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Title: Real torture ignored, fake torture flogged
Source:
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URL Source: http://www.dailymail.com/story/Opin ... -ignored-fake-torture-flogged/
Published: May 31, 2007
Author: Don Surber
Post Date: 2007-05-31 22:36:27 by BeAChooser
Keywords: None
Views: 335
Comments: 38
Real torture ignored, fake torture flogged The news media is the spoiled brat of the United States IF you know about the torture manual used by al-Qaida, then you did not learn about it by reading the Washington Post, the New York Times or sadly, this newspaper. Neither the Associated Press nor Reuters picked up on the story. Fox News was the only major outlet with the story. Sir Rupert Murdoch's newspapers in Australia republished the Fox report. The handbook was posted at the Smoking Gun Web site. It showed -- with drawings -- how al-Qaida uses drills, irons, vises and other devices to mutilate their captives. This is true torture, the same kind employed by Saddam Hussein's henchmen at Abu Ghraib. The handbook helped explain why a few days later, U.S. forces liberated 42 victims of al-Qaida torture from a location in Iraq. But while they ignored the handbook story, the New York Times and Washington Post did not hesitate to publish a press handout from the United Nations condemning Guantanamo Bay. Why? Because the jihadis we captured are not given lawyers quickly enough. Will someone tell me the name of Daniel Pearl's lawyer? This is the same United Nations whose "human rights council" includes every dictatorship from Burkina Faso to Zimbabwe. Gitmo has been demonized in part by the false and preposterous allegation that a guard flushed an inmate's Koran down the toilet. The New York Times published no less than 29 stories about this lie. Small wonder most Americans think Torquemada, chief of the Spanish Inquisition, runs Gitmo. Then again, the New York Times is the home of the infamous "Memos on Bush Are Fake But Accurate, Typist Says" headline. That was the headline a copy editor slapped on a story that grudgingly conceded that Dan Rather's memo disparaging George Walker Bush's military service was a fraud, a phony -- another lie. Either Rather was had, or he deliberately tried to throw the 2004 election to John Kerry. Over the last six years, the press has treated President Bush with a scorn not shown a president since Richard Nixon. The coverage of the Florida election was decidedly pro-Al Gore. He made false accusation upon false accusation in his attempt to steal the election. No one bothered to hold Vice President Gore accountable for his many lies. A year later, an unprecedented recount by the media showed that Bush won by 493 votes out of 6 million cast, a difference of only 44 votes from the official tally made on election night. Far from being a debacle, the official Florida result was remarkably accurate. But we're wasting billions on vote "reform" anyway. Then there is this business of the Associated Press keeping a running tab on the number of U.S. deaths in the war. Not included in this scoreboard is the number of enemy killed. In previous wars, AP offered no such daily box score. Not all changes are improvements. The American press has gotten rather full of itself in recent years, and people are losing respect for it. For example, I was always taught that the press should protect its sources. And yet, when columnist Bob Novak connected Joe Wilson's wife to the CIA, newspapers across the nation demanded an investigation of this "leak." The principle of protecting sources was thrown overboard in the zeal to get the president, so sure were these newspaper editors that the White House was the source. It turned out a critic of the war, Richard Armitage, leaked the name. He was not charged with anything. Instead, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was indicted and convicted by a jury that included a stringer for the Washington Post. As a newspaperman with 30 years or whatever it is under my belt, I am sad to see a pretty good trade sell itself out like this. No, blind support of the war in Iraq is not demanded. But fairness is. The Fox News motto is "We report, you decide." The rest of the news media view that line with utter contempt. That is how low my trade has sunk. Publishing 29 stories about a lie about a flushed Koran is bad enough. But when a newspaper then refuses to publish one story about a very real handbook on torture that is used by the enemy, that newspaper is no longer being objective. It is taking sides. And not the right side, at that. Many good people made great sacrifices for freedom of the press. It is sad to see today's newspaper people piddle away that heritage.
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#3. To: BeAChooser (#0)
Pentagon plans propaganda war The Pentagon is toying with the idea of black propaganda. As part of George Bush's war on terrorism, the military is thinking of planting propaganda and misleading stories in the international media. A new department has been set up inside the Pentagon with the Orwellian title of the Office of Strategic Influence. It is well funded, is being run by a general and its aim is to influence public opinion abroad. Black and white It has been canvassing opinion within the Pentagon on what it should do. The options range from the standard public relations stuff - doing more to explain the Pentagon's role - to more underhand tactics such as e-mailing journalists and community leaders abroad with information that undermines governments hostile to the United States. These e-mails would come from a .com return address rather than .mil to hide the Pentagon's role. The most controversial suggestion is the covert planting of disinformation in foreign media, a process known as black propaganda. All this has sparked off a fierce debate within the Pentagon. The options range from "the blackest of black programmes to the whitest of white," one official told the New York Times. Some generals are worried that even a suggestion of disinformation would undermine the Pentagon's credibility and America's attempts to portray herself as the beacon of liberty and democratic values. Under review Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has asked a team of lawyers to check the proposals' legality. The Pentagon is forbidden from spreading black propaganda in the American media, but there is nothing to stop an American newspaper picking up a story carried abroad. The Pentagon is well versed in what it calls "psyops", dropping leaflets and using radio broadcasts to undermine enemy morale. But these kind of activities have always been confined to the battlefield, such as Afghanistan. Using covert tactics on media outlets of friendly countries is much more controversial.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestBy Tom Carver
Washington correspondent 
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