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Archives-- Installments for
May 11, 2005, through 20, 2005, starting below in reverse chronological order.
May
19, 2005--
Minus
60 Minutes and Not Counting; Dan Rather and Mary Mapes mistakenly receive "Peabody" Award
rather than "PeeBuddy" Awards for how they targeted Pentagon in segment on Abu Ghraib.
According to a May
18, 2005, AP report, CBS has decided to cancel "60 Minutes II." That AP
report says, "The show was [Dan] Rather's home base since he stepped down as anchor of the 'CBS Evening
News' in March. While he will report for '60 Minutes,' it's not clear whether he will become one of the correspondents pictured every week at the beginning of the show."
Coincidentally (?), on May
17, 2005, Dan Rather and Mary Mapes attended an awards ceremony at which the "60
Minutes II" broadcast in May, 2004 ( on which they collaborated) about Abu Ghraib mistakenly
received a "Peabody Award." The award each of them actually earned was a
"PeeBuddy" Award, which more aptly and metaphorically describes how their broadcast
about Abu Ghraib targeted the Pentagon despite an earnest plea by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman
Richard Myers for
"more time" for the military to complete ongoing, sensitive investigations into
allegations of mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Rather's and Mapes' insistence on reporting on the matter while the investigations were on-going and
while our troops were in an unusually dangerous situation in Iraq led to the matter being blown far
out of proportion and even equated by the likes of Teddy Kennedy with the barbaric torture applied
there under Saddam Hussein. Kennedy characterized the situation at Abu Ghraib under American
military control as "same methods, new management." For Kennedy to have equated
the untypical instances of American military personnel's mistreatment of prisoners with the
systematic, pervasive and barbaric torture routinely dispensed at Abu Ghraib under Saddam Hussein's
regime was far worse than to equate a minor traffic offense with Chappaquiddick.
So many in the dominant media still don't get it-- i.e., that we're at war with a network of
fanatical adherents to a barbaric, medieval form of totalitarianism rather than merely involved in
"law enforcement" activities to be conducted according to the niceties of the
criminal-litigation process rather than rules of war. We're lucky that the generation of
reporters controlling the media during World War II exercised better judgment.
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.
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19, 2005 #01 Daily Update at PoliSat.Com,
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May
18, 2005--
Newsweek
Makes Itself a Heavy Backpack on the Backs of American Military Personnel in the War Against
Fanatical, Totalitarian Perverters of Islam.
The most recent instance of irresponsibility on the part of the dominant media-- i.e., the
current controversy over Newsweek's allegation that interrogators at Gitmo treated the Koran (Quran)
with disrespect-- continues to draw attention to common-sense issues about the role of
the free press in a struggle between forces of freedom and forces of medieval totalitarian
fanaticism. That such a large portion of the dominant media remains in a state of denial
is part of what continues to give the controversy "legs" in the news-cycle.
The free press is a heavy backpack being carried by our troops. We recognize that some serving
in, and some leading, our military will occasionally make decisions or take actions that
unintentionally cause injury or death to innocent people-- that's one of the prices we must pay and
risks we must bear in order to have an effective military to protect us from threats to our
security. Similarly, we must also recognize that some serving in, and some leading, our free
press will occasionally make decisions or take actions that unintentionally increase the risks of,
or cause, death or injury to our troops (or other innocent people)-- that's one of the prices we
must pay and risks we must bear in order to have a free press. (Indeed, virtually all of our
military personnel take pride in the fact that they are fighting to preserve freedom that protects
the rights of their critics to criticize them.) But as is the case with mistakes by, or in,
the military, that's not the end of the inquiry; rather, it's the beginning.
When military personnel make split-second decisions that unintentionally lead to the injury or death
of fellow soldiers or other innocent persons, our free press (and the rules of the military) demand
an inquiry to determine whether such decisions warrant disciplinary or punitive action. This
rule of law within our military is only part of what distinguishes us from the barbaric, fanatical
Muslims, whose behavior offends the faith of non-fanatical, modern-thinking Muslims.
