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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (160037)	4/2/2005 1:50:46 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Sy Hersh encourages folks to read blogs and seek out international news sources...fyi... _____________________________ Reporter questions authority By S. Derrickson Moore Las Cruces Sun-News March 30, 2005 Wednesday Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh offered a "chronology of the war in Iraq" to a crowd estimated at more than 1,000 Tuesday at the Pan Am Center. "Bush thinks that he is doing the right thing," Hersh said. "He thinks he has a mission." Hersh's journalistic career spans four decades and includes major exposes, ranging from the My Lai Massacre in South Vietnam to the CIA's complicity in the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, the secret B-52 bombing of Cambodia, the unconstitutional wiretapping of newsmen and White House aides by Henry Kissinger and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. But he said "nothing I write" is likely to influence President Bush. "He's not reachable. I can't reach him. He's got his own world and frankly, it scares the hell out of me." After 9-11, he said, "It's as if we were taken over by a cult of eight or nine people who decided the road to stop international terrorism led to Baghdad. Where was the military, the Congress, the press? What has happened raises questions about the thinness of the fabric of democracy." He said the American people are not getting a true picture of the Iraq elections or the status of the war. "There are no embedded reporters now and the bombing continues," he charged. Sources cultivated over decades, including many in the military and government, are the backbone of his investigative work, he said. "The military are loyal and they continue to do their job," he said, praising the "integrity" of many "in the FBI, the CIA, the military, where there are people who respect the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights as much as anybody." He said it is now clear that early declarations of victory in Iraq and Afghanistan were unfounded. "In Afghanistan, crime is up, they are the largest producers of heroin in the world and at one point 700 kids a day were dying of hypothermia and malnutrition," he said. Hersh's Tuesday schedule also included a dinner with community members and NMSU officials, a press conference and a session with journalism students and faculty members. "Read, read, read," he advised students. "Write stuff and read before you write. Do more work and be less afraid. It's not the job of journalists to be cheerleaders for the government. Ever since 9-11 the press has been much more controlled and much more timid. "Bush does a brilliant job of controlling the media . He really spins facts. All presidents do that. These guys are just better at it." Hersh, now a freelance writer whose work is featured regularly in The New Yorker magazine, was also critical of other presidents. The author of eight best-selling books, including one about President John F. Kennedy, "The Dark Side of Camelot," said that "Jack Kennedy had a smoke machine as good as anything Bush has." He advised reading international news sources and said Internet bloggers can "be a vibrant force" and are doing "some interesting and amazing things. There are some nutty ones, too. There's a lot of diversity on the Internet." Lively discussions during Hersh's visit touched on everything from Sunni and Shiite political struggles to world economics and Social Security. He feels changes in Social Security are ill advised. "Bush's plan would mean a $4.5 trillion windfall for brokerage houses." Current economic policies and the escalating oil shortage and resistance to conservation measures and development of alternative energy sources are leading us into a "worldwide recession," he said. Some members of the Pan Am crowd rose to offer a standing ovation to Hersh before he began his speech and the often-controversial veteran journalist elicited generally favorable reviews from his Las Cruces audiences. "He's one of the most important journalists of our time.," said Steven Apodaca, an NMSU student and reporter with KRWG. "I think he generated a good discussion."