tekton
Thirteen officials from the CIA, State Department and Pentag
Sat Dec 14 01:32:00 2002
208.152.73.23

http://rense.com/general32/sdln.htm

Thirteen officials from the CIA, State Department and Pentagon, many
with vast experience in the Middle East and South Asia, told Landy and
Strobel the same thing: The White House has squelched dissent, imposed
conformity and silence, demanded skewed analyses to justify its hard
line, and repeatedly exaggerated or falsified intelligence information
to inflate the Saddam threat.

"I couldn't help thinking that if these informed, respected patriots
could raise their voices openly and in unison, they'd stop the
administration's chicken hawks in their tracks," Carlsson said. "Public
and congressional support for the war path would whither, and the
president would be exposed as the world's most crooked 'straight
shooter.'"

"That's it!" he told a colleague. "We'll offer U.S. bureaucrats and
their families safe passage to Sweden and a secure environment from
which they can speak freely and publicly to the folks back home. They
can stay here at our expense until a climate of openness and honesty
prevails in the Bush administration."

In addition to Williams, 28 other bureaucrats and their families are en
route to Stockholm. All were spirited out of Washington by a team of
Swedish secret agents who had honed their rescue skills in Yugoslavia
and the Congo.

Former CIA analyst Williams is already a sensation on Swedish TV as a
regular guest on the top-rated chat show, Nugen Farger ("Hard Rugby").
On a recent edition, he parsed a string of Bush's statements on Iraq,
including assertions at a Republican fundraiser that Saddam Hussein
hopes to deploy al Qaeda as his "forward army" against the West, and
that "we need to think about Saddam Hussein using al Qaeda to do his
dirty work, to not leave fingerprints behind."

"I can assure you," Williams told Swedish viewers, "that no one at CIA
believes a word Bush said. What's more, no one at CIA believes that Bush
believes a word Bush said."

Strong words, and Williams anticipates an echo chamber as more of
Sweden's newest residents regain their voice. But he wonders if members
of the U.S. news media, particularly those he calls "the boobs on the
tube," will dare to listen.
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http://rense.com/general32/decode.htm



Rense.com


Decoding Some Top
Buzz Words Of 2002
By Norman Solomon
GoOff.com
12-13-02

How words are used can be crucial to understanding and misunderstanding the world around us. The media lexicon is saturated with certain buzz phrases. They're popular -- but what do they mean?

"The use of words is to express ideas," James Madison wrote. "Perspicuity, therefore, requires not only that the ideas should be distinctly formed, but that they should be expressed by words distinctly and exclusively appropriate to them." More than two centuries later, surveying the wreckage of public language in political spheres, you might be tempted to murmur: "Dream on, Jim."

With 2002 nearing its end in the midst of great international tension, here's a sampling of some top U.S. media jargon:

"Pre-Emptive"

This adjective represents a kind of inversion of the Golden Rule: "Do violence onto others just in case they might otherwise do violence onto you." Brandished by Uncle Sam, we're led to believe that's a noble concept.

"Weapons Of Mass Destruction"

They're bad unless they're good. Globally, the U.S. government leads the way with thousands of unfathomably apocalyptic nuclear weapons. (Cue the media cheers.) Regionally, in the Middle East, only Israel has a nuclear arsenal -- estimated at 200 atomic warheads -- currently under the control of Ariel Sharon, who has proven to be lethally out of control on a number of occasions. (Cue the media shrugs.) Meanwhile, the possibility that Saddam Hussein might someday develop any such weapons is deemed to be sufficient reason to launch a war. (Cue the Pentagon missiles.)

"International Community"

Honorary members include any and all nations that are allied with Washington or accede to its policies. Other governments are evil rogue states.

"International Law"

This is the political equivalent of Play Dough, to be shaped, twisted and kneaded as needed. No concept is too outlandish, no rationalization too Orwellian when a powerful government combines with pliant news media. Few members of the national press corps are willing to question the basics when the man in the Oval Office issues the latest pronouncement about international behavior. It's a cinch that fierce condemnation would descend on any contrary power that chooses to do as we do and not as we say.

"Terrorism"

The hands-down winner of the rhetorical sweepstakes for 2002, this word aptly condemns as reprehensible the killing of civilians, but the word is applied quite selectively rather than evenhandedly. When the day comes that news outlets accord the life of a Palestinian child the same reverence as the life of an Israeli child, we'll know that media coverage has moved beyond craven mediaspeak to a single standard of human rights.

Although you wouldn't know it from U.S. media coverage, 80 percent of the Palestinians killed in recent months by the Israeli Defense Force during curfew enforcement were children, according to an October report from the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. Twelve people under the age of 16 had been killed, with dozens more wounded by Israeli gunfire in occupied areas, during a period of four months. "None of those killed endangered the lives of soldiers," B'Tselem said.

Closer to home, in less dramatic ways, the concept of "human rights" melts away when convenient. Even an assiduous reader of the U.S. press would be surprised to run across some key provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations more than 50 years ago and theoretically in force today. For instance, the document declares without equivocation that "everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment."

Perhaps the Universal Declaration passage least likely to succeed with U.S. news media appears in Article 25: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and the necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

Words expressing those kinds of ideas are scarce in our media lexicon.


Norman Solomon's latest book is "The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media." Written by Norman Solomon of Fair.Org--Posted 12/13/2002

http://www.gooff.com/news/read.asp?ID=1672   

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