Cheney Team Trying to Muzzle Al Jazeera

January 30, 2005

Appar­ent­ly the U.S. is pres­sur­ing “Qatar to sell the Al Jazeera TV network”:www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/international/middleeast/30jazeera.html The best line in the New York Times article:
bq. Vice Pres­i­dent Dick Cheney, Defense Sec­re­tary Don­ald H. Rums­feld, Sec­re­tary of State Con­doleez­za Rice, for­mer Sec­re­tary of State Col­in L. Pow­ell and oth­er Bush admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials have com­plained heat­ed­ly to Qatari lead­ers that Al Jazeer­a’s broad­casts have been inflam­ma­to­ry, mis­lead­ing and occa­sion­al­ly false, espe­cial­ly on iraq.
So I sup­pose Cheney, Rums­feld, Rice and Pow­ell have nev­er giv­en out mis­lead­ing or occa­sion­al­ly false infor­ma­tion about iraq?
Al Jazeera is watched by 30 mil­lion to 50 mil­lion view­ers. It’s cov­er­age has been inflam­ma­to­ry and I’m not going to defend that, but it’s the most impor­tant media source in the Mid­dle East and should not be shut down by Amer­i­can pres­sure. Qatar is only con­sid­er­ing sell­ing it, but poten­tial buy­ers for the financially-strapped net­work are few. And the Cheney team would­n’t be involved if they weren’t inter­est­ed in mak­ing it’s con­tent more U.S. friendly.

Exporting Prison Abuse to the World?

May 8, 2004

An arti­cle on “abuse of pris­on­ers in the U.S.”:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/08/national/08PRIS.html?hp in the _NY Times_ shows that Lane McCot­ter, the man who over­saw the reopen­ing of the Abu Ghraib prison in iraq, was forced to resign a U.S. prison post “after an inmate died while shack­led to a restrain­ing chair for 16 hours. The inmate, who suf­fered from schiz­o­phre­nia, was kept naked the whole time.” It was Attor­ney Gen­er­al John Ashcroft who hand-picked the offi­cials who went to iraq.
As an Amer­i­can I’m ashamed but not ter­ri­bly sur­prised to see what hap­pened in the U.S.-run pris­ons in iraq. Mil­i­taries are insti­tu­tions designed to com­mand with force and only civil­ian over­sight will ulti­mate­ly keep any mil­i­tary insi­tu­tion free from this sort of abuse. The “Red Cross had warned of pris­on­er mistreatment”:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20040508/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_prisoner_abuse but was large­ly ignored. Abu Ghraib is in the news in part because of a leaked Pen­ta­gon report, yet it’s only after CBS News aired the pic­tures and the New York­er quot­ed parts of the reports and turned it into a scan­dal that Pres­i­dent Bush or Defense Sec­re­tary Rums­feld admit­ted to the prob­lems and gave their half-hearted apologies.
_This is not to say all sol­diers are abu­sive or all prison guards are abusive_. Most sol­diers and most guards are good, decent peo­ple, serv­ing out of call to duty and (often) because of eco­nom­ic neces­si­ties. But when the sys­tem is pri­va­tized and kept secret, we allow for cor­rup­tion that put even the good peo­ple in posi­tions where they are pres­sured to do wrong.
It is pre­cise­ly because the Pen­ta­gon instinc­tive­ly keeps reports like the one on the abuse con­di­tions inside the Abu Ghraib prison secret that con­di­tions are allowed to get this bad. That prison, along with the one at Guan­tanamo Bay remain large­ly off-limits to inter­na­tion­al law. It was prob­a­bly only a few Amer­i­cans that gave the orders for the abuse but it was many more who fol­lowed and many many more – all of us in one way or anoth­er – who have gave the go-ahead with our inat­ten­tion to issues of jus­tice in prisons.

