...not as "daily" as the name suggests...
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| The Daily Oh Really ...not as "daily" as the name suggests... |
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Tuesday, May 25, 2004 Pre-ja vu This story on islam-online doesn't seem too remarkable until you read the date line. It talks about a British soldier complaining about US and British military abusing Iraqi prisoners. The story was published on April 2 2004. Quite a spooky feeling considering that this report and others like it were steadfastly ignored by the mainstream Western media, until about three weeks ago. On April 2, in the Western world, it was as though this reality just didn't exist. Worse: reference is made to the questioning of a soldier in relation to prisoner photos, including a prisoner being dangled from a crane - in May 2003. Media reports of this incident and the discovery of the photos appeared around May 30 last year. (See this Islam-Online story and check out the URL - seeing "2003" in the pathname gave me a jolt.) Can't remember seeing anything at all in the Western media last May though. I do remember seeing it in some lefty blogs and wondering why the story disappeared. Worse still: the story also reports on alleged raping of pre-pubescent Iraqi girls by members of the US and British forces. More badness: The main focus of the story is a photo that was found of a US soldier mocking an Iraqi child. The soldier is posing with some kids, giving the thumbs up, and one of the kids is holding a sign that reads "Lcpl Boudreaux killed my Dad, th(en) he knocked up my sister!" If you want to take the piss out of Lance Corporal Ted J Boudreaux Jr, a reservist with Headquarters and Service Company, 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines: this website has a reproduction of the photo, where you can change the text on the sign. The most popular example so far is "Courtesy of the US cardboard for oil program." This is what Snopes.com has to say about the authenticity of the original photo: "LCpl. Boudreaux has told reporters that the sign in the picture originally read "Welcome Marines!" but was altered by someone else. He has not, however, (publicly) produced a version of the original photograph or identified who might have altered it. (If the photo was indeed manipulated, someone involved in the process had to be sufficiently acquainted with Boudreaux to be able to match his name and rank with his picture.)" posted by Jojo | 1:28 PM Tuesday, May 04, 2004 So what were you saying about democracy again? From Salon.com: CBS News delayed reporting for two weeks about U.S. soldiers' alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners, following a personal request from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Gen. Richard B. Myers called CBS anchor Dan Rather eight days before the report was to air, asking for extra time, said Jeff Fager, executive producer of "60 Minutes II." Funny how you can read about something in blogs, last year, and not see it in the mainstream media until this week. posted by Jojo | 1:28 PM Saturday, April 10, 2004 Iraq occupation "turns" dirty SMH headline for today: Six more hostages seized as war turns dirty Come on SMH, surely the Iraq conflict was "dirty" before now, for example, minimum 3000 Iraqi civilian casualties as of 12 months ago; suicide bombers; to name a couple things off the top of my head? Don't get me wrong, the hostage situation is horrifying, especially the Japanese trio and the deadline of Sunday 9 pm Baghdad time before they are burnt alive. Come on Japanese government: you only have 550 soldiers in there, they are non-combat soldiers: pull them out! Just get out! You can always reverse it after the hostages are freed? And at least the SMH is honest about this: There was no celebration of the toppling of the statue of the dictator in Baghdad's Firdos Square on April 9 last year as US-led forces ended one of the war's bloodiest weeks fighting to regain control of vital cities. Sure puts a lie to those images of "celebration" we "witnessed" 12 months ago. posted by Jojo | 9:14 AM Saturday, February 07, 2004 NOW they want the truth The Whitehouse started scapegoating intelligence agencies, now the agencies are biting back. A former State Department intelligence officer, Greg Thielmann, has stated that the Whitehouse removed qualifications from intelligence reports that aspects of the reports were unreliable, fraudulent or fabricated. Read on: Now it's a battle for the truth By Marion Wilkinson February 7, 2004 It is unnerving to watch the world's most powerful intelligence chief with his back to the wall. But when the CIA's director, George Tenet, stood up at Georgetown University to explain his handling of the prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons, there was little doubt he was on the defensive and his career was on the line. "I have come here today to talk to you, and to the American people, about something important to our nation and central to our future," he told the packed auditorium. "I want to tell you about our information and how we reached our judgements." Underscoring his anxiety, the spy chief promised, "I will tell you what I think - honestly and directly." Tenet set about strenuously defending