Just as we (and our free press) expect our military to discipline itself and to learn from, and
attempt to correct and avoid repeating, such mistakes, we are entitled to expect our free press to
engage in serious introspection when its members carelessly or recklessly make decisions that
increase dangers to our troops and other innocent people-- especially in light of the fact that in
the vast, vast majority of such instances, the media personnel making such decisions had the luxury
of doing so without their own lives being at risk on the basis of how, when, and why they
made such decisions.
Why isn't this as obvious to the broad membership of the free press as it is to the rest of us
viewing such issues with common sense? It's because such a large portion of the dominant media
in the western free press have lost touch with a number of common-sense principles. What are
they? First, in the context of issues narrowly confined to the relationship
between the government and the governed, common sense dictates that the governed expect the free
press to err on the side of too much, rather than too little, criticism of the government. Second,
in the context of a struggle between a free society and forces of medieval, barbaric
totalitarianism, common sense makes it foolish for a free press to strive to be "neutral"
between such opposing forces. Third, for the free press to exhibit
self-restraint based on a common-sense recognition of the nature of such struggle is neither blind
patriotism nor censorship. Fourth, when members of the free press carelessly or
recklessly report information (true or false) in a way that endangers those risking their lives to
protect such freedoms, other members of the free press ought to use their free speech to
unequivocally condemn, rather than excuse, rationalize or minimize such action. Fifth,
in such instances, those of us among the governed are entitled to discontinue patronizing media
organizations that refuse to abide by the preceding principle.
Finally, what about the anti-Operation-Iraqi-Freedom critics who claim that neither the White House
nor the Pentagon is entitled to suggest that Newsweek "ought" to "apologize" for
the report at issue "unless" or "until" George W. Bush were to
"apologize" for basing his decision to launch Operation Iraqi Freedom on assertions that
Saddam Hussein retained stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was striving to
reconstitute his nuclear-weapons program? As General Patton would have said, that's "a
lot of horse-dung." Why? Such argument by such critics is specious for reasons that
are (and were as recently as on Nov. 4, 2004) clear to anyone using common sense: First,
in concluding that such Hussein possessed and/or was developing such WMD assets, Bush relied upon
what was a strong consensus (rather than views of a dissenting minority) among virtually all western
intelligence agencies. Second, at the time of the decision, Bush correctly
reasoned that safety and security lay in erring on the side of relying upon the worst-case consensus
rather than minority-view hopes. Third, if Bush were to have followed the advice
of Chirac, Schroeder, Blix and Annan, then by now the sanctions against Saddam Hussein would have
ended more than two years ago, Saddam would still be in power and would be free to reconstitute his
chemical and biological weapons and resume his nuclear-weapons program without there being any
internationally sanctioned "Security Council" rulings to authorize anyone to halt such
activities. Fourth, al Qaeda (and its allies of convenience as well as
sympathizers) would have been able to concentrate against targets in the United States and Western
Europe all the resources that Operation Iraqi Freedom has forced them to apply in Iraq in an effort
to prevent establishment of the first human-rights-respecting democracy in the Arab
world. In other words, the November, 2004, election served as an
"Article 32" hearing on Bush's decision to launch Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the
"jury" voted in his favor rather than in favor of his accusers.
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.
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May
18, 2005 #01 Daily Update at PoliSat.Com,
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May
17, 2005--
What
Newsweek knew and when it knew it about the allegations that U.S. interrogators abused the Koran as
a means to induce cooperation by captives at Gitmo.
First, they knew that even non-fanatics in the Islamic world are skeptical of, and broadly ignorant
about, the concept of religious freedom readily accepted in the United States as well as being
extremely sensitive to, resentful towards and easily incensed by, almost any form of expression
about Islam that manifests less than unconditional approval.
Second, they knew that for the minds of non-fanatical Muslims there is now raging a worldwide battle
between the forces of modernity, tolerance and freedom on the one hand and the forces of a medieval
form of totalitarian religious fanaticism practiced in the guise of Islam on the other.
