For the Record

Chuck McGee charged with jamming phone lines

intended to help Democrats get to the polls on Election Day 2002; this follows GOP consultant Allen Raymond's plea of guilty to doing so. McGee was former executive director the Republican party in NH, and resigned his post when news broke of the mater in 2003. You would think that his being charged would be news---again, consider the counterfactual case where a Democrat tampered with an election---but this story is getting almost no press. The AP story is available on only one news site; and as alert reader Bob German noted, it appeared in the print version of the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, but isn't on their web page.

ICJ rules that Israeli wall violates international law

And demands that construction be stopped forthwith and reparations made:

[T]he Court finds that Israel must respect the right of the Palestinian people to self‑determination and its obligations under humanitarian law and human rights law. Israel must also put an end to the violation of its international obligations flowing from the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and must accordingly cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall, dismantle forthwith those parts of that structure situated within the Occupied Palestinian Territory and forthwith repeal or render ineffective all legislative and regulatory acts adopted with a view to construction of the wall and establishment of its associated régime, except in so far as such acts may continue to be relevant for compliance by Israel with its obligations in regard to reparation. Israel must further make reparation for all damage suffered by all natural or legal persons affected by the wall’s construction.

The sole dissenter on these and other decisions was the American judge. Shame on you, Judge Buergenthal!

The continued violent Israeli oppression of Palestinians, blatant theft of Palestinian land and resources, and effective ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, is a festering sore on the face of humankind.

Once again, we've got to consider why Israel's violent oppression, theft of resources, and intentional destruction of the Palestinian people are being countenanced by the U.S.. And we've got to act now, before what's left of Palestinian culture is completely destroyed.

Besides the action alerts in the link above, this media list provides all kinds of good contact info. One useful thing to do would be to call the editors of papers in your area or that you read and ask that they cover the ICJ ruling, and the continued violent oppression of Palestinians in Gaza. And if you can spare a few bucks see the extended post for an immediate emergency in Gaza where your money will do some good.

Amira Hass

Leiter links to the acceptance speech of Israeli journalist Amira Hass, upon receiving the first Anna Lindh award. Hass's experience provides yet another instance of how reported facts at odds with the official storyline are ignored:

The official Israeli version, propagated by the political echelons around the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak of Labour, and adopted by a great part of the Israeli Jews, ran as follows: Arafat planned, initiated and orchestrated the armed conflict from the start; Arafat did not accept the generous offers of Barak at Camp David, Camp David talks reached a deadlock because of Palestinian insistence to demand the Right of Return of all Palestinian refugees; Arafat is anyway aiming at the gradual destruction of the state of Israel; from the start of the present Intifada Palestinians resorted to using arms against the Israeli soldiers; Palestinians who were killed were killed in armed clashes between the two parties.

Each such statement, which was actually accepted, if not presented, as a purely objective fact, has been contradicted and challenged by articles and reports published by Israeli papers.

[See Hass's discussion for some examples...]

It would take days to cite the reports from the field - by me and others - that refuted the Israeli official military presentation of events. If you check the archives, you'll find them. [...] Whoever wanted to get a broad picture and more facts - could have done so. Yet people comment today to the debate and its content as if they were exposed now to totally new facts. My frustration could sound vain: so early on did I offer facts that now, three and two and almost four years after are taken as common knowledge, proven by important officials and commentators. Well, I AM vain, - I don't shy at saying that I published those facts very early.

But my frustration is about the wasted lives, the blood that might have not been shed, the destruction that followed. If only people concluded early enough that their army and politicians added tons of fuel to the flames, that they treated a tiny match-fire as fire in a forest.

Dahr Jamail, who has been reporting on the abuse of Iraqis, in and out of Abu Ghraib, since last November, has expressed similar frustration.

It's worth asking just why progressive reporting gets ignored for so long---indeed, long enough that, when finally acknowledged, it can't do any harm to the official agenda. The story line needs to hold until Palestine is destroyed, till we've installed a friendly puppet, or whatever; the fact that bad stuff happened along the way means that a few heads will roll (maybe) but the main job will have been accomplished.

Apropos of yesterday's post on the effective Corporate Coup D'etat, it's worth noting what you probably already knew: that major media and the military-industrial complex are often in bed in the same corporation. For example, GE, which is the world's largest corporation by market share and the owner of NBC, CNBC, MSNBC (in cooperation with Microsoft), and many international news outlets, also happens to be one of the world's top three producers of jet engines (to the tune of $1.6 billion in 1999) and a major military contractor, both to Boeing and Lockheed Martin... and (along with other "support services") Israel.