many of the flawed claims in the prewar US National Intelligence Estimate of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The claims in that document, released in October 2002, were repeatedly exploited by President George Bush, Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, and Britain's Tony Blair before the Iraq war. At the end of each claim, Tenet offered his "provisional bottom line" on what he now knows. In all but one case, the intelligence estimate was grossly exaggerated or plain wrong. On chemical weapons, his prewar estimate claimed "Saddam has probably stocked a few hundred metric tonnes of CW agents". Now, Tenet conceded, "we have not yet found the weapons we expected". Cirincione concluded: "I believe director Tenet has undermined his credibility with his vigorous defence today, not enhanced it." Sitting next to Cirincione was Dr David Kay, the man Tenet employed as America's chief weapons hunter after the war. Kay is now taking pot shots at Tenet's credibility, stating that not only was the prewar intelligence wrong but that the intelligence community, not the White House, is largely to blame. Last week, the hawkish Kay, famous for his attacks on the UN weapons inspectors, went before Congress and admitted, "we were almost all wrong" in the prewar estimates of Iraq's WMD. Kay brushed over the point that the UN inspectors were far more accurate in their assessments than he or US, British and Australian intelligence agencies. Now Bush has agreed to Kay's proposal for an independent inquiry into the prewar intelligence, pitting the White House and some powerful Republican players against Tenet. Kay's split with the CIA chief brings into the open a power struggle between the CIA and the White House over who will take the blame for the failure to find any WMD in Iraq. Kay says publicly any inquiry should also examine, "whether there was abuse by political leaders of the data". But so far he has blamed the intelligence failure on the analysts who he said failed to understand that Iraq was falling apart and incapable of producing large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons, let alone reconstituting its nuclear program. Tenet's rare public address was designed to hit back at Kay but, more importantly, to defend himself and the intelligence agencies from a mounting barrage of political criticism. This week, the powerful US Senate intelligence committee circulated a draft report laying much of the blame for the failure on Tenet and the intelligence community. Significantly, the CIA chief began his defence by insisting that the intelligence analysts, "never said there was an 'imminent' threat", from Iraq's WMD, the benchmark justification for war. His remark appeared aimed at Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney who repeatedly talked about the "threat" or "growing threat" from Iraq. And while Tenet insisted that "no one told us what to say or how to say it", he also implicitly criticised Bush and Cheney, who repeatedly exaggerated the threat from Iraq's nuclear weapons program. In September before the war, Bush claimed, "The regime is seeking a nuclear bomb and with fissile material could build one within a year." Yesterday Tenet insisted the intelligence agencies told the White House that "Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon and probably would have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009". In the deeply partisan debate over the prewar intelligence, many Democrats are defending Tenet in their attempt to pin the blame for the exaggerated threat from Iraq squarely on the White House. Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Carl Levin are widely distributing quotes from Bush, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, Cheney and especially the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, that dropped all qualifications in the US intelligence reports to prosecute the case against Saddam. Powell's famous address to the UN Security Council in the February before war is quoted repeatedly. "Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons and we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorised his field commanders to use them," Powell claimed in that address. A former State Department intelligence officer, Greg Thielmann, told the Herald that when Powell presented the intelligence to the UN he removed many of the caveats on it. "He basically mislabelled again and again the evidence behind the assertions we were making," said Thielmann. He repeatedly said there were "multiple human intelligence sources" for his claims but, says Thielmann, in many cases, there were significant doubts. One extraordinary admission by Tenet this week was that US intelligence analysts failed to see an in-house notice that accused a source they were using of providing information that was "unreliable" and "fabricated". Tenet also said the CIA found "discrepancies" in claims by defectors about Iraq's possession of mobile biological weapons laboratories. But most troubling was Tenet's disclosure that he was heavily influenced in his own assessment of the threat from Iraq by reports from two unnamed sources "characterised by our foreign partners as established and reliable". Those sources fed what now appears to be wild