Third, they knew that throughout the world, American military personnel are at risk in this
worldwide struggle.
Fourth, they knew that for allegations of anti-Islamic behavior to be "reported" by an
American news medium in a manner appearing to grant credence to such allegations would constitute a
far more powerful tool in the hands of the fanatics to sway the minds of the non-fanatics than would
the same such allegations made by the fanatics alone.
Fifth, they knew that even if such allegations (such as, for example, allegations of
disrespectful treatment of the Koran by U.S. interrogators of fanatical killers being held at Gitmo)
were to have been assumed (for purposes of argument) to have been true, such
"disrespectful" conduct would pale into insignificance in comparison to the
widespread and systematic efforts exhibited by the U.S. military to accept higher risks to
themselves to minimize risks to Islamic mosques (despite their being used for military purposes
by terrorists and fanatics seeking to kill Americans) and traditions.
Sixth, they knew that the allegations that American interrogators had used mistreatment of the Koran
as an interrogation technique were highly dubious at the least and highly speculative at the
best. (For example, how many people at Newsweek would grant any credence whatsoever
to an allegation that government agents interrogating an extremist Christian fundamentalist
suspected of having murdered gynecologists would force him to watch them place an image of Christ in
urine in order to "motivate" him to "confess" or "cooperate"?)
Yet they exhibited credulity (stemming from political resonance rather than innocent naiveté) with
respect to the allegations that American interrogators showed disrespect for the Koran in the hope
of gaining the cooperation of their fanatically-Islamic prisoners.
Seventh, they knew when they submitted a lengthy description of those, and similar, allegations to
the Pentagon or the White House that neither the Pentagon nor the White House issues blanket denials
of allegations (because to do so would impair the credence of the final results of any formal
investigation of such allegation), and so they therefore knew that the failure of the White House or
Pentagon to categorically deny such allegations did not constitute any tacit "admission"
or "validation" of Newsweek's "source" for such allegations.
Notwithstanding all the above, Newsweek published the allegations. It would be as if before
the Normandy invasion, for which the Allies were greatly dependent not only upon the Free French
Resistance but also the willingness of large numbers of the French who would sit on the fence at
best, and collaborate with the Nazis at worst, an American publication were to have furnished French
collaborators with leaflets containing allegations that American plans for post-war Europe would
include totalitarian rule of France by American generals while knowing that French collaborators
would use such leaflets as propaganda to incite fence-sitters to help them find and slaughter
members of the Free French Resistance.
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.
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May
17, 2005 #01 Daily Update at PoliSat.Com,
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May
16, 2005--
Usama's
New Rag:
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.
May
12, 2005--
PoliSat.Com
Announces Founding of GRAARP better known as Geezers Repudiating AARP;
Herman Cain tours America for private enterprise and Social Security Reform.
PoliSat.Com announces the founding of GRAARP
comprised of Geezers Repudiating
Aging Americans Ravaging
Posterity better known as "Geezers
Repudiating AARP" or
simply "GRAARP."
Jim Wrenn, Editor of PoliSat.Com and founder of GRAARP, will serve as the Washington Bureau Drawer
Chief for GRAARP. According
to reporters attending GRAARP's inaugural press conference, Wrenn went on the record to anonymously
announce that he expects AARP to respond with a counter-campaign
code-named "CAARP," which stands for Counter-Attack
Against Retirement Progress.
More serious efforts to expose the agenda of Aging Americans
Ravaging Posterity are being
exerted by a number of private-enterprise luminaries such as Herman Cain in his commentaries,
his activism,
and his current tour
of America. While Cain is raising Cain, AARP is CAARPing, but anagram experts
say that such the "CAARPing" campaign is indistinguishable from CRAAPing.
To assist those who still pay dues to AARP but need help to kick the habit, GRAARP has developed a
"Twelve Step Program." Step One: Stop paying dues to AARP. Steps Two
through Twelve-- See Step One.
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.-- A geezer proud to be a
non-member of AARP and the Founder of GRAARP.
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May
12, 2005 #01 Daily Update at PoliSat.Com,
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