Journalism unmasked and called to task

Leiter links to this amazing polemic. It's a bit extreme in parts, but I agree with a lot of it, and especially this:

If even one reporter had stood up during a pre-Iraq Bush press conference last year and shouted, 'Bullshit!' it might have made a difference....

Buzzflash tells it like it is about Republicans

in this scathing editorial.

Amy Goodman has a new book

with a terrible title, unfortunately (Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers and the Media that Love Them). But as usual, she's right on the money, as in this Newsweek interview (a 'web exclusive' -- wouldn't want Newsweek's mag readers to hear Goodman's take on the mainstream press, would we?).

Requiem for a Dream

This extremely powerful, unfathomably sad article by Philip Kennicott appeared in today's Washington Post: A Wretched New Picture Of America.

Torture in Abu Ghraib

Just when you think what is going on in Iraq couldn't get any worse, comes the terrible story of military contractors in Abu Ghraib prison, who evidently fall under nobody's legal jurisdiction---including the U.S. military's---torturing, sexually abusing, and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners, documented in photos (one shivers to think what was done and is being done off-camera). The Guardian reports on the scandal here.

This is starting to seep into the U.S. media consciousness---NBC and CNN have broadcast at least one of the photos---though far too slowly. Again, go to the Guardian to find out What the U.S. papers don't say.

Also not being adequately reported, in press or on the air: the story about the resistance in Fallujah from the perspective of Fallujans.

Meanwhile (as I report from the TV'd front of my mother's living room) all the major stations have been reporting all morning on---and pretty much only on---Michael Jackson's indictment. Oh wait, now Bush is stumbling through the English language in a press conference, saying astonishingly idiotic things like "Some people think that people with brown skin can't be free. But I believe that the Muslim people can be free". Aaargh...

UPDATE: The torture story is getting legs... Bush was just asked about it.

Dispatches from Independent Reporters in Iraq: Dahr Jamail and Rahul Mahajan

Get the latest on U.S. violations of moral and international law in Iraq, including updates on hospital closings and ambulance shootings in Fallujah, here and here.

The mainstream press is also doing a better job of late, as in this front-page piece by Sewell Chan of the Washington Post, which discusses another way in which contact with Americans is deadly for Iraqis:

The owner of a trucking company in Baghdad, who gave his name only as Abu Abdullah because several of his drivers have received death threats for working with Americans, said that his employees had begun to refuse work connected to the occupation.

For much of the past year, Abu Abdullah said, his company has transported concrete barriers, food, electrical supplies for Kellogg Brown & Root, the firm that has the major contract for transporting food and supplies for the U.S. military in Iraq. The trucking company often would take materials from the Balad air base to smaller bases.

"Whatever we take, it's dangerous now," Abu Abdullah said. "The mujaheddin stop you on the road. They ask you: 'Who are taking these things for?' They want to see the papers. If you lie and you don't have the right papers, they will burn you with the trailer."

He added that Kellogg Brown & Root, a unit of Halliburton Co., has begun offering trucking companies 1 million dinars -- about $700 -- for an overnight truck trip in some cases, a large sum in a country where $200 is considered a decent monthly salary. "The drivers still refuse," Abu Abdullah said, even when the firm has offered armed escorts to accompany the convoys.

Condoleeza Rice: Been caught lyin'... under oath

The lying part isn't new, of course, but the perjury part is. Also new is that the Times is actually reporting on an administration failure for a change:

WASHINGTON, April 9 — President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday.

The disclosure appears to contradict the White House's repeated assertions that the briefing the president received about the Qaeda threat was "historical" in nature and that the White House had little reason to suspect a Qaeda attack within American borders.

Maybe after this particularly egregiously sycophantic year-plus of Times reporting, editorial powers that be are finally being shamed into front-paging the truth. About time, you toadies... though too late for the thousands of people who have died, in part, because of the deeply reprehensible "reporting" of Judith Miller and her ilk.

Looks like the Washington Post might be finally waking up, too:

This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency.

What do you know, some facts in mainstream U.S. papers, as opposed to the foreign press, blogs or left-progressive magazines, for a change!