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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (51714)	7/22/2004 12:10:14 PM
From: abuelita	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

s2- here's something worth reading: EDITORIAL Silence shrouds the moral abyss spawned by the war against Iraq Stephen Hume Special to the Sun Thursday, July 22, 2004 On what appeared to be its website last week, the British newspaper The Independent carried a four-paragraph item dated July 16. I say "appeared," because who knows anymore what's real and what's not? How do I know the website wasn't a fake lofted by some dirty trickster in the political spin wars? In our brave new media world, weapons of mass destruction turn out to be, in the words of a new documentary currently doing the indy film festival circuit, Weapons of Mass Deception. Photos of British soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq turn out to be false -- although I note that an official investigation into the alleged abuses quietly continues. Ditto for explicit digital images that purported to show coalition soldiers serially raping Iraqi women. They were lifted from a pornographic film. However, pictures of U.S. soldiers sexually humiliating prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison proved legit after first being denounced as fakes. Alternately, the story of plucky heroine Jessica Lynch and her rescue by brave fellow soldiers turns out to have been hugely embroidered for a gullible media by the military spin machine. Welcome to the world of Wag the Dog, the movie in which a bogus war is sold on television to the American public to shore up a U.S. president's sagging ratings. Which brings me back to that item that appeared to have appeared in The Independent. It was forwarded to me by a reader, but I learned long ago to go to original sources whenever possible. Checking took me to what I think was The Independent's website. The story cited investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who chronicled for the New Yorker Magazine the appalling abuse of prisoners under the control of U.S. military authorities at Abu Ghraib. "It's worse," Hersh apparently told a meeting of the American Civil Liberties Union in San Francisco, although he didn't go into details, presumably because he hasn't finished reporting on the subject. Hersh said a film depicts young Iraqi boys being sexually assaulted. "The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking," Hersh told the silent audience. "That your government has." Now here's the interesting thing. When I searched the database of American periodicals that's part of the Canwest electronic library, I didn't find a single hit on this particular story. On the web I did find a reference to a United Press International item, probably based on The Independent. When I Googled it, I found Hersh's speech was a subject of wide discussion on independent media sites, blogs, forums and web-based list servers. But none of the hits led to a report in the mainstream media. Did he say it? I drilled a little deeper. At the ACLU site, I found a streaming video of the Hersh speech. (You can watch it yourself at aclu.org; starting at 1:07:50 with the relevant comments coming at 1:30:28). Apparently he did say it -- that caveat again. He said more. He said women had sent notes from the prison asking their husbands to kill them because of what they'd experienced. So here we have an issue which seems of crucial importance -- allegations of monstrous treatment of mothers and children in the custody of U.S. occupation forces. It's widely discussed by techno-savvy young people around the world, but goes largely unremarked by the U.S. media. For me, it was a telling moment. It suggests that not only is the moral authority of the U.S. in tatters, so, increasingly, is the credibility of a media that likes to present itself as a model for free expression. Frankly, President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair can twist, weasel, equivocate, obfuscate, deny, dissimulate and strew the political landscape with as many red herrings as they like. It won't change the fact that they beat the drums for a war that has caused the deaths of thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent civilians based upon information that even a smidgin of prudence would have warned them was unreliable. So where were the vaunted U.S. media when the governments they claim to hold accountable began marching toward the moral abyss? The so-called liberation of Iraq is now a nightmare of civil violence in which senior officials of the new regime are routinely assassinated, a clandestine resistance seems to be growing rather than shrinking and the moral capital accumulated by Britain and the U.S. over many decades has been squandered in a matter of months. Yet few media moguls seem to be asking about the global consequences of the foreign affairs catastrophe visited upon us all by the hubris of these two governments. What Hersh was really pointing to at the ACLU conference was that dreadful, disheartening moment at which citizens discover that the only cop in town has gone bad. Much is now being made by politicians and pundits of the "failure of intelligence" in presenting an accurate assessment of reality. But the intelligence that failed was not that of the spooks, it was among the elected representatives and the media who abandoned their simple common- sense mandate to challenge, challenge and challenge again any evidence presented to justify killing people. Instead, those who produced contrary views were ridiculed, reviled and bullied in a fashion that is unfathomable for nations wedded to the notion of free speech. Weapons inspectors Scott Ritter and Hans Blix, Prime Minister Jean Chretien, U.S. anti-terrorism expert Richard Clarke and the leaders of France and Germany all expressed doubts about the rationale for war and the existence of weapons of mass destruction. They found themselves dismissed as fools and dupes. Well, somebody was duped all right -- it was the U.S. Congress, the British House of Commons and the people of both countries. When institutions become so desensitized that allegations about the rape of children being videotaped for the amusement of the captors results only in a deafening silence, when the conversation about it must take place outside the mainstream media, every American and every Briton should be asking how their country came to find itself in the service of such values. shume

To: stockman_scott who wrote (51714)	7/22/2004 12:35:39 PM
From: J.B.C.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Hmmm, critiquing IS a form of expressing ones thoughts. If it's not worth reading, there's the ignore button. I did post my own thoughts earlier that Bush will win about 40 states. I gave you a link where people are actually risking money on futures based on what they believed the outcome of the election would be, not how THEY would vote. I also stated that Kerry will be leading that sometime in the next week because of the DNC. I also said he'll lose that lead for good after the RNC. The democrats are desperate to make an issue that they might win on, that's why they'll try anything and the health care thing has popped up. Now we're fighting a war. (We were attacked on OUR soil and no matter how much the libs flail their arms, that doesn't go away). The democrats SCREAM about deficits (just another straw dog issue, that they really don't care about since they ran-up deficits for 40 years), but now they want to add MORE deficits by adding in a whole NEW entitlement. Yet when their God, BJ Clinton was in office, absolutely NOTHING was done. So why is it an issue now? One reason I "critique" is because just like most liberals you never answer the questions posed. It becomes a waist of my time to do nothing more than point out the flaws of your logic. In spite of what Jim Willie says he also does not answer questions or provide any rational thought to a subject, he'll pull a minuscule part from a post, that he CAN make a statement about and go from there. He's the ultimate slight of hand artist, you just can't see that. So Scott, answer a couple questions: Why is adding an entitlement (nationalized health care) such a hot issue now, when it wasn't while BJ Clinton was in office? And how does that square with democrats wanting reduced deficits? By the way health care spending is trillions. And, do you know anyone personally that's been denied some type of health care by going to your cities hospital? Please be precise in your answers and make sure you cover all points. No pasting (i.e. plagiarism) is allowed JIm Willie: I didn't misspell a word, I used the wrong word in a key portion just for you, find it. Also this post is not from a word document as yours are. Thanks, play again real soon. Jim