claims to the foreign intelligence agencies, which passed them on to the US. The claims included one that Iraq had "mobile launchers with chemical weapons which would be fired at enemy forces and Israel". The reports arrived conveniently on Tenet's desk in October 2002, just as the White House was making the case for war. Which countries supplied them and who were the sources Tenet does not say, even though he admits the information changed his thinking on Iraq. These reports and much of the false information that came from Iraqi defectors will be examined by the inquiry. But former intelligence officers like Thielmann refuse to buy the line that the intelligence failure was the sole responsibility of the intelligence community. Thielmann points out that even after the UN inspectors went back to Iraq before the war and exposed much of the intelligence as false, no one in the White House wanted the intelligence reviewed. "The White House didn't care," said Thielmann. "They weren't trying to find out how dangerous Iraq's weapons programs were, or what the status of the WMD was. They were simply looking for arguments to go to war." posted by Jojo | 8:47 AM Tuesday, February 03, 2004 Oh Really!!! PM admits weapons claims may have been wrong. Oh right. OOOPS. Sorry about the missing arms and legs, and all the dead Iraqi children. ((sigh)) Stating the obvious again, but it's great of them to admit they "might have been wrong", now that they've gotten their way and blasted the sh$t out of someone else's country. So, rewind 12 months: remember the rest of the world was screaming - but surely you could be wrong about the WMDs! Surely you should be completely sure before you bomb the sh$t out of someone else's fxxxxn country? Don't you think it's possible the WMD claims could be wrong? "Oh no, we couldn't possibly be wrong!" Fxxxx's sake. posted by Jojo | 3:21 PM Tuesday, October 28, 2003 And this isn't free speech either As usual, from the SMH Online - two more details about the media restrictions during George W's visit to Australia - I actually didn't know it was quite this bad: The media was outraged that ... a ban was placed on cameras pointing at audience members in the House of Representatives chamber while Mr Bush spoke. ... and ... It was only because a US television network smuggled in a camera that there was footage of the interjections of Greens senators Bob Brown and Kerry Nettle. I did know that we in Australia were only able to see this footage - from our own Parliament - courtesy of American broadcaster CNN, because American media was given access during Bush's visit while the Aussie media was not. But I didn't realise that even the American media was banned from filming inside our Parliament, and only got the footage themselves by smuggling a camera in. Parliament is televised daily, whether the public wants to watch it or not. It's not a ratings winner - it's a service to ensure our law making is done publicly (rather than privately which would be - Stalinesque?). Why did the American network need to smuggle a camera in? posted by Jojo | 10:02 AM Not that we would have wanted to be invited, but... From Margo Kingston in the SMH Online: How come Kylie Russell, the only Australian widowed when we fought the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, didn't get an invite to the Bush barbecue? How come crocodile man Steve Irwin did? Could it be because Steve said recently that Howard was the best leader in the world and Kylie's been fighting for better compensation for SAS officers killed in training or combat? Oh yeah, and how come the Australian media was excluded from the George W BBQ, while the American media was given open access? (although, once that news got out, one Aussie journo was allowed in). And far worse, how come Kylie Russell was not invited to the wreath laying ceremony for her own husband? She wasn't told until after it happened, and certainly not by Howard's people. You know, if Cartman excludes enough 4th graders from his birthday party, he might end up having no guests at all. And who would give him presents? posted by Jojo | 9:51 AM Wednesday, October 22, 2003 Aussie sock puppets need not apply Something occurred to me as I was reading this SMH story about George W's strategy for avoiding the Australian media during his visit. It's not just that he's declined to hold a joint press conference with Johnnie (oh, so why's that? — "because it isn't on the itinerary", according to a spokesman for our own PM). It's not just that Australian journos were denied access to the "close-up media pool" because they did not have US security clearance (the Secret Service then declined to allow the journos to apply for said clearance). No, it's more the reminder that there is such a thing as a "close-up media pool" — a small group of journos who are granted the privilege of following George W around all day and getting the inside running. Hoping the method of selection is based on, say, a raffle; maybe a lucky door prize at the press club. Because otherwise it might be hard to stay objective (if, for example, the tone or content of their reporting in any way affects their ability to join this small and obviously exclusive group). posted by Jojo | 8:31 AM |
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