane rants and dismiss the actual reporting of the reality of what is happening in Iraq today as nothing more than an attempt to embarrass a political figure is pathetic. Anytime this crowd sees that their reality is falling apart, they resort to name-calling and ridiculous accusations but never really address the issue. They always portray themselves as the ‘victim’ of some grand conspiracy. And to think that they are the ones who for years have decried Liberals as always portraying the victim. Funny, huh?

Oh, and we must not forget these famous quotes from O’Reilly himself way back in 2003:

"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?"
(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 1/29/03)

"It won't take weeks. You know that, professor. Our military machine will crush Iraq in a matter of days and there's no question that it will."
(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03)

"There's no way. There's absolutely no way. They may bomb for a matter of weeks, try to soften them up as they did in Afghanistan. But once the United States and Britain unleash, it's maybe hours. They're going to fold like that."
(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03)

And this is the guy that supposedly has the top rated cable ‘news’ show? Sigh......

The Real Costs of the Iraq War

The costs of the Iraq are are enormous in many ways. First and foremost is in lives, both of the Iraqis and the military. It seems that every month is the 'deadliest month recorded so far' and this stastistic doesn't seem to be changing any time soon. One must remember that when this war is over (whatever that means) veterans health care and replacement of equipment lost in the war will have to be addressed. And if you take the 'you break it, you own it' line, the money that it will take to 'fix' a broken Iraq (if that can even be done) is unimaginable. Just because the war is declared over doesn't mean the dollars stop flowing.

Here at home, many vital programs have been underfunded or ignored during this period as well. Security in our ports, health care, social security and infrastructure come to mind although there are many others. These issues must be tackled while trying to keep America fiscally sound.

This is not a pretty topic nor is it one that will simply go away by pretending that it does not exist. It's going to require some tough decisions and some that many will not like. Aren't these issues that should have been discussed way back when talk of war came over the horizon?

We must look at wasteful spending in the budget, revisit the massive tax cuts and cut our dependence on foreign capitol for starters. It is also essential that America cut its' dependence on foreign oil and finally develop renewable sources of energy.

The costs of this war (over 500 billion to date) not only today but long term are serious. The choices that must be made won't be pretty. I just hope that we have the leadership that will tackle this and not simply try, as in the past, to put the hard choices off. It's not fair to us and especially to the next generation. .