Ohio Protests Open National Debate on War

February 19, 1998

Pro­test­ers in Colum­bus, Ohio upset a pro-war pro­gram with top Clin­ton Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials Wednes­day after­noon, ask­ing them tough ques­tions at a live CNN “Town Hall” meet­ing and giv­ing the anti­war move­ment its first seri­ous nation­al publicity.

Sec­re­tary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Defense Sec­re­tary William S. Cohen were in Colum­bus to gain pop­u­lar sup­port for the war and to build the myth of a nation­al con­sen­sus for a U.S. attack on Iraq. They were both sur­prised and embar­rassed by the jeers and tough ques­tions they received from audi­ence mem­bers. Some audi­ence mem­bers held up signs and chant­ed “We Don’t Want Your Racist War” while one ques­tion­er asked why the U.S. was­n’t con­sid­er­ing force against oth­er coun­tries vio­lat­ing human rights such as Indone­sia in it’s slaugh­ter of East Tim­o­rese (when Albright start­ed hem­ming and haw­ing, her accuser shot back “You’re not answer­ing my ques­tion, Madame Albright.”)

The Colum­bus dis­senters are the top sto­ry in the major news­pa­pers and media pun­dits are start­ing to pub­licly doubt polls show­ing over­whelm­ing sup­port for mil­i­tary action.

Sam­ple Let­ter to Media

To the Editors,

With today’s sto­ry about an Ohio audi­ence jeer­ing Sec­re­tary of State Madeleine Albright, it’s time for MS-NBC to give some cov­er­age to the groundswell of grass­roots oppo­si­tion to anoth­er Gulf War. If you had been mon­i­tor­ing the “Iraq Cri­sis Anti­war Home­page,” the events in Colum­bus would not have been a sur­prise. In fact, 82 oth­er demon­stra­tions are cur­rent­ly list­ed here.

In addi­tion to events list­ings, the Anti­war Home­page has analy­sis, action alerts, ideas for orga­niz­ing and links to major non­vi­o­lence groups. A project of the Non­vi­o­lence Web, home to dozens of U.S.-based peace groups, it is a cen­tral source for anti­war organizing.

Please con­sid­er pro­fil­ing all the great work being done around the coun­try to stop anoth­er sense­less war.

In peace,
Mar­tin Kelley
Non­vi­o­lence Web

Reporters vis­it­ing the “Iraq Cri­sis Anti­war Home­page” would not have been sur­prised by the turnout in Colum­bus. A huge grass­roots anti­war move­ment has grown in the past month. The Non­vi­o­lence Web’s email box is being flood­ed with great state­ments, let­ters to Clin­ton, action ideas and just plain wor­ry about anoth­er war. The Anti­war Home­page’s list of upcom­ing protests spans the world, list­ing the Colum­bus event along with over sev­en­ty others.

But lit­tle of this orga­niz­ing has got­ten the nation­al media. Most of the online media have put togeth­er sec­tions promis­ing “com­plete cov­er­age,” and sport­ing bravu­ra titles like “Show­down with Sad­dam.” But look at the cov­er­age and you’ll see only fluff pieces about the brave boys on the air­craft car­ri­ers or furrow-browed analy­sis of U.N. Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Kofi Annan’s doomed search for a diplo­mat­ic settlement.

fter Ohio, the nation­al media will have to start rec­og­niz­ing the wide­spread dis­sent among Amer­i­cans. Some progress is being made. YAHOO, the most pop­u­lar site on the net, has list­ed the Anti­war Home­page in its list of Iraq Cri­sis resources. And a top news orga­ni­za­tion is work­ing on a pro­file of the Non­vi­o­lence Web to appear with­in a few days (keep­ing look­ing for an announcement).

But we must all do more. Write and email the nation­al media to include cov­er­age of anti­war actions. Demand that a link to the Iraq Cri­sis Anti­war Home­page be includ­ed in their “Com­plete Cov­er­age” of the cri­sis. A sam­ple let­ter to MS-NBC is includ­ed here, but please write your own and show them that dis­sent has spread past the Colum­bus audi­to­ri­um and is fol­low­ing them